Croazia: ingresso nella UE e situazione crimini di guerra e diritti civili

Il 1° luglio la Croazia entra nell'Unione Europea. Oltre i messaggi di benvenuto dei 27, un articolo (tradotto da PressEurop) di un giornale croato testimonia che la Croazia avrebbe fatto i compiti a casa, ma sarà vero?

Ho provato a vedere il rapporto che ne ha fatto Amnesty International. La situazione, pur osservandosi dei progressi, non è così rosea:

At the end of the year, 490 incidents giving rise to allegations of war crimes registered in Croatia since the end of the war had resulted in the opening of 1,090 criminal cases. Alleged perpetrators were identified in 316 incidents, resulting in 849 criminal cases. However, out of the total number of registered cases only 112 cases (10%) were completed before the domestic courts. In 174 war crime incidents, resulting in 241 criminal cases, the alleged perpetrators were still unidentified.

Praticamente, a fine 2012 risultava che 490 episodi riconducibili a crimini di guerra, dalla fine del conflitto, hanno dato origine a 1.090 procedimenti. In 316 sono stati individuati dei responsabili. Comunque, di tutti i casi trovati solo il 10% è arrivato a conclusione davanti a una corte penale. Ecco alcuni casi tra i più controversi:

Tomislav Merčep, former Assistant Minister of the Interior and the commander of the Ministry’s special reserve unit, who was indicted in 2011 and had been under arrest since 2010, was released in July. He had been charged in relation to the killing and enforced disappearance of 43 Croatian Serb civilians in the area of Zagreb and Pakračka poljana.

Allegations against the Deputy Speaker of the Croatian Parliament, Vladimir Šeks, for his command responsibility for crimes committed in Eastern Slavonija in 1991, were not investigated, despite publicly available information about his alleged role. The evidence included several witness testimonies in criminal proceedings related to crimes committed in Eastern Slavonija, orders from the then President of the country as well as statements in court by Vladimir Šeks himself.

Former Croatian Army general, Davor Domazet-Lošo, continued to evade prosecution. He had been named in the May 2008 judgement in the case against Rahim Ademi and Mirko Norac as having an effective command responsibility for the crimes committed in 1993 in Medak Pocket. The judgement had acquitted Rahim Ademi of responsibility for the crimes committed in Medak Pocket because it was ruled that Davor Domazet-Lošo held effective command responsibility.

Sul versante dei diritti civili, Amnesty nota che nonostante i miglioramenti introdotti, esistono ancora criticità: i rom croati, serbi croati e la comunità LGBTI devono sopportare ancora discriminazioni e maltrattamenti.

 Roma continued to face discrimination in access to economic and social rights, including education, employment and housing. Measures undertaken by the authorities remained insufficient. The authorities failed to implement the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling to end segregation of Romani children in schools.

Croatian Serbs continued to face discrimination, mainly in relation to housing and employment.

Hate crimes

Legal protection against homophobic and transphobic hate crimes was improved; amendments to the Criminal Code adopted in 2012 included gender identity as a ground for prosecution of hate crimes. However, with no specific guidelines for police, physical attacks against LGBTI people were sometimes classified as minor offences, while alleged hate motives were often not investigated. 

Il continuo allargamento dell'Unione Europea ha l'indubbio effetto positivo di costringere il paese entrante a seguire  i migliori  standard  in vigore a livello internazionale, nel campo dei diritti umani e della legalità. Ma non sempre i documenti che testimoniano questa adesione corrispondono integralmente alla realtà. Questo impone un monitoraggio continuo e una severità e imparzialità di giudizio molto elevati. Sarà pronta la Croazia a entrare nel club UE? Continuerà il monitoraggio dell'Unione? E, una volta entrata, di quali strumenti di pressione sarà dotata l'Unione per convincere la Croazia a seguire il programma?