These months I have withheld information on my research experience from you, folks. Sorry, I was too busy with planning, traveling, hunting sources etc. and during all I was under pressure at my full-time job. However, I intend to redeem myself next weeks with bunch of photos and anecdotes from Zagreb, Sarajevo, The Hague, Brussels, Strasbourg and Stuttgart.

Zageb - A view from the Upper Town

Lonely musician…

A one week-long research in Croatian capitol was wonderful and very useful experience for many reasons, professional and personal. This was my first research abroad and initially I was little bit nervous how I would manage to organize all interviews and collect all the information I needed on “unknown territory”. But my suspiciousness was unnecessary because, in my opinion, I have done all quite well.

It’s time for…

The romantic ambiance of Croatian National Theater

In Zagreb I had a lot of interviews with various sources, because I tried to be as balanced as I could and to hear all different views on war crimes justice in the region. Vesna Terselic, of Documenta, a non-governmental organization that deals with issues to do with facing up to the recent past, was very important interlocutor and link to other important sources. We have talked about “in absentia” war crime trials and she said that NGO’s in Croatia still didn’t know what to recommend to officials, who had responsibility to solve this issue. In her opinion, additional problem is a fact that on accusation benches are only generals but not politicians.

Agrocor headquarters - sky and power

Vesna Terselic and her team helped me very much to find sources which were not in my previous plan. Thanks to them, I was in Karlovac at presentation of the Regional Monitoring Team for War Crime Trials. They present results of their monitoring of prosecuting for war crimes committed on the Korana bridge in Karlovac. Katarina Kruhonja, Chief of Regional Monitoring Team explained me that something has been changed and that states in the region have been improved judicial cooperation. However, after interview with Veselinka Kastratovic, national observer of judicial proceedings for war crimes in Croatia, I realized how bad prosecution could guide to unfair judgment and what did victims have to pass during trials.

St. Mark’s Square

Interviews with Ivo Josipovic, eminent law professor, and Mary Wyckoff, head of the Rule of Law Unit at the OSCE Croatian mission, were very important for my research. Despite I conclude politicians must have a significant role in solving problem of a great number of convicts “in absentia”, professor Josipovic told me that political influence on judicial system to solve this issue could be very dangerous for independence of judicial system. According to Josipovic, an essence of inter-state political agreement should be advocacy of fair trials and nothing more. ”Politics should not be in courtroom and decides who war criminal is. That was happened in 1990s and now we have problems”, he said.

Tkalciceva street is one of the oldest street in Zagreb. Each house is turned into the cafe-bar, restaurant, art-gallery or gift-shop

However, in very open conversation Mary Wyckoff told me that judicial revision of “in absentia” war crime trails in Croatia was necessary. In her opinion, present proceedings “in absentia” are the most obvious indicators of lack of cooperation between the sta