CAFÉ EUROPE - From renegade to president M

The lack of foreign leaders was emblematic of Croatia’s isolation under Tudjman, whom the West accused of fanning the flames of nationalism, disregarding human rights, interfering in the judiciary, undermining the freedom of the media, and covering up wartime crimes. [...] Mesic had been part of Tudjman’s clique for a period of five years, but in 1994 he was one of the first within the HDZ to openly challenge him, creating the first rupture in the party. [...] Both Mesic and Racan knew that Croatia had to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague and to prosecute war crimes at home in order to advance on its path towards the EU. [...] In 2010, acting on the recommendation of the presidential amnesty commission, he shortened the prison term of a man who was serving an eight-year prison term for participating in the killing of Serbs in Pakracka Poljana during the war. [...] In the end, however, it is as a leader standing up to Tudjman over his policies in Bosnia, breaking with the legacy of the 1990s as president, defending the ICTY before most other politicians in the country dared to do so, and still managing to get elected and www.esiweb.org/cafe-europe ..