After several years of throwing around the idea that General Ante Gotovina periodically appears in Croatia, the weekly magazine Globus has begun to play with the equally dangerous and damaging idea which it displayed on the cover of its last issue and to which it dedicated 14 pages. The new editors of that magazine have proposed the following hypothesis: the Gotovina is not currently in Croatia, but that the Croatian government seized a large number of secret files and documents in the recent police raids of the homes of Gotovina’s friends, and that after seizing these documents, that the government decided to cover them up.

This hypothesis is extremely dangerous primarily for Sanader’s government, which to date has perhaps been over-enthusiastic in satisfying the demands of the Hague Tribunal regarding their only outstanding issue, Ante Gotovina. If Ivo Sanader decides not to refute the claims in the latest issue of Globus, which the remaining EPH publications will only support, this will create room for doubt as to Croatia’s cooperation with the ICTY, and will then give reason and justification for new external pressures. Furthermore, if the government does not respond promptly, it will be put in a position where it will have to again prove something which is very difficult to prove, that there truly never were such documents. In this way, Globus has attacked HDZ’s political trump card, cooperation with the ICTY and the politics of EU accession. If Sanader fails to harshly responds, and EPH succeeded in discrediting HDZ’s foreign policy with this newest deceit, then we could easily see Sanader resigning before the end of his term.

Over the long-term, the Globus construction could negatively impact the European future of the county, and not only the current government. If there are any suspicions regarding the non-cooperation of Croatia and a possible cover up of documents from the ICTY, this will seriously slow Croatia’s entry into the EU. This will also leave a massive burden upon the next government, who will be left to prove the non-existence of the “secret Gotovina files” in addition to leaving room for new political blackmail of Croatia by less than friendly nations.

In its article, entitled, “The Gotovina File”, Globus also implicated and tries to criminalize Gotovina’s friends, Ante Maksan and Željko Matozan. Their attempts to develop a hypothesis of a criminal association of Gotovina’s friends who are aiding Gotovina at a lower low, though they have strong ties to the government, thus rounding out Globus’s conspiracy story.

Nacional has come into possession of the official police report of the Zadar Crime Police Division on what was truly temporarily seized in the police raid on the homes, vehicles and offices of Ante Zoni Maksan in Pakoštane in the early morning hours of 23 September. In Maksan’s office, the police raid in Maksan’s office found and took the decision banning Maksan’s entry into the EU, a letter from the Zadar electric company about a hookup for the Kozarica Pakoštane autocamp and a letter from the Association of Civil Victims. That is all that was found in Maksan’s office. No trace of any secret orders, incriminating documents or weapons.

A total of 34 items were taken from Maksan’s home: 13 CDs, laptop with cables, two VIP mobile phone cards, passport and personal identity card, two business cards, two decisions by the College for Work Safety, a HZZO (Croatian Health Care Institute) envelope, a Hypo bank statement, five varying sales contracts, a lawsuit with the County Court in Zagreb, in which the plaintiff is Ante Gotovina, the response to the lawsuit and a Logic computer which, according to the police report, was found and taken from the children’s bedroom. Again no trace of secret documents or weapons. In Maksan’s vehicle, the police found a yellow envelope containing a contract, a second yellow envelope with documents with the name A. Č. and 34 white T-shirts bearing Gotovina’s face with the word ‘Hero’ written underneath, which were also temporarily taken. All in all, no secret documents were found, no weapons, and this is all clearly stated in the police report. The police raid turned out looking pathetic, and the claims by Gordan Malić in Globus of a “collateral police catch of great proportions” simply do not add up, and only correspond to the title of the music CD by Zoran Jelenković, “Shipwreck”.

“And that’s what the police took, that is Maksan’s ‘secret archive’, as Globus calls it: a CD by Zoran Jelenković, my elder son’s computer and T-shirts with Ante Gotovina’s face,” ironically stated Maksan. “The police have informed me that I am still under criminal investigation, however, I do not fear any future raids. I repeat, I have nothing to hide, no compromising documents against General Ante Gotovina were found because they do not exist. Never did Gotovina issue an order which could compromise him, nor did he do anything which could lead him to court, nor did he ever command anything contrary to the Geneva Convention.” Maksan added that the police raid was conducted correctly, that the police conducted themselves professionally and in accordance with the law and that he had no complaints.

“In the article, only three things are correct: my name and surname, the house I live in and the fact that I know both Ante Gotovina and Ferdinand Parrell,” was Ante Maksan’s first comment to Nacional’s report when asked to comment on the article in the last issue of Globus. “Everything is a fabrication by Malić, Cigoj and Alborghetti. However, that is typical for that weekly and those three men to deceive the public, claiming to have high ranking sources, with their neo-Communist methods of psychologically abusing people and their families, so this article is really no surprise. Malić constructed the entire article around the hypothesis that the police found secret documents which compromise General Gotovina in my home. This is a set-up. The police could not have found any such documents in my home or anywhere else, for a very simple reason, and that is because they do not exist. There are no compromising orders because he never gave them, and if such a document ever were to surface, it would be the fruit of a sick mind, such as those who wrote this article in Globus, forged documents the likes of which the ICTY indictment was based on.”

In criminalizing Ante Maksan, Igor Alborghetti and his deputy Mark Cigoj refer to an alleged POA report, and call him the bodyguard of General Ante Roso, in order to maximally degrade Maksan’s military career. Towards the same goal, the Globus team also describes Maksan as a drug dealer who was arrested in Sarajevo in 1994, after which he left HV unpunished, due exclusively to his friendship with General Gotovina.

“First and foremost, I was never a bodyguard for General Ante Roso or anyone else. In 1994, I was a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the BiH Federation Army, with the rank of Colonel of HVO, and in July of that year I was promoted to Brigadier. I am only a bodyguard for my family and friends, as they are for me. It is also a lie, as the article states, that I was arrested in Sarajevo for trafficking. I would truly love to see those documents, which Globus obviously has if they write these things, that states when, where and why I was arrested and when I was released from prison. This is absurd, but who knows, perhaps I forgot a part of my life, so I will ask that they show me these documents,” said Maksan, who also stated that he would file a lawsuit against Globus. The article also refers to his retirement from HV, which Maksan denies and claims that he was honorably discharged from the military in 1997 at his own request, with the highest military medals, with the rank of Colonel of HV and Brigadier of HVO. “Had Malić and the others gone through even the smallest part of what I and General Gotovina and all the other soldiers went through in the war, that they have compassion for the Croatian people who suffered so much, and lived through the cavalry of war, they would never dare to write such things about it, as they would know what a homeland is and what an honour it is to do something for your own country. They would know what it means to not be a foreign mercenary in your own God-given and blood-earned country. Here I also refer to those people who order and pay for such articles, and who provide them with false information, such as this, about the great discovery of a ‘secret Gotovina archive’ in my house, which they certainly did not receive from ‘source close to the top ranks of the police’, as Malić claims, but from elsewhere.”

Ante Maksan’s message for the three reporters who wrote the article is to “not work for anyone outside of Croatia, but only for Croatia, and one of them should get off the drugs and start living a healthy life”.