When Carla Del Ponte, as ICTY prosecutor, with fervent support from the powers that be in Serbia set out to “lighten” the terrible Serbian guilt for mass murders and ethnic cleansing in Croatia particularly between 1991 and 1993, by pinning a wildly dreadful theory of joint criminal enterprise against Croatian 1995 Operation Storm (which liberated Croatian territory from terror and occupation) they weren’t just whistling Dixie – they were very serious about it!
It was a plan filled with dreadful and immoral fantasy that evidently had the aim of suppressing and minimising in the eyes of the world the horrible crimes Serbs perpetrated in the aggression against Croatia (1991-1995) and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which resulted in more than 1 Million refugees (forceful deportations of Croatians and non-Serbs/ ethnic cleansing), thousands of mass killings including genocide.
Del Ponte went about gathering “stuff” she might use as evidence for this dreadful construct whereby the ICTY Trial Chamber would eventually convict in April 2011 Croatian Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac of participating in a joint criminal enterprise against Croatian Serbs. This joint criminal enterprise was said to have been a plan of Croatia’s then President dr. Franjo Tudjman and his whole leadership circle. This joint criminal enterprise came, Del Ponte fantasized, in the form of Croatian military Operation Storm August 1995. ICTY prosecution said that Operation Storm was executed solely for the purposes of forceful deportation of Serbs from Croatia (some 200,000 Serb refugees, laden with their personal and household belongings, fled Croatia after Operation Storm in 1995)! To ICTY Prosecution, liberation of occupied Croatian territory, which the Serbs had ethnically cleansed and terrorised with murders, rapes and tortures during the years leading up to August 1995, did not factor in Del Ponte’s wicked reasoning.
For Carla Del Ponte, branding Croatia’s defence of its people and territory from Serb aggression 1991-1995 a criminal, illegal enterprise was a fantasy of the most dreadful kind. She didn’t keep it a fantasy; she went about making it real. The aggressively and hatefully optimistic and warped ways of her attempts to achieve this was exasperating as Croatia’s bids to negotiations for EU membership were consequently thwarted for years.
She set out to falsely characterise Croatian defence from mass murders and ethnic cleansing by Serb aggressor as criminal enterprises, branding Croatian leadership, including its President dr. Franjo Tudjman, as ultra nationalistic and as whips that planned to and executed forceful deportation of Serbs from Croatia.
To succeed in realising her dreadful fantasy she set out collecting “evidence” that would or could fit into it. She got Croatia’s former President Stjepan Mesic (who spent 1990’s undermining Dr. Franjo Tudjman with unfounded but wicked fables and lies in attempts to become Croatia’s President himself) and former Prime Minister Dr. Ivo Sanader (convicted in Croatia today/20 November 2012 to ten years prison, for corruption/war profiteering) on board. Mesic, without a blink of an eye would sift through State secret documents and hand them to her at the ICTY (just as well that these State secret documents did not amount to what Del Ponte and Mesic thought they would). She spent years pursuing so-called artillery shelling diaries for Operation Storm that would prove there was illegal shelling during Operation Storm that was really (according to her) meant for Serb civilian targets. These diaries were another of Del Ponte’s fantasies.
As this fantasy was shot to smithereens, ICTY prosecution was in ecstasy when Trial Chamber judges came up with a new fantasy: any artillery shelling by the Croatians during Operation Storm that fell beyond 200 meters from military target was targeted at Serb civilians – to drive them out from Croatia! This fantasy was turned into a horrible reality (albeit utterly false) when ICTY Trial Chamber convicted Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac to 24 and 18 years of imprisonment in April 2011. To make the matters worse Serbia was never subpoenaed to produce known documentary evidence that would show how the said 200,000 Croatian Serbs left Croatia in August 1995 as part of Serb orders to evacuate Croatia, even though Croatian authorities guaranteed safety.
I guess, most of these 200,000 Serbs (if there were that many) fled rather than having to live with a guilty conscience among the Croatians and non-Serbs in Croatia against whom they had perpetrated so much evil from 1991.
When on 16 November 2012 the ICTY Appeal Chamber upheld the Generals’ Appeal against ICTY Trial Chamber 15 April 2011 judgment, in effect saying that there was no joint criminal enterprise and no forceful deportation of Croatian Serbs as far as Operation Storm was concerned – all hell broke loose in Serbia. Serbian leadership, including its foreign minister Vuk Jeremic (who currently sits at the head of UN General Assembly) protested against the ICTY Appeal Chamber’s acquittal, calling it politically motivated and unjust. Threatening unrest in the region.
Vuk Jeremic reacted by saying “It is an undeniable fact that about a quarter of a million (ethnic) Serbs were driven out of their homes in the space of only several days, and that the court, set up to investigate such misdeeds, in effect decided that no one was guilty or responsible.
This could lead to a conclusion that no crime in fact took place, which evidently stands in contrast with reality. I think that a full understanding of the work of the Hague Tribunal and its consequences must be accessible to the wide international public, so that history can have the final say, and so that it never happens anywhere again that evil deeds are pardoned and declared a virtue.”
Now, this man, Vuk Jeremic, sits in a high chair at the 67th Session of UN General Assembly and if he is to be judged by these words, he has no place in being there one moment longer.
Why, you may ask? Well the ICTY Appeal Chamber found no evidence of forced removal of Serbs from Croatia as argued by Del Ponte’s indictment against the Croatian Generals and he should respect the finding of the Appeal Chamber. Furthermore, he purposefully ignores to talk about the ethnic cleansing of about 700,000 Croatians and non-Serbs perpetrated by Serbs in Croatia (plus about 300,000 from Bosnia and Herzegovina who sought shelter in Croatia) before Operation Storm. Further, he tries to twist the Appeal Chamber’s finding into that which it is not. I.e., that the finding also meant that there were no crimes committed during Operation Storm.
The ICTY Appeal Tribunal found that the Croatian Generals had not committed the war crimes they were accused of, it did not delve into what else might have happened through whom.
Carla Del Ponte declared that she was shocked as to how such a verdict by the ICTY Appeal Chamber could have come about – she said that she “had done everything as it should have been done” in the case, as prosecutor.
I would tend to agree: Del Ponte had done everything that should have been done in order to falsely characterise Croatian Operation Storm as a joint criminal enterprise but the evidence she had worked so hard to fit into her fantasy just didn’t hold water in the end.
As for Serbia, it is in its interest to make Operation Storm look like a criminal enterprise because, in doing so, the horrible crimes Serbs committed prior to Operation Storm might get forgotten by the world, or at least placed on the back-burner.
Serbia’s and Del Ponte’s reactions do nothing except perpetuate Serbia’s denial of its joint criminal enterprise against Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the early 1990’s.
I have no doubt that as far as Croatia is concerned any crimes committed by individuals during the war will be processed and brought to justice; and they should be.
And if Serbia threatens with continued unrest in the region because of ICTY Appeal Chamber decision to acquit Croatian Generals of war crimes, such threats are merely desperate attempts by Serbia to equate its aggression with its victims. That surely cannot be permitted, because if it’s up to Serbia then they would “guarantee” peace and reconciliation if Croatian Generals were convicted of war crimes despite being innocent.
Do Serbia and Carla Del Ponte really have a warped and offensive view of what truly happened during Serb aggression against Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990’s? Or are they just playing a dangerous game?
Perhaps both. Surely both.
Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)