Croatia and The Relentless Serbian Aggression Against It

Planned and organised exodus of Serbs who never wanted an independent Croatia from Croatia in August 1995

Serbia’s aggression against Croatia in the past three decades wears a political and morally corrupt cloak, chipping away at the glorious Croatian victory over the brutal and genocidal Serb aggression in the early 1990’s.  

The fact that Croatia’s government, despite its loud rhetoric in challenging Serbia’s new indictments for alleged war crimes of four Croatian 1995 Operation Storm pilots fails to stop, or even reprimand, its Serb coalition partners for their barracking for Serbia in this matter is a rude reminder that this Croatian government is hypocritical and dishonest, especially towards the suffering and sacrifices Croatians endured because of Serb aggression. A truly just response would be to cease government coalition with minority Serbs who were associated with Serb aggressor and who degrade Croatian war veterans and who have consistently been trampling over the glory of Croatian victory in defending Croatia from the genocidal Serb aggression.

The Zagreb based N1 TV has Monday 20 August 2022 published parts of the Serbian indictment against Croatian pilots engaged in battles during Operation Storm in August of 1995 that was successful in swiftly liberating a part of Croatia from brutal Serb occupation that held ground since 1991 and had ethnically cleansed the area from all Croats and other non-Serbs. Then, following orders from Serbia and rebel Serb leadership in Croatia some 200,000 Serbs, who never wanted an independent Croatia and mostly sided with rebel Serbs and Serb aggressors (those Croatian Serbs who fought with Croatia defending it from Serb aggression never fled or exited) left Croatia for Serbia, which happening Serbia has called ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Croatia. Make no mistake, Serbia and Slobodan Milosevic regime planned and staged this exodus for Serbia’s political agenda. There is no doubt in the mind of many professional war analysts as well as Psychologists that, once Croats were successful in liberating their land the Serbs, including so-called civilians, feeling guilty and being guilty of crimes against Croats, fled in fear of retribution for their crimes and brutal aggression and ethnic cleansing and murders and rapes… The indictment for alleged war crimes against the four pilots, Vladimir Mikac, Zdenko Radulj, Zeljko Jelenic i Danijel Borovic, is reportedly a 26-page document issued in Belgrade on 31 March 2022 and upheld by the Belgrade Appeals Court in mid-August 2022, and reeks of Serbia’s desperate and consistent attempts to deny its own genocidal aggression against Croatia in the 1990’s and to whitewash its heinous war crimes there.

While the Croatian government headed by the Croatian Democratic Union/HDZ and Andrej Plenkovic as Prime Minister keeps as his deputies in government coalition Croatian Serbs (such as Boris Milosevic and Anja Simprega and holds Milorad Pupovac close) the same persons are conducting Serbia’s political and other interests rather than Croatian ones in Croatia. They do not accept nor condemn Serbia’s brutal aggression against Croatia! They do not embrace the truth that Croatia was placed in the position of self-preservation, defending the lives of its people, in the face of Serb aggression that was brutal, indiscriminate, wanton and genocidal, worse than what we see these days in Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic assessed Thursday 25 August that the indictment against four Croatian pilots for alleged war crimes against civilians during the Operation Storm was “politically staged” and said that Serbia must face its past. Prime Minister Plenkovic recalled that a few months ago they met with the accused pilots and told them that they would protect them in this context. “We believe that this entire indictment is a politically staged indictment, and we look at it that way. (…) Serbia needs to face its past, with the effects of the Greater Serbian aggression of the Slobodan Milosevic regime on Croatia,” said Plenkovic.

Croatia was a victim of aggression, the Homeland War had a liberating character and our defenders, our pilots will be under the special care of the Croatian state in this context, and we will find an appropriate way to react to this whole situation, he added.

Croatian Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Gordan Grlic Radman also asserted that the indictments from Serbia against Croatian pilots and the announced indictments against two Croatian generals were politicised. “All the indictments from Serbia have been politicized, The Hague has had its say,” he told reporters at the two-day annual conference of Croatian diplomats at the Westin Hotel in Zagreb Thursday 25 August.

Croatian President Zoran Milanovic also publicly addressed the indictments against Croatian pilots on August 24.

“We have another reason for the meeting of the National Security Council. This was done by official Belgrade, not some independent prosecutor’s office…” Milanovic said.

“Prosecutors are otherwise doubtfully independent. In some countries they are, in some countries they are, and they are not. In Belgrade, they are as independent as those ladies who experimented with centrifugal force in Brooklyn and Harlem and the Bronx while twirling a purse around their hand. That’s about the kind of independence we are looking at there. Until the pimp comes. And the pimp is always around. It’s pimping, not an independent prosecution,” Milanovic said.

“Good will is being shown so that the story about the war in which Serbia attacked Croatia finally stabilises, and then poof. Here’s the indictment. The topic is important for the Council to harmonise the position of how we will react. I should now react from the knees, from the hips,” he said and continued:

“Aleksanader Vucic (President of Serbia) and his colleagues have decided that now is the time to indict four wartime commanders. I don’t want to discuss this because Serbia has no jurisdiction. We can indict President Vucic because he ran amok on the territory of Croatia, not on the Petrovac road , as in Branko Copic’s song, on which some children died. I am sorry for that, but the Croatian commanders cannot be responsible for that,” says Milanovic.

Excerpts of the Serbian indictment state, among other things, that the indictees, “by violating rules of international law defined by the Geneva Conventions, ordered – and their orders were carried out – air attacks on civilians not participating in hostilities”, who should be treated humanely in every situation, without any discrimination based on ethnic background, and protected from any form of violence. Ten civilians including four children were killed in the shelling over the column that formed Serb exodus from Croatia between 4 and 7 August 1995.

Croatian renowned historian and author and authority on Homeland War, Dr Ante Nazor, said recently that “first of all, one should express regret for every innocent victim who died, especially when it comes to children, but all the evidence that has been publicly presented so far cannot call into question the key and undoubted fact that military vehicles and weapons of the Serbian Army of Krajina (SVK) were attacked in to the circumstances of combat action during the military operation, which means that for collateral civilian casualties, regardless of whether the column was attacked by a Serbian or Croatian aircraft, those who allowed the military vehicles and equipment of the then self-proclaimed Serbian Republic of Krajina army to withdraw together with the civilians are primarily responsible…”

It is mind boggling how the Serbian authorities have the gall to claim that there were civilians under the alleged attacks who did not participate in hostilities. How would they know if military equipment and members of Serbian army were together with those who appeared to be civilians. The truth on the ground, while the aggression lasted, was that most Serbs who fled in August of 1995 who appeared as civilians after the victorious Operation Storm would most likely not fit the definition of a civilian. Most aided and abetted any which way they could the Serb aggression against Croatia, including political agitation that encouraged many to kill and destroy, not to speak of attacks, intimidation, threats, beatings … of Croatians living in the areas they proclaimed Serbian Republic.

The indictment underlines that the then conflict in Croatia’s territory did not have the character of an international conflict because parties to the conflict were the Croatian Army and the Croatian Ministry of the Interior on one side and units of the army of the so-called Republic of Serb Krajina on the other. Serbia obviously does not even care that the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia had in fact declared the conflict an international conflict and, hence, only on that basis did it have jurisdiction to prosecute Croatian Generals who were acquitted of war crimes indicted with in 2013! Serbia omits the fact that Krajina rebel Serbs in Croatia perpetrated horrors over the Croatian population in service of Serbia’s pursuits in creating a Greater Serbia.

Since neither Serbia nor Croatia allows the extradition of their citizens, the indictment proposes that the indictees Vladimir Mikac, Zdenko Radulj, Zeljko Jelenic and Danijel Borovic be tried in their absence.

Serbia’s War Crimes Department further insists that it has jurisdiction over the case as to the substance of the matter, in line with Article 3 of its Act on Organisation and Jurisdiction of Organs of State, which says, among other things, that Serbian state organs defined by that law have jurisdiction over crimes committed in the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, regardless of the nationality of the perpetrator or the victim.

Croatia rejects that, rightfully and correctly so.

The Croatian government and senior state officials have, in the meantime, stressed on several occasions that Croatia does not recognise Serbia’s jurisdiction in the case. Again, one wonders why Croatian government bothers with having Diplomatic relations with Serbia. Serbia will never accept its guilt or Croatia’s victory over Serb aggression. I, for one, will be keeping an eye on this case if the indictments against the pilots go to court in Serbia. Ina Vukic   

Women Of Croatia’s Homeland War

Today, 8 March, marks the International Women’s Day! May it be a happy one to all the women of the world and as far as Croatian women are concerned my mind is turned to those who endured and survived with dignity the most horrendous of fates a woman (a human being) can endure. I turn to and bow the women that stood out and stand out as heroines of a nation (independent Croatia) created despite the brutal aggression, rape, ethnic cleansing, genocide … that swept across Croatia in the early 1990’s with only one intent: eradicate Croat lives, humiliate Croat lives … just because they are Croat and want freedom from communist totalitarian regime!

I also turn to the many Croatian women who left their stamp of truth, freedom and dedication to independence in many ways during the years of Croatia’s Homeland War and beyond.

These women of modern-day Croatia are truly inspiring!

Mothers of those who gave their lives for Croatia’s freedom

Kata Soljic (Vukovar, 1922 – 2008): Fondly called as the mother of courage.

Kata Soljic

Kata Soljic (click on photo to enlarge)

I am Kata Soljic, a Croat, a mother from Vukovar. I am 79 years old, I gave birth to and reared six children, four sons and two daughters. My four sons and my son-in-law lost their lives in 1991 for freedom and for the defense of the Croatian Homeland from the Serb aggressor in this Homeland War. My four innocent brothers perished by the hands of the same enemy during World War II, and my husband survived by a miracle. I have not completed any schooling. I can barely sign my own name. Life has not caressed me. And, hence, I have learned and am still learning the highest of life’s lessons and that is the lesson of love and sacrifice for those close to me and for my family,”  (Kata Soljic, 2001)

Women who were at the forefront of caring for the wounded

Dr Vesna Bosanac, a paediatrician and the legendary medical director of Vukovar hospital during the Croatian Homeland War.

dr Vesna Bosanac

dr Vesna Bosanac (click on photo to enlarge)

A witness to Serb atrocities in Vukovar, a witness who invested all her human strength to save as many lives as humanly possible amidst the genocidal madness of Serb aggression (including by Serb-led Yugoslav People’s Army) in Vukovar 1991 that saw incessant artillery attacks, the destruction of ambulances, the killing of hospital staff and patients, and the wounding of doctors and nurses who were helping people wounded in the shelling and the massacre of more than 200 people that took place in November 1991 at nearby Ovcara farm.

According to data from the Vukovar Hospital, 3,470 wounded people were treated in the Vukovar Hospital during the Serbian military aggression on the town, and more than 2,500 operations were performed in the hospital at the time.

Women – Victims of war crime of rape

During the Serb aggression in 1990’s Croatia violating women became an open and widespread weapon of war of aggression. Sadly this war crime of rape had been ignored for many years, perpetrators walked the streets freely and victims suffered, dying a bit day in and day out. According to a Council of Europe, more than 20,000 women were raped during the Balkan conflict, and many of these occurred in Croatia, while others to the majority occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the victims being Bosniak (Muslim) and Croat women. Unfortunately, the horrors did not stop at rape. Of these women, most were gang-raped by Serb rebels or Serbs belonging to the Serb-led Yugoslav People’s Army, some were forced into sexual slavery and forced impregnated often by armies and paramilitary groups.

The silence regarding the widespread rape of Croat women during the war in Croatia lasted too long and some organisations claimed that rape did not occur. Marija Sliskovic has in the past few years courageously begun to point to the problem of war rape with her book “Women of Vukovar” (Žene Vukovara) and in her latest “Sunny” (Sunčica) in which she published testimonies of 14 raped women from Vukovar and one man. These efforts have received support from the Parliament, the President’s Office, and the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and other UN organisations. A rise in social compassion for the victims is evident, alongside a growing frustration that so much time that has passed without tangible remedies. The war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina brought the issue of rape to the forefront forcing international recognition of rape as a weapon of war and a violation on a multitude of levels. Despite this awareness and support the practice of ignoring rape or treating it as a last priority for prosecutors of war crimes still continues. The victims are still forced into fighting for justice at all levels and my admiration goes to them in endless bounds.
And so I pay tribute here to Marija Sliskovic, a tireless activist for the rights of rape victims in Croatia and some of the women who have had the courage to finally speak out about the horror of rape, that war crime perpetrated against them in the concentration camp during the war by Serbs:

Marija Sliskovic

Marija Sliskovic (click on photo to enlarge)

Ruzica Erdelji

Ruzica Erdelji (click on photo to enlarge)

Snjezana Maljak

Snjezana Maljak (click on photo to enlarge)

Durdica Pankas

Women who cared about the well-being of war-orphaned children

Ankica Tudjman

Ankica Tudjman (click on photo to enlarge)

Ankica Tudjman. The wife of Croatia’s first president, dr Franjo Tudjman, who from December 1991 championed the worldwide charitable action under the organisation “Save the Children of Croatia” (later re-named into Humanitarian Foundation for Children of Croatia) that sought sponsors for Croatian war-orphaned children. By December 1992 the action secured sponsorship (annual/monthly financial support via individual bank accounts set up for each orphan) for 2,160 children of killed Croatian Homeland War veterans. By 1996 the action had 4,319 children of killed veterans under its sponsorship program in addition to hundreds of children of 100% war-invalids. Her charity still goes strong today as she in her advanced age holds tight to her determination to help children in need for as long as she lives. I wish Ankica a very special day on this day of March the 8th!

23,080 Croat women who actively participated in the Homeland War, assisting in the defence against aggression

Croat women in Homeland War

Croat women in Homeland War (click photo to enlarge)

Many Croat women who worked tirelessly from the diaspora on humanitarian aid to Croatia and lobbying the world for Croatia’s independence

Croatian women rally against aggression  in Croatia - Sydney, Australia January 1993

Croatian women rally against aggression
in Croatia – Sydney, Australia January 1993 (click photo to enlarge)

Many women who worked as humanitarian aid workers caring for over 800,000 (Croat and Muslim) refugees in Croatia during the war under often dire, always treacherous and difficult circumstances.

1992 Croatia - Croat and Muslim refugees

1992 Croatia – Croat and Muslim refugees (click photo to enlarge)

November 1991 Croat refugees

November 1991 Croat refugees (click photo to enlarge)

Women who followed a career path that would enhance the path to Croatia’s democracy of tomorrow

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic (click photo to enlarge)

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic commenced her career for Croatia in wartime 1993 at the ministry of science and technology, then moved to foreign affairs office and was deputy minister then head of North America unit from where she went to Canada at the Croatian Embassy as adviser and minster adviser. In 2003 she was elected into the Croatian Parliament when she became Croatia’s minister of foreign affairs and European integration until 2008. From then until 2011 she was the Croatian Ambassador in Washington and from July 2011 the assistant secretary general of NATO for public diplomacy – I trust that Kolinda will be the first woman president of Croatia very soon, Certainly her career path and world diplomacy experience has provided just the right background to lead the modern Croatia into a full democracy. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Related Posts on rape as war crime:

http://inavukic.com/2012/03/07/international-womens-day-a-tribute-to-the-courage-of-croatian-women-victims-of-mass-rapes/

http://inavukic.com/2013/08/21/croatia-howling-for-rape-war-crimes-justice/

http://inavukic.com/2012/09/08/convicted-serb-rapists-from-vukovar-1991-flee-croatia/

http://inavukic.com/2013/05/03/croatia-stop-listening-to-serbia-listen-to-the-victims-of-her-aggression/

Croatia: One (Two) Serbs Too Many

From left: Milorad Pupovac and Savo Strbac   Photo: braniteljski-portal.hr

From left: Milorad Pupovac and Savo Strbac
Photo: braniteljski-portal.hr

Croatia’s Homeland Thanksgiving Day (Victory Day) is coming up on 5th August. It’ll be the 18th anniversary of the day the horrible war of Serb aggression ended; Military operation Storm had within a matter of days liberated the Croatian territory that was occupied by Serbs, ethnically cleansed of non-Serbs, thousands lost their lives… It’ll also be the 18th anniversary of Serb denial of their horrid aggression and crimes – their denial almost succeeded in its wicked plan to equate the aggressor with the victim had the ICTY Appeal tribunal not acquitted in November 2012 Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac (and indeed the Croatian leadership) of joint criminal enterprise against Serbs/i.e. forced deportation.

Regretfully, some loud Serbs from within and from outside Croatia still cannot face the guilt of Serb aggression. One of these is Savo Strbac – a Croatian Serb nationalist living in Serbia who even though heavily involved in the set-up and pursuit of Serb aggression in Croatia in early 1990’s “assisted” the ICTY prosecutor to formulate the failed indictment of joint criminal enterprise against Croatian generals. Even though Strbac had publicly stated many times that Serb leadership evacuated Serbs from Croatia – mind you he said that was because Croats would have committed genocide over the Serbs then had Serbs not been evacuated! – the ICTY prosecutor (Carla del Ponte) pressed on with trying to make it as if all those Serbs fled Croatia under the conditions of Croatian illegal or excessive shelling of its Serb-occupied territory (which was disproved by the court).

Here is a record of how Savo Strbac promoted Serb aggression in Croatia: He calls Croatian defence efforts an aggression; he says that Croats never wanted to live with Serbs in Croatia and YET when 94% Croatians voted to secede from communist Yugoslavia it was the 6% of Croatian Serbs (with the help of Serrb led Yugoslav Army) who rebelled and started the aggression, ethnic cleansing and murder because they wanted to live in Yugoslavia and not Croatia…

Dnevno.hr news portal reports that yesterday, 3 August, Strbac had announced in Banja Luka (!) that new evidence has come to light and that it is expected that the judgment, which acquitted Croatian generals of joint criminal enterprise in 2012, will be reviewed.  Banja Luka, to remind readers, was the second largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, it was ethnically cleansed of non-Serbs during the 1990’s Serb aggression and untold horrid crimes were committed by the Serb forces there; and now stands as administrative capital of Serbian Republic entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. (And the world tolerates this!)

Strbac said that these new facts were not known to ICTY when the acquitting verdict was delivered against the Croatian Generals regarding Operation Storm. He refers to the remains of 110 recently  exhumed bodies around Sibenik and Zadar and concludes that these are the remains of Serbs killed during military operation Storm!

A renowned Croatian lawyer, Zvonimir Hodak, while commenting on Strbac’s latest outburst said that Strbac should go and seek medical treatment.  Then Hodak explained some things that are clear to everyone except Strbac:

Firstly, Sibenik and Zadar have no connection with the military actions in operation Storm, it’s known precisely over which territory the military operations were carried out. Savo Strbac could have dug out some remains near Krapina and said that these were the victims of operation Storm. Furthermore, Savo Strbac and his traitors from Croatia are saying that there were 971 civilians killed, but the Hague tribunal had identified and confirmed 44 killed civilians and that is the valid number that cannot be changed…the new evidence has nothing to do with the territory over which operation Storm occurred”.
Hodak says that this latest outburst by Savo Strbac is “shooting at sparrows with cannons and obvious disinformation of the public from which anger and despair arise”.

Another Croatian Serb Croatia could do without is Milorad Pupovac. One the Serb National Council website he states: “ … Serb national council also remembers destructive consequences of the war upon relationships between people and nations, upon social values and economy. The majority of Croatian citizens have not recovered from these in almost two decades. We condemn the continuance of political use of the war because the way it is interpreted and celebrated rejuvenates and prolongs the war atmosphere and war rhetoric, deepens the ethnic and social divides and stops the public to face itself with its dark side and its destructive consequences”.

Croatian Serb national Milorad Pupovac would like Croatia to:
•    Stop remembering its war dead
•    Stop remembering that it was attacked brutally when its 94% of voters opted to secede from communist Yugoslavia and build an independent democratic state;
•    Forget that it was the Croatian Serbs (aided by Serbia) who did not want to live in Croatia and therefore decided to steal its territory and cleanse it of non-Serbs;
•    Stop celebrating the victory of self-determination

Indeed, Strbac and Pupovac are two too many Serbs in Croatia; in the world. Their political rot is the reason why Croatia must never forget the price it paid for freedom and celebrate victory even more. No one must forget its victims in order to appease the criminal. And, one must take seriously Strbac’s words from the above video where he says that they (Serbs) needed to organise the exodus of Serbs from Croatia (in 1995) in order to preserve their people for a future that is yet to come – Greater Serbia at all costs. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

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