Page 8A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Thursday, November 30, 2017
General drinks poison at war crimes trial, dies
ZAGREB, Croatia (AP)
— Slobodan Praljak, a former
film and theater director
turned wartime general, was
always known for theatrics.
So, when the former
Bosnian Croat military
commander suddenly threw
back his head and drank
what he said was poison
from a small bottle after his
20-year war crimes sentence
was upheld by a U.N. court
on Wednesday, many Croats
watching the drama unfold
on live TV thought it was yet
another bluff.
But it wasn’t. The
72-year-old silver-bearded
Praljak died soon after being
rushed from the U.N. tribunal
to a nearby hospital.
The shocking scene was
not unlike the suspenseful
plays he once directed
before becoming a military
commander during the
Balkan wars of the early
1990s.
“Judges, Slobodan Praljak
is not a war criminal! I reject,
with contempt, your verdict,”
Praljak
shouted
before
drinking from the bottle.
Then, his voice rising
ICTY via AP
In this photo provided by the ICTY on Wednesday, Slobodan Praljak brings a bottle
to his lips, during a Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. Praljak
yelled, “I am not a war criminal!” and appeared to drink from a small bottle, seconds
after judges reconfirmed his 20-year prison sentence for involvement in a campaign to
drive Muslims out of a would-be Bosnian Croat ministate in Bosnia in the early 1990s.
theatrically, he declared:
“That is poison that I drank.”
The dramatic scene
shocked Croatia, diverting
attention from the convic-
tions of Praljak and five other
Bosnian Croat wartime mili-
tary and political leaders for
their part in a plot to violently
carve out a Croat-dominated
mini-state in Bosnia by killing
and deporting Muslims.
Wednesday’s
ruling,
which upheld a key finding
that the late Croatian leader
Franjo Tudjman was directly
involved in the plot, could
have major financial and
political implications for
Croatia, potentially trig-
gering massive war damage
claims and shaking the
Bosniak-Croat
mini-state
within Bosnia that the two
ethnic groups share.
A founder of Tudjman’s
Croatian Democratic Union
party, Praljak was one of
six Bosnian Croat political
and military leaders who
with significant support
from neighboring Croatia
turned against the Bosnian
army during the 1992-95
war, trying to carve out an
ethnically pure Croat region
by force, just as Bosnian
Serbs had done in other areas
of Bosnia with help from
Serbia.
Croatian Prime Minister
Andrej Plenkovic decried
Wednesday’s verdicts, calling
Praljak’s apparent suicide
“his message” to Croatia to
resist the consequences of the
“unjust” ruling by the Inter-
national Criminal Tribunal
for Yugoslavia. Ironically,
Praljak, who had already
been jailed for 13 years
before his 20-year sentence
was upheld, could have soon
walked free because convicts
are generally released after
serving two-thirds of their
sentences.
Before the war, Praljak
directed productions in
theaters across Bosnia,
notably in the southern
city of Mostar, where he
was accused of ordering
the destruction of the city’s
Old Bridge, one of the most
striking Ottoman monuments
in the Balkans and a jewel of
Bosnia’s Islamic heritage.
“Mr.Praljak could have
been a good director who
would have made films about
Mostar instead of destroying
it,” said Bosnian Muslim
leader Bakir Izetbegovic,
whose father Alija led the
Muslims during the war.
Bosnian
Croats
on
Wednesday lit candles in
memory of Praljak in Mostar,
where they held a church
Mass.
Croatian analyst Zarko
Puhovski predicted that
Praljak could now be
“depicted as a saint.”
OHA: Responsiveness
improved after a new director,
Patrick Allen, took the helm
Continued from 1A
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
New members of the CTUIR Board of Trustees listen to the oath of office as read by Judge William Johnson
during a swearing-in ceremony on Wednesday at the Nixyaawii Governance Center in Mission.
CTUIR: Runoff election for vice chair will be Feb. 12
Continued from 1A
previous jobs and will take
the same approach as the
General Council chairman.
Represented by four
officers, the General Council
is comprised of every adult
member of the tribes. The
council makes recommenda-
tions to the Board of Trustees.
In a four-way race, Sigo
defeated incumbent Alan
Crawford by 21 votes to take
the seat. In a fiery outgoing
speech, Crawford listed
some of the projects that
are now ongoing, like the
Wildhorse Resort & Casino
expansion, the new Yellow-
hawk Tribal Health Center
facility, and the new building
for Nixyaawii Community
School.
“It’s going to happen,”
he said. “No more campaign
promises.”
Michael Ray Johnson
and Shawna Gavin joined
Sigo as new officers of the
General Council.
There weren’t as many
new faces sworn in to the
Board of Trustees.
Former board treasurer
Rosenda
Shippentower
declined to run for re-elec-
tion and instead ran for and
won one of four at-large
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Members of the CTUIR junior youth council are sworn in Wednesday during a
ceremony at the Nixyaawii Governance Center in Mission.
seats. Board newcomer
Doris Wheeler won the open
race for treasurer.
Incumbents Aaron Ashley
and Woodrow Star were
joined by Shippentower and
newcomer Sally Kosey to fill
out the four seats, meaning
longtime board member
Armand Minthorn was voted
out of office.
Although
Minthorn
wasn’t in attendance, Burke
praised him for his work
in convincing the federal
government to re-bury the
“Ancient One,” the bones of
a prehistoric man that DNA
tests determined to be related
to Columbia Basin tribes.
Jeremy Wolf, the incum-
bent vice chair of the board,
was in attendance but was not
sworn in for another term.
After the votes were tallied
for the Nov. 14 election,
Wolf and challenger Shana
Radford were deadlocked
at 370 votes apiece. CTUIR
spokesman Chuck Sams said
Wolf will retain his seat until
a winner is declared in a Feb.
12 runoff election.
The audit also found
that the agency doesn’t
have “well-defined, consis-
tent and agency-wide
processes”
to
detect
improper payments, espe-
cially in the state’s system
of coordinated care.
Additionally, auditors
found that gaps in detecting
and preventing improper
payments may also make
it more challenging for the
payments to get recovered.
Most recipients of
Medicaid in Oregon are
enrolled in what’s called
a coordinated care orga-
nization, or CCO. A CCO
is essentially a regional
network of care providers
who see Medicaid patients.
The state pays the CCO on
a per-patient basis every
month.
In late October, news
emerged of $74 million in
possible overpayments to
the CCOs between 2014
and 2016. OHA has already
recouped $10.1 million of
that. The errors are likely
due to mis-classification of
certain patients who were
also eligible for Medicare,
and it’s not clear how much
of the money the state must
repay the federal govern-
ment.
In
a
statement
Wednesday, Secretary of
State Dennis Richardson,
a Republican, said that
the $74 million possible
overpayment was unre-
lated to issues identified
in Wednesday’s audit.
Further, that issue was not
reported to auditors, but
made public when The
Oregonian requested rele-
vant public records.
The
week
before
Thanksgiving, the agency
identified a litany of addi-
tional problems, ranging
from mis-allocation of
funds to possible overpay-
ment, that could total about
$112.4 million more.
OHA has been under the
microscope since May, as it
worked through a backlog
of about 115,000 patients
whose qualifications for
Medicaid were unclear.
The agency found that
over half — about 67,600
— still qualified and they
were kept on the program.
While 24,100 were found
ineligible, the rest didn’t
respond to the state’s inqui-
ries, and were cut, although
the agency expects that
some of that group will be
retroactively re-enrolled.
Auditors
contended
Wednesday that the health
agency’s delay in fixing that
problem caused the agency
to spend $88 million that
could have been avoided.
OHA says that the
costs were not avoidable,
though, in part because it is
not possible for the agency
to tell whether someone
who received Medicaid
and was found ineligible
on a certain date would
have been ineligible on
some prior date.
The federal government
also requires the agency to
keep people on Medicaid
until they have gone
through a process that
officially determines that
they no longer qualify for
the program.
While auditors acknowl-
edged that requirement,
they also said that “regard-
less, expenses resulted
because these clients
remained on the caseload
past the point when OHA
reported they should have
gone through an annual
eligibility determination.”
Auditors also noted that
the agency initially with-
held information.
“Our audit work was
limited by prior agency
management,”
auditors
wrote. “At times, we were
prevented direct access to
staff, had our interviews
with staff monitored, had
our information requests
delayed, and were occa-
sionally provided with
complete and/or inaccurate
information.”
They noted that respon-
siveness improved after a
new director, Patrick Allen,
took the helm Sept. 1. Gov.
Kate Brown, a Democrat,
named Allen to the post
in the wake of a publicity
scandal under the previous
director, Lynne Saxton.
Several other top leader-
ship positions at the agency
were also vacated.
AIR: ‘Smaller facilities would likely not be impacted because of low risk and low emissions’
Continued from 1A
Nov. 20 in Corvallis, with future
dates scheduled in Portland, Eugene,
Salem and The Dalles.
Debbie Radie, vice president
of operations at Boardman Foods
and chairwoman of the Northwest
Food Processors Association Board
of Directors, was the only person to
testify Tuesday, saying the proposed
rules are “poorly designed and
unworkable.”
Cleaner Air Oregon was estab-
lished last year in response to toxic
air emissions in 2016 Bullseye Glass
in southeast Portland. Yet rather than
address sources of emissions that
DEQ knows to be an issue, Radie
said the agency is targeting compa-
nies like hers that are already subject
to regulation.
“There is no plan in this rule to
identify sources of emissions that are
not currently permitted,” Radie said.
“The only way this rule will reduce
emissions is to force companies to
curtail or stop production. The level
of uncertainty does not create an
environment where businesses and
communities thrive.”
The draft rules, released Oct. 20,
would require companies to report
their use of 600 chemicals, including
heavy metals and other air pollut-
ants. Facilities would then need to
calculate potential health risks to
nearby communities, considering
what if any health problems may
be caused by short- and long-term
exposure.
From there, DEQ may require
additional steps — such as a risk
reduction plan or conditional
permit — to mitigate the risk. Keith
Johnson, who serves as special
assistant to the director of Cleaner
Air Oregon, said the goal is to use
health-based standards for reducing
harmful air toxics.
“A facility that’s in a remote loca-
tion would be much less risky than a
similar one located in the middle of
a city or town,” Johnson explained.
“Smaller facilities would likely not
be impacted because of low risk and
low emissions.”
Out of 2,500 businesses with
DEQ air quality permits, Johnson
said only the 80 highest-risk facilities
would be regulated by the program
in the first five years.
But in her testimony, Radie said
the rule would not be based on
verified science and data, but rather
by asking already permitted facilities
to submit data that would be entered
into a “very crude, inaccurate and
misleading formula to determine
theoretical risk.”
Cleaner Air Oregon also factors
the cumulative effects of industrial
emissions in a given area, which
Radie said may cause some compa-
nies with minimal emissions to
be dragged into a full-blown risk
assessment process just by being
near an industrial location.
Boardman Foods, an onion
processing plant, is located at
the Port of Morrow’s East Beach
Industrial Park near Boardman,
which includes other value-added
processors such as Lamb Weston
and Tillamook Cheese.
Smith said the added cost of
complying with the program might
not force food processors to close
their doors, but could make them
less competitive moving forward.
“That’s a huge deal,” he said.
“Right now, there is a lot of
investment being made both by the
processors and our suppliers.”
The Oregon Legislature is
expected to consider a fee structure
for Cleaner Air Oregon in the
coming session, and the Environ-
mental Quality Commission may
decide to adopt all or part of the rule
as early as July 2018.
———
Contact George Plaven at
gplaven@eastoregonian.com
or
541-966-0825.