War crimes label 'ridiculous'
Accusations of ethnic cleansing against trucker called scare tactic Craig Pearson, The Windsor Star Published: Monday, November 12, 2007 The sister of a Kitchener man arrested last week at the Ambassador Bridge, and facing deportation to Croatia to face accusations of ethnic cleansing, says her brother is the victim of political persecution and hopes the Canadian government will intervene. Goran Pavic, 42, was arrested Wednesday while crossing the Ambassador Bridge in his truck filled with soap and benches destined for Alabama and Florida. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents noticed the long-haul trucker's name on an Interpol wanted list. He remains in a Detroit jail awaiting his first court appearance, scheduled for today, according to news reports. "He is innocent," Gorana Krstic said in a phone interview Monday. "The only bad thing my brother has done was that he was born in the wrong place in the wrong time, because he's Serbian from Croatia." A criminal complaint filed to the U.S. District Court by assistant United States attorney Karen Reynolds alleges that, according to a Croatian court ruling in 2006, Pavic and others tried to prevent Croatian citizens from remaining in an area of his hometown of Vukovar. "The Croatian population was subject to physical abuse," the criminal complaint alleges. "Specifically, Pavic forced a large number of civilians into hard labour and made them leave their homes by burning down their houses. Pavic and a co-defendant also entered a house and beat a man. Pavic and his co-defendants forced civilians to exit buses at gunpoint. Thirty-five of those persons are still missing." Krstic said her brother came to Canada 10 years ago, has no record, has been a Canadian citizen for five years, and is married with a 20-year-old daughter and 18-year-old triplet sons. She said he drives a truck and that for years he has crossed into the United States "at least two times a week." She noted that Pavic even has a U.S. government FAST pass to get across the border faster, for which he provided fingerprints and underwent a security check. Krstic said her brother had been held for more than a day before she managed to track him down, thanks to a global positioning device in his truck and many phone calls. She has since spoken to Pavic by phone but says her brother has not had access to a lawyer. Catherine Gagnaire, a spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs in Ottawa, said Monday the government is aware that a Canadian citizen was arrested in Detroit but, citing privacy laws, would say nothing except to say consular assistance is being provided. Krstic called the Croatian accusations political. She noted that her brother was only charged with being a war criminal in 2006, almost a decade after he had already left the country -- where she said he worked as a truck driver, not a soldier. She also believes that Croatia adds names to its war criminals list without proof of wrongdoing and includes so many as to make the accusations "ridiculous." "They are trying to scare as many Serbian people as they can so that we never go back to Croatia, so that we never go and ask for our land and houses back," Krstic said. "We lost so much. I lost my childhood. I lost my friends. "I lived there for 20 years and all of a sudden I'm an enemy. I'm an enemy in my home town. That's devastating." Human Rights Watch, an international social justice group, also considers the list of Croatian war criminals suspect. The Human Rights Watch website says: "Since the hostilities in 1991, the Ministry of Justice of the Croatian government has maintained lists of suspected Serb war criminals, numbering as many as 3,000 at one point. These 'official' lists have frequently been criticized for inaccuracies and uncertainties." http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/story.html?id=2da0bc86-a0dc-44bb-bffc-1eec85960b41&k=53 © The Windsor Star 2007
