Gotovina's fate is Croatia's fate

If Croatian generals Gotovina, Čermak and Markač are convicted for what attorney Luka Mišetić rightly calls, referring to the prosecution's allegations, a conspiracy theory - the global Croat nation will likely take a step backward into world history and suffer the same destiny as its ancestors.  A destiny marked by stigma, political incorrectness and litany of diplomatic debacles and utter embarrassment.  Not to mention that the on-going Greater-Serbian project of gaining autonomy or privileged status (that they already enjoy) might make serious inroads in a leader-less and spine-less Croatia.  The billion dollar lawsuits will soon follow as well.  Croatia will face insurmountable obstacles and quite possibly be forced to make concessions that were out of the question during war-time, but now dangerously close to being realized in peace-time.

The time of discussing and debating the charges against the Croat trio has passed.  Everyone  -especially the political court in the Hague, the prosecution and all of their apparatchiks (including the treasonous regime in Zagreb) -  knows by now that the Croats are being accused of one thing, and one thing only: Defending the rights of Croats to live freely within their own state; defend the state and restore its territorial integrity -  perfectly executed with operation Storm.  In the eyes of many Western capitals, the Croatian state was simply not meant to be.

Every attribute of statehood that the Croat military successfully defended and liberated is the same attribute that the United Nations, with its many statutes and proclamations, legally recognized and legitimized in 1992.  Absurdly, the International Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is an ad hoc court established by that very same UN that granted recognition to Croatian statehood.  The wholesale mockery of justice being perpetrated at the Hague can be summed up with a shocking indictment - an indictment that was never issued.  

The Passion of Vukovar

In the fall of 1991, subdued and destroyed time and again, the heroic Croatian city of Vukovar suffered a defeat after a miraculous three month long defense.  The concentration of military man-power, artillery, armor, infantry and tank divisions that besieged the city was the greatest single concentration of weaponry deployed on such a small territory in the history of warfare.  Croat defenders managed an heroic defense against domestic Serbian terrorists and invading Serbian imperialists; imperialists under the direct command of the Yugoslav National Army and Serbia's then president, Slobodan Milosevic.  Serbian aggression destroyed the city on the Danube hundreds of times over.  It is estimated that every object in Vukovar -building or house- was hit by grenades, mortar-fire, heavy artillery, gun-fire - 100 times over.  The destruction of the city is extremely well documented, with the materials easily accessible and widely available.  In comparison, the siege of Sarajevo -also well documented and widely known - received many times more the attention of Vukovar, even though Vukovar suffered an exponentially worse fate.  To this day, no one has been indicted for the war-crimes and wanton terror committed by the Serbians against the Croatian city of Vukovar.  Vukovar - the greatest symbol of resilience in Croat history.