PHOTO: Banac Has One Goal, to Become President

The HHO must move out of its current facilities by June, members haven’t been paid since October and are leaving the committee one by one.

ZAGREB, CROATIA – The Croatian Helsinki Committee (HHO) headed by Ivo Banac and Ivan Zvonimir Cicak has began to evidently fall apart, and such an assessment had been given by the media. Members are leaving one by one because they have not received salaries since October and by June the association must evacuate its premises. The committee lost 14 members since late last year, but Banac says this is not the first rumour about the committee breaking apart and denied the claims.

After the last plenum last weekend, actor Vili Matula, Igor Mandic and Sanda Lagerholz-Miladinov

- Banac is using the HHO to get additional media attention in his ambitions to become president – Vili Matula told Javno.

- If is using his former authority as historian to suck up to right-wing orientated people. The intellectual lecturing by professor Banac is otherwise called tax on intelligence because today it is easy to judge now that command responsibility has been introduced. During and in the time after the Homeland Defence War this did not exist anywhere.  Of course, this does not mean that crimes should not be investigated today, but Banac is manipulating only with the aim of getting to the presidential position – Matula told us.

They are all lies 

Ivo Banac, to whose every finger points at due to the bad situation in the HHO, says that all accusations against him are incorrect and that it is not the first time it has been rumoured that the association is falling apart.

- Matula didn’t do anything except sling mud. Even now the majority of members concluded we had to continue with our work and he demonstratively left – Banac began criticising now his former colleague from the HHO without us having even mentioned his name previously.

- If is interesting that EPH media harshly criticise the HHO. We are evidently doing something that is not favourable to somebody, somebody obviously does not favour an independent HHO. When we revealed crimes during Operation Storm then we were acceptable and now they are attacking us for being biased. We are doing the same and representing the rights of everybody. We are not dealing with ideologies, but human rights. We do not want to be the champions of the left. This is not the first time reporters ask me about why the HHO is falling apart – said Banac and added that nobody from the EPH contacted him, while other media houses have.

He continued to say that it was unclear to him why some people have to make scandals as they leave.

- Reporters have called me several times and asked me why the Croatian Helsinki Committee is falling apart, but that has not happened. We just can’t seem to be able to fall apart – Banac retorted ironically.

Some media have reported that actor Relja Basic is also leaving the HHO, as is the oldest member of the committee, Dragomir Vojnic, who has until now held all strings in his hands and all members together. Him leaving would definitely be an end to the HHO.

Line bordering with anti-fascism 

Vojnic confirmed to us that the HHO is undergoing turbulences, but he voiced hope that the committee will continue with its work.

- Until now I have managed to keep everybody together. Had it not been for me, the HHO would

He recalled the power the HHO had in the 1990’s and added that it would not be good if Croatia did not have the HHO.

- I had good cooperation with Cicak and Ivo Banac about whom I did not know how he will direct the HHO – Vojnic told us.

The HHO became especially emphasised by publishing the number of killed civilians during Operation Storm. The Croatian Helsinki Committee for human rights claims that around 700 civilians had been killed during the Croatian military liberation operation.

The committee boasts one of the largest archives relating to the Homeland Defence War. But EU representatives in Zagreb assessed that the project is poorer than what they had given them funds for. After that the European Commission called HHO representatives for a meeting in March 2009, which the HHO refused, saying that the EU had allocated funds by some strange political criteria helped by ‘family’ lobbying.

The HHO also became involved in the Pukanic case when it asked of competent bodies their reports about the wife of Mirjana Pukanic who said that her husband, reporter and publisher of the ‘Nacional’ weekly, Ivo Pukanic, was trying to proclaim her mentally ill and incompetent.

Banac asked of police chief Marijan Benko an explanation as to why and at whose request the police intervened and why the police used force with Mirjana Pukanic, who, Banac said, caused nothing to provoke that.

Evacuation 

The HHO showed no restraint in criticising even Croatian President Stjepan Mesic. This April they slammed him for “relativising crimes of the Yugoslav communist regime and an attempt of creatine an alibi for Tito’s dictatorship”.

But it seems like such conduct did not go well with all the members of the committee and some left it, which once again spurred suspicions that the HHO is falling apart.

Last May, when Zarko Puhovski left the HHO, there were also rumours that the association is falling apart and the media also wrote about the HHO being closed down in August. Banac called such claims as stupidity. He only admitted that the association has financial problems, but back then the committee had its premises. Because of their failure to pay rental, the committee has to evacuate the premises at the beginning of June.

Many donators and partner organisations have in the meantime stopped cooperating with the HHO or have stopped giving them funds. Former members say they left because the HHO has no projects.

The question is will the HHO truly shut down this time or will it be able to make it through the crisis.