BBC, MI6 and the Croatian General

7 May 2005. A writes:

I work in the Balkans, and I found some of the stuff you put up on Gotovina pretty interesting. However, I must complain about your recent article on Gotovina (1 May).
http://cryptome.org/mi6-bbc.htm
You are simply undermining your own credibility by providing an op-ed slot to someone with, without wanting taking sides in the whole fall of Yugoslavia drama, clearly has a very partial take on history. The BBC has made foolish reflections on Croatia and its history in the well known international aggression against the country? There are thousands of people in coffee shops around the Balkans that could argue on this theme, but is that what Cryptome is about?

1 May 2005. Thanks to Mario Profaca (http://mprofaca.cro.net/)

BBC, MI6 and the Croatian general

According to BBC News, its feature

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4497385.stm

named "From Our Own Correspondent" and broadcasted on BBC Radio 4 represents "Personal reflections by BBC correspondents around the world". Latest one broadcasted on Saturday, 30 April, 2005 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4 was entitled "MI6 and the Croatian general, by By Nick Thorpe, BBC News, Dubrovnik" although BBC correspondent Nick Thorpe isn't based in Dubrovnik, neither it was transmitted from the Croatian town Dubrovnik. No, it was *Dubrovnik* café in central Zagreb where Nick Thorpe met Franjo Turek, former director of the Croatian Counter Intelligence Agency, the POA. Croats already got used to such BBC's foolish "reflections" related to the Republic of Croatia, its geography and - what's more - its history, particularly referring to the recent war waged by so called Yugoslav National Army and affiliated Serb paramilitary Chetniks units in the well known aggression against internationally recognized sovereign and independent state Croatia (Hrvatska).

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http://mprofaca.cro.net/klacemohrvate.gif

"Slobodane, Slobodane,šalji nam salate; bi'ce mesa, bi'ce mesa - klat cemo Hrvate! ..."

Those were the words of the song Serb Chetniks were singing, marching under the black flag with a big white skull on it, through destroyed Croatian town Vukovar in autumn of 1991, a scene taken by BBC reporter. Croatian comunity in Great Britain protested to BBC TV why those words, heard so clearly and loudly, were not translated for English audience. In that piece showed on BBC TV after that, BBC blacked out the tone of mentioned song instead. The first version with the tone and clearly recognised words of Serbian song was shown on NTV and CNN, but also not translated in English.

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But in this feature published also in The Journal of Turkish Weekly

http://www.turkishweekly.net/comments.php?id=918

BBC News wrote that "European intelligence services have joined forces in the search for Croatian General Ante Gotovina, indicted by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague for alleged war crimes against Serbia (SIC!) in 1995". According to this upside-down "reflection" BBC News suggested it was the war against Serbia (!) when Croatian General allegedly committed crimes "against Serbia".

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41090000/jpg/_41090951_gotovina203.jpg

Croatian General Ante Gotovina. (AFP photo)

Anyway, here you have some of Nick Thorpe's "reflections" from Dubrovnik café in central Zagreb:

European intelligence services have joined forces in the search for Croatian General Ante Gotovina, indicted by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague for alleged war crimes against Serbia in 1995. But as Nick Thorpe finds out, tracking him down is proving a difficult task.

Franjo Turek suggests we meet in the Dubrovnik café in central Zagreb.

He is sitting in the corner by the window when I arrive, looking younger, but more haunted than I had expected.

Nine years as a secret policeman, then four as director of the Croatian Counter Intelligence Agency, the POA, have left their mark on him.

The café is pleasantly full, but a man in glasses and a striped shirt finds a table right next to ours.

It comes as a shock, but not necessarily a surprise, to see that he has a small microphone pointed straight at us.

"One of yours?" asks Turek, nodding towards the man.

"No-one works for me", I protest. "Is he not one of yours?"

Turek looks the man up and down.

"I used to have a staff of 700", he jokes. "I did not meet all of them."

After a while, stripy shirt leaves and another man takes his place, at another table nearby.

War crimes

Franjo Turek ran the POA from February 2000 to March 2004.

Since he retired, articles have appeared in the Croatian and foreign press, accusing him of helping General Gotovina's network, rather than uncovering it.

Gotovina was in charge of the troops who carried out a blitzkrieg operation to liberate the Krajina region from Serb control in August 1995.

In 2001, he was indicted by The Hague Tribunal for war crimes allegedly carried out by Croatian forces, the burning and looting of Serb homes, and the death of at least 150, mostly elderly and defenceless Serb civilians.

Tipped off about his indictment, he disappeared.

In a 2003 interview from his hideaway, published in Croatia, Gotovina denied responsibility for any crimes and said he would gladly give evidence to the Hague tribunal.

But as a free man, not a suspected criminal.

EU accession

The chief prosecutor of the tribunal, Carla del Ponte, who has her own investigators in the Balkans claims he is still in Croatia or Bosnia In the last 16 months, eight Croats have surrendered voluntarily to The Hague.

Documents, mostly those gathered by the POA, and many relating to the Gotovina case, have been handed over.

"We have contact with the tribunal prosecutors office almost every day" says an exasperated Minister of Justice, Vesna Skare Ozbolt.

But despite this, influential EU states led by Britain, still oppose the start of Croatia's accession talks with the European Union.

The authorities in Zagreb say they know how Gotovina left the country.

They know something about the foreign support network which keeps him going.

They have re-shuffled the secret services, and sacked at least one senior police officer.

But the bird, they say, has definitely flown.

But the chief prosecutor of the tribunal, Carla del Ponte, who has her own investigators in the Balkans claims he is still in Croatia or Bosnia.

'Bugging operation'

Turek believes his trouble started when he rejected advances from the British counter-intelligence agency, MI6, for suspected Gotovina supporters to be bugged.

To get permission from the Supreme Court to tap phones, he told them, he needed some proof.

But MI6, either because they did not have the evidence, or because they were afraid it would be leaked, did not provide it. So the operation only went ahead after Turek's retirement.

Under his successor at the POA, the bugging operation was launched, from three dark blue Bedford vans, but failed to find Gotovina before a deadline set by the Croatian prime minister in June last year.

A catalogue of disasters unfolded for the British, including the probable sabotage of one of their vans full of surveillance equipment, and the exposure in the Croatian press of the names of some of their senior agents in the Balkans.

They appear to blame Turek, unfairly, he told me. "I think your service is listening to the wrong sources" he says.

A document purporting to be the latest memo from MI6 to the POA, was immediately leaked to the press.

It allegedly calls for Turek's arrest, unless he spills the beans about Gotovina.

But he says there are no beans to spill.

"I am not an opponent of the British, of the EU, or of the Hague Tribunal" he says, wearily.

And he speaks fondly of his first years at the helm of the POA, and the joint actions with the British to stop Croatian arms smuggling to the Real IRA.

New start

Since the fall of Communism, MI6 has been deeply involved in revamping many intelligence agencies across East and Central Europe.

When a country like Hungary joined Nato, one of the reasons the organisation had little fear of the ex-Communist agents who still comprise around one third of its spies, was that the Hungarian secret service had been thoroughly re-organised and retrained with MI6 help.

And that help was also extended to the Croatian agencies, after the death of President Franjo Tudjman, in 1999.

Today, Franjo Turek just wants to put his career as a spy chief behind him, and start something new. "I pray to God to finish that Gotovina issue" he says, in conclusion.

Many in Croatia, in the European Union, and in the British government, would certainly agree with him.

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