Global Policy Forum

By Snjezana Vukic

Wartime army chief Janko Bobetko, hailed at home as a hero of Croatia's 1991 struggle for independence but charged with war crimes by a U.N. court, died Tuesday, his doctor said. He was 84. Bobetko's physician, Mijo Bergovec, told the state-run news agency HINA that Bobetko died at his home after his heart and respiratory organs failed.

Bobetko, the most senior Croatian officer sought by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, was never tried because of his ill health. The court, which revealed his indictment in September, acknowledged in February he was too ill to stand trial. Bobetko spent his last days at his Zagreb home after demanding April 23 to be released from a hospital, where he had been treated since November.

The tribunal indictment charged Bobetko with responsibility in the killings of at least 100 Serb civilians and soldiers during Croatia's 1993 offensive to retake a central Croatian area seized by the Serb rebels in the 1991 war.

Bobetko vehemently refused to surrender, and nationalists and war veterans threatened to fight against his extradition. In his memoirs titled "All My Battles," Bobetko said the 1993 action — aimed to end the rebels' siege and bombardment of the central Croatian city of Gospic — was "brilliant." "In only four hours, Serb units were crushed," he wrote.

But even though the book was published in 1996, long after U.N. peacekeepers accused Croatian troops of alleged atrocities against civilians and a "scorched earth policy," Bobetko barely mentioned local Serbs.

"Some (Serbs) fled, some surrendered. Elderly, women and children were released," he wrote. The casualties, he claimed, were only "minimal." Bobetko's leading role in Croatia's independence struggle won him supporters, even admirers throughout the newly independent country.

Prime Minister Ivica Racan expressed condolences to Bobetko's family, only saying he would be "remembered as a man with a rich political and military career." But Ivo Sanader, the leader of the opposition Croatian Democratic Union, which Bobetko belonged to, praised him as "a hero ... a symbol of Croatia's fight for freedom and independence."

Bobetko was born Jan. 10, 1919, in a village near Sisak, central Croatia. At the start of World War II, Bobetko joined anti-fascist forces and participated in the formation of one of their first units in Croatia. After the war, when communist-run Yugoslavia was established, Bobetko remained in the federal army, or JNA, and was promoted to general in 1954.

After Croatia's 1991 declaration of independence from the former Yugoslavia — which triggered the six-month war with Serb rebels, Bobetko joined the Croatian army. In November 1992, he was appointed army chief of staff by the late President Franjo Tudjman.

Even before his own indictment, Bobetko joined veterans' anti-government protests, claiming that prosecution of Croatian war crimes amounted to treason. Bobetko is survived by his wife and three sons. Funeral arrangements were not immediately announced.

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