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TUE, 07 NOV 2000 02:13:40 GMT


The Cosa Nostra of Dubrovnik


AIM Zagreb, October 29, 2000 

The Dubrovnik File has spent all the time that elapsed since the elections 
stashed away in someone's drawer. This southernmost Croatian town, once a 
wealthy and internationally renowned tourist resort, has been turned into a 
center of organized crime of frightening proportions during the past decade. 

Corruption, illegal car and narcotics trade, police surveillance and 
intimidation of citizens, murders - with a political, other or combined 
background - bribery, and deliberate destruction of the economy, all this is a 
part of the one and the same story, which in addition to the war, helped to 
turn one of the wealthiest points on the economic map of the country and 
Croatia's Athens into a problem-town and most of its inhabitants into people 
struggling for mere survival. 

For most of the past decade this topic has been talked about in whispers. Two 
years ago, however, the Zagreb Nacional weekly revealed the Dubrovacka Bank 
scandal, which, though not the only such story, was still the one that 
seriously shook the until then undisputed rule of the Croatian Democratic 
Union. The paper informed the public that five "partners" - Neven Barac, 
Miroslav Kutle, Vinko Brnadic, Petar Luburic and another person whose identity 
was never officially established, but who was widely suspected as being Ivica 
Pasalic, Tudjman's assistant for internal policy and the second strongest man 
in the country - decided to take over the bank without spending a single penny 
of their own. 

Given that in the meanwhile Dubrovnik's tourist industry was completely 
destroyed by the war and other adverse circumstances, the background of the 
scandal became quite obvious. Namely, the newly-emerging oligarchy needed a 
strong bank to take control of the profit-making tourist facilities once the 
town and the region began to flourish again. The logic of the plan was quite 
simple: if these facilities were first fully destroyed, their price would 
plunge, and if they controlled the strongest bank in the region, the plan was 
bound to work. The plan, unfortunately, has been exposed and this coincided 
with the political fall of the Croatian Democratic Union, which ultimately 
saved the town from any further onslaught by this party's conquistadors. 

Today, however, it has become clear that this was probably the biggest, but not 
the only, such criminal plot that turned the Venice of the southern Adriatic 
into a Croatian Palermo, and that part of the coast and the entire Neretva 
River Valley into a Croatian Sicily. A member of the Croatian Parliament, 
Srecko Kljunak (from the Croatian Peasant Party), at the beginning of September 
filed a criminal report with the Croatian chief prosecutor listing in detail 
all alleged misdeeds committed over the past years by the political leadership 
of the municipality and the town, in which parts of the state leadership 
offered their generous assistance. The report has 55 thickly-typed pages, and 
the entire file, which includes evidence and other documents, numbers almost 
500 pages. It clearly reveals the nature of the criminal interests that were at 
work in Croatia's south and why throughout the years they remained beyond the 
reach of investigative and judicial bodies. "In the file I prepared with the 
assistance of Niko Jerkovic, a police official of the Dubrovnik-Neretva 
district, and a team including some other people, we listed only such acts that 
could be entirely proven at any time," says Srecko Kljunak, one of the two 
signatories of the report. "This is the first time that an MP is filing a 
criminal report against high state officials," says Kljunak, explaining that he 
decided to do so when he became aware that the situation had reached the very 
bottom and that no one was ready to take any steps to change it. "Immediately 
after the elections we presented all our relevant documents to the new minister 
of the interior, Simo Lucin, and other state bodies in charge of such matters. 
But they have done nothing. The only response on their part was silence, or 
vague confirmations that organized crime indeed existed and operated in 
Dubrovnik. No investigation into the activities of the main protagonists of the 
story, however, has been launched. This is why we took upon ourselves the 
initiation of such proceedings, because the people in Dubrovnik are very bitter 
about it. >From the new government they expected economic prosperity and 
prosecution of crimes. So far, however, there has been none of that." 

The report contains an impressive list of criminal offences, which - in case 
the state prosecutor decides to act and a court accepts the evidence provided – 
could deprive several people of their prestige, careers, and even freedom. 
Maybe the greatest offence listed in the report involves joint activities of 
the police leadership of Dubrovnik and the state with the widely known Neretva 
tycoon Stipo "Jamba" Gabric. According to the documents, he was allowed by the 
state leadership to take over the company Razvitak, of Metkovic, crucial for 
the economy of the entire Neretva region and Dubrovnik as well. Gabric 
destroyed this once successful socially-owned company and led it to accumulate 
a DM55 million debt after he took possession of most of its assets. The story 
of Gabric's deals is not unknown to the Croatian public. The report, however, 
reveals that the Croatian Interior Ministry knew all along of what he was 
doing. But at one meetings of the police of the Dubrovnik-Neretva district it 
was decided that Jamba should be left alone, so as not to provoke a conflict of 
political interests in the Neretva region. The police were duly informed of all 
illegal activities in Razvitak - of the destruction of the company's 
departments, financial schemes, inflated invoices sent to state bodies as well 
as all other irregularities, but because of politics no one wanted to rock the 
boat. Meanwhile, in line with the Croatian privatization recipe, Razvitak was 
brought to the brink of collapse, together with several hundred of its workers. 
This is not the only thing the police in Dubrovnik should be held responsible 
for, however. According to the report, they never shunned making damaging 
contracts either. One such deal was made with the company Avia , which serviced 
their vehicles. For two years of its services the company charged the Dubrovnik 
police 2.6 million kuna (DM750,000), a staggering sum that could have enabled 
them to purchase 43 new Golf automobiles. For repairs to a single trailer, for 
instance, the bill was 18,000 kuna. This sum is sufficient to buy an entirely 
new trailer of the same make. In two years time the Dubrovnik police spent on 
car rentals almost half a million German marks, and one-half of this amount was 
paid to a single car rental company, AS. Several officers were employed by the 
Dubrovnik police although it was widely known that their diplomas were forged. 
The head of the Dubrovnik police, Eduard Cengija, is charged in the report of 
having been "lent" an Audi A4 by Avia, whereas the police, in turn, "lent" a 
similar vehicle to the Avia company manager. 

Avia is owned by Pavo Zubak, one of the former government's trusted 
businessmen. According to Kljunak it is possible that Tudman's elder son, 
Miroslav, also has a share in the company. The same police administration 
enabled the former interior minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Valentin Coric, to 
import to Croatia free of duty and other fees ordinary citizens always have to 
pay, a Mercedes (what else?), and a Ford Maverick, the latter for an entirely 
unknown person. According to the report, the Dubrovnik police head enabled the 
return of illegally acquired property to suspicious persons. It appears that 
the police were party to the illegal trade in birth certificates, issued 
firearms licenses to people who would have never been allowed to possess them 
had Croatian laws been observed, and ensured that a host of crimes would remain 
unsolved. 

The report names as many as eight people in connection with this. In addition 
to Eduard Cengija, Dubrovnik police chief, directly implicated are also his 
chief political ally, Petar Luburic, once himself the chief of the Dubrovnik 
police in the former Yugoslavia and one of the "partners" in the Dubrovacka 
Bank deal, Valentin Coric, former interior minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the 
former and incumbent deputy interior minister, Zdravko Zidovec, the head of the 
Interior Ministry internal affairs division, Renato Ivanusec, and other people, 
less known to the wider public. 

Several murders were never resolved in Dubrovnik, among them that of an elderly 
woman who had made an inheritance contract with a local Croatian Democratic 
Union official, giving him her house after her death. Immediately after signing 
the contract, the woman died in a fire, and it is widely believed that she was 
murdered. Dubrovnik lawyer Drasko Soc, a Montenegrin, lost two houses in the 
town - they were taken over by Croatian Democratic Union officials - he was 
deprived of his license and expelled from the country. Soc pressed charges with 
the court in Strasbourg, and it appears that the court will soon hand down a 
ruling in his favor. An elderly woman lost her leg in a mob showdown when an 
explosive device was set off, and no one has been arrested in connection with 
the incident, which occurred in broad daylight. A family was robbed of its 
collection of antique coins... These and other crimes of which Dubrovnik 
inhabitants feared talking about openly, knowing or guessing the names of their 
perpetrators because Dubrovnik is a small town, have remained unsolved for the 
entire decade, because politics designated them as off limits to investigators. 
The new government, however, also did nothing. Maybe because the Interior 
Ministry of Simo Lucin is overwhelmed by reports, evidence, indications or 
intimations of crimes - "manifestations," as late Franjo Tudjman used to put it 
– the preceding period abounded in. Srecko Kljunak, however, suspects that the 
reason probably lies in close ties between the new elite and part of the old 
mob. "Lucin has confirmed some of my allegations; why does he keep quiet about 
the rest of them?" asks Kljunak. "If they do nothing, one may well conclude 
that part of the state leadership is also involved in organized crime." 

The criminal report he filed contains numerous elements wherefrom even people 
who know little of legal matters can clearly see what is at stake. If even a 
portion of these allegations were proven, some of the people named in the paper 
would have to leave the Interior Ministry, and some would even be arrested. If 
the current government fails to do something, those who believe that there is a 
pact between "the old mafia" and the new authorities might be proven right. As 
far as the State Prosecutor is concerned, his office remains mum regarding 
organized crime in Dubrovnik. 

Boris Raseta 

 

 

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