Last week’s lunch meeting between President Mesić and Premier Sanader did not exactly go well. As Nacional has learned from sources close to the Office of the President, the sparks were flying at the very start, as Mesić immediately addressed the issue of HDZ’s attacks against him through the military problems. Mesić’s advisors believe that a series of newspaper articles on how the Croatian military is facing an organizational, personnel and material collapse is only foreplay to the dirty games that HDZ will lead against Mesić in the election campaign. Mesić arrived at the lunch angry and decisive that he would openly confront Sanader and to warn him that if these attacks continue, that he will begin to take out the dirty laundry on Sanader and his closest associates.

Mesić’s election staff believes that the Croatian military issue will be the one point which HDZ will use to try to show Stipe Mesić in the public as a poor president and that he should not be re-elected. Namely, Mesić’s staff believes that HDZ will attempt to try to push the thesis that Mesić had full control over the military, and they will use the HV example to show that Mesić is an incompetent president.

This was exactly what Mesić presented to Sanader at the beginning of the lunch meeting, and he angrily warned him that he would not permit public misinformation on the situation in HV. According to Mesić, the recent funeral of Stjepan Spajić, head of the Hrvatski Dragovoljac football team and former HV employee was also dragged into this plan.

Attending the funeral was the HV honorary unit, however, the retired brigadier was not buried with military honors, for at the last moment, and the order arrived for the military to withdraw. After this, a scandal broke out, as information appeared from HDZ that it was President Mesić who, via Chief of Staff Josip Lucić, ordered the withdrawal of the honorary unit. This story, directed against the president, took on a snowball effect and veteran’s association began to threaten to protest against Mesić. Protests against Mesić, planned by individual associations, were announced for last week. However, after the lunch meeting with Sanader, all these activities were quelled. What was the reason for this sudden change?

Mesić told Sanader that he knew that HDZ was behind the attacks and that the veteran’s associations were only a front. He warned that if this continued, Mesić would show the other side of the coin, where all the guilt was on HDZ Defense Minister Berislav Rončević.

According to the Armed Forces Act, the right to a funeral with military honors is given to active military personnel. In the case of a retired officer, military honors are given only at the written request of the family. When the family submits their request, it is passed on to the Defense Minister who either approves or rejects the request. If the Minister approves, then the request is passed on to the President as the Supreme Commander. He automatically, following the approval by the Defense Minister, permits the funeral with military honors. In Spajić’s case, neither did the family submit a request nor was a request approved by the Defense Minister. Mesić’s office believe that Rončević knew these regulations very well, as a lawyer, but he decided to play dumb and shift all the blame onto Mesić.

The reason for this conduct lies in the ministry archives where Spajić’s work file lies. Here lies the surprise! The file contained no information that Spajić did anything in HV, all that was present was a one sentence description – that he was a member of Merčep’s unit! Mesić’s advisors believe that Rončević was frightened by this fact and then he silently approved the military honors, and that he did not want to officially approve anything. He was counting on the fact that in the event of a scandal, he was off the hook because his signature was not anywhere. If everything went well, Rončević would have come out the hero among the right-wingers, and if problems arose, he would shift all the blame onto Mesić. However, Mesić’s advisors do not blame Rončević for this set-up, but Rončević’s true boss – ruler of Slavonia, Branimir Glavaš and his main political like-thinker, Vladimir Šeks. Two years ago, Defense Minister Rončević would not have participated in making a decision tied to a funeral. However, at the request of then Defense Minister Jozo Radoš, he was included in the command line. For that reason, Rončević should have issued a written order for Spajić to be given a funeral with military honors. When Sanader learned of all the circumstances and the possible consequences, and saw the danger from Spajić’s file and his role in the Merčep unit, he quickly cooled off, and all the attacks against Mesić on that event stopped immediately.

This case was used as an attempt to get rid of Josip Lucić, Chief of Staff, Mesić’s man through whom the president can control all the events in HV. However, the main reason for the attack appears to be the poor standing of the military. Mesić’s staff claims that the situation in HV has never been better, especially considering the humble budget the military has. This is particularly seen in the fact that a total of 11,000 employees of the Armed Forces have left their service quietly, without a single incident. Mesić also believes that it is not the president who is to blame for the small budget, but the government who sets the budget, as HV is under MORH and the technical readiness of HV is dependent on how MORH and Minister Rončević distribute the budgetary funds. And the technical readiness of the military is in very poor condition. Neither in the former nor the latter case is President Mesić to blame, his staff claims, but all the responsibility is on the Sanader government which should spend some time working towards a resolution of this problem. This was more or less the message for Sanader during the lunch meeting in the Parliament building, which was also attended by Vladimir Šeks and Police Minister Marijan Mlinarić.

A certain stagnation has appeared in HDZ surrounding the presidential elections. It is true that Hebrang did not write a letter to Sanader threatening a rift in the party if he was not made the party’s presidential candidate. Hebrang wrote his letter of resignation, sure that Ivo Sanader and the heads of HDZ were behind the media attacks, however, in the end he withdrew it. The intra-party conflicts and disagreements are temporarily under embargo and everyone is impatiently awaiting the results of the great HDZ survey conducted on 3200 people. In this survey, for which the results were supposed to be known on 10 September, much depends – from the HDZ presidential candidate to the rating of individuals within the party. For unknown reasons, the deadline of the survey has been extended and the results will be made known on 20 September. The leaders of HDZ expect that the survey results will only further shake Hebrang’s ambitions to be the presidential candidate, and that there will not be a need to “forcefully pacify” him.

There is also news within Mesić’s staff. It is almost certain that Tomislav Karamarko, former head of UNS and one of the main men in Mesić’s last campaign, will not be head of the election staff. It appears that he will not even be involved. He has been criticized for an interview he gave Vjesnik ten days ago in which he stated that there is no control over the secret service agencies, and that UNS should be reformed. Mesić’s staff interpreted this as his attempt to again be at the head of the top spy organization. In the meantime, he has done much business with people who are under criminal investigation, and therefore he would not pass a single security check, mandatory prior to appointment to such a position.