Today the local newspaper, Slobodna Dalmacija (Free Dalmatia), published a story about our plight to get our boat, the Labud, out of Arista Nautica‘s shed.

It was a good article, describing how we want to use the boat to promote ‘real’ Dalmatian tourism.

Unfortunately it doesn’t mention the work I did for Arista Nautica and David Hicks – but that aside it is was very positive.

The fight between the Arista directors Don Marshall and Ivica Viljac is made evident with Don saying the boat will be released shortly, and Ivica contradicting that by saying it will not.

(It should be noted that Arista has decided to hire a Public Relations consultant, Lori Vitaljić from Predikat d.o.o., to help with their image.)

David Hicks, of Arista Nautica and Arista Yachts, was questioned today by Croatian police in Split, regarding threats he made to us (Julie Morgan and Shane Braddock) on May 8th to harm us himself or use Ivica Viljac as a weapon.

David said on the day, “I want to scare you to protect my friends, Tim Jarman and Giles Weston (unregistered foreigners in Croatia at the time) from your promises to report Tim and Giles to immigration authorities for conducting business affairs against you.”

On Friday Julie was attacked by Ivica Viljac!

Addendum – 28 June 2009 – Surprise – we went to use our car on Sunday only to discover it had been vandalized – we wonder who did it?

Whilst away on a trip this week I received a text message on Friday from David Hicks, an owner of Arista Nautica, who has been holding our leut, Labud, for several weeks, advising me I had some mail at my office.

After weeks of trying to approach Arista and deal with this issue respectively, David’s response was to push a letter under the door of our office at 10pm addressed to ‘Mr Badcock‘, a witty play on my name ‘Braddock‘.

In the letter, he and Don Marshall stated that I had 24 hours to remove my boat from their premises. Why the sudden change in heart – maybe their lawyer in Zagreb had advised them that they had already committed a crime by holding our boat hostage in their shed!

Even with such short notice Julie did an amazing job of getting all the required machinery to the yard to begin putting the boat in the water, as well as organizing help for our 2- and 5-year olds.

The Labud was moving smoothly towards freedom when suddenly Ivica Viljac arrived.

As part of Arista‘s initial deal to use the space where they are presently they were obliged to make Ivica an equal director in their firm. (We are going to the police tomorrow to report David Hicks for making threats against us involving Ivica – but that story is for later).

Ivica’s reaction to Julie removing the Labud can be seen in the picture at the top of the post. He was not happy. He ran at Julie screaming! The police were called; he was arrested and found guilty of disturbing the peace and faces a future criminal assault charge.

What seems to have upset Ivica the most, however, was that Don Marshall had not told him what was going to happen on Friday. According to Julie, Tea Odza and Zana Dujmovic (the girls who work in Arista‘s office), said there have been previous arguments in this regard – Don doing things in which Ivica believed he should have a say.

Since I was away (which David Hicks knew – I have a text message to prove it), and since Don and David’s letter pressured us to remove the boat by 3pm Friday, Julie, by herself, worriedly rushed to the yard, though with the belief she had the right to be there. She was completely unaware of the physical danger she was in.

It must be said – even the day after both of them (Don and David) sent text messages saying that everything that occurred was of our OWN doing!

Below is Julie at the police station waiting to act as a witness against Ivica.

But Don and David were not really interested in Julie. Their target appears to be Ivica himself. The next day a story in the local newspaper, Slobodna Dalmacija, explained why.

David and Don have started a new company, Arista Yachts, which is competing with two other companies, Viktor Lenac (RLE) and Adriamar, for the 30-year concession for a large amount of waterside space – they all want to set up a super-yacht yard.

The directors of the new company are Don, David and Geoff Mayhill. Geoff is involved in at least one British company, Ekwienox, with Arthur Hughes, who is owner of Hidden Croatia and Sail Croatia. Luka Grubor, the mouth piece for Arista Yachts in the article below is also a director of Sail Croatia.

But Ivica being on an assault charge should keep him out of the new venture from Arista’s POV – which would obviously upset Don – though he may go back to RLE whence he came.

The foreigners have learned well from the locals how business is done here!

(And where were Don and David during this fiasco – they had fled Croatia, we discovered later, because of serious physical threats made to them by their Croatian business partner in Arista Nautica (and Viljac’s boss) Mirko Rapić – and yet they happily sent Julie into the lion’s den. David’s boat Mystique was hiding on Hvar Island where I happened to bump into them. Someone was taking full advantage of the warm weather to work on his all over tan!)

For those that can’t see the video of Ivica attacking Julie below – click here!

]]> http://blog.ourcroatianlife.com/ivica-viljac-thrown-to-the-wolves/feed/ 16 http://blog.ourcroatianlife.com/bad-news-comes-in-threes/ http://blog.ourcroatianlife.com/bad-news-comes-in-threes/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 14:40:53 +0000 Braddock Family http://blog.lifejacketadventures.com/?p=1291 The last two weeks have been a little disappointing – and between trying to fix the problems and run tours we haven’t had time to post regularly on the blog. Its written somewhere that bad news comes in threes – so hopefully we have good times ahead.

#1 – Time Out Croatia

We provided numerous pictures to Time Out Croatia for their current magazine issue, in exchange for our contact details being published, and they chose one. But imagine our shock when we opened the new issue to see that they had put our picture (seen above), uncredited as well, right next to a paragraph of text extolling our competitors, Adriatic Kayak Tours.

The saga continues…

#2 – Arista Nautica

The leut, Labud, is finished and ready to be launched. But she still sits in the shed at the Arista Nautica yards in Vranjic.

Why? Because two personal friends of David Hicks (one of the yard’s owners), Tim Jarman and Giles Weston, were doing the wrong thing by us business-wise – so we told them to pull their heads in or we would go to the police. The cowards got worried – as they are unregistered to live in Croatia – and ran to David. He demanded we pay $US20,000 before we can remove our boat from the shed. This was done in the hope we would be scared and leave his friends alone.

We told him to keep the boat and that we will see him and Don Marshall (the other owner) in the criminal and civil courts. There are no contracts between us and I have done in the last 12 months three design projects for David and Don and not asked for a cent.

The saga continues…

#3 – Motovun Elections

Local elections were held across Croatia on May 17. We made the pilgrimage in Motovun to vote. Our friend, Ranko Bon (seen below kissing the obligatory baby (Roklan)), was standing as a candidate for the Green Party in coalition with the Social Democrats. His candidacy was part of a continuing campaign to sustainably improve Motovun (and stop the proposed Jupiter Adria golf development).

The results were not as we had hoped. Firstly, the current mayor and IDS candidate, Slobodan Vugrinec, was returned. Secondly, Ranko didn’t earn a position on the town council.

Across Croatia there was a movement away from the center-right parties (HDZ and IDS) but the center-left party (SDP) didn’t pick up the vote – secondary parties and independents did. So in Motovun it wasn’t all bad news – IDS lost 3 seats (from 9 down to 6), SDP/Greens also lost a seat (from 4 to 3 (Ranko was 4th on their list)) and a new independent party got 4 seats. These Motovun independents, before the election, had voiced their concerns about the golf development – so we have to wait and see.

Mayor Vugrinec has already thrown a tantrum, stating he no longer wants the position if he doesn’t have an absolute majority in the town council!

The saga continues…

( In Split, after earning over 45% of the initial vote, Kerum will be in a run-off this weekend – which he is likely to win – and become our next mayor.)

Businessman Zeljko Kerum (on his campaign poster above), the local answer to Donald Trump, has jumped into the May 17th Split mayoral race as an independent, and is stirring things up.

An open letter was published, this week, by several of Split’s ‘intelligentsia’ urging people to vote for anyone but him.

But given Split’s recent luck with local politicians (look at the monstrous 10 million Euro waterfront renovation we got two years ago – guests often ask in which year did Tito build it!), who knows, maybe, he wouldn’t do a worse job!

He is definitely courting the populist vote – driving expensive cars (Ferraris, a Hummer and a Maybach) in a relatively poor city; guaranteeing jobs for the 400 old workers at his Hotel Marjan renovation (it was a heavily-indebted, government-owned hotel until recently); even his poster (above) is in the local Dalmatian dialect – rather than the national Croatian language (Vrime je! instead of Vrijeme je! – meaning Its Time!).

Kerum’s problem is that he has huge conflicts of interest. He has many projects on the go with several requiring local council approval. And there have been persistent rumors about Kerum doing dodgy business (selling UN aid, supplied by his father, through his first mini-mart during the war; not always paying his staff and creditors regularly).

But it really is a case of his ego requiring him to enter and win. His more obnoxious critics have called him a hill-billy – from the family village of Kerumi over the mountains – and it does appear as though he is desperately seeking someone’s approval.

But here in Eastern Europe, elections usually come down to choosing the most altruistic egotist.

Yesterday’s poll had Kerum in second place with about 30% of the vote – behind the SDP (centre-left) candidate.

But the big question is – with all their money – why can’t ‘The Donald’ or Zeljko get better hair cuts?

The fines, if caught smoking in the wrong place, will be 1000kn (about US$200) for the smoker and 30,000kn (about US$6,000) for the owner of the premises. Given the Croatian government’s shaking financial situation, don’t be surprised to see the inspectors out in force, raising revenue. If you are coming to Croatia for the summer just keep it in mind.

(Tobacco served a more sinister role in the former Yugoslav states during the 90s – the smuggling of cigarettes into Western Europe funded many of the murderous paramilitaries.)

Addendum: The Croatian parliament doesn’t believe in linear progress towards some perfect set of laws. Why write a law when you can re-write 2 or 3 times – it keeps us all on our toes. Sunday Trading and Drunk Driving Laws have changed several times. The same goes for the Smoking Laws.

Next month, Croatia’s anti-smoking laws will take effect and lighting up in most bars will be restricted.

The anti-smoking law first went into effect in May 2009 (as described above). But the smoking ban in bars lasted for only 156 days. Using the financial crisis as an excuse (due to a significant loss in tax revenue), as well as smoking lobby pressure, the government decided to re-allow smoking in bars until April 9 this year.

So the smoking ban in bars re-starts on April 9.

But its not so simple. According to the new laws, all bars with more than 50sqm will have to have separate smoking and non-smoking areas as well as better ventilation systems. Bars owners with less than 50sqm can make up their own minds but will need special ventilation systems if they allow smoking plus Ministry of Health permission.

With very little fanfare, this week Croatia (together with Albania) joined NATO, bringing the total of countries in the alliance to 28. (We previously mentioned the talks last year regarding this issue – here.)

At NATO Headquarters in Brussels, on Tuesday,the two countries’ flags were raised in the presence of their respective Prime Ministers – Sali Berisha of Albania and Ivo Sanader of Croatia. Albania and Croatia had officially become members on 1 April and participated in their first summit on 3 and 4 April.

On the telephone today I asked Ranko Bon to provide a short update in regards to Jupiter Adria’s golf course resort proposal in the valley below Motovun. He did more than that – and wrote a full account of recent events there, including local press reaction, on his Residua Blog.

Last June we mentioned (here) a March decision by a commission setup jointly by the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Culture to vet Jupiter Adria’s proposal. The commission requested that the number of beds in the accommodation around the course be halved (from 600 to 300).

Jupiter Adria refused to swallow this decision – and so the ‘behind-the-scenes’ pressure began.

Firstly, the Ministry of Culture was seemingly side-lined. Golf courses today don’t have the environmental impact they once did – new grass species have reduced the water and chemicals required for their maintenance – and the same can be said for the resort development surrounding. But convincing the Ministry of Culture that a development of the size planned was not going to affect Motovun in more subjective ways, such as hurting the truffle gathering or have a dramatic visual impact, was going to be too difficult for the pro-Jupiter Adria camp.

Secondly, the Mayor of Motovun, Slobodan Vugrinec, in October turned the simple administrative process of the public discussion of the environmental impact study into a pro-resort political rally packed with supporters to try to impress the local media.

Thirdly, the makeup of the commission was changed. As mentioned in Ranko’s piece, the president of the commission, Dr Velimir Simicic, was fired, and replaced, by the Minister for the Environment Marina Matulovic-Dropulic, with a petty bureaucrat. Dr Simicic, far from being a rabid, tree-hugging, anti-development ‘greenie’, is well known for his pro-golf stance (writing a 1995 golf and tourism piece) but was against this particular development.

Lastly, strangely, other commission members began to change their minds.

So on January 29 it was announced that the commission passed the proposal, although 3 out of 9 members were still opposed to it.

One of the 3 members in opposition was Zlatan Juras. He is also not a ‘pinko’, sandal-wearing lentil-eater. He is Croatia’s first international golf referee, a past member of the national team (Captain at previous European and World Championships), the founder and first president of the Committee for the Rules and Amateur Status of the Croatian Golf Federation, and the chief editor of the Croatian golf magazines Golf World, Golf Magazine and Crogolf.com. If anyone in the whole world would support a golf course in Croatia it would him – but no! – he opposes Jupiter Adria’s unsustainable proposal!

On March 26 the Minister for the Environment announced that it was ratifying the commissions decision. Jupiter Adria is now one step closer to starting the bull-dozers.

Recently other cases have shown that the Motovun result is not unique in Croatia but rather a symptom of weak governance where officials can either be easily convinced of the benefits of such-and-such proposal, easily be bullied by EU officials or simply bought off with foreign money. Rockwool, an EU insulation company, recently commissioned a polluting factory in Istria that received generous tax and environmental breaks; local environmental inspectors were warned by Zagreb to stay away from a Polish-owned metal recycling plant in Split, which has been spewing noxious gases daily. An asbestos factory (Salonit) in Split and two cement works in Istria, which burnt toxic Italian waste as fuel, have only just closed.

As Croatia rushes to join the EU it is also fast becoming its Mexico!

A secondary reason for us coming up to Motovun this weekend was to help our friend Ranko Bon form a local branch of Green Party – Green Alternative (Zelena stranka – Zelena alternativa) here to fight against the incumbent mayor, Slobodan Vugrinec, in the up-coming local elections.

For years the town council has not felt the need to run its affairs transparently – the primary example being the way Adria Jupiter’s golf course development was corruptly pushed through.

Is Ranko to be our Obama, and give us all renewed hope?

Last week the Sabor (Croatian Parliament) passed legislation dealing with golf course developments.

Currently it is very difficult to organize a large parcel of land in Croatia for a golf resort as the country is divided into numerous small plots, many of which are owned by numerous owners, who may also be dead or living overseas. The newly passed law is a heavy-handed attempt to break this impasse.

The new law allows the government to use ‘eminent domain’ to confiscate land from its owners if a golf course resort is proposed nearby and the land is required for the development, even if the owners don’t wish to sell. There is no right of appeal.

The HDZ-controlled government, with Premier Ivo Sanader, is desperate to stimulate the Croatian economy and is hoping for a golf-led recovery; it is under pressure to create jobs, as the EU is forcing them to privatize the bankrupt state-owned ship-building industry, and they are struggling for ideas. The problem with Croatia as a golf tourism destination is that its climate isn’t conducive to a long golfing season, and it doesn’t have a golf-playing local population; its foolish to base a future economic plan on building these resorts.

The situation smacks of overt corruption – several golf developers have given sizable donations to HDZ and a local Istrian law firm, who has a number of large golf developers as clients, had a hand in drafting the legislation.

It seems that there is now no way to prevent Jupiter Adria from building its resort below Motovun. The advice from a government-convened committee has been ignored by the Environment and Culture Ministries and all other methods of blocking it have been circumvented, so its construction will go ahead.

This new law is another example of people’s basic rights being eroded in Croatia. Recently free speech has being attacked with the arrest of a Facebook user critical of the government, and several civil cases being brought against anti-corruption bloggers, including Ranko Bon (here and here), our friend in Motovun. Ranko is being sued by Motovun’s Mayor, Slobodan Vugrinec, for his scribblings, and the law firm representing the Mayor is same that advised the Government on the newly passed golf legislation!

Other political problems for Premier Sanader include assassinations in Zagreb of anti-organized crime reporters and a well-connected lawyer, and Slovenia blocking Croatia’s ascension to the EU.