Ivan Simonovic, the Croatian justice minister who was recently appointed as the United Nation's top human
rights advocate, offered a strenuous defense of his human rights record
while serving in a government that committed massive war crimes during
the Balkan wars.
Simonovic'
s diplomatic career began as the modern Croatian nation was forged
during the traumatic breakup of the former Yugoslavia -- an era defined
by civil war, moral compromise and ethnic cleansing. His association
with the government of the late Franjo Tudjman,
which engaged in massive human rights violations during the war, has
raised concerns among human rights advocates about his commitment to
human rights. More recently, Amnesty International released a report criticizing
the Croatian justice system's handling of war crimes investigations,
saying it is biased against Serbs and noting that few Croatian military
officers are prosecuted for their role in war-time atrocities.
In a lengthy interview with Turtle Bay,
Simonovic said he has been a leading advocate for human rights within
the Croatian government, establishing the foreign ministry legal
division's first human rights department and promoting accountability
for war crimes. Simonovic
acknowledged Croatian responsibility for war crimes during the Balkan
conflicts, but said he has sought to pursue justice for perpetrators
and that that he never "made any moral compromises" while serving in
the Croatian government.
"I didn't choose to be Croatian; I was born in Croatia. I didn't choose that my country faced horrible things,"
Simonovic said. "I was trying to do good to the best extent that I
could and that I knew how. There were areas where I could, with
different governments of Croatia, find niches for my activities without
leaving aside any of my values."
Simonovic's emergence as a leading candidate for the U.N. post became public just weeks after Amnesty International released its report alleging Croatian bias in war crimes investigations. Simonovic acknowledged that Croatia has engaged in selective prosecution of Serbs: "There is very little doubt about that," he said. But he argued that the bias had faded since he took over the Justice Ministry in 2008.
Simonovic
began his own professional career as a legal scholar, entering
government in the early 1990s as the collapse of the Soviet Union
helped trigger political upheaval in Yugoslavia. He said that while he
was eager to leave the "academic ivory tower" to play an active role in
the country's struggle for independence, he was frequently torn by the
moral costs of serving the war-time government. "I had my moral
grounds; for some time they enabled me to participate in government,
sometimes not."
Simonovic
said that he left the government in 1993 over unspecified political
differences with the leadership and lectured at Yale University. He
returned after the 1994 Washington Agreement set the stage for a peace
process. Simonovic served as legal advisor in the Croatian government's
delegation to the Dayton peace talks, which ended the war. Tudjman appointed him as his envoy to the U.N. from 1997 to 2003.
Simonovic criticized the U.S.-brokered
peace deal, which was negotiated by Richard Holbrooke. He said the pact
failed to invest enough power in the international high representative,
who was given responsible in the accord for guiding Bosnia through its
post-conflict transition. "I do think we all who were in Dayton share a
certain portion of the guilt for the mistake of Dayton," he said.
"There was not sufficient authority invested in the high representative
at the outset. He or she should have had more extensive authority to
hammer down basic democratic institutions and start the economic
recovery." If that had occurred, he added, "I think Bosnia would now be
in much better shape than it is."
In his new job, Simonovic will serve as the chief liaison between the Geneva-based U.N.
High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, and U.N. headquarters.
The U.N. General Assembly created the post last October in an effort to
ensure that human rights be given greater prominence in internal
discussions on the major political issues before the United Nations.
"That's how I see my role," Simonovic said. "If we do not understand
what are the realities of the political process in New York we cannot
influence them from Geneva effectively enough." Simonovic said he would
begin his new job in late July or early August.
Human rights groups and some Western governments have privately criticized the United Nations'
procedures for hiring Simonovic, citing concern that prominent
candidates with strong human rights backgrounds were not even
interviewed for the job. After Ban settled on a short list of foreign
candidates last month, representatives of the United States and other
European governments raised concern with Ban's staff about the hiring
process, which was conducted in secrecy, and urging the United Nations to open the field to a broader list of candidates.
Simonovic said the selection process was as mysterious a process to him as to anyone else. "The first news that I got came from Foreign Policy," he said. "My government learned about it when it was published in Foreign Policy."
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