VZCZCXRO0696
PP RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDA RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHLN
RUEHLZ RUEHPOD RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHVB #0316/01 1081211
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 171211Z APR 08
FM AMEMBASSY ZAGREB
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8825
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ZAGREB 000316 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EUR, EUR/SCE, EUR/RPM; USNATO FOR JONES, 
UNDERWOOD, BAEZ; NSC FOR BRAUN; OSD FOR POPOVIC 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV KPAO KDEM MARR PHUM NATO HR
SUBJECT: NATO REFERENDUM CAMPAIGN DIES OF NATURAL CAUSES 
 
REF: ZAGREB 0086 AND PREVIOUS 
 
¶1. SUMMARY: The "Committee for a Referendum on Entry into 
NATO," an NGO consortium, ended its petition campaign April 
12 with less than one-third of the required 450,000 
signatures needed to force a referendum.  In an April 11 
meeting with Pol Counselor, committee spokesperson Aleksandar 
Hatzivelkos called the campaign a productive exercise in 
democracy despite the failure to reach the signature 
threshold of 10 percent of registered voters within 15 days. 
He assured Post the referendum campaign was not anti-US or 
anti-NATO, though several NGOs actively opposing NATO 
membership played significant roles in the petition campaign. 
 Hatzivelkos added that the Committee's decision to time the 
petition drive to straddle the Bucharest Summit and President 
Bush's visit had been a miscalculation, as it led to the 
effort to force a referendum being linked in the public's 
mind with anti-Americanism and anti-NATO sentiment, 
discouraging many voters from signing. 
 
¶2. SUMMARY (cont.) AND COMMENT: Committee members would 
present the approximately 125,000 signatures to Parliament 
and then shift their efforts away from NATO per se, and 
toward a focus on reforming Croatia's referendum law, which 
sets criteria they say are virtually impossible to meet.  The 
Committee is also asking the Croatian Parliament to schedule 
a referendum despite their failure to collect the necessary 
signatures.  Post is confident, however, that the failure of 
this effort signals final closure of the NATO referendum 
issue in Croatia, particularly with public support for 
joining NATO now over 60 percent.  END SUMMARY AND COMMENT. 
 
DIVISIONS WITHIN CAMPAIGN COST SIGNATURES 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶3. At an April 15 press conference, Hatzivelkos announced 
after 15 days collecting signatures in 84 cities, the 
petition drive had collected only 124,457 valid signatures, 
while some 450,000 would have been needed to compel a 
referendum.  Nearly half of the signatures came from Zagreb, 
where the campaign was much more organized than elsewhere in 
the country.  Hatzivelkos argued that the number of 
signatures nonetheless represented strong public interest in 
a referendum and said the Committee was still urging the 
parliament to schedule a public vote on NATO.  Post is 
certain the Croatian will not take up this suggestion. 
 
¶4. At the April 11 meeting with POLCOUNS, Hatzivelkos, 
accompanied by Committee member Mirela Travar, had described 
the tension within the referendum committee, as openly 
anti-NATO NGOs tried to use the petition drive to discredit 
NATO, while committee leaders were desperately trying to keep 
the campaign focused on the call to make the decision via a 
referendum, rather than on whether joining NATO was a good or 
bad thing in itself.  Citizens must be educated and then make 
an informed decision, Hatzivelkos argued, describing his 
organization as pro-democracy rather than pro- or anti-NATO. 
These internal divisions became critical during the April 4-5 
visit of President Bush.  While the committee chose the 
two-week period around the NATO Summit and Bush visit hoping 
it would turn public attention to the membership issue, small 
but highly visible anti-Bush protests organized by the 
committee's anti-NATO faction served to radicalize the 
referendum issue, according to Hatzivelkos, and kept many 
Croatians who favor NATO but would like to see a referendum 
from signing the petition. He also noted a lack of support 
from political parties; the Youth Forum of the opposition 
Social Democratic Party, or SDP, was the only active 
supporter of the campaign.  (NOTE: SDP President Zoran 
Milanovic was the most prominent signatory of the petition, 
but made clear when he signed that both he and his party were 
strongly pro-NATO.) 
 
¶5. Hatzivelkos also complained about three major flaws he 
sees in the provisions and implementation of the referendum 
law: 
- the 15-day window for signature collection is unreasonably 
short, 
- the requirement for signatures from 10 percent of 
registered voters is particularly difficult to meet when 
Croatia's voters lists are widely acknowledged to be inflated 
by deceased or duplicate voters, and 
- the GoC told the committee it must record each signatory's 
government identification number (a social security number 
equivalent), while this number no longer appears on 
identification documents and laws are contradictory on how 
the number may be used. 
At the April 15 press conference, the Committee proposed 
 
ZAGREB 00000316  002 OF 002 
 
 
Croatia's law on referendums be amended to lower the 
threshold to 2.5% of registered voters, provide a 30-day 
window for the petition drive, and delete the requirement for 
personal ID numbers to be included. 
 
POLLS: SUPPORT FOR MEMBERSHIP CONTINUES TO GROW 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶6. While the referendum drive fell flat, public opinion polls 
indicate continued growth in support for membership.  The 
most recent poll, which overlapped with President Bush's 
Zagreb visit, showed that 70 percent of Croatians see the 
NATO invitation as a positive thing and 62 percent believe 
Croatian should accept NATO membership.  Post expects this 
latter figure in particular could rise a bit further in the 
coming weeks. 
Bradtke