In Zagreb's Esplanade Hotel there is a framed letter congratulating the Croatian hotel industry for its contribution to the "homeland war" by providing accommodation to refugees and soldiers. The letter is signed by the President, Dr Franjo Tudjman.
The Esplanade is a wonderful old grand hotel, all marble and bowing flunkies. No refugees stayed at the Esplanade. It was also where journalists spent time away from the real war in Bosnia during the worst days of the conflict in former Yugoslavia. It is said that the print journalists preferred the old world charm of the Esplanade's bars and restaurants, while the television journalists stayed at the modern InterContinental Hotel because it has a fitness centre and swimming pool, all the better to preserve their good looks.
On the walls of the Esplanade are framed photographs of famous guests going back to the 1950s. There is a sort of mad democracy about the photo gallery. The former dictator Milton Obote is there with Ike and Tina Turner; Bo Diddley and George Soros; Mikis Theodorakis; Robert Maxwell and Telly Savalas have equal prominence with Cyrus Vance and David Owen, who were in Zagreb seeking a solution to the war that tore Yugoslavia apart. Others include long forgotten starlets and singers as well as Lord Killanin, Otto Von Hapsburg and, of course, President Tudjman.
There are some hotels in the city still hosting refugees. White UN vehicles and four-wheel drives belonging to the UNHCR are sometimes seen on the streets and at the airport last week Danish SFOR soldiers were lounging around in their camouflage uniforms waiting to be flown home. That is it really, the only signs of a war that left Zagreb remarkably unscathed.
The people of Zagreb are a sophisticated lot. They sit in cafes drinking cappuccinos - a coffee habit that distinguishes them from their former Yugoslav countrymen who prefer small, strong and sweet Turkish coffee. They gossip into mobile phones, seek out good restaurants and dress well. The city itself is one of the most beautiful in central Europe.
The lifestyle is even more remarkable when it is recalled that the Croatian economy has never recovered from the war. Thousands of young men are still conscripted into the army at a great cost to the tax-payer. The police force is huge and there are about seven secret service agencies. The prices in the shops are not very different from Dublin, in some cases higher, but the average income is only about £220 a month.
Zagrebians simply do not shop in Croatia if they can avoid it. It is hard to see who does shop in the elegant clothes shops in the centre of the city. Everyone you talk to seems to go to Italy, Trieste being less than a hour from the Croatian border, or to Graz in Austria, which seems to have the same relationship with Croatia's shoppers as Enniskillen used to have with people from the Republic.
There is a real feeling in Zagreb that Dr Tudjman's time has gone. Parliamentary elections are to be held next year though the President himself does not have to go before the people for another two years. Many are hopeful that Tudjman's ruling Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) will lose and a page can be turned on the extreme nationalism and the cronyism that has been a hallmark of his rule since independence.
The wealth of Croatia is very much in the hands of people linked either to the President's family or to the HDZ. The economy is plummeting and last year a 22 per cent VAT rate was imposed. Little aid has been forthcoming from the international community despite Croatia's suffering $30 million worth of damage in the war. Part of the reason for this, and for Croatia's failure to make progress on EU membership, lies in Tudjman's record on issues like press freedom.
It is, however, precisely the lack of a free press, and the control of the media by those close to Dr Tudjman, which could return his party to power once again. As in so many countries in eastern Europe, a provision exists in the defamation laws that allows journalists to be sued for reporting facts considered insulting to the dignity of the president or Government officials. Truth is not a defence. Journalists have to prove they did not intend to offend. That is being used at the moment against the satirical weekly Feral Tribune, and against the editor of the daily newspaper Jutarnji List, Mr Davor Butkovic. Jutarnji List was launched last April.
The case against Feral Tribune concerns an article attacking Dr Tudjman's plan to move the remains of Nazi soldiers and bury them along side second World War concentration camp victims at the Jasenovac death camp, where they would be laid beside Jews, Serbs, Romanies, killed by the Nazi puppet regime of Ante Pavelic.
Feral Tribune has been the subject of dozens of libel suits and criminal charges laid by government officials and even Dr Tudjman's daughter.
The more recent case against Mr Butkovic actually dates from the time he edited Globus, a weekly magazine owned by the same German media company, Europa Press. The Cabinet members are seeking about £700,000 in damages
About 500 cases against Croatian journalists are pending. That includes 140 criminal libel cases. The total damages being sought are in the region of over $13 million, which is pretty repressive by any standards but by the standards of a small underfunded media sector, catastrophic.
The electronic media are almost entirely controlled by those close to the ruling party. The national radio and television station, HRT, is totally controlled by friends of Dr Tudjman.
Only newspapers such as Jutarnji List will be able to resist economic pressure from the Government, because it is foreign owned. This could lead to a press totally controlled by a few major media organisations in Croatia.