by Damir CUPAC
On February 17, Murko sent a horrible fax from the post office at Rijeka Korzo to Veljko Miskulin: "If you take a photo of a plate, you see a plate. If eyes of your son are on that plate, that is a still life. An eye for an eye. You know you must pay your debts, just like my family has already paid its debts. I'm sending you my word and three death notices, because your actions are inhumane, you have no professional solidarity"... The message was accompanied by a photocopy of five death notices from Novi List. But that was not all. For months before Murko had kept sending messages to the court; he came personally to the courthouse; he followed Miskulin all over the city, photographed him, was even seen close to Miskulin's house. He also sent a photocopy of the phonebook with names of judges of the Municipal court. Knowing all of that one cannot but conclude that Murko is mentally unstable and dangerous.
Why did Murko do all of that? According to news reports Murko bought a house in Skrljevo. He moved in and one day found new locks on the doors. The locks were changed by the former owner of the house. At that moment Murko still has faith in Croatian institutions. He called police and was advised to sort out all property related disputes in court! Murko followed the advice. Allegedly at first the court imposed temporary injunction awarding both sides the right to use the house, after which the court decided in Murko's favor. However, the former owned appealed and the higher court still hasn't made up its mind... Now, given the context, one cannot but wonder if it is fair to dismiss Murko as mentally disturbed, although his actions most definitely deserve the harshest possible condemnation.
However, one cannot but understand what pushed Murko to do what he did. The distinguished judicial office obviously stopped being sacred in his mind once he realized that the case that was of crucial importance for his family was being shuttled from one filing cabinet to another and that it was doubtful whether he would ever see justice done in his case. Slow justice is not justice... The European Human Rights Court concurred in several cases by deciding that justice among Croats is simply too slow. Murko, obviously wrongly, decided that threats were the only means left at his disposal as he had used up all the legal options. Unlike other citizens who simply wait for someone to show mercy and finally consider their suits, Murko did cross the border of what is permitted in legal, organized and democratic societies.
Murko's and many similar cases, as well as investigations conducted against judges, purges in the judiciary in the early nineties, were sufficient for many to wonder whether Croatia is truly a state with the rule of law?
The case of Josip Saric is even more dangerous. According to Saric, he decided to invest all of his savings and buy a 3000 meters square plot. At the time of purchase the plot was zoned for construction. Saric's idea was to divide the land into smaller plots and sell, and use the profit to build a house for his family. In November, very soon after the purchase, the City of Rijeka adopted the new Zoning Plan and Saric's valuable land was converted into parkland. A month ago Saric at first warned about his problem by chaining himself to a fence inside the city hall. Several weeks later he showed up at the meeting of the city council, armed with a machine gun.
Aiming a gun at the city officials is a crime and Saric will be tried even though his act is an act of a desperate individual who had lost everything. However, in Rijeka Saric is almost being treated as a hero who opted for an extreme way to fight for his rights. I disagree - Saric is more likely an antihero... One cannot but agree with Obernosel when he says that the city council will not be blackmailed into making decisions, but that the doors of the city hall will remain open to citizens. However, Saric's pressure has already forced the city council to make some concessions. For example, how come the city council made the decision to pay Saric 15,000 Euros as compensation for the money he paid for the land? In the past, the city council has never compensated losses due to zoning changes. Does that not indicate that there's something fishy about the whole thing and that the city council most likely made a mistake when re-zoning the land as parkland? How come that anonymous Saric was the only victim, while various important citizens of Rijeka, owning much more land went through the re-zoning process unscathed? One of them, bought a 8,000 meters square land plot in a part of the city with barely any infrastructure, but that plot remained zoned for construction... Our antihero became a hero because people simply do not trust institutions. Legitimacy that judicial, city, police, state and other officials had has disappeared in previous scandals. Citizens do not believe anymore that they can obtain justice through legal means - and that is dangerous. Consequently, someone should carefully consider Murko's and Saric's cases, because new, perhaps more jumpy gunmen will pop up tomorrow. Perhaps Murko and Saric are isolated desperados, or perhaps we are facing a new dangerous trend. Obernosel says he does not want to close the doors of the city hall and he should be congratulated on that. Or, perhaps, we should wait with congratulations until we can establish how responsible his collaborators are at their well-paid jobs. Bureaucratic arrogance does not spare anyone, not even Rijeka... The image of a peaceful and civilized city was smashed into thousand pieces - and it's up to us whether it will ever be put together, or whether public buildings will in the future be surrounded by barbed wire and whether we shall need curfew and police checkpoints to protect officials from angry citizens... Saric picked the worst possible way to remind us of a well-known fact - civil service is supposed to serve citizens, not the other way round.
"It is possible that these incidents happened because people do not trust the system anymore. For example, justifiably, they do not trust judiciary or politicians. Aggression is a model, starting with America, all the way to our tycoons. It is possible that Murko and Saric were aggressive personalities, but aggression is a learned behavior. It is well-known what winners are aggressive. Therefore, that is a culture of violence, a cultural model that justifies any means as long as it leads to victory. Saric reacted aggressively, but similarly some politicians will have an aggressive reaction. The only difference is that politician's reaction will most likely be done in the socially acceptable manner. It is difficult to state if this constitutes a beginning of a trend, but we must be concerned by the information indicating high corruption in almost all segments of the society," Hudek-Knezevic concludes.