In the history of every nation, including the Croatian one, there are events and happenings, be they tragic, be they joyful and victorious, which are deeply and indelibly engraved in the common national memory and which deeply define the sense of belonging and pride and the nation of people and their common purpose, national identity, and self-awareness. One of such events for the Croatian nation took place in August 1995. Operation Storm happened with unity and determination akin to a mighty force of love for freedom, lasted from the 4th to the 7th of August 1995 and was the final military move to free Croatia from the brutal and genocidal Great Serbian aggressors!
Many of the 550,000 Croats forcefully exiled by the aggressors from the 1991 beginning of the Croatian Homeland War, ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homes could finally start returning to their homes, even if these were violently and wantonly destroyed. For the Great Serbian occupiers and aggressors, it is a sad event, from which, it seems, they have unfortunately not learned any lessons. That’s why during Croatia’s celebrations of these victorious events in the defence of Croatia from brutal aggression Croatian Serbs associated with the aggression against Croatia, even those that are regretfully in coalition with the government choose not to attend celebrations but rather continue fabricating victim stories and alleging war crimes against Croats where there were none. The International criminal tribunal in the Hague had ruled that Serbs committed genocide in several parts of Croatia during their aggression against Croatia and nothing of the sort can be said, or claimed, for Croatian national strategy and policy, while Serbian policy and strategy was destruction and murder of Croats, much like what we are seeing these days is happening in Ukraine with the Russian aggressor. Faced with Serb aggression Croats were forced to defend their lives and preserve themselves.
With all this in mind one simply finds it an atrocity committed against Croatian people to have a government that chooses to embrace a coalition with Serb minority parliamentary group of representatives who were and are with those rebel Serbs that committed mass murders, rapes, torture and wanton destruction of Croats and their homes. If one were to be in a governing coalition with any Serbs in Croatia it would be with those Croatian Serbs that fought alongside with Croats to defend Croatia from Serb aggression not with those who deny the aggression and constantly work on equating the victim with the aggressor.
This government coalition with the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) in Croatia, headed by the deplorable Greater Serbia proponent Milorad Pupovac, is a travesty of natural justice and a continuation of torturing the Croatian people who defended Croatia. It certainly provides the Serb aggressor with permission to continue its anti-Croat propaganda and denial of its brutal aggression of 1990’s. It does absolutely nothing for any reconciliation in my opinion, but rather keeps the fire of bitterness and fear flickering along. Hence, I was pleasantly surprised to hear, I believe for the first time in his mandate, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic with determined resolve calling a spade a spade when it comes to Serb aggression in his speech at the official celebrations in Knin on 5th August, of Croatian victory. While previously he largely circumvented articulating in public the pressing issue for the Croatian people this time he clearly and unequivocally called Serbia and Serbs aggressors against Croatia and Croats! Given his persistent coalition with Serbs whose immediate family members were active in the brutal aggression against Croatia in 1990’s though, one must take this speech as an attempt to score political points rather than a genuine siding with the perils and sufferings of Croatian war veterans and other as a result of the Serb aggression.
“Croats were not in charge of their own destiny for almost 900 years but lived in their territory under various foreign rulers and alien regimes until, at a time of tectonic changes in Europe, owing to the vision of President Tuđman and the courage of Croatian defenders and the unity of the entire Croatian people, we won the right to freedom and the right to our own state,” Plenkovic said in Knin, at the central event marking Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day and War Veterans Day and the 27th anniversary of Operation Storm.
Of course, most of Croatians including myself would not use the word “won” as Prime Minster Plenkovic did, we would use the actual word that reflects the truth and that word is “defended” as in “we defended (amidst Serb aggression) our right to freedom and the right to our own state and won the war in which our enemy tried mercilessly to take that right away from us”!
Croatia will not tolerate questioning the character of the Homeland War as a just and legitimate war and it will not allow indictments against its war heroes, he said.
“There have been attempts lately again to malign Croatia with false and futile accusations about the expulsion of Croatian Serbs in 1995 even though it is well known that the leadership of rebel Serbs had forced them, in collaboration with Belgrade, to leave Croatia, as confirmed and proven with documents at the Hague war crimes tribunal by indicted Serb who repented their actions,” Plenkovic said.
He said Serbian indictments against Croatian pilots and Serbia’s expanding its jurisdiction to other countries were unacceptable.
The more so as it comes from a country which launched aggression against Croatia and is still not showing true readiness to acknowledge its responsibility “for the criminal enterprise of the Milosevic regime,” said Plenkovic.
Croatia’s President Zoran Milanovic at Victory, Operation Storm, War Veterans, and Homeland Thanksgiving Day Ceremony in Knin, 5th August said that Croatia had a difficult journey and did not get anything for free.
“I have wondered many times why we come here to this same place every year, and every year we always have something same, but also something new to say. What is it that is so powerful and how long will it draw us and guide us – is it a human aspiration and the fear of being forgotten, the dread of vanity that awaits us all when we are forgotten? Is it the messages that need to be sent persistently from this spot, sometimes seemingly in vain? But they are not in vain,” the President of the Republic of Croatia and Commander in Chief of the Croatian Armed Forces Zoran Milanovic said and continued:
“In the multitude of proverbs that people came up with, including those thought up by lawyers, those of the lawyers stick out for their emptiness and lack of content, particularly the following: ‘One who proves too much proves nothing, one who proves nothing keeps silent, one who keeps silent is defending himself with silence, and one who is defending himself with silence ends up getting hurt’,” said the President of the Republic, adding that this does not presume guilt because Croatia has nothing to be ashamed of. “Croatia had a difficult journey and did not get anything for free, but at a high price, with high interest. We were aware that in the end this country was important only to us, that we were the only ones to really care about it and that everyone else was just an observer, which of course does not mean they were enemies”.
Speaking of the status of Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina and negotiations that took place in the last 30 years, President Milanovic repeated that it is necessary to constantly reiterate that Croatia is a guarantor and signatory of the Dayton Agreement. “But that is not enough. The people who gave their lives and health for Croatia expected more – they expected our country to also be an instrument to achieve our goals and just aspirations and to use it whenever necessary. Now it is necessary,” President Milanovic underscored.
“The Croatian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina are not only disenfranchised, they are insulted, and the people who led this country are also insulted, while Croatia is portrayed as the originator of a joint criminal enterprise. This is being done by the same people who received the highest decorations from Croatia for cooperation during the war. That was forgotten. Croatia must oppose that,” he said, adding that Croatia is not a passive observer, but an active member of the international community that did not join the EU and NATO to be a beneficiary of European funds, but “to use the instruments available to us for our own interest, including to defy those who want to devalue us.”
Talk is cheap when appropriate actions do not follow in support of what one says. As to Croatian Prime Minister and President’s cheap talk or lip service regarding Operation Storm and Homeland War Victory in general is concerned, the talk will cease to appear cheap once both the Prime Minister and the President shake off completely from their ingrained identity and mindset their loyalty to communist Yugoslavia ideals, once the government’s institutions fund Croatian truth contents in arts and sciences, movies and documentaries (instead of funding pro-communist era ones), once the laws of the country prohibit communist insignia and symbols, once they define the modern Croatia with the victory in the Homeland War and discard once and for all the ludicrous and false idea that communists gave Croatia liberty and independence in May 1945. Nothing could be further from the truth as the communists forced Croatia to stay in Yugoslavia, not be independent, be undermined and oppressed by its Serb leaders and the same is permitted to this day! Cease the government coalition with Croatian Serbs and other pro-communist Yugoslavia ethnic minorities who entered the parliament on account of a couple of hundred votes from ethnic minority communities. Change the laws so that ethnic minorities in Croatia receive the benefits and rights on an equal footing away from having a seat in parliament for there are Serbs in Croatia who are also considered minority but sided in Homeland War with Croats; same goes for the Roma or Italian minorities in Croatia, etc. Decommunise Croatia and patriotic talk will cease to be cheap. Ina Vukic
RSS - Posts
