Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, goes into a sort of hibernation during the long summer months, its denizens heading to the coast for their typically long European-style vacations. As they return to their jobs and their classes in the autumn, the city is transformed. Once deserted streets again hum with traffic, both automobile and pedestrian. A new freshness in the air coaxes vendors selling roasted chestnuts back onto corners, where they will remain until spring. Cafés and restaurants overflow noisily onto the sidewalks as locals and straggler tourists enjoy the last few weeks of pleasant weather before the overcast, blustery and snowy hues of winter roll in.

This year, however, the autumn mood was uncharacteristically surly. The newspapers, usually obsessing over the summer’s tourism statistics, were awash in recriminations. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) had handed down judgment on three mid-level Serbian officers of the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) for crimes committed in Vukovar in 1991 during the war in Croatia. One was declared innocent; another got only five years. The third’s sentence of twenty years read more like a punishment for criminal negligence than the pre-meditated murder of which he is accused. Politicians stepped over each other to condemn the judgment as biased and unfair, while the President and Prime Minister contributed an unseemly public back-and-forth about who should get to go to the United Nations to vent the country’s anger with the Court.