It’s rarely good when my
country makes world news, except about sport. Last week a car
exploded in downtown Zagreb. It happened a couple of hundred metres from
the parliament building. In this typical mafia execution, two people were
killed: the publisher/journalist Ivo Pukanic and one of his employees.
Why should the deaths of
these two men be reported around the world? It is a symptom of something much
bigger and more serious, of long-standing criminal activity going unpunished.
The bomb was met by a frenzy of statements by Croatia’s politicians, the
president declaring dramatically: "Now it is either them or us!"
The government acted as if
it was totally surprised, as if something like this had never happened before.
But only two weeks ago the daughter of a well-known and politically involved
lawyer was executed at point-blank range. A top manager was badly beaten up,
another journalist is still recovering from having almost been killed. What
these recent cases have in common is that those who gave the orders were never
found. Moreover, the investigation gives the impression that nobody is even
looking for them.
In the last few years,
killings of mafia bosses have occurred in the centre of the city, but perhaps
not close enough to the circles of power. Ivo Pukanic’s murder, however, seems
to be too close to it: he was known for being well-connected, with one leg
firmly in the criminal world and the other in the political one. No wonder that
his murder shook the government and was interpreted as a political message.
For
the first time it became fearfully evident that the institutions of the state
designated to protect citizens are not capable of doing their job. The
explosion in the centre of Zagreb is a result of almost two decades of
deliberate neglect of serious crimes. The problem – far from being unique to
Croatia, of course – is the elaborate network of criminals, politicians, big
business and the police. There is a picturesque word for it in Italy: octopus.
Even the state public attorney recently lamented in the press the involvement
of organised crime in the police and the judicial system. The president of the
parliamentary national security council confirmed that criminals had infiltrated the very
centre of power.
Apparently this is common
knowledge, a banality so to speak. Therefore, the problem is not that nobody
knew about such connections, just the opposite – that everybody profited from
them. The paralysis of the state institutions was a deliberate one. If too many
people too high up are corrupted, who is to throw the first stone? Until an
event like the murder of Pukanic threatens to reveal these connections.
There is an atmosphere of fear in Zagreb, perhaps even a danger of destabilisation. In such a situation yesterday’s enemies from the opposition are now offering their support to prime minister Ivo Sanader who is promising a tough fight against crime. A few days after the killing of Pukanic a special anti-mafia squad was formed and 250 policemen from the provinces brought to the capital. Just before that, heads were already rolling, the ministers of interior and of justice were replaced overnight. But can all these measures really work? Besides political will and determination to fight crime and corruption, one needs an efficient apparatus. Perhaps the fear of social breakdown and events spinning out of control could be strong enough motivation for state institutions to take their job seriously this time. But in that case there remains one small question: how can the political establishment direct all these forces against – possibly – itself?
Po | Ut | St | Št | Pi | So | Ne |
1 | 2 | |||||
3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 |
24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
31 | ||||||
« október » | « 2011 » |