Memorial service for Serbs killed in Croatia

Memorial service for Serbs killed in Croatia

Representatives of refugee associations laid wreaths at the Tašmajdan Park memorial to the Serb victims of the 1999-2000 wars in the former Yugoslavia.

On September 9, 1993, the Croatian forces committed an act of aggression against the UN-protected Serb villages of Divoselo, Čiluk and Počitelj and hamlets around Gospić in the Lika region.

In just a few days, 88 people were killed - 36 civilians, including 17 women, 46 soldiers and six policemen, mostly in captivity.

Twenty-one years on and 19 years since the end of the war, Croatia is not prepared to confront the past and put the culprits on trial even though it is an EU member, Savo Štrbac, the president of the Veritas Documentation Center, told reporters.

The president of the Coalition of Refugee Associations, Miodrag Linta, said that Croatian General Mirko Norac, commander of the 9th Guards Brigade of the Croatian Armed Forces who has been sentenced to six years in prison, is the only person convicted so far for the Medak Pocket crimes.

"That is an insult to the victims," Linta said, urging Serbian institutions to insist that the perpetrators, as well as all those responsible for the crimes committed by the Croatian forces in the Medak operation and elsewhere, be tried.

Croatia's acknowledgment of the crimes against Serbs during the 1991-1995 war is a condition for punishing the perpetrators, said Dragana Đukić, who heads an association of the families of missing and killed persons.