Posted on 08/10/2005 10:24:50 AM PDT by montyspython
Croatian PM: We Are Proud of Operation Storm First Published on Balkanalysis.com
While this party must be sending chills down some EU diplomats’ spines, it’s doubtful that anyone from the “international community” will condemn this and risk future property acquisitions in this vacation paradise on the Adriatic.
By Christopher Deliso
Balkan memorials and anniversaries tend to be bathed in blood, and Friday’s planned gala event in Zagreb – a commemoration of the 10th anniversary of ‘Operation Storm’ is no exception. Far from being an occasion for shame, at least in Croatia, the single biggest act of ethnic cleansing in Europe since World War II, in which 200,000 Krajina Serbs were driven from their homes and another 2,500 killed, is set to receive official praise.
Croatian media reports Prime Minister Ivo Sanader as saying that “…Croatia is proud of the action ‘Storm,’” calling it a “…big, grand, historic action, and with this action were liberated parts of Croatia.”
According to the ‘official’ Croatian history, Operation Storm was a clean, quick and efficient military campaign of liberation. As former Bosnian ambassador of BiH to the European Union and NATO Vitomir Miles Raguz gushed:
“…Croatia’s recent inclusion in the PfP [NATOs Partnership for Peace] program is long overdue. Since we often speak of NATO membership as a reward, the delay here is curious, as perhaps no new state deserves this honor more than Croatia. Since the breakup of the Warsaw Pact, Croatia has done more to benefit Western interests than any other new democracy.
…To begin, Croatia saved BiH. In the summer of 1995 its military operations, named Operation Storm, ended a carnage Europe had not seen since World War II—a humanitarian catastrophe for which the West could not muster an appropriate response. The Western capitals often unfairly take credit for this turnaround; in fact, the peace in BiH came only once the Croatian Army (HV) had established a new balance of power in the region by its summer operations. Everything that followed, from the first exercise of NATO air power to the Dayton-Paris peace agreement, was a filling-in of a diplomatic puzzle.
‘All along, the United States and its allies have been looking for a force—other than themselves—that could check Serbian and Bosnian Serb adventurism and produce a military balance on which realistic settlement could be built. Maybe such a force is now emerging: Croatia,’ wrote The Washington Post three days before Operation Storm commenced. At the end of the operation the Post added, ‘The Croatians argue they are not the problem but the solution; they claim to have created a new regional ‘balance’ on which ‘proper’ peace talks with the Serbs can begin. This line has been enthusiastically adopted by the American government, which is under pressure to show that the quiet political support it extended to Croatia had a legitimate purpose of promoting a negotiation in Bosnia.’”
The controversial ceremony has sparked a war of words between the Serbian and Croatian leadership. Serbian President Boris Tadic, who had extended the olive branch to Bosnian Muslims at last month’s commemoration of the Official History of Srebrenica, felt the Croatian holiday to be a slap in the face.
However, Sanader scoffed at the criticism, saying that “…nobody should be disturbed because of Tadic’s statement,” and opined that the latter’s stance was merely a product of internal politicking in Serbia.
While there is probably an element of truth to this contention, what with the Serbian Radical Party pressing hard to denounce the Storm ceremony, it’s also hard to deny Tadic the moral high ground – especially considering he had apologized on behalf of Serbia over Srebrenica, even if it was the Bosnian Serbs who were involved with that operation, and even if the fog of war has shrouded what
really may have happened.
However, as Nebojsa Malic pointed out, questioning the Official Truth of Srebrenica is anathema because there are too many careers and interests that depend on its retention.
President Tadic left no doubt about his position in a July 29th interview, in which he asked the Croats to commemorate August 5th by arresting those responsible for the operation.
“…When we talk about ‘Operation Storm,’ just like with Srebrenica, I don’t want to talk about the legitimacy of military operations. I’m just interested that in this action suffered innocent people. I am interested [to know] why refugee columns were bombed, why people were killed by being shot in the back. I’m interested [to know] about the people who were liquidated only because they were from a different population.
…what was my reaction against such crimes, I showed in Srebrenica. Now I am interested in what is the answer from the other side.”
According to Croatian President Stipe Mesic, disingenuously deflecting attention with help from the Official Truth, “…Srebrenica is the biggest crime that happened in the history of this area, when 8,000 people were killed, only because they were not Serbs, and nobody can say this is equal with some isolated cases which happened during the military operation “Storm.”
Isolated cases? Even the Croats’ American handlers rued the coordinated ethnic cleansing that resulted when they let their ‘junkyard dogs,’ as Richard Holbrooke called them, loose from the chain. And, unlike the great lengths to which John Norris goes to portray Bill Clinton in Kosovo almost as one of Ben Franklin’s clockmaker gods, hovering over everything unperturbed and unaware, it is pretty clear that Clinton took an active, voracious and day-to-day interest in Croatian military operations up to and including Operation Storm. And, though the Croats deny it, America played a key role in logistics, espionage and other nefarious deeds meant to cripple the Serb forces. Indeed, as Bosnian-born Malic put it today, “‘Storm” is something Washington would like to forget. Serbs and Croats don't have that luxury.”
Even thought they don’t want to be reminded of it, the Hague takes a different view. Perhaps that is just power politics on a higher level, with serious thought about how best to stall Croatian EU membership until other Balkan states are ready to join as well. But this is conjecture.
What is clear is that (perhaps because of this very interest from Del Ponte and Co.) the Croatian leadership is making a point on this jolly anniversary of reminding us that they had the full support of the Americans when they carried it out. And so the government is going out of its way to glorify Operation Storm, just as it continues to ignore similar things they should take pride in, such as Jasenovac and the Ustasha movement in general.
And without permission, from what I hear.
Actually, according to the Turks, "what Armenians?" And similarly, "what Kurds? You mean 'mountain Turks'..."
And for those who do not know it the Turks had burst into Armenia and Greek speaking Byzantine Asia Minor in the fateful and ominous year 1071 AD.
"The Seljuk Turks migrated into Asia Minor during the eleventh century from the area around the Aral Sea. Alp Arslan defeated the Byzantine army under Romanos IV Diogenes at Manzikert in 1071. He then establish the Seljuk sultanate of Rum with Nicaea as its capital.. "
(http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/maxpages/classes/His311/Lecture%20One/Manzikert.htm)
Don't forget the "What Assyrian Christians?" too.
True - of course, Croatia didn't slide as far into darkness as the rest. It's quite worse and worse further south east one went from Zagreb. All I'm saying is all have suffered. I'm not sure it (whatever "it" was, I certainly don't know) was worth all the carnage and destruction.
Few things are worth war and war is awful, but we had to defend ourselves and we had to undertake Storm lest a Cyprus-like division still be in place as the UN wanted.
Croatia is a god-forsaken armpit rampant with anti-semitism and masses held for WW2 butchers. Better for it to be dissolved and immigrants moved in to start all over again.
If you do not live in Croatia, it is none of your business. But as Ariel Sharon and PM Sanader recently said during their summit in Jerusalem, Croat-Israeli ties have never been better. You have Serbia, work on that. In the meantime, Serbs are returning to Croatia and the Serb party leader says that it has never been better for Serbs in Croatia than it is now.
Serbs Doing Better in Croatia"
ZAGREB -- Tuesday – Representative of the Independent Democratic Serbian Party of Croatia, Ratko Gajic, said that standing of Serbs as citizens in Croatia has definitely improved.
“In the past ten years, our standing has seen a definite improvement. People are still faced with a number of hardships, but I think that great results have been achieved by our community, greater than even we who were fighting for the cause even expected.” Gajic said.
Gajic said that living is still hard in all locations in Croatia which were completely destroyed during war time, but said that this counts for both Serbs and Croats.
“Psychological-political and interethnic tensions still exist between Serbs and Croats in Croatia, but these tensions are settling down as well because people are realizing that there is nothing to be gained from them. The atmosphere will be better tomorrow than it is today. The worst has passed, but there is still a lot to be done towards a better life and building interethnic trust.” Gajic said.
In 1999 a best selling book there was "Mein Kampf".
Support for pro-Nazis shakes Croatian Jews
ZAGREB -- Campaigns to revive support for the pro-Nazi fascist Ustashe regime are worrying Croatian Jews.
In what struck the community as a particularly sharp blow, two Catholic churches -- one in the coastal city of Split and one here, in the Croatian capital -- celebrated Mass on Dec. 28 in memory of the late president of the Ustashe regime.
During the regime, homegrown fascists ruled wartime Croatia as a Nazi puppet state.
In addition, in recent months, the nationalism of Croatian President Franjo Tudjman has raised concerns among the Jewish community here about efforts to rehabilitate the Ustashe regime.
Tudjman drew fire last year by declaring that he wanted to rebury the bones of Croatian fascists at a Yugoslav-built memorial to the thousands of Jews and Serbs slaughtered at the Ustashe regime's Jasenovac concentration camp. The services honoring fascist Ante Pavelic only heightened Jewish concerns.
Croatia had 25,000 Jews before World War II, most of them prosperous and largely assimilated. Some 20,000 were killed by the Nazis or the Ustashe regime.
Organized by two right-wing political parties, the Mass in Zagreb was a standing-room-only event. The Dominican friar who led the service spoke of the political merits of the Croatian fascist leader. He made no mention of the thousands murdered at Jasenovac.
The 2,000 members of Croatia's Jewish community could take some consolation, however, in the outrage voiced in the nation's press.
The political daily Vjesnik called the services for Pavelic an act of "political blindness" performed by people who had forgotten the "principles on which the world order has been based after the Second World War."
Another newspaper, Novi List, said the Ustashe regime was the "project of a terrorist state, which from its very beginning outlawed many groups of its citizens. "Today, because of very transparent interests, horrible lies are being told about this period," the newspaper also said.
But some newspapers here have recently published articles that left the nation's Jews uneasy.
Several newspapers, for instance, ran pieces accusing famed Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal of conducting a witch hunt because he sent letters to the Croatian authorities protesting the publication of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" last autumn in Croatia. For months, the notorious anti-Semitic tract has been on the Croatian best-seller lists.
The Jewish community has not sought a ban on the book out of concern that this would be viewed as an attempt to undermine the freedom of the press. The publisher of the "Protocols" recently wrote a lengthy anti-Semitic article in a weekly newspaper accusing both Wiesenthal and Croatia's Jews of hypocrisy.
The article also attacked what it described as the criminal behavior of the Jews in the Jasenovac concentration camp.
In a related incident, the official paper of the Croatian Writers' Association, Hrvatsko Slovo, ran an article accusing the country's Jews of ingratitude toward those Croatians who tried to help them during World War II. The paper also described Wiesenthal as obsessed by a maniacal hatred of Croatia.
Which "neo-nazis"? They were shouted "Ante" in praise of Gotovina, not Pavelic.
But I find your smear both laughable and pathetic. Smear is all that your side has left after Belgrade once again sold out the Croatian Serbs.
Yeah right....!!!
http://www.crnalegija.com/
That's a website. Do you have a point? There are neo-nazi Serb sites such as Stormfront Serbia. Does this mean that Serbia is a neo-nazi country?
Not a very nice link....tsk tsk.
A lot of Serbs seem pretty proud of what they did in Eastern Bosnia to, as do Albanians when they attack Serbs.
Just another day in the Balkans...
I've heard the toll was a few hundred, 7,000 and now 2,500.
Seems as confusing an issue as Srebrenica and Kosovo.
Looks like you have the same here....tsk tsk
ooohh...btw...
And this has what to do with Croatia's liberation of its occupied territory and the fact that Serbia once again sold out the Croatian Serbs?
Serbia didn't sell them out, Slobo did.
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