From the circles close to the HDZ, Nacional has learned that Zdenko Mance refused to publish an article by Jelena Lovric, a leading commentator of Novi List, which discusses the Pasalic's very active role in the final solution of the so-called Serb problem in Croatia. The article was based on a series of transcripts from the President's office and from the meetings of the VONS. According to information obtained by Nacional, the prosecutor of the International Criminal tribunal in the Hague has also obtained those transcripts. The Hague prosecutors will most likely use those transcripts as evidence that war crimes committed by the Croatian Army in the liberation operations "Flash" and "storm" were the product of secret plans of the HDZ leadership to "cleanse" Croatia of the Serb minority.
Conversations recorded in the transcripts date back to 1995. Besides Pasalic their participants, in different combinations, were Nikica Valentic, the then Prime Minister, Gojko Susak, the then minister of defense, Mate Granic, the then minister of foreign affairs, Ivica Kostovic, the then science minister, Ivan Milas, the holder of the state seal, and Smiljko Sokol, the current president of the constitutional court. Since Tudman, among other, asked his collaborators to deliver all possible ideas for the elimination of the Serb menace, Pasalic's ideas turned out to be the most concise and original. He warned that the biggest problem with the Serbs is that they are concentrated in certain parts of Croatia and that they should be dispersed all over the country.
Mance's excuse for his refusal to publish the article was that Novi List did not want to get involved in the fraction war between Ivic Pasalic and the other candidate, Ivo Sanader, as thereby it would violate the principle of media objectivity and impartiality. However, as is known, the article hasn't been published until today, although the conflict was resolved with Sanader's victory.
Protesting against censorship in Novi List Jelena Lovric left to a ten-day vacation in order to, allegedly, reconsider her further engagement with Novi List.
As well-informed sources claim, the scandal with the unpublished article really has very little to do with Mance's "non-alignment" policy with respect to the warring parties in the HDZ. Mance has met with Pasalic several times so far, which resulted in several voluminous and prominently advertised interviews published in Novi List. While the article by Jelena Lovric was deemed questionable, Novi List published on the eve of the HDZ congress an interview with Zarko Puhovski, president of the Croatian Helsinki Committee, in which Puhovski expresses his support for Pasalic. "I think that the election of Mr Pasalic would be an indication that the consolidation of the party has started, that the HDZ is indeed recovering as a political alternative on the right," Puhovski stated. And this supportive statement regarding Pasalic was used as the headline for the article.