What Tuđman said ahead of Storm

Croatia is a beautiful country and it must repatriate all the Serbs who had left and restore their citizenship and property rights with ample compensation for the time they were alienated from their homesteads.This must be done before the EU goes forward with Croatia's membership.This is a human rights issue of which the EU prides itself on upholding.

Therefore, our main task in not Bihać, but rather dealing such blows on several fronts that will leave the Serb forces unable to recover, making them capitulate,”

This is military language. The Serbian forces for years had destroyed Croatia and killed 1000s of Croats, what do you expect the President to tell his troops.

KILL THEM ALL! Karadzic and Mladic have said in Srebrenica. President Tudjman did not go as far.

Croatia must give back all property seized from the Serbs. It should also give some form of autonomy, much like the autonomy the Albanians have in Kosovo right now. I feel that the only way for the Serbs to return in great numbers is to set up some kind of autonomous region in Croatia which will give them the peace of mind that they need. However, to avoid war, there should be a provision stating that this region cannot break away and join with Serbia or RS in Bosnia. Again, much like the plan being offered in Kosovo.

I do also want to make an observation. It is interesting that Croats and Serbs stand trial in the Hague while Americans and Germans, who had their fingers in that whole war, haven't stood trial. It is very telling. It speaks volumes about the bias in the Hague and how the court is completely unfair. What kind of court only prosecutes one side? Clearly a court that is influenced by the great powers such as the USA and the UK.

As I said in a previous post... the only way for the Hague to be taken seriously and respected is when it prosecutes men like Bill Clinton, George Bush, Madeline Albright, Donald Rumsfeld, and dozens of other criminals in Washington.

Operation Storm was the greatest scene of ethnic cleansing in all the wars in the Balkans. Yet, no one in the west has paid a price for it. It is a tragedy of justice.

It is known very well that the army that killed the most civilians is the serb army. Of course the croats would go and fight back for the country that was taken by the serbs who killed and devastated anything that was standing on their way.
As it is seen in the facts, on operation storm only about 150 serb civilians died, while thousands of innocent croat civilians died when serbs attacked and this is proven by the paragraph written in this article here in b92. "Estimates show that at least 150 Serb civilians died during Operation Storm, while tens of thousands were driven from their homes in Croatia, with property destroyed to make sure they would never return."
It is sad that civilians died in any side, but still the serbs caused the most deaths of innocent civilians in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosova.
Serbs have to realize this and accept their guilt of unbelievable and horror massacres done to innocent civilians.

Victor, can you substantiate your Karadzic and Mladic quote about Srebrenica?

Afrim Hoxha, so you are basically saying that as these murdered and dispossessed people were Serbs it doesn't really matter?

The Serbs in Krajina had forcibly driven many Croats from the region, which has always been indisputably Croatian. They have no right to return. And, if anyone insists that they do, what then of RS and all of the property taken from non-Serbs there? There is virtually zero return permitted to RS while Serbs are permitted to return to Croatia.

Blacky,

Your comments reflect a lot of rage and impuissance. You accuse some Americans the same way as some murderers would accuse the police who stoped, arrested them. As for the Operation Storm it was one of the best thing, that could have happened for that part of Europe.

«Operation Storm was the greatest scene of ethnic cleansing in all the wars in the Balkans.»

Blacky, what are you talking about? Did you know that in the summer of 1992, 50 000 Muslims across Bosnia were killed and 100 000 displaced civilians.

This war of aggression in Bosnia and Herzegovina is responsible for a consequence of events against the Serbs in the wider region of former Yugoslavia.

This is the lecture you should do of what happened instead of pointing at others.

victor, save your propaganda for kindergarden children.

As you know, the you Serb lobby are still going. They have successfully portrayed "Krajina" as some kind of historical Serbian province populated entirely by peace-loving, tax-paying Serbs ethnically cleansed by evil Croats in 1995. Blatant falsification - "Krajina" was built in 1991 on the mass slaughter of up to 20,000 Croats more than 4000 are still missing and the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands more. Hate towards Croatia helped them to grow it to the never before remembered heights of violence, hunger for blood, killing, (I try to guess what for). and Croatia is beutifule. Albanian is coming in summer to see u baby...

Afrim Hoxha - you and your fellow Albanians are hypocrits. "of course the croats would go and fight back for the country that was taken by the serbs". if that land was "taken" by the Serbs, then Kosovo has been taken by the muslim Albanians so you should understand why Serbs fight the Albanians to rightfully gain their land back.

My friends mom died in this opperation. She was hit with a shell just on my street. There were NO army installations or any army soldiers on the street at that time or EVER.

The Serbs in Krajina had forcibly driven many Croats from the region, which has always been indisputably Croatian. (penguin, 25 April 2007, 18:38)

(1) The Krajina region was populated by Serbs from Kosovo by Austro-Hungarian King Ferdinand to act as a frontier or shield against the Ottoman invasion(s) .

(2) The Krajina region was under the direct government of Austria , not Hungary where the Croatian Sabor was under.

(3) For that matter, the region of Dalmatia and Istria never was Croatian but fell under the Austro Hungarian Empire. These regions were under the Venetian empire previously.

(4) Croatia is "Zagoria" and nothing more , nothing less. Croatia never existed a true seperate entity, except briefly under King Tomislav who actually had Serb Blood.

Today, Croatia exists how envisioned by its Ustasha Leader Ante Pavelic-99% ethnically pure Croats.

Ethnic Serbs before WW11 had were 30% of the ethnic populuation of present day Croatia is now less than 1%.

If that is not ethnic cleansing, tell me what is.

Let us not forget that oluja saved the bihac pocket from a Srebrenica style fate and finally braught milosevic to the bargaining table. The Aug.23.1995 article from Politika prooves that Milan Martic ordered the evacuation of The so called RSK before HRV forces liberated the area.
p.s. Ask any normal serb who lived in Gracac under RSK and who lives there now,and most will tell you that it was like a fascist state from 91-1995.

everyone knows that the serbs in "krajina" were heavily armed and supported by belgrade to act in aggression against the croatian state. they kicked out all the croats from their majority-held area, but that want big enough, so they decided to spread out even more, like my town of drnis, where my family fled during sept. 1991. during that time, we were living in hotels and tents, and if it wasnt for operation storm, we would never have been able to return. loss of lives is a terrible thing, but you cannot focus on just that when the whole point of the operation was to restore croatian control on its area. and most of the serbs that left dont even want to return, and a some that do cant because they are criminals who participated in aggression on the croatian state (krajina had an army of 50,000 soldiers) plus, the government had to find homes for the croatians kicked out of other parts of croatia and bosnia, and they cant help everybody, especially the aggressors. (sorry for my bad english)

"As for the Operation Storm it was one of the best thing, that could have happened for that part of Europe."

Please Joe, enlighten us with what you mean here, because where I come from, ethnic cleansing is ethnic cleansing.

You guys seem not to remeber who started the war in Croatia and in all of former Yugo. Losing three wars and pretending to keep all the land you pretend to? Keep the Albanian Kosovo because of its past, keep Krajina, because of its present, keep RS because of its shape after 1995? Ridiculous! Are we turning back to the infamous "Where there is a Serbian grave, there is Serbia"?

Victor,
50,000 Muslims killed here,
100,000 killed there, another
250,000 killed somewhere else. It's a wonder there are any left. These numbers are in dispute. No one has accurate figures of how many
Muslims, Albanians, Croatians or Serbs etc were killed anywhere. Besides, it doesn't matter whether it was 1 or 1000. Innocent people were and are still being killed on all sides.

I don't see a "joint criminal enterprise" here. I simply see a strategy to eliminate Serb forces that opted to fight rather than take the offer of autonomy. Let's face it, Martic should have listened to Milosevic, and took Croatia's offer. He was an idiot, and is to blame for this so-called "exodus". Plus,from the very beginning of the war, the Serbian Army strategy was to remove their civilians from an area, and then pummell it (i.e. Vukovar). But, whereas in the case of Vukovar tanks were rolling out of Belgrade to follow up with plan... in the case of Knin, those tanks were quiet. Blame Martic for your miserable loss, not Tudjman.

"Estimates show that at least 150 Serb civilians died during Operation Storm, while tens of thousands were driven from their homes in Croatia, with property destroyed to make sure they would never return."

Actually, dear Afrim, this paragraph proves that the Serbs were driven from their homes in Croatia and their property destroyed so that they don't return.

I know it's just wishful thinking on your behalf, because you would like it if this quote said Croats were driven from their homes, since that would make Serbs look bad. But you see, if you were unbiased and took that quote for what it meant, ie. that Serbs were forced from their homes, then others would respect you and your opinion a little more. This is one reason why we will not listen to your opinions regarding Kosovo, since you are subjective and are only interested in seeing Serbs suffer and perish.

An independent Kosovo would require mature people to make it succeed. Your comments and interpretations of others' comments show you are grossly lacking this.

Croatia forfeited all rights to Krajina after Jasenovac.

The level of free speech allowed on this site is wonderful as it promotes the insolence and racist views against the Serbian peoples. I am greatly disappointed to see comments posted here drifting off to other issues rather than the one presented in the article.

Regardless of other incidents of the everlasting Balkans conflict facts are still facts and to be fair I believe the numbers of civilian casualties and displacement in Operation Storm is grossly understated in this article.

Serbs and Croats lived side by side in the region for a number of years and now for the mad propaganda of a few people higher up has tainted the minds of many poor souls, indicitive of the comments published here.

Peace.

I think serbs must be kidding themselves if they think krajina is greates act of ethnic cleansing since ww2. Somehow I doubt events in Bosnia and Kosovo were not worse.

The Serb military forces in Krajina were MALITIAS formed from common people, they were not professional soldiers, The Yugoslav army was not involved in the Defence of Krajina during OS. The Yugoslav army (Serbian Army) did not lose any wars, but the Serb militias lost against a professionally armed & trained (by the US, Germany) Croatian army. How the US could betray the Serbs to a mutual enemy (Croatia-Germany) that we both fought against in two World Wars is beyond my comprehension.

Daniel, actually Krajina IS the worst case of ethnic cleansing in Europe since WWII. The number of albanians displaced from Kosovo during 1999 were larger, but they were able to move back quickly after NATO finished their bombardment. It is much harder for serbs from Krajina to return to their homes. If you count the number of permanently displaced people then you will find Krajina is by far the worst (more than 200.000 people have not returned yet, and probably never will).

By the way, albanians were encouraged by UCK/KLA to temporarily leave Kosovo. Not everything was because of Serbs. Read the following article for more info about this.

http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2007/04/expelled.html

Penguin - Do you know what Krajina means? what is the history of Krajina? I'll elaborate, a frontierland populated by Serbs in a deal with the Austro-Hungarian empire as the first line of defence against the Turks. So how does a land which has for centuries been overwhelmingly Serbian become "indisputably Croatian". Find a text book and read some real history.

Blame Martic for your miserable loss, not Tudjman.
(Ratka, Thursday, 26 April, 2007, 06:26)

Good point, don't forget Babich also, his actions at the Hague Tribunal speak for themselves. He first was a "silent witness" against Milosevic, he then revealed his identity and then started straying from his testimony. Next thing you know he was found in a cell from an apparent suicide.

Milan Martic was a bigger idiot, he decided to send a missle to Zagreb. You must understand, that Zagreb has rarely been attacked or damaged in any conflict or World War. So, Martic paid for the audacity of launching a missle in the centre of Zagreb.

It was around medak,krajina that some time in late 1990 or early 1991 that a few us were sitting having a beer at a gostionica. In cames a man with a kalasnakov saying that this is serb territiry now and if you don't like then leave.I left. so did most of my family..for 5 years. after 1995 when returned everything was destroyed. are the criminals being charged. the bodies of elderly family who stayed behind in krajina are still missing. Who will go to justice for these killings, lootings,destruction.

Croatia is a beautiful country and it must repatriate all the Serbs who had left and restore their citizenship and property rights with ample compensation for the time they were alienated from their homesteads.This must be done before the EU goes forward with Croatia's membership.This is a human rights issue of which the EU prides itself on upholding.

Therefore, our main task in not Bihać, but rather dealing such blows on several fronts that will leave the Serb forces unable to recover, making them capitulate,”

This is military language. The Serbian forces for years had destroyed Croatia and killed 1000s of Croats, what do you expect the President to tell his troops.

KILL THEM ALL! Karadzic and Mladic have said in Srebrenica. President Tudjman did not go as far.

Croatia must give back all property seized from the Serbs. It should also give some form of autonomy, much like the autonomy the Albanians have in Kosovo right now. I feel that the only way for the Serbs to return in great numbers is to set up some kind of autonomous region in Croatia which will give them the peace of mind that they need. However, to avoid war, there should be a provision stating that this region cannot break away and join with Serbia or RS in Bosnia. Again, much like the plan being offered in Kosovo.

I do also want to make an observation. It is interesting that Croats and Serbs stand trial in the Hague while Americans and Germans, who had their fingers in that whole war, haven't stood trial. It is very telling. It speaks volumes about the bias in the Hague and how the court is completely unfair. What kind of court only prosecutes one side? Clearly a court that is influenced by the great powers such as the USA and the UK.

As I said in a previous post... the only way for the Hague to be taken seriously and respected is when it prosecutes men like Bill Clinton, George Bush, Madeline Albright, Donald Rumsfeld, and dozens of other criminals in Washington.

Operation Storm was the greatest scene of ethnic cleansing in all the wars in the Balkans. Yet, no one in the west has paid a price for it. It is a tragedy of justice.

It is known very well that the army that killed the most civilians is the serb army. Of course the croats would go and fight back for the country that was taken by the serbs who killed and devastated anything that was standing on their way.
As it is seen in the facts, on operation storm only about 150 serb civilians died, while thousands of innocent croat civilians died when serbs attacked and this is proven by the paragraph written in this article here in b92. "Estimates show that at least 150 Serb civilians died during Operation Storm, while tens of thousands were driven from their homes in Croatia, with property destroyed to make sure they would never return."
It is sad that civilians died in any side, but still the serbs caused the most deaths of innocent civilians in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosova.
Serbs have to realize this and accept their guilt of unbelievable and horror massacres done to innocent civilians.

Victor, can you substantiate your Karadzic and Mladic quote about Srebrenica?

Afrim Hoxha, so you are basically saying that as these murdered and dispossessed people were Serbs it doesn't really matter?

The Serbs in Krajina had forcibly driven many Croats from the region, which has always been indisputably Croatian. They have no right to return. And, if anyone insists that they do, what then of RS and all of the property taken from non-Serbs there? There is virtually zero return permitted to RS while Serbs are permitted to return to Croatia.

Blacky,

Your comments reflect a lot of rage and impuissance. You accuse some Americans the same way as some murderers would accuse the police who stoped, arrested them. As for the Operation Storm it was one of the best thing, that could have happened for that part of Europe.

«Operation Storm was the greatest scene of ethnic cleansing in all the wars in the Balkans.»

Blacky, what are you talking about? Did you know that in the summer of 1992, 50 000 Muslims across Bosnia were killed and 100 000 displaced civilians.

This war of aggression in Bosnia and Herzegovina is responsible for a consequence of events against the Serbs in the wider region of former Yugoslavia.

This is the lecture you should do of what happened instead of pointing at others.

victor, save your propaganda for kindergarden children.

As you know, the you Serb lobby are still going. They have successfully portrayed "Krajina" as some kind of historical Serbian province populated entirely by peace-loving, tax-paying Serbs ethnically cleansed by evil Croats in 1995. Blatant falsification - "Krajina" was built in 1991 on the mass slaughter of up to 20,000 Croats more than 4000 are still missing and the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands more. Hate towards Croatia helped them to grow it to the never before remembered heights of violence, hunger for blood, killing, (I try to guess what for). and Croatia is beutifule. Albanian is coming in summer to see u baby...

Afrim Hoxha - you and your fellow Albanians are hypocrits. "of course the croats would go and fight back for the country that was taken by the serbs". if that land was "taken" by the Serbs, then Kosovo has been taken by the muslim Albanians so you should understand why Serbs fight the Albanians to rightfully gain their land back.

My friends mom died in this opperation. She was hit with a shell just on my street. There were NO army installations or any army soldiers on the street at that time or EVER.

The Serbs in Krajina had forcibly driven many Croats from the region, which has always been indisputably Croatian. (penguin, 25 April 2007, 18:38)

(1) The Krajina region was populated by Serbs from Kosovo by Austro-Hungarian King Ferdinand to act as a frontier or shield against the Ottoman invasion(s) .

(2) The Krajina region was under the direct government of Austria , not Hungary where the Croatian Sabor was under.

(3) For that matter, the region of Dalmatia and Istria never was Croatian but fell under the Austro Hungarian Empire. These regions were under the Venetian empire previously.

(4) Croatia is "Zagoria" and nothing more , nothing less. Croatia never existed a true seperate entity, except briefly under King Tomislav who actually had Serb Blood.

Today, Croatia exists how envisioned by its Ustasha Leader Ante Pavelic-99% ethnically pure Croats.

Ethnic Serbs before WW11 had were 30% of the ethnic populuation of present day Croatia is now less than 1%.

If that is not ethnic cleansing, tell me what is.

Let us not forget that oluja saved the bihac pocket from a Srebrenica style fate and finally braught milosevic to the bargaining table. The Aug.23.1995 article from Politika prooves that Milan Martic ordered the evacuation of The so called RSK before HRV forces liberated the area.
p.s. Ask any normal serb who lived in Gracac under RSK and who lives there now,and most will tell you that it was like a fascist state from 91-1995.

everyone knows that the serbs in "krajina" were heavily armed and supported by belgrade to act in aggression against the croatian state. they kicked out all the croats from their majority-held area, but that want big enough, so they decided to spread out even more, like my town of drnis, where my family fled during sept. 1991. during that time, we were living in hotels and tents, and if it wasnt for operation storm, we would never have been able to return. loss of lives is a terrible thing, but you cannot focus on just that when the whole point of the operation was to restore croatian control on its area. and most of the serbs that left dont even want to return, and a some that do cant because they are criminals who participated in aggression on the croatian state (krajina had an army of 50,000 soldiers) plus, the government had to find homes for the croatians kicked out of other parts of croatia and bosnia, and they cant help everybody, especially the aggressors. (sorry for my bad english)

"As for the Operation Storm it was one of the best thing, that could have happened for that part of Europe."

Please Joe, enlighten us with what you mean here, because where I come from, ethnic cleansing is ethnic cleansing.

You guys seem not to remeber who started the war in Croatia and in all of former Yugo. Losing three wars and pretending to keep all the land you pretend to? Keep the Albanian Kosovo because of its past, keep Krajina, because of its present, keep RS because of its shape after 1995? Ridiculous! Are we turning back to the infamous "Where there is a Serbian grave, there is Serbia"?

Victor,
50,000 Muslims killed here,
100,000 killed there, another
250,000 killed somewhere else. It's a wonder there are any left. These numbers are in dispute. No one has accurate figures of how many
Muslims, Albanians, Croatians or Serbs etc were killed anywhere. Besides, it doesn't matter whether it was 1 or 1000. Innocent people were and are still being killed on all sides.

I don't see a "joint criminal enterprise" here. I simply see a strategy to eliminate Serb forces that opted to fight rather than take the offer of autonomy. Let's face it, Martic should have listened to Milosevic, and took Croatia's offer. He was an idiot, and is to blame for this so-called "exodus". Plus,from the very beginning of the war, the Serbian Army strategy was to remove their civilians from an area, and then pummell it (i.e. Vukovar). But, whereas in the case of Vukovar tanks were rolling out of Belgrade to follow up with plan... in the case of Knin, those tanks were quiet. Blame Martic for your miserable loss, not Tudjman.

"Estimates show that at least 150 Serb civilians died during Operation Storm, while tens of thousands were driven from their homes in Croatia, with property destroyed to make sure they would never return."

Actually, dear Afrim, this paragraph proves that the Serbs were driven from their homes in Croatia and their property destroyed so that they don't return.

I know it's just wishful thinking on your behalf, because you would like it if this quote said Croats were driven from their homes, since that would make Serbs look bad. But you see, if you were unbiased and took that quote for what it meant, ie. that Serbs were forced from their homes, then others would respect you and your opinion a little more. This is one reason why we will not listen to your opinions regarding Kosovo, since you are subjective and are only interested in seeing Serbs suffer and perish.

An independent Kosovo would require mature people to make it succeed. Your comments and interpretations of others' comments show you are grossly lacking this.

Croatia forfeited all rights to Krajina after Jasenovac.

The level of free speech allowed on this site is wonderful as it promotes the insolence and racist views against the Serbian peoples. I am greatly disappointed to see comments posted here drifting off to other issues rather than the one presented in the article.

Regardless of other incidents of the everlasting Balkans conflict facts are still facts and to be fair I believe the numbers of civilian casualties and displacement in Operation Storm is grossly understated in this article.

Serbs and Croats lived side by side in the region for a number of years and now for the mad propaganda of a few people higher up has tainted the minds of many poor souls, indicitive of the comments published here.

Peace.

I think serbs must be kidding themselves if they think krajina is greates act of ethnic cleansing since ww2. Somehow I doubt events in Bosnia and Kosovo were not worse.

The Serb military forces in Krajina were MALITIAS formed from common people, they were not professional soldiers, The Yugoslav army was not involved in the Defence of Krajina during OS. The Yugoslav army (Serbian Army) did not lose any wars, but the Serb militias lost against a professionally armed & trained (by the US, Germany) Croatian army. How the US could betray the Serbs to a mutual enemy (Croatia-Germany) that we both fought against in two World Wars is beyond my comprehension.

Daniel, actually Krajina IS the worst case of ethnic cleansing in Europe since WWII. The number of albanians displaced from Kosovo during 1999 were larger, but they were able to move back quickly after NATO finished their bombardment. It is much harder for serbs from Krajina to return to their homes. If you count the number of permanently displaced people then you will find Krajina is by far the worst (more than 200.000 people have not returned yet, and probably never will).

By the way, albanians were encouraged by UCK/KLA to temporarily leave Kosovo. Not everything was because of Serbs. Read the following article for more info about this.

http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2007/04/expelled.html

Penguin - Do you know what Krajina means? what is the history of Krajina? I'll elaborate, a frontierland populated by Serbs in a deal with the Austro-Hungarian empire as the first line of defence against the Turks. So how does a land which has for centuries been overwhelmingly Serbian become "indisputably Croatian". Find a text book and read some real history.

Blame Martic for your miserable loss, not Tudjman.
(Ratka, Thursday, 26 April, 2007, 06:26)

Good point, don't forget Babich also, his actions at the Hague Tribunal speak for themselves. He first was a "silent witness" against Milosevic, he then revealed his identity and then started straying from his testimony. Next thing you know he was found in a cell from an apparent suicide.

Milan Martic was a bigger idiot, he decided to send a missle to Zagreb. You must understand, that Zagreb has rarely been attacked or damaged in any conflict or World War. So, Martic paid for the audacity of launching a missle in the centre of Zagreb.

It was around medak,krajina that some time in late 1990 or early 1991 that a few us were sitting having a beer at a gostionica. In cames a man with a kalasnakov saying that this is serb territiry now and if you don't like then leave.I left. so did most of my family..for 5 years. after 1995 when returned everything was destroyed. are the criminals being charged. the bodies of elderly family who stayed behind in krajina are still missing. Who will go to justice for these killings, lootings,destruction.