STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Sopranos fanatics, this one is for you. Tony Soprano's autographed Suburban is available for purchase on eBayTM. James Gandolfini has personally signed the vehicle. Find this and over 800 other Sopranos items for sale on eBay. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/ebay ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [To use an apt analogy, it's how a criminal syndicate disposes of a hit man after he's done his job. Incriminating evidence, you know.] July 17, 2001 Croatia War Crimes Debate Grows by SNJEZANA VUKIC Associated Press Writer ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) -- Croatia's government faced renewed demands Monday to stop co-operating with the U.N. war crimes tribunal, hours after surviving a no-confidence vote over a plan to extradite two suspects to the court in the Netherlands. Croatia is under pressure to cooperate with the tribunal after the extradition last month of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to face trial in The Hague for alleged involvement in atrocities against Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority. The new debate began after the nationalist party of the late president, Franjo Tudjman, failed to oust the pro-Western government of Prime Minister Ivica Racan in a pre-dawn vote. If the nationalists had succeeded, new elections would have been called. With many Croats opposed to extradition of Croatian citizens, Justice Minister Stjepan Ivanisevic pledged that the government would try to extract the tribunal's permission to try future suspects in local courts instead of sending them to The Hague. However, the tribunal ignored similar requests from Yugoslav authorities who wanted to try Milosevic at home. Western governments pressed them to extradite the former strongman, using financial aid as a bargaining chip. Ninety-three members of Croatia's 151-seat legislature supported the government in the no-confidence vote, 36 opposed it, and the remaining lawmakers did not attend. After surviving the test, Racan urged lawmakers to join in backing his government decision to extradite the two suspects, wanted by the court for alleged atrocities against Serbs who rebelled against Croatia's independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. But Tudjman's party demanded that the 1996 law on cooperation with the court be revised so that Croatia can reject extradition requests. ''As a U.N. member ... Croatia has a right to protest when the court oversteps its authority,'' said Ivo Sanader, the leader of the nationalist Croatian Democratic Union. The former governing party controls about a third of the chamber and has little chance of prevailing, though it can deny the government the consensus it seeks. The indictments remain sealed until the two suspects are brought before the court. Government sources said they stem from 1993 and 1995 offensives to regain lands seized by the ethnic Serbs in 1991. More than 150,000 Serbs fled the country in 1995 and hundreds of those who stayed behind were killed. Tudjman's party and many Croats reject suggestions that Croat troops engaged in the mass ''ethnic cleansing'' of Serbs. Racan, too, said such accusations are ''unacceptable'' but that the place to fight them is in court. One of the suspects, Gen. Rahim Ademi, agreed to surrender voluntarily to the U.N. court and is to fly there later this week. On Monday, Racan indirectly confirmed widespread reports that the other suspect is retired Gen. Ante Gotovina, a local commander in the 1995 offensive. Gotovina is said to be unwilling to surrender and his whereabouts were unknown. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
