Should we really be surprised by Croatia’s miserable failure in getting the members of the European Union to see Croatia’s side of things with respect to General Gotovina and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia?

Unfortunately, we should not be, and the reason, in my opinion, is a simple one.  Despite years (actually, more than a decade and a half) of advocacy by Croatian Americans and Croatians in other countries, the various governments which have ruled Croatia since independence have chosen to focus practically all of their diplomatic efforts in the corridors of various foreign ministries.  Such a focus may have worked in the 19^th century, but in today’s age when mass circulation newspapers and magazines, hundreds of television channels, countless think-tanks and the internet have been the earmarks of the “Information Age,” diplomacy requires much more effort than engaging in discussions with ambassadors and envoys.

As we have seen most recently with respect to the United States and its on-going efforts to re-shape the Middle East, public diplomacy has become a major feature of foreign policy efforts.  No longer does the US solely revolve its work in other countries around the diplomatic corps.  It has invested major resources in this work.  It cannot be expected that such efforts will yield immediate results.  It takes a lot of time and energy to convince people that your point of view is the right one.

Croatia’s work in this regard has been close to nil.  Unfortunately, the problem stems from what appears to be the continued aversion by the Croatian governmental elite to engage in these kinds of activities.  Croatia’s officials rarely are pro-active in this regard.  We have seen this clearly in the past few weeks when, despite the plethora of negative publicity which has appeared in the Western press concerning Croatia’s supposed failure to cooperate with the ICTY, any reactions published in the English-language media coming from Croatian officials.  Is it really that difficult, or that “beneath them,” to write a letter to the editor or an opinion piece?

Another disheartening problem appears to be complete ignorance.  At a meeting I attended in November 2001 with President Mesić and then Foreign Minister Picula, I forcefully made the point that public relations was an important component to Croatia’s success in gaining entry into Euro-Atlantic institutions.  I specifically pointed out that many of America’s leading newspapers, magazines and officials believe that the Croatian flag is an Ustashe flag, a belief stemming from Greater Serbian propaganda in the 1990s.

Mesić’s then foreign policy advisor, Tomislav Jakšić, completely denigrated my point, noting that Mesić had met with President Bush that morning and would certainly not have allowed the Croatian flag to be displayed if he believed it to be an Ustashe one.  When I pointed out that nevertheless such newspapers as The New York Times have routinely made such an assertion, Jakšić stated that The New York Times was “just one newspaper.”

Obviously, such a response from anyone who knew anything about America could only be termed idiotic.  That it came from a person who had the ear of the Croatian President made it distressing.

As far as I am aware, the only public relations that Croatia has engaged in over the past few years in relation to joining the EU or NATO has been to produce one CD-rom.

Croatia is paying dearly for this lack of foresight.  In a recent issue, for example, The Economist, a leading British magazine, wrote that General Gotovina had been indicted for his role in Croatia’s “war against the Serbs” in 1995.  What was widely recognized as a legitimate military action against terrorists armed and supported by Milošević has now been turned on its head as an ethnic war waged by Croatia.

Other publications have implicitly praised Serbia for the recent surrender of relatively minor war crimes suspects while noting Croatia’s failure concerning General Gotovina.  Such articles took no account of what Croatia has done for the ICTY in the past few years.  General Gotovina himself has been made a whipping boy of the press, on par with Mladić and Karadžić, even though the latter two have been charged with genocide while General Gotovina’s charge solely relates to his command responsibility during Operation Oluja (Storm) when 150 Serb civilians were allegedly killed.

If Croatia has a public relations campaign, it can be summarized in two words: tourism and sports.  Croatia’s successes with its tourist industry and the continuing success of its athletes have certainly generated nice publicity.

But such news stories cannot compensate for the Croatian government’s failure to promote its own views about issues critical to Croatia.  As we can see from the few examples cited above, Croatia is allowing those who do not necessarily have Croatia’s best interests at heart in writing and presenting stories about Croatia to the Western elite.  The Western elite reads these publications and often makes its decisions based on such readings.  Are Croatian leaders really that thick that they can not see the importance in forcefully engaging their resources to turn these perceptions around?