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Post by Old Guest on Feb 17, 2005 3:20:17 GMT 1
EurActiv.com says "in January 2004 public support for the EU membership still stood at 70%". Gerhard Shroeder said having Croatia in the EU will have a stabilising effect on the entire Balkans region. Bulgaria and Romania will get in before you. What do you want? You can never just shut the past out, its how you learn to tackle the future. ...arm in arm...crammed in the back of a Zastava, a bottle of rajki...singing a nationalistic song....oh and don't forget the rocket launchers and AK47's I'll say no more, I agree its your choice, but the war IS over...bye bye old party members, don't forget to work the land in the morning okay, okay ... calm down, both of you. People in Croatia are exhausted from war. Joining EU sounded like puring new watter in pot where so far only corrupted polititians knew how to swim ... and acted mostly like sharks. So, people recognized EU as "saving boat" which is comeing to save them ... But, when boat come close enoug - it decided to turn back, because - from this close this sharks look really dangerous, and nobody would like them in their see, especialy not in ocean. Now we both know same ... But we are still in watter - sharks still cicling around. So allow people to be liitle p**ised off, because it is natural to expect help in such situation. And it is everybodys elses right to avoid such huge and allways hungry sharks if he can. |
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Post by Barba Jere on Feb 17, 2005 8:27:58 GMT 1
i thinkithe only way for Cro is to go to EU,but constant preasure of some countries and especially Carla Del Ponte is having contra effect on the people and causing them to react like this.
Croatia has fullfilled all criteria to start accesion talks except Gotovina issue. Holding on to this issue is pushing Croatia in to dangerous situation just as it is pushing this government in to troubles and giving right wing extremeest more grount to work on.
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Post by EMIZ on Feb 17, 2005 13:04:46 GMT 1
I will probably be told this is not true, but trust me it is.
At present the anti British feeling in Zagreb is at extreme levels, I regularly have people having a go at me, because of the uk's position against Croatia. This includes so-called friends, now luckily for me, I am quite apathetic to many things, so I told them all to kiss my backside.
Not everybody will be as cold as I am to this onslaught, and I foresee problems in Croatia for any Brits.
There is an unbelievable dislike of Brits in Croatia, and this has just added to the situation, I can assure you it is not me, because when people listen to me talk, they quite often thing I am a yank, due to spending many of my formative years there.
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Post by pasko on Feb 22, 2005 21:57:52 GMT 1
brits and E.U. ? you wont accept a constitution anyways and blair will connect the europe membership
with the constitution question. so i think britain will leave the e.u.
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Post by Ribaric on Feb 25, 2005 15:22:59 GMT 1
The constitution has no connection to EU membership, it concerns process and decision making. The UK referendum will ask whether or not these processes are acceptable to the UK public. Secession from the EU is not open for debate.
There are three major political parties in the UK, they make up over 80% of the views of voters. They are all committed (to a greater or lesser degree) to EU membership. Most of the others are also pro EU.
EMIZ lives in Zagreb, I'm much further north. We have very different experiences regarding attitudes towards foreigners, particularly Brits. However, I do sense that the further south I go, the less European Croatia becomes. This applies to attitudes to the EU, foreigners, corruption and work. Medjimurje is more like Slovenia in nearly every way. To me, it is similar to the north-south divide you find in Italy.
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Post by irac on Feb 25, 2005 19:26:11 GMT 1
in the words of my old Archaeology prof from Uni, and echoed by our tutor in Marburg, the further south you go in Europe, the further away from Europe you go. it's not necessarily a bad thing, remember the arabs were pretty advanced when we had monks illuminating manuscripts and living on rocks in the ocean, oh, and "discovering" America.
The anit- British sentiment is there though, among the less educated and insular, they also believe themselves to be very closely allied to the irish, but our money is just as good to rip off as a Macuninans ;D
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Post by My 2 cents on Mar 19, 2005 6:52:44 GMT 1
WEll europe said NO to croatia and GOOD!!!! ZAGREB (Reuters) - A wave of resentment against the European Union is sweeping Croatia and popular support for a top war crimes fugitive, whose freedom cost Zagreb the start of EU membership talks this week, is evident everywhere. CROATIANS UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED ANTE GOTOVINA, A HERO NOT A CRIMINAL We're staying in the dark ages ppl and for those who dont like it..... too bad. The world hates us and this is more proof to me, to punish a whole nation because of one person is a joke. So to the world heres a big YOU from croatia. Like the millwal song goes, NO ONE LIKES US WE DONT CARE.... today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-03-18T174151Z_01_CHA863680_RTRUKOC_0_EU-CROATIA.xml |
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Post by Three Lions on Mar 19, 2005 7:31:40 GMT 1
WEll europe said NO to croatia and GOOD!!!! ZAGREB (Reuters) - A wave of resentment against the European Union is sweeping Croatia and popular support for a top war crimes fugitive, whose freedom cost Zagreb the start of EU membership talks this week, is evident everywhere. CROATIANS UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED ANTE GOTOVINA, A HERO NOT A CRIMINAL We're staying in the dark ages ppl and for those who dont like it..... too bad. The world hates us and this is more proof to me, to punish a whole nation because of one person is a joke. So to the world heres a big YOU from croatia. Like the millwal song goes, NO ONE LIKES US WE DONT CARE.... today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-03-18T174151Z_01_CHA863680_RTRUKOC_0_EU-CROATIA.xmlHilarious....as Millwall are totally rubbish, I don't think they've ever won anything......sad joker |
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Post by irac on Mar 19, 2005 8:03:51 GMT 1
Imagine, a Croatian siding with an ENGLISH fotball team that traditionally attracts the right wing racist anti-catholic support and allies itself with Glasgow Rangers, hmm, typical Croatian hypocrisy I believe. Thankfully those in the no sense category are being pushed into a minority by those who actually LIVE in the country and wish for progress. Which includes handing over those who may be responsible for horrific crimes against people. It'd be funny to see if a refrendum was held, how wold it emerge?
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Post by My 2 cents on Mar 19, 2005 12:02:07 GMT 1
Where does it say i support or side with millwal, i just took a line from one of their more famous chants/songs.
Minority? Read the report more and more support for Ante and more support against the EU.
Hero not criminal
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Post by barba Jere on Mar 19, 2005 12:44:45 GMT 1
The fugitive who stands in the way of Croatia's EU entry
Brussels has shelved talks with Zagreb after renegade intelligence officials wrecked a UK-led effort to capture its chief war crimes suspect
Ian Traynor in Zagreb
Friday March 18, 2005
The Guardian
When senior British intelligence officials arrived in Zagreb two years ago to launch Operation Cash it was not money they had in mind.
The Croatian word for cash is "gotovina", the surname of the general and Croatian war hero who is also the country's biggest war crimes suspect, number three on the wanted list at the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
The British launched a year-long operation to capture the elusive officer, General Ante Gotovina. It failed, sabotaged by renegade elements within Croatian intelligence who tapped the phones of British, American and Croatian agents, photographed their meetings, leaked the details to supporters in the Croatian media and exposed the identities of the foreign spies.
For the British the experience was proof that the Croats could not be trusted, and that they were not serious about locating and arresting the fugitive general.
This week the failure to do much about Gen Gotovina cost Croatia dear. For the first time in its ambitious expansion strategy, the EU shelved membership talks with Croatia which were due to open yesterday.
The "No to Croatia" campaign in Brussels was spearheaded by British diplomats in the aftermath of the sabotage of Operation Cash. The British position is that Gen Gotovina is a test case for the rule of law in Croatia, and that Zagreb can forget its chances of joining the EU until it cooperates fully with the UN tribunal.
"I've been travelling to Zagreb for four years, getting promises on Gotovina," said Denis MacShane, Britain's Europe minister. "And we're still not there."
It was February 2003 when the two senior officials from MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service or SIS, came to Zagreb to launch the secret operation. According to Croatian sources, they met the then interior minister, other government figures and Ranko Ostojic, then the Croatian police chief.
A Croatian source said: "The message from the British was that our intelligence service could not be trusted."
Mr Ostojic formed a "task force" of seven reliable police officers operating in secrecy. The MI6 agent at the British embassy in Zagreb was appointed "liaison officer" for the operation.
Only those directly involved were informed about the operation because Gen Gotovina had friends and protectors within the Croatian security and intelligence structures.
The difficulties facing Mr Ostojic and the British were evident from their experience in tracking and catching another war crimes suspect, Ivica Rajic, a Bosnian Croat militia leader, in April 2003.
Mr Rajic had been given a new identity by the Croatian authorities and had been protected for years. The key to his arrest was identifying him through his fingerprints. But when the Ostojic team quietly sought the prints at police headquarters in Zagreb the crucial piece of evidence had been removed from the Rajic file. The breakthrough came only when Mr Rajic's fingerprints were obtained from his old Yugoslav army dossier by a British agent in Belgrade, the Serbian capital.
That experience highlighted the problems confronting the more important Gotovina investigation and emphasised the need for utter secrecy.
For most of 2003 Operation Cash concentrated on the area around the old Adriatic city of Zadar, a hardline nationalist bastion that was Gen Gotovina's powerbase, seeking to penetrate the network of mafia and military figures believed to be shielding the fugitive, who nonetheless is not thought to be in Croatia.
The British ambassador in Zagreb, Nicholas Jarrold, meanwhile, regularly warned the Croatian government that its EU prospects were dim without Gen Gotovina in the dock.
In its desperate pleading of its EU case the Croatian government in recent weeks has argued that it has searched tens of thousands of houses and cars in the hunt for Gen Gotovina.
"This is real bull ," snorted a well-placed Croatian source. "You will never find Gotovina with conventional police tactics. Intelligence is the most important thing."
The information gathered by Operation Cash was evident from an unusual memo last month from MI6 to Croatian intelligence. The nine-point document, Proposals for Improved Intelligence Cooperation, urged the arrest and prosecution of several prominent political, security service and organised crime figures in Croatia, all linked to the fugitive general.
The memo was promptly leaked to the Croatian magazine Nacional, the main media advocate of the widespread view here that Britain is spearheading a campaign of espionage and disinformation aimed at discrediting Croatia and keeping it out of the EU. The magazine's editor is being denied visas to visit London.
A very senior and exasperated British official said: "A lot of our people have been working very hard in Croatia for years. And everything we try to do quickly spills into the papers. It's not just the odd rogue element or nutter, it's systematic."
Another factor explaining MI6's energetic activity in Croatia is that recent years have seen ample gunrunning operations between Croatia and the Real IRA.
Indeed, an investigation by Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, the Irish Garda and the Croatian police established that the missile used in the Real IRA rocket attack on MI6's headquarters at Vauxhall in London in 2000 was of Croatian provenance. The same year the armoury found at a Real IRA arms depot in County Meath in the Irish Republic was sourced to Croatia.
While no direct link is known to have been made between the gunrunning and Gen Gotovina, it is believed that some of the same figures in his network may be involved.
Last month's MI6 memo to the Croats recommended that Franjo Turek, the former head of Croatian counter-intelligence, face trial unless he revealed how contacts were maintained with Gen Gotovina and how Croatian intelligence had been shielding him.
Operation Cash was supposed to be secret, known only to a handful of police officers, officials and spies. But for much of the operation's duration Mr Turek conducted video and telephone surveillance of its members and contacts.
He then leaked his findings, exposing the identities of British, American and UN tribunal agents, as well as the names of the Croatian police officers who arrested Mr Rajic and who were trying to find Gen Gotovina. That disclosure put their lives at risk.
Every Croatian police officer known to have been involved in Operation Cash was then sacked.
This week a Croatian parliamentary inquiry found that Mr Turek had overstepped his authority, but fudged the question of whether he should be charged.
A senior European official said: "The British offered all the cooperation that the Croats wished. The Croats got the same offers from the British and the Americans. But the government totally failed to get a grip on its intelligence and police attempts to catch Gotovina."
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Post by EMIZ on Mar 19, 2005 14:15:57 GMT 1
Irac..Celtic are just as bad if not worse than Rangers; I have had the pleasure of attending the auld firm derby three times...and that is not football, it is hatred.
Millwall fans are mostly scum.
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Post by star on Mar 19, 2005 16:51:09 GMT 1
Another factor explaining MI6's energetic activity in Croatia is that recent years have seen ample gunrunning operations between Croatia and the Real IRA. Indeed, an investigation by Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch, the Irish Garda and the Croatian police established that the missile used in the Real IRA rocket attack on MI6's headquarters at Vauxhall in London in 2000 was of Croatian provenance. The same year the armoury found at a Real IRA arms depot in County Meath in the Irish Republic was sourced to Croatia. While no direct link is known to have been made between the gunrunning and Gen Gotovina, it is believed that some of the same figures in his network may be involved. Heh, now they're trying to link Gotovina with international terrorism? This is turning out to be something out of a James Bond movie. I wouldn't be surprised if the next revelation about Gotovina is that he's actually the head of an international criminal organization known as S.P.E.C.T.R.E.  ;D |
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Post by irac on Mar 19, 2005 17:31:45 GMT 1
The point was Emiz, Milwall side with the blue side of Glasgow, not one side against the other. They're both scots but manipulated and made more stupid than they should be. Mainly I was amazed by the retarded comments from no sense about a situation thousands of miles away and written from no actual truck on the ground. The majority of Croats want to move on, despite the stupid few, but they won't be allowed until the corrupt propagandists in Zagreb are allowed to run roughshod over progress.
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Post by CroatianSerbAbroad on Mar 19, 2005 17:53:35 GMT 1
I am amazed at some of the posts here concerning the EU and Croatia. Living in the UK, i was recently asked why the reluctance to hand over Gotovina.
This issue seems incredibly childish to me, are we saying that just because Gotovina has to be handed over as a criminal that the EU is a terrible place and that the UK is evil?. If Croatia is permitted to enter into EU accession talks without gotovina being handed over, how will Croatia feel when Serbia is granted accession talks without handing over Karadzic or Mladic?
What is the reluctance to hand him over, do you all feel that if he goes he will be definetly convicted as a war criminal?, why would that be?, is their conclusive evidence that he has committed atrocities?. Surely, if he is a hero then he will come home?
On the other hand, if you look through history, true hero's have always sacrificed themselves for the good of their people and country. Perhaps Mr Gotovina should do the same?
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