LEST WE FORGET VUKOVAR AND SKABRNJA – CROATIA

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

On 18th 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 18th 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 6th century AD when Slavic people settled in the area. Vukovar as a town was first mentioned in history books as Vukovo in the early 13th 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 and position of Vukovar

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 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

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 19th 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

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

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):

Croatia: Candles For The Unforgotten – 25 Years On

Vukovar remembers 25 Years since Battle of Vukovar Top R: President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic Bottom R: Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic Photo collage: Vecernji List

Vukovar remembers
25 Years since Battle of Vukovar
Top R: President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
Bottom R: Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic
Photo collage: Vecernji List

Friday 18 November 2016 more than a 120,000 people took part in the memorial march in the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of Vukovar to the Serb-led Yugoslav army and Serb rebel forces on 18 November 1991 after a three-month siege and slaughter of Croats and ethnic cleansing of Croats from the town. Across Croatia lit candles lined the streets to mark the day 25 years ago when rivers of innocent Croatian blood flowed under the knife of Serb aggressor and the destruction of Croatia reached the point of the senseless and brutal. More than 10,000 people were killed in the Croatian war (1991 – 1995) that started when Croatia declared independence from communist Yugoslavia, triggering a murderous rebellion by minority Serbs to whose aid swiftly came the communist Yugoslavia army seated in Belgrade Serbia.

Remembrance march in Vukovar 18 November 2016 Photo: Screenshot Jutarnji List

Remembrance march in Vukovar
18 November 2016
Photo: Screenshot Jutarnji List

The Battle of Vukovar began on 25 August 1991 when the Yugoslav Peoples’ Army (JNA) and Serb paramilitaries mounted an all-out attack on the town. About 1,800 Croatian defenders, including a large number of volunteers from throughout the country, defended the town for almost three months before being overrun by the besieging forces on 18 November 1991. About 4,000 people were killed in the battle.

President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic lights candles at Vukovar Memorial Cemetery 18 November 2016 Photo: Marko Markonjic/Pixsell

President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic
lights candles at Vukovar Memorial Cemetery
18 November 2016
Photo: Marko Mrkonjic/Pixsell

JNA troops took wounded Croatian soldiers and civilians from the town hospital to a nearby pig farm at Ovcara and executed them in the night between 20 and 21 November 1991. Two hundred bodies have been exhumed from the Ovcara mass grave and 76 persons are still unaccounted for. The youngest victim was 16 years old and the oldest was 84. Among the victims was a woman seven months pregnant.
After the town’s occupation, several thousand Croatian prisoners of war and civilians were taken to concentration camps in Serbia, and about 22,000 Croats and other non-Serbs were expelled from the town.
A total of 309 persons from the Vukovar area are still listed as missing.

From Left: Hero, Dr Vesna Bosanac of Vukovar Hospital 1991 Cardinal Josip Bozanic, Archbishop of Zagreb, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, President of Croatia Ivan Penava, Mayor of Vukovar at Vukovar 18 November 2016 Photo:Marko Mrkonjic/Pixsell

From Left: Hero, Dr Vesna Bosanac of Vukovar Hospital 1991
Cardinal Josip Bozanic, Archbishop of Zagreb,
Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, President of Croatia
Ivan Penava, Mayor of Vukovar
at Vukovar 18 November 2016
Photo:Marko Mrkonjic/Pixsell

On the same day, November 18, 2016, several thousand people gathered in the coastal Skabrnja on Friday to commemorate the massacre on 18 November 1991 of 58 Croatian civilians and 26 soldiers by Serb rebel forces led by Ratko Mladic (currently at the Hague, ICTY, for war crimes committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina including Srebrenica genocide).

Remembrance march 2016 Skabrnja, Croatia Photo: HINA/ ml

Remembrance march 2016
Skabrnja, Croatia
Photo: HINA/ ml

The next day, November 19th, thousands march peacefully in remembrance of massacres and tortures of Croats in Borovo Naselje (next to Vukovar) and Nadin (next to Skarbrnje) when of 19 November 1991 Serb paramilitary forces made up of Croatian Serbs with the help of Yugoslav army seated in Belgrade, Serbia, stormed into these villages and as in Vukovar and Skabrnje the day before – massacred dozens of Croatian civilians, forcing others in their thousands to concentration camps both in Croatia and in Serbia. The same terror occurred in many other places, day by day. It was the time of Serb occupation of Croatian lands by means of murder, ethnic cleansing, rape, destruction… a reign of terror no one can forget and most cannot forgive – the pain is still too fresh and the crimes still unpunished. This is not a good report card for Croatian governments since at least 1998 when the last patch of Croatian Serb-occupied land was reintegrated into Croatia. There are still hundreds upon hundreds of massacred and murdered Croats on the missing list and Serb simply will not reveal where their remains are buried.

Stone monument to those massacred in Nadin on 19 November 1991 Photo: Vladimir Brkic

Stone monument to those massacred in Nadin
on 19 November 1991
Photo: Vladimir Brkic

 

Besides political rhetoric and declarations of condemnation Croatian governments have not really set a firm agenda intent on achieving the result of finding out where the remains of the missing people are and what had happened to them. This agenda should become the Croatian government’s demand to Serbia as part of Serbia’s negotiations to EU membership.

I hope that after 25 years we will receive an answer to the question where our people perished, and then find the perpetrators and try them for their crimes and punish them,” said in Borovo Naselje to HRT TV news Ljiljana Alvir, president of the Union of the Families of the Imprisoned and the Missing.

Ljiljana Alvir Photo:hrt.hr

Ljiljana Alvir
Photo:hrt.hr

She said that when talking about Borovo Naselje, people from Borovo village (near Vukovar), the Serbs who were there (in 1991) and those who still live there, and who participated in the crimes and celebrated their “victory” on 19 November 1991, know where the graves of the missing are. She added that threats are made against Borovo population and the population of similar places, if they reveal where the graves are, that something (nasty) will happen to them. Besides, she said, they also fear that they’ll be indicted of the crimes if they reveal burial places and, therefore, keep quiet.

Remembrance march Borovo Naselje 19 November 2016 Photo:Gordan Panic

Remembrance march
Borovo Naselje 19 November 2016
Photo:Gordan Panic

We expect concrete measures from the Croatian government and pressure against Serbia, especially via the European parliament and to show Serbia that, if it doesn’t solve the question of the missing, it would not enter the EU as member state…” Alvir added.
Perhaps the new Croatian government will achieve more for the road to the revelation of the graves of the missing by appointing the retired General Ante Gotovina as Special Adviser to Defence Minister Damir Krsticevic at a government meeting in Vukovar on Thursday 17 November2016. General Gotovina along with general Mladen Markac were acquitted in 2012 by the ICTY of war crimes charges relating to the 1995 Operation Storm which liberated much of Croatian territory of Serb occupation.

Ante Gotovina Photo: FaH/ Mario STRMOTIC /ds

Ante Gotovina
Photo: FaH/ Mario STRMOTIC /ds

I am very pleased that my great friend and our hero has accepted my proposal and this engagement. I am confident that the general, with his knowledge and competence, will make a considerable contribution to national security and the development of the Croatian Armed Forces. It is my desire to continue encouraging the engagement of former professional soldiers and officers who helped in creating our Homeland and who can certainly also help in maintaining national security,” Krsticevic said in his Facebook post. https://eblnews.com/news/croatia/general-gotovina-appointed-special-adviser-defence-minister-44830 Serbs and Serbia are not going to be happy about this appointment as they continue with their denial of war crimes committed in Croatia but then nothing short of strong measures by Croatia will ever do justice to the victims of Serb-aggression crimes in Croatia.

And that pressure against Serbia should become the focus of all Croatian citizens in the coming months and years, if needed. Remembering those that perished without a trace, year after year, loses its true meaning without real efforts being made in finding their graves and their destiny. And so, I too hope that the Croatian government will turn its political rhetoric about the need to find the missing and start applying some real measures and pressures to actually give that revelation a real prospect. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

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