We wonder how you arrived at this totally false assumption

Hilda M. Foley
So. California Chapter American Croatian Association
13272 Orange Knoll
North Tustin, CA, 92705

Mr. Pierre-Richard Prosper
U.S. State Department
Washington, D.C. 20520 Oct. 4, 2005

Dear Mr. Prosper:

It has come to our attention that a few months ago Congressman Thaddeus McCotter submitted an Amendment to the Appropriation Bill in which he condemned the indictment of six Croatian journalists by the ICTY.

These indictments are indeed unjust because these journalists are accused of publishing the name of a "protected witness" - in this case now Croatian president Mesic, while his name was already revealed several years prior on the ICTY's own web site and was only subsequently picked up by the Croatian journalists. It was also previously disclosed by the Serb Veritas organization, which works closely with ICTY's Prosecutor Del Ponte, even though its leader Strbac was a high official of an illegally occupied Croatian region from 1991-1995, called the "Republic of Serb Krajina", where Serbs committed untold atrocities and ethnically cleansed the entire Croatian population, looting and burning their homes. The ICTY called it a "criminal enterprise", yet uses their lies and false accusations in order to "equalize" the guilt by bringing indictments also against Croatian generals. Furthermore, Del Ponte never indicted Strbac for the disclosure of the "protected witness". Why??

In view of all this, we are dismayed that the State Department pressured Congressman McCotter to
remove his Amendment, by telling him that the indicted journalists are "not really journalists".We
wonder how you arrived at this totally false assumption. We want to inform you that they are indeed professional journalists, not only by Croatian but by standards of any Western country. Two are
editors-in-chiefs of their newspapers and Mr. Margetic is the founder and president of the legitimate
Society of Journalists of the Republic of Croatia (UNHR). There are several journalists' societies
and one of them, from whom you might have received the false information, is a leftist leaning
competitor. That should explain their position, painting anyone who is not a "former" communist as
being ultranationalist. They are willing to ruin anyone who dares to have a different opinion from
their own.

Sincerely,

Hilda M. Foley

cc. Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State