ZAGREB, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Croatia still lacks political will, adequate laws and efficient court procedures to deal properly with war crimes committed in the 1990s, Amnesty International (AI) said on Thursday.
The issue of war crimes, particularly those by Croatia&${esc.hash}39;s own troops against ethnic Serbs, has largely fallen from the international community&${esc.hash}39;s radar since Zagreb started European Union membership talks in 2005, but remains an integral part of accession requirements.
In a progress report in November, the European Commission included war crimes in the benchmarks Zagreb must meet to close the negotiating &${esc.hash}39;chapter&${esc.hash}39; or policy area on the judiciary, saying it wanted to see further progress and stressing the need "to end impunity when it comes to crimes committed in the 1990s".
An Amnesty report on Croatia, released on Thursday, said Croatian authorities should "speed up the prosecution of war crimes and make it their top priority".
Croatia seceded from communist Yugoslavia in 1991 but its ethnic Serbs opposed its independence and proclaimed their own Serb republic.
In the ensuing war, which lasted until 1995, both sides committed atrocities against civilians but many ordinary Croats still believe they were only defending their homes against "Serb aggressors" and could not have commmitted war crimes.
Marek Marczynski, AI&${esc.hash}39;s expert on Croatia, said there were 700 war crimes cases registered with the state prosecutor&${esc.hash}39;s office, yet only 18 are processed every year, "which means it will take another 40 years to process all of them".
The country&${esc.hash}39;s planned war crimes chambers have not become fully operational. In most cases, the local courts are much more diligent in processing Serbs, while many cases involving Croat perpetrators never reach trial. "Many hundreds of cases remain to be investigated and prosecuted," the report said.
Croatia&${esc.hash}39;s legal framework fails to define properly crimes against humanity, command responsibility and sexual violence in war, said Nicola Duckworth, AI&${esc.hash}39;s Europe and central Asia programme director.
"The obligation to deal with war crimes will continue even after Croatia completes its EU entry talks. Therefore we would like to see principles, policies, and practice in place," Duckworth told reporters. (Reporting by Zoran Radosavljevic, Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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