Documentary Film Tells Story of General Ante Gotovina and the UN Court

A great number of his countrymen call him a hero. The United Nations ICTY prosecutor’s office indicted him as a war criminal.

Among those who would place him among the bravest Croats in history, many also cannot shake the gnawing feeling that he has been served up as a convenient political scapegoat and sacrificial lamb for his nation.

The personal life story of former Croatian Army Lieutenant General Ante Gotovina and his case before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia evoke intense emotions from both those who point the finger of guilt at the ex-soldier, and others who espouse the man’s innocence for his role in leading a military action called “Operation Storm” in August 1995 that liberated Croatian territory occupied by Serb rebels since 1991.

Gotovina’s plight has also stirred the passions of Jack Baric, a California filmmaker and son of Croatian immigrants, driving him over the course of several years to scratch together funding and create a documentary movie aptly titled “Searching for a Storm.”

The film premiered on February 27 at the ZagrebDox International Documentary Film Festival in Croatia. A sold-out first screening prompted festival organizers to schedule another showing the next day.

Speaking to the Croatian Chronicle by phone on March 3 from his home in San Pedro, California, following his return from Zagreb, Baric said that he was interviewed by almost all the major Croatian media outlets, and that “Searching for a Storm” became the lead story on the evening news broadcasts.

“I thought it was unbelievable,” Baric said describing the film’s reception in Zagreb. “It was really above and beyond anything I expected.”

One issue on which the film attempts to shed light is whether the ICTY is attempting to create a narrative justifying the UN wartime position that the conflict in the Balkans during the 1990s was a civil war and not a war of aggression by then Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic.

Another is whether the UN is using its international war crimes court to downplay and  paint over UN failures during the wars in the former Yugoslavia.

One of the interview subjects in the film is Anton Nikiforov, spokesman for the ICTY prosecutor’s office.

Baric spoke to Nikiforov after having just traveled from Sarajevo to interview some men whose family members were killed by Serbs during the July 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Baric told Nikiforov the men expressed real anger at the UN court for its insistence that all sides in the wars of the 1990s were equally guilty.

“Nikiforov’s response was that it is humanly impossible to identify an aggressor in this war,” Baric said, adding that the same line uttered by the UN official in the film evoked what could be described as cynical laughter from members of the Zagreb viewing audience.

Baric confessed that while interviewing Nikiforov, he could not help but offer gratitude to the UN spokesman -- not out loud, but silently.

“Thank you very much sir! You just made my film,” Baric claimed he said to himself.

A total of about two dozen interview subjects appear in the film representing Croats, Serbs, Bozniaks, plus UN and other international officials. They mostly speak of their impressions of the UN court and on the Gotovina case in particular.

“What I’m really very proud of is the range of interview subjects,” Baric said. “I interviewed everyone.”

“It can go diametrically opposite, you know, Belgrade to Zagreb. High-level official to guy from the village. Human rights activist to soldier to journalist,” he said. “The whole area -- Sarajevo, Belgrade, Zagreb, Paris, The Hague, London, Vukovar. The people -- Serb, Bosnian, Croat – everything. I really really went 360 degrees on it.”

Prior to the film premiere in Zagreb, Baric said, he had a sense that audiences were anticipating, with some dread, to see a 100-percent propaganda piece.

“The one thing that I think impressed people and what surprised them quite pleasantly were the people interviewed in the film, specifically those from the UN. I absolutely allow them, the opposition, to have their say,” said Baric, noting that his point of view is obviously different.

“I think it’s really important to have an objective film,” he said. “If you don’t have the ability to hear from the other side, people are not going to take your film seriously.”

Besides the ongoing drama inside the courtroom at The Hague where Gotovina's American lawyers Greg Kehoe and Luka Misetic, who is of Croatian background, will soon begin the defense portion of the trial, Baric said that Gotovina's earlier life story is just as dramatic.

“His life is amazing. It makes an amazing story,” he said. “So if you're in the business of storytelling, you're just drawn to that kind of material.”

Born on the island of Pašman in Croatia under Yugoslavia, Gotovina's mother died when he was a boy. He escaped communist Yugoslavia in his late teens to work on a tanker ship traveling the world, then joined the French Foreign Legion serving in Africa and elsewhere.

“He comes back to Croatia, ends up becoming a general who leads the operation that ends up liberating the country,” Baric said. “He was a hero and winds up being indicted as a war criminal for the same operation.”

“It's a Greek tragedy,” he said.

For a schedule of U.S. release dates for “Searching for a Storm” and information on how to order a DVD of the film, visit the Web site www.searchingforastorm.com

 

 

(Originaly published in Croatian Chronicle, March 11,  2009)