Croatia's Number One Brand

The Board for the Truth about the Homeland War, formed after General Ante Gotovina's arrest in December, was publicly launched yesterday with a speech from the president of Matica Hrvatska, Ivan Zidić. Zidić described Gotovina as 'the number one brand in the country', but pledged support to other indicted generals such as Mladen Markač and Ivan Čermak.

The Board aims to finance the defence teams of Gotovina and other accused Croats, to promote 'safeguarding and spreading the truth about the Homeland War', to support 'scientific research' about the war and to contribute to the education of veterans' children. The idea was conceived by the mayor of Gotovina's native Pakošstana, Gotovina's wife Dunja, and a military officer, Željko Hučić, only days after Gotovina's arrest in Tenerife.

Yesterday's launch was directed at corporate sponsors; according to Novi list, the Board is also seeking money from the Croat diaspora, eg. from a similar organisation in Australia led by the Croat-Australian businessman Marko Franović.

Viktor Ivančić, writing in Feral tribune, deconstructs the Board's title as an attempt to present the Hague trials as directed against 'the whole magnificent conglomerate - ie. the Croatian defensive war - and not against individuals with concrete names and surnames', and suggests following the financial trail.

From the point of view of 'showbusiness ethnopolitics', it might be worth noting that one member of the executive committee is musician Miroslav Škoro, also the president of Croatia Records. Škoro expressed his pride to Jutarnji list on Tuesday:

'I'm privileged to be a member of the Executive Committee of the Board, which will be responsible for promoting the truth about the Homeland War and all other truths which are misinterpreted in public, and sometimes come from individual journalsts as well. We are a people who are inclined to forget things. [...] This is a non-governmental, non-political organisation, of the sort that there are hundreds of thousands of in the USA.'

Škoro's last hit, 2005's Svetinja, was dedicated to the Croatian values of 'vjera, ljubav i domovina' - faith, love, and the homeland - and asked where is the truth', or rather:

'Svaka laž je trn u oku mojih predaka
A gdje je istina?'

Happily, he's a little clearer on that now.