Croatia furious at U.N. court's sentencing of Serbs for wartime atrocities

ZAGREB, Croatia: Croatian officials criticized a U.N. court Friday for handing down what they called unacceptably low sentences to two Serb army officers convicted for their roles in a wartime massacre of Croatians, and acquitting another.

Prime Minister Ivo Sanader asked that the U.N. Security Council review the work of The Hague-based tribunal. A rightist party and war veterans demanded that Croatia stop cooperating with it. The opposition Social Democrats said the credibility of the court was "eroded."

"It's a mockery of justice," parliamentary Speaker Vladimir Seks said.

On Thursday, the U.N. court sentenced a Serb army officer, Mile Mrksic, to 20 years in prison for clearing the way for the 1991 torture and slaughter of nearly 200 Croatians seized from a hospital in the eastern city of Vukovar — a massacre that set a standard of brutality for the Balkan wars that were then just beginning.

Another officer was sentenced to five years in prison and the third was acquitted.

In his letter to the U.N. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, Sanader said that "the time has come for the work of The Hague court to be seriously re-examined, especially in the light of its failure to serve the justice in a balanced and impartial way."

Croatia will bring up the subject at the U.N. general assembly session on Nov. 15, he wrote.

Even President Stipe Mesic, the most vocal supporter of the tribunal even when nationalists here vehemently opposed it, said "confidence in the court has now been seriously shaken."

Holding black-and-white photos of the victims, about 150 people demonstrated at Zagreb's main square Friday.

The court, charged with prosecuting war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia, ruled 40 or so years in prison for some of the war crimes masterminds in the past — and Croatia expected at least that for the "Vukovar troika."

After a three-month siege and ceaseless bombardment, the country's Serbs, backed by the Yugoslav army that supported their rebellion against Croatia's independence from Yugoslavia, seized Vukovar on Nov. 18, 1991.

More than 200 men were dragged out from the town's hospital — packed with patients, hospital staff and civilians who had taken refuge in its corridors — and taken to a nearby pig farm in Ovcara, where Serb paramilitaries tortured and killed them.

On Thursday night, about 200 people gathered at Ovcara, putting candles at the newly built memorial, some of them crying. Sanader also went there, calling the convictions "inhumane."

It took years, and heavy political pressure from Western governments, for Croatia to begin cooperating with the war crimes court, which also has tried Croatians.

The convictions could set off a new wave of opposition toward the court and the West, as well — and possibly a resurgence of nationalism.

"I just wonder how we are going to build a joint European future on this kind of justice," said Branko Borkovic, a famous Vukovar fighter.

It also could affect the outcome of the November parliamentary elections: the ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union has insisted on cooperation with the court because it is a key condition for its quest to make Croatia a part of the European Union.

"It would not be good if this convictions become an issue in the pre-election campaign," Mesic said, alluding that the rightists could profit from it.

A group of Croatia-based non-governmental organizations warned the convictions would have "deep effect" on the whole of the Balkans. In Serbia, where the nationalists are still strong, "it could be used for some to justify the crimes."