Posted on 09/21/2005 8:41:46 AM PDT by Alex Marko
ISN SECURITY WATCH (21/09/05) - The UNs chief war crimes prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia, Carla del Ponte, suggested on Monday that Croat war crimes suspect General Ante Gotovina was hiding out in one of the countrys Catholic monasteries and blamed the Vatican for aiding and abetting a fugitive.
I have information he [Gotovina] is hiding in a Franciscan monastery and so the Catholic Church is protecting him. I have taken this up with the Vatican and the Vatican refuses totally to cooperate with us, Del Ponte told the British Daily Telegraph.
She said the Vatican could determine Gotovinas exact location within a few days, but had failed to cooperate with the Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
Del Ponte had apparently decided to publicly chastise the Vatican after her growing disappointment over the Roman Catholic Churchs reluctant to cooperate.
On Tuesday, Croatia's Catholic Church denied it was sheltering Gotovina and said it had no knowledge as to his whereabouts.
We reject the accusations of Carla Del Ponte against the Holy See and the Catholic Church in Croatia, Church spokesman Anton Suljic told reporters.
Suljic took his statement further, publicly attacking the ICTY chief prosecutor.
We believe that they [accusations] bring a whole series of unacceptable theses, which are unusual even for colloquial conversations, not to mention such a high institution that she represents, he said.
The Catholic Church in Croatia has made no secret about its sentiments towards the retired general who is wanted for war crimes against Serb civilians in Croatia in the 1990s. In a recent public statement, Croatian Bishop Mile Bogovic referred to Gotovina as a hero and said his prosecution was politically motivated.
This is not about Gotovina himself, but as a symbol of resistance against Serbian aggression the Hague tribunal wants to humiliate Croats, its victims and its fight, Bogovic told local media.
General Gotovina, a former French foreign legion officer, is accused of being responsible for the murder of at least 150 Serb civilians and of being in charge of the forced deportations of between 150,000 and 200,000 people in 1995. The majority of Croats view him as a national hero.
In July, del Ponte traveled to Rome to share her intelligence with the Vaticans foreign minister, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo.
According to del Ponte, he refused to help, reportedly telling her the Vatican was not a state and thus had no international obligations to help the UN hunt war criminals.
Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said he was at a loss to determine who was del Pontes source for information that Gotovina was hiding out in a monastery, and said the government had no such intelligence.
Each prosecutor would like to see the indicted one captured, and we can understand that. But I am not sure if what she is saying is true or if it just reflects her desires, Sanader told a press conference in the Croatian capital, Zagreb.
More than a year ago, Croatian police received information that Gotovina was hiding in a certain monastery but the government later said the tip-off appeared to be false.
Del Ponte has also repeatedly accused the Serbian Orthodox Church of sheltering Europes most-wanted war crimes suspect, Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic.
Del Ponte and Bosnian media have claimed that Karadzic has sought shelter in Orthodox churches in Montenegro and eastern Bosnia, which is dominated by Bosnian Serbs and borders Serbia proper. Church officials denied the accusations, but conceded that Karadzic would be a welcome guest.
As far as Gotovina is concerned, Del Ponte has been pressing Zagreb for months on information on his whereabouts.
Cooperation with the ICTY is one of the conditions for Croatia to begin EU membership talks, which were originally supposed to begin in March but were postponed after member states decided that Zagreb had not been fully cooperative.
Since then, Zagreb has pledged to raid any monastery sheltering the general, but the Vatican is refusing to assist in narrowing down which of Croatias 80 monasteries is allegedly offering him refuge. (By Anes Alic in Sarajevo)
FYI ping.
Don't know much about this, but something stinks.
Valerian Trifa.
This is called Sanctuary.
The Serb argument is that the Croatian government took land which was legally Serb, since the government of Communist Yugoslavia was the legitimate government at the time and that some of the land in question had previously been inhabited by Serbs centuries before, and that other portions of the land had been Serb before the Pavelic regime. They also argue that the 150 people mentioned were noncombatant civilians.
I'll also point out that the Roman Catholic Church does not have full control over the Franciscan order in Croatia - a large portion of the order in Croatia broke with the local bishops in the early 90s and have refused to even let the bishops or their representatives set foot in a number of Franciscan friaries.
I don't trust it to honestly and effectively investigate the usage of toilet paper in its own washrooms. It should be disbanded, and its headquarters dynamited.
Absolutely correct.
This is a simple case of Christians versus Muslims at the very bottom of it all. The UN backs the P.R.O.P.* {Phony Religion Of Peace} supporting likely false and spurious charges against a Christian adversary.
The Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches very rightly unify in supporting and giving sanctuary to their own...
But I guess church sanctuary is only palatable to the media if it involves revolutionary "liberation theology" marxist S. American Catholic priests giving shelter to murderous guerillas who massacred Moskito Indians and people in small villages who refused to capitulate to their terror.
One man's terrorist is ALWAYS the SlimeStreamMedia's "freedom fighter".
A.A.C.
Absolutely correct.
This is a simple case of Christians versus Muslims at the very bottom of it all. The UN backs the P.R.O.P.* {Phony Religion Of Peace} supporting likely false and spurious charges against a Christian adversary.
The Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches very rightly unify in supporting and giving sanctuary to their own...
But I guess church sanctuary is only palatable to the media if it involves revolutionary "liberation theology" marxist S. American Catholic priests giving shelter to murderous guerillas who massacred Moskito Indians and people in small villages who refused to capitulate to their terror.
One man's terrorist is ALWAYS the SlimeStreamMedia's "freedom fighter".
A.A.C.
I don't pretend to know the facts of this case ... I'm merely commenting on the propriety of the corrupt and criminal UN presuming to sit in judgement over the alleged corruption and criminality on others' back-yards. It has the same outrageous ludicriousness as Ted Kennedy presuming to sit in judgement over someone else's fitness to serve on the Supreme Court.
The things that Gotovina is to stand trial for are events that were not in his jursidiction and therefore have nothing to do with him.
Seems to me that this is just another Moslem vs Christian war. And it is a real war.
The UN sides with the moslems, the cult of desert death. That alone is enough to reject the UN.
Besides these trials have gone on so long that it has lost all legitimacy.
Who is "he"?
That is General Ante Gotovina visiting Pope John Paul II after the war ended.
No, who is the "he" you refer to in terms of jurisdiction?
Post 15 was for you.
This has to do with a Croat(catholic) and Serb(orthodox christian) conflict. Not muslim. That was Bosnia.
General Gotovina.
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