Search Salon

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Recently in Salon News

Take-home test
Gov. Bush says he has been reading a biography of former Secretary of State Dean Acheson. Here's a reading comprehension exam for the GOP front-runner.
By David Corn
[12/13/99]

A quiz that matters
Foreign-policy experts come up with the real questions George W. Bush should answer.
By Douglas McGray
[12/13/99]

Who killed Betty Van Patter?
A letter from an old friend stirs up passions from one of the most disturbing, yet little-known, crimes of the New Left era. It happened exactly 25 years ago.
By David Horowitz
[12/13/99]

Revenge of the nerd
Steve Forbes' poll numbers in New Hampshire slowly rise even though the media ignores him.
By Jake Tapper
[12/11/99]

Clueless in Seattle
The real legacy of the WTO protests is a rising tide of populism -- try telling that to politicians swapping platitudes on global trade.
By Arianna Huffington
[12/10/99]

Complete archives for News

- - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Tudjman died early Saturday after a long illness with stomach cancer. He was 77. His death comes three weeks before Croatian parliamentary elections, scheduled to be held Jan. 3, and will now trigger new presidential elections to be held by February. In the interim, Croatian parliament speaker Vlatko Pavletic is serving as acting president of the nation of 5 million people.

In the years since the Bosnian and Croatian wars ended in 1995, the West has grown estranged from Croatia, in large part because Tudjman clung to mono-ethnic policies. In particular, Tudjman made it difficult for Serbian refugees to return to their homes in Croatia, balked at turning over evidence and Croatian war crimes suspects to the U.N. international war crimes tribunal, and obstructed Western efforts to nudge Bosnia's Muslims and Croats together into a federation.

Western diplomats say Croatia has paid for Tudjman's hard-line nationalism in the post-war.

"Under a different leadership this country could be a lot better off than it is now," said one Western diplomat formerly posted to Croatia who asked not to be named. "Vis-à-vis integration with the European Union and with NATO Partnership for Peace, Croatia is way behind other countries in the region, except for Bosnia and Serbia. And there's no reason why it had to be this way. If Tudjman had led the country in the right direction, Croatia could be as integrated in Europe" as the neighboring former Yugoslav republic of Slovenia, which is now slated for both E.U. and NATO membership.

The diplomat said that until 1995, Tudjman perceived the U.S. as a strategic partner and ally. "But very quickly after the war ended, Croatia's unwillingness to meet expectations soured our relationship. In 1997, international financial institutions cut off relations with Croatia for its failure to help out on the war crimes issue."

Another Western official who focuses on Bosnia says that Tudjman and his hardline political party, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) have intervened in Bosnia, by giving financial and military support to hardline Bosnian Croats who have resisted becoming integrated into a multi-ethnic Bosnia.

Tudjman's death will "open up new opportunities for progress in implementing the Dayton agreement," the official said in an interview Sunday. "We expect the HDZ to circle the wagon for a time. But before long, the drop in financial assistance from Croatia to the Bosnian Croats will take its toll," and Bosnian Croat moderates might show more willingness to engage with their Bosnian Muslim counterparts.

Next page | A new birth of freedom?