I just walked out of the headquarters of the top Croatian institution dealing with organized crime. Having written to them less than a week ago on advice of one of the Commissioners of the European Union, this morning I got a phone call from one of their officers. Thus I was invited for an interview on the first day of my visit to Zagreb. I talked about golf development in Motovun for more than an hour, and the officer took everything down: names, places, dates. We will keep in touch concerning further development of the case. And I must report that I feel great about all this. At long last, the ball is rolling. With a little bit of luck, we will put another dent into organized crime in this country. But the strangest thing that happened to me immediately after the interview was that I remembered my maternal grandfather. He came to me out of the blue. To my pride, he was the last chief of police in Pazin under Austro-Hungarian rule. And he lost his job as soon as Italy grabbed Istria in the wake of World War I.

Addendum (March 16, 2017)

Known as USKOK, the institution in question appeared to be on the ball when it targeted the former prime minister, Ivo Sanader, a year after my visit. He fled the country, but was arrested and ended up in jail in Austria. He was returned to Croatia soon enough, and he went through many a trial. But none of his confederates in the government ever saw the court. More important in my case, he was never charged for the golf scam in Istria and Dalmatia, about which I informed USKOK on several visits and exchanges via electronic mail. All my attempts to alert key politicians in the country of this omission ended up nowhere. The newspapers also remained oblivious to my many missives on this topic.

After Croatia’s accession to the European Union, USKOK started fading, as I expected it would before the event. Its main purpose was to show that the country was fighting organized crime with due resolve, and Sanader’s demise was trumpeted far and wide as evidence of Croatia’s change for the better. This achieved, USKOK lost its raison d’être. It still pops up here and there, but it offers little to justify its existence any longer. Many a criminal in the government is still free, and there is no hope that this will ever change.

In retrospect, I cannot but feel sorry for my maternal grandfather. Just like me, he must have been a fool. As a chief police officer in Pazin, he must have believed that law and order were within reach. He could not even imagine that his fellow humans were born cheats, thieves, and murderers. It is in their flesh and bones. At best, people like him can offer a semblance of law and order, which has little if anything to do with the real thing. And this is how the human race will continue indefinitely. If there is any hope for it, it is in evolution. Although it takes millions of years, it is relentless. The only question that remains is whether law and order offer any evolutionary advantage to humans. Let the biologists figure it out, though.