ethnic cleansing – Croatia, the War, and the Future

Hey New York Times – Croatia’s Franjo Tudjman’s True Image Needs No Buffing!

January 7, 2023 by inavukic 14 Comments

Having read the latest New York Times article by Andrew Higgins, “To Buff a Balkan Leader’s Image, a Filmmaker Calls In Kevin Spacey”, published 3 January 2023, few things must be said first up in response to this journalistic tripe.

First, Croatia’s First President’s Franjo Tudjman’s true image does not need buffing – it already shines where it counts – among and with all Croatian people bar some former communist Yugoslavia operatives and their lapdogs; he as leader achieved independence, ushered Croatia out of the communist regime albeit soaked in blood and set Croatia towards the path of democracy and European Union.

Second, Andrew Higgins may wish to refresh his knowledge of the Balkan Peninsula countries or change his preferences about placing Croatia on the geographical map that covers Balkan Peninsula. Croatia is not considered to be a Balkan country in the full sense given that almost 60% of its territory is not situated nor has it ever been within the borders of the Balkan Peninsula maps. Furthermore, Franjo Tudjman was born and bred in the part of Croatia that is not and never has been included in the map of the Balkan Peninsula. Croatian people do not consider Croatia as a Balkan country but a South-eastern European country just as all bar the “Higginses” of the world place it.

Third, 1990’s war of independence from communist Yugoslavia in Croatia (and Bosnia and Herzegovina) did not happen by spontaneous combustion, where no culprit can be found. It happened by Serb and former Yugoslav People’s Army brutal and genocidal aggression and, hence, Croatia’s absolute and rightful need to defend bare lives of its people.

Fourth, the Croatians did not ethnically cleanse Serbs out of Croatia after the liberating military Operation Storm in August 1995 as Higgins evidently would like the world to believe. Serb evacuation was planned and ordered by Serbs and Serbia, but Serbs did ethnically cleanse of Croats 25% of Croatian territory known as Krajina as they occupied the area with the help of rebel Serbs in Croatia who did not want an independent Croatia.

One can’t help but wonder and stare in disbelief and bitter disappointment at what some journalists, even Pulitzer Prize winners, are capable of concocting to aid a push for a bigoted line they obviously pursue when it comes important issues such as exiting communist regime for democracy, defending oneself from brutal aggression etc. And so, it is more than plain that New York Times journalist Andrew Higgins did not and does not like Croatia’s first President, Franjo Tudjman, and that such personal sentiments may, sadly, have influenced this latest abominably biased and fact-twisting article on Croatia’s fight for independence in the 1990’s. But then again, Andrew Higgins has appeared, along with a couple of other New York Times journalists, as the butt of jokes in Kyiv, Ukraine, for “getting matters wrong”. Andrew Higgins in this article writes about Croatian “ethnic cleansing” in this war, of Serbs! The fact is that it was Serbs who ethnically cleansed all Croats and other non-Serbs from the quarter of Croatia’s territory they occupied at the start of their war of aggression. They also ethnically cleansed a large part of Bosnia and Herzegovina of Croats and Bosniaks (Muslims)!

When Croatian forces as part of the liberating military operation Storm on 5 August 1995 entered Croatia’s Serb-occupied town of Knin, the town was already deserted (see for example the well-documented book by Nikica Baric, “Serb rebellion in Croatia 1991 – 1995”, 2005, p. 520). Serb paramilitary forces, Serb insurgent leadership, and “civilians” fled Knin for Republika Srpska (Self-proclaimed Serbian Republic on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Serbia. Estimates of the number of Serbs who fled from Croatia vary by sources. Different sources cite different numbers of Serbs that left Croatia at the time and immediately after the Operation Storm that liberated Serb-occupied Croatian territory. These figures vary from 90,00 to 150,000 to 300,000. Of course, the latter figure is a fabrication of Serbia’s propaganda to aid its fanciful and politically driven claims that Serbs were victims! The departure of the Serbs from Serb-occupied areas liberated by the 1995 Operation Storm was planned, organised, and executed by the insurgent Serb leadership from Knin with Slobodan Milosevic’s directive backing from Belgrade. This is a well-documented historical fact that seems to have eluded Andrew Higgins and those like him who prefer to make their false assertions appear credible by talking to people like Dejan Jovic, a staunch opposer of Croatian independence, of Serbian origins and pro-communist Yugoslavia “academic crusader”. The fact is that the vast majority of Serb “civilians” from Northern Dalmatia and Lika were evacuated with the aid of Serb forces, ignoring Franjo Tudjman’s pleas to remain in Croatia as equal citizens of Croatia (see further my article dated August 4, 2020). Between 4 and 5 August 1995 the evacuation of Serbs from Croatia followed the decision made by the Serb self-proclaimed authorities of the Republic of Serb Krajina Supreme Defence Council, led by its president Milan Martic (convicted in June 2007 to 35 years prison by the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague ICTY for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Croatia) and commander-in-chief of the Serb Army of Krajina (the Serb-occupied part of Croatia) lieutenant general Mile Mrksic (Convicted by ICTY in 2012 to 20 years prison for war crimes, viz murder, torture, inhumane acts in Croatia against Croats). Although the decision to evacuate Croatian areas they had occupied and ethnically cleansed of Croats did not apply to Serb military forces, they nevertheless joined the “civilians” and left the area with them.

“Croatia, almost ethnically homogeneous as a result of the 1990s violence that drove out many Serbs and members of other minorities,” writes Higgins, leading one to believe that it was Croats who ethnically cleansed the Serbs from their homes in Croatia and the truth is and was the opposite! Indeed, it occurs to a lucid and decent mind that Serbs may well have fled Croatia in 1995, including “civilians”, largely due to fear of vengeance for the horror and crimes they themselves committed there between 1991 and August 1995. Furthermore, the fact that their evacuation was an order even from Belgrade, Serbia, seems to suggest that Serbia planned well in advance to try and convince the world of a fallacy that Croats ethnically cleansed them! Such an elaborate plan was not beyond Serbia’s propaganda machinery, and it does not seem beyond it today. Annihilation of Croats and Croatia was Serbia’s goal and political platform to which even so-called civilians subscribed. Multitudes of these Serb “civilians” in Croatia (or Bosnia and Herzegovina) cannot truly be considered civilians as per international humanitarian laws but rather non-combatant civilians. Many held convictions of Greater Serbia creation, acted upon them without a gun in their hands, aided the Serb paramilitary, military, and Yugoslav forces in various ways. Many, for example, are held responsible for or actively contributing to the rounding up of their Croatian (and Bosniak/Muslim) neighbours as they were being forcefully taken to concentration camps in Serbia, e.g, Begejci and Sremska Mitrovica ( the ABC TV Australia Award-winning 1995 documentary by journalist Chris Masters, “The Coward’s War”, is a great record of truth on these matters) where they were tortured, starved, raped, humiliated. Had the international criminal tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in the Hague tested and differentiated between groups of so-called civilians to a fuller extent it would have found, I am convinced, an overwhelming Serb “civilian” following and aiding the military aggressor.

Andrew Higgins quotes Warren Zimmerman, US Ambassador to former Yugoslavia, who in 1992 wrote that “Mr. Tudjman’s election as Croatia’s president in May 1990 had brought to power ‘a narrow-minded, crypto-racist regime’ that, in tandem with Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, was unleashing ‘nationalism, the Balkan killer.” Not a single word here that Croatian people wanted out of the oppressive communist Yugoslavia, they overwhelmingly voted for Franjo Tudjman to lead them into democracy and independence! One simply cannot call a will for democracy and freedom by the name of nationalism, with negative connotations, and get away with it. Especially not in the case of Yugoslavia which was first created in 1918 to benefit the Serbian Monarchy and Croatian parliament never ratified the decision by a few to join Croatia to Serbia and Slovenia and form Yugoslavia (first kingdom and then post WWII totalitarian communist nightmare for most Croats). Higgins, hence, subscribes it seems to a small army of politically twisted and biased people who keep spinning the corrupt idea that it was nationalism that sparked and aided the terrible war of Serb and Yugoslav aggression against Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina! The war occurred because majority of Croats wanted out of communist Yugoslavia and Serbs did not want this. They murdered, tortured, raped, ethnically cleansed, destroyed homes and buildings… in Croatia to try and stop Croatian independence and expand the power of the rotten pursuits to create a Greater Serbia, stealing other people’s territory. Croatia had no option or choice but to defend itself and kick-in its will power for the right to self-preservation. Indeed, nationalism was not responsible for the bloodshed. It was Serb brutal aggression, laced with pursuits to create an ethnically clean Greater Serbia.

Why Andrew Higgins blatantly in this article takes it upon himself to encourage the world to shun and condemn a man – Kevin Spacey – who has so far not been found guilty of sexual abuse entailed in reported allegations against him, or any other crime, can perhaps be answered by any of us who have lived the democracy in which all are innocent until proven guilty. If this article is to serve as any measure of decency towards society, towards democratic rule of law, towards someone who is the subject of criminal allegations but not yet proven guilty then Andrew Higgins appears to gravely lack any decency towards justice and due process to say the least. Andrew Higgins, it appears delights in spreading the awful occurrences where some (even Hollywood!) have written Kevin Spacey off although charges against him have not been tested or proven in a court of law. A large dose of glee, or “schadenfreude” as Germans would put it, in this article is saddening.

It’s difficult to even fathom what went through Andrew Higgins’ mind when he wrote this mean article in which he obviously tries to convince the unsuspecting public that Croatia’s First President Franjo Tudjman’s true image needs “buffing” (i.e., cleaning or polishing). Then, he implies that “buffing” is not likely to happen through the film in which Kevin Spacey plays the role of Tudjman.

Franjo Tudjman is and has been a popular leader among those that matter, those who wanted Croatia’s freedom and independence, and that was 94% of voters in 1991 independence referendum. As for others, including perhaps Andrew Higgins, no amount of buffing could remove the effects of untruths and half-truths spread about Tudjman have had on some. No, the film with Kevin Spacey is not made to buff Tudjman’s image it was made to present, once again, considering so many lies and untruths being repeatedly spread about Tudjman, the glorious truth of Croatia’s fight and courage for independence!

Contrary to a common narrative whereby politics drives susceptibility to fake news, we are overall as society of the world fortunate with the reality that people are ‘better’ at discerning truth from falsehood when evaluating politically concordant news or published content. This is truly comforting as one trusts that falsehoods and hatred portrayed against Croatia and its 1990’s War of Independence as one finds in this Andrew Higgins article, will mellow in time, and end up in dark corners and abysses where they belong. Ina Vukic

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Andrew Higgins, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Communist Yugoslavia, Croatia, Croatian war of independence, ethnic cleansing, Franjo Tudjman, Milan Martic, Mile Mrksic, New York Times, Serb aggression, Serb exodus from Croatia 1995, transitioning from communism to democracy

LEST WE FORGET VUKOVAR AND SKABRNJA – CROATIA

November 13, 2022 by inavukic 9 Comments

Photo: Croatian Club “Braća Radić” in Sydney Australia members, children and teachers during 2018 commemoration of Vukovar and Skabrnja

On 18^th November commemoration to honour the victims of brutal, genocidal, Serb and Yugoslav Army aggression will be held across Croatia and particular focus will be on Vukovar and Skabrnja who on that day in 1991 and days that followed suffered horrific destinies at the hand of the aggressor while the “world” via the UN pressed on with arms embargo against Croatia! I was particularly touched recently of the announcement from the Sydney, Australia, based Croatian Club “Braća Radić” (Radic Brothers) that they will hold a special commemoration on Friday 18^th November in the evening for Vukovar and Skabrnja massacres victims, focusing on including school-age children to participate in this event – so that future Australian-Croatian generations know about these tragedies and never forget the victims. The children, parents and friends will confirm their knowledge and remembrance of significant milestones of these tragedies and places in Croatia. It will include the following lines of truths that will be useful for your children and grandchildren to know:

1.The town of Vukovar is situated in the north-east part of continental or mainland Croatia and sits on at the confluence of the Vuka River and the Danube. Its history begins in the 6^th century AD when Slavic people settled in the area. Vukovar as a town was first mentioned in history books as Vukovo in the early 13^th century AD and in 14th century it acquires the name of Vukovar. Vukovar occupies parts of historical provinces of Croatia. What are those provinces called?

Reply: Eastern Slavonia and Western Syrmia.

Map of Croatia with position of Vukovar

2. What is the name of the historical symbol of the city of Vukovar?

Reply: Vucedol dove.

Vukovar’s Vucedol Dove

3. What is the name of the modern symbol of Vukovar’s suffering that was restored, with the help of Croatians living in the diaspora including Sydney, to its former glory of pre-Homeland War of the early 1990’s after it was significantly destroyed by the former Yugoslavia and Serbian aggressor armies’ bombing and shelling?

Reply: Vukovar Water Tower

Vukovar Water Tower

4. Most Croatian people wanted independence from communist Yugoslavia so in May 1990 they held the first democratic elections and on 30 May 1990 Croatian Parliament was inaugurated. This was the beginning of the end the 45-year rule of communist Yugoslavia over Croatia. At the instigation of the first Croatian President, dr Franjo Tuđman, who led the political movement for an independent Croatia, on 19^th May 1991 Croatians held a referendum and almost 94% of Croatian voters voted for independence from the oppressive communist Yugoslavia totalitarian regime. There was a Serb minority living in Croatia who opposed Croatian independence and loyal to Serbia they wanted Croatia to remain as part of Yugoslavia. These Serb minorities became to be known as Rebel Serbs in Croatia and in August of 1990 they blocked the roads around the town of Knin with logs and with the help of Serbia they proclaimed the Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina and commenced banishing Croats living in that area, killing many. On 25 June 1991 the Croatian Parliament proclaimed Croatia as an independent state and commenced the path to separate itself from communist Yugoslavia. As a result, the Yugoslav Army opposed Croatian independence and sided with the Croatian Serb rebels and together from August 1991 they staged a cruel and brutal attack upon Vukovar and Borovo Selo at its outskirts. Then Began the heroic Battle for Vukovar on Croatian side amidst the siege of the town by the Yugoslav army and rebel Serbs in Croatia who lived there. On 18 November 1991, the battle of Vukovar ended after the city ran out of ammunition but the Serb rebels living in the area nevertheless committed more mass killings and genocide in the days that followed. The massacre of Vukovar Hospital medical staff and civilian patients and war prisoners at the nearby Ovčara farm occurred on 20 November. During the siege of Vukovar from 25 August to 18 November 1991 by Serbs and Yugoslav Army 1800 of civilians and Croatian soldiers were killed, thousands wounded, and over 2,000 missing, presumed killed by Serbs, thousands of Croatians held captive and tortured in Serbian concentration camps and others that made up all Croatians living in the area were banished and became refugees, Vukovar suffered catastrophic damage in the battle with 90 percent of houses either destroyed or damaged. It is worth noting that while majority were rebels and aggressors there were some Serbs in Croatia who joined the Croatian fighters to free Vukovar. In 1998, the largest mass grave in Europe since World War II was discovered at the New Cemetery in Vukovar, from which the remains of 938 victims were exhumed. Croatian soldiers and civilians were buried there by the Yugoslav Army after the occupation of the town. Vukovar remained occupied by Serbian forces until late 1998 when it was returned to Croatia during the so-called peaceful reintegration of occupied Croatian Danube area. In Croatia, after the heavy suffering in the Homeland War that included the Battle for Vukovar, what is Vukovar called?

Reply: Hero City.

Devastated Vukovar from Serb and Yugoslav Army aggression - November 1991

Devastated Vukovar November 1991

5. There was a woman from Vukovar who is known as a Croatian hero and nicknamed “The Vukovar Mother of Courage”. She lost four sons and a son-in-law in the Battle for Vukovar. She searched for her sons’ remains for 12 years. The last body, the oldest Niko, was found in 2003 in an unmarked grave at the cemetery in Srijemska Mitrovica in Serbia. Niko was her eldest son and was 49 years old when he was captured in the fighting before the fall of Vukovar. He was taken to the Srijemska Mitrovica concentration camp in Serbia. There he was brutally tortured and killed by a blow to the head in December 1991. He is survived by three sons. The second son Mijo, three years younger than Niko, managed to hide his family in Zadar, and he returned to Srijemski Čakovci, Croatia, to see what happened to his house. His Serb neighbours captured him and then killed him in a cornfield on the day of the fall of Vukovar on November 18, 1991. Kata’s third son Ivan, the commander at Mitnica near Vukovar for defence of Vukovar, better known as “Big Joe”, was 43 years old when he died. He started to break through from Vukovar, was ambushed by the Chetniks and tried to get out of the ambush. He jumped into the Danube and drowned in the cold and swollen river. He left behind three minor children. The fourth son Mato was killed at the beginning of the war during the attempt to seize the Yugoslav Army barracks in Vukovar on September 19, 1991. She died in July 2008 at the age of 85. A Park in Zagreb was named after her to honour her courage in the Capital city. What is her name?

Reply: Kata Soljic.

Kata Soljic

6. There were many men and women who lived in other countries outside Croatia, some were of Croatian origins some were foreigners, who came to Croatia and volunteered as fighters to help Croatia defend itself against the aggressors in the Homeland War. There was a French man who fought across the Vukovar fields as member of Croatian military forces. He was wounded in battle in early November 1991 and was treated for his injuries in the Vukovar Hospital. On 20 November 1991 he was forcefully taken from the hospital and placed in a Serb a “Hangar” at Ovcara farm by members of the Yugoslav Army and Serb paramilitary after he gave an interview to a French TV journalist in which he stated that “Vukovar was a slaughterhouse”. He was dragged from the hangar by Serbs, viciously beaten and murdered. His remains have not been found and he was still in late 2021 among hundreds of Croatian men and women listed as missing although there are more recent claims that he was buried in a mass grave behind the hangars on Ovcara farm and these claims need verification. His mother and brother have moved to Croatia where they and continue searching for justice for him and his burial place. In 2015 Croatians in Vukovar build a statue of him, which now forms one of the important landmarks of Vukovar’s suffering during Croatia’s Homeland War. What was the name of this French volunteer, hero, who bravely fought to save Vukovar and was brutally tortured and murdered?

Reply: Jean-Michel Nicolier

Jean-Michel Nicolier

7. During the negotiations with the Serbs for the peaceful reintegration into Croatia of the area in which Vukovar is located, which was successfully concluded for the Republic of Croatia in January 1998, a special train of 21 wagons left Zagreb on June 8, 1997 for Vukovar. In that train were President Dr. Franjo Tuđman and top officials in the Republic of Croatia and church dignitaries. That train symbolically marked the return of the occupied city of Vukovar to the territorial integrity of Croatia. “The arrival in Vukovar, a symbol of Croatian suffering, resistance, aspiration for freedom and a return to the eastern borders, to the Croatian Danube, is a sign of our determination to want peace, reconciliation, to create a truce and to never let what happened to us happen again. happened to us in Vukovar. This panorama of Hiroshima in the middle of Europe, the city of Vukovar, will be easier to rebuild in a material sense, but difficult in our memory. This train to Vukovar is truly a symbol of peace, the return of exiles, victims of this war who spent more than six years outside of their hearths, but who are ready to return and to also lend a hand to those who did not bleed their hands like war criminals,” said Dr. Franjo Tuđman at the time. What was the name of that train?

Reply: Peace Train.

President of Croatia Dr. Franjo Tudjman at arrival in Vukovar of 1997 Peace Train

President of Croatia Dr Franjo Tudjman arrives in Vukovar on Peace Train 1997

8. On the same day as the fall of Vukovar, Škabrnja massacre was perpetrated as the most brutal massacre killing of 63 Croats, 15 defenders and 48 civilians by the self-proclaimed Serbian Autonomous Region Krajina (SAO Krajina) Territorial Defence troops and the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) in the villages of Škabrnja and Nadin (near the Dalmatian city of Zadar) on 18–19 November 1991. Every family in Škabrnja was “wrapped up in black” after that attack. By the end of the Homeland War, the number of people killed in Škabrnja had grown to 80; another 6 died after the war from land mines placed around the village by Serbs This terrible crime was planned and timed, at the same time when the Serb Chetnik hordes were rampaging in occupied Vukovar, as well as in other areas of Croatia where the Chetniks were killing all Croats (Kostrići, Saborsko, Slunj, Nadin, Vrhovine and elsewhere). After the massacre of Croatian civilians, the Serbian aggressor wrote on a wall of a large building in Škabrnja in large black letters “Welcome to the dead village”, which, in itself, says how very brutal and savage the Serbs who fought against Croatia were against the Croats. What is the name of the province in Croatia where the villages of Škabrnja o Nadin are located?

Reply: Ravni Kotari.

Map of Croatia and position of Skarnja and Nadin

Map of Croatia with position of Skabrnja and Nadin

9. Even before the 18 November 1991 massacre, Serbs from neighbouring villages and the Yugoslav Army attacked Škabrnja, wanting to kill and expel all the inhabitants of that Croatian village. The attacks were fierce on September 17, 1991 and October 5, 1991. In September, the residents were evacuated to Island of Ugljan, but they returned after a signed armistice. In the period from October 4 to 10, more than 2,000 grenade bombs fell on Škabrnje. Škabrnja was rocketed from an airplane; large bombs were thrown on the village, the so-called “Sow” bomb. The massacres in Vukovar and Škabrnja and throughout Croatia were part of Serbia’s plan and strategy for the destruction of Croats and the final breakdown of the defenders in order to create the genocidal creation of Greater Serbia, to which Serb s wanted to join Croatian lands and populate them with Serbs. Who was President of Serbia at that time who headed the terrible aggression against Croatia and Croats?

Reply: Slobodan Milosevic.

10. The United Nations Security Council, based in New York, United States of America, formed in 1993 the United Nations court of law base in The Hague, Netherlands, that dealt with war crimes that took place during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia including Croatia in the 1990s. During its mandate, which lasted from 1993 – 2017 after that the role of war crimes justice was passed onto a new body called the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals [IRMCT]), it irreversibly changed the landscape of international humanitarian law, provided victims an opportunity to voice the horrors they witnessed and experienced, and proved that those suspected of bearing the greatest responsibility for atrocities committed during armed conflicts can be called to account. While many war criminals who perpetrated crimes against Croatians in Vukovar and Skabrnja have still not faced court judgment and their victims have still not received justice it is noteworthy to know that Serb leaders of the time Vojislav Šešelja, Jovica Stanišić i Frank Simatović, Slobodana Milosevic, Goran Hadzic, Slavka Dokmanovic, Mile Mrksic, Veselin Sljivancanin i Miroslav Radic were indicted, and most were convicted. The notorious Goran Hadzic and Slobodan Milosevic both died in the Hague prison while the criminal court proceedings were continuing. What is the name of the International Criminal Court in the Hague that prosecuted war criminals in relation to war crimes perpetrated in Vukovar, Skabrnja and the entire Croatia during Croatia’s Homeland War or War of Independence during 1990’s?

Reply: International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

Prepared by Ina Vukic

CROATIAN LANGUAGE VERSION: DA SE NE ZABORAVE VUKOVAR I ŠKABRNJA (PDF):

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Croatia, Croatian Homeland War, ethnic cleansing, Fall of Vukovar, Franjo Tudjman, genocide, Hero City, Jean-Michel Nicolier, Kata Soljic, Nadin, Ovcara massacre, Peace Train, Serb aggression, Skabrnja, Skabrnja Massacre, Vukovar

Croatia and The Relentless Serbian Aggression Against It

August 27, 2022 by inavukic 14 Comments

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