Posted on 06/25/2008 7:19:23 PM PDT by Bokababe
24 June 2008 Zagreb _ A former US ambassador to Croatia has accused Zagreb of plotting and sanctioning the exodus of Serbs in 1995 to create an "ethnically clean" country.
Peter Galbraith told The Hague war crimes trial of three Croatian generals, that the leadership headed by late President Franjo Tudjman used ‘Operation Storm’ to ‘cleanse’ Croatia of Serbs.
“Croatian authorities either ordered or allowed a mass destruction of the Serb property in former (Serb-held region of) Krajina to prevent the return of the population. I consider that to have been a thought through policy,” he said, testifying at the trial of generals Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac.
The International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, ICTY, based in The Hague indicted the three for war crimes their troops allegedly committed during and after Operation Storm.
Up to 800 ethnic Serb civilians were killed and some 250,000 fled Croatia when in 1995 Croat forces crushed the rebel Serb breakaway state that occupied up to a quarter of the country’s territory since it declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.
“Croatia was an organised country, its army the most disciplined in former Yugoslavia, and therefore I cannot accept that the illegalities that occurred after Storm were spontaneous,” Galbraith told the court.
He added that had happened because “President Tudjman and people around him wanted it, wishing for an ethnically clean country.”
However, Galbraith said Croatia did not carry out an ethnic cleansing campaign following Operation Storm, because “you could not cleansed those who were not there, but I’m not saying it would have not happened had the population stayed.”
His testimony came as a surprise, since when he testified at the trial of late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in 2003 Galbraith said Croatia was not responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Serbs.
On Monday he said he was sorry for saying that because it was understood as his justification for the Croatian army’s actions, which had not been his intention.
This is news?
More from B92:
Galbraith, who testified on Monday in the presence of a U.S. government representative, said that he and other American officials had information months before Operation Storm that there would be a military attack on the Serb Krajina.
They “showed understanding for operations the Croatian Army launched in the Cazin Krajina and Croatian Krajina, especially in light of the massacre in Srebrenica in July 1995 and the Bosnian Serb army attack on Bihac”.
But the U.S. never green-lighted the operation, he contended. However, since the U.S. administration knew the assault might be launched, “it expressly warned the Croatian authorities and president Tudjman of their obligation to protect the Serb civilians and prisoners of war. The atrocities like those committed in the Medak Pocket in 1993 were not to be repeated”.
In the first days after the arrival of the Croatian Army in Knin, Galbraith recounted, the reports of the U.S. embassy personnel indicated there were widespread killings of Serb civilians and destruction of their houses, “thus confirming that the situation in the field was exactly what the U.S. administration wanted to prevent”.
In Galbraith’s opinion, this happened “on the orders or with the tacit approval of the Croatian leadership, in the presence and with the participation of the military”.
Although the prosecution indicted the three for deportation and forcible transfer of the Serbs, its witness, Galbraith, does not see Operation Storm as ethnic cleansing, mainly “because most of the population had already fled when the Croatian army and police arrived”
“You cannot ethnically cleanse somebody who is no longer there, although it doesn’t mean that the Croatian forces would not have done it if the Serbs had remained there,” he told the court.
In his view, the Serb Republic of Krajina (RSK) authorities are responsible for the Serbs’ departure “because they had urged the population to leave”.
However, then Croatian Defense Minister Gojko Susak “admitted to Galbraith that the Croatian authorities engaged in psychological warfare that partly contributed to the exodus”.
When the Serbs left Krajina, the Croatian authorities did everything to prevent them from returning, issuing a decree to confiscate the property of all those who failed to return within thirty days.
Furthermore, their houses were destroyed and their return obstructed in various ways. According to Galbraith, this fit Tudjman’s idea of an ethnically homogeneous Croatia.
Whenever they met, the president would emphasize that every country should be ethnically homogeneous, adding that local Serbs posed a threat to the homogeneity of the Croatian state.
“He was not ashamed of his views and I wondered how he could imagine that an American would accept his reasoning,” Galbraith said, noting that the Croatian president “spoke favorably of the so-called humane transfer of population”.
“Tudjman’s attitude towards Muslims was racist and he advocated the division of Bosnia which would lead to the creation of a Greater Croatia,” Galbraith concluded.
Actually, what is “news” is that Galbraith or any Western official is calling it “ethnic cleansing” and not just trying to justify it as “a necessary military operation”.
Hmmmm...compare/contrast to kosovo...
The real problem, in my opinion, is that the globalists didn’t want to split up Yugoslavia.. leaving the Serbs, Croats, etc. to split it up themselves.
Pretty much, the difference is pipelines and press coverage.
Personally, and I am sure I will get flamed for this, this is why Iraq has been so much more difficult than anyone thought, and why we still might have to be there a long time.
It’s just like yugoslavia.. three distinct cultures that don’t want to live together. The only successful was to make them live together is with the force of a brutal tyrant.
Split it up.
Actually, it was Germany who originally wanted Yugoslavia split up, then we unfortunately jumped on the bandwagon.
I do disagree with you on what “the globalists wanted”. The globalists definitely wanted Yugoslavia split up — both for international financiers to buy off property for pennies on the dollar (think Soros) and to cut it up into easy to manage bite-size chunks to be run by bureaucrats — or more appropriately, “Eurocrats”.
We, on the other hand, just wanted to kick Russia in the nuts and expand our influence into Russia’s backyard, so we backed local neo-Nazis and Muslims. That policy came screaming back to bite us on 9/11 when four of the hijackers had cut their jihadi teeth in Bosnia.
If only it were that simple in Yugoslavia, but it wasn't. Neither Bosnia nor Kosovo had ever been "countries". Croatia had a history of genocide against the many Serbs living their (who had been there for centuries).
It wasn't as easy as drawing lines with a pen and saying "poof, you are independent". Virtually all of the animosity between people in the Balkans can easily be attributed to foreign meddling and internationals "redrawing borders" over the centuries.
Fact is that if we really wanted "peace" and not just a predetermined outcome, we should have never got involved there at all. Instead, we are still in Bosnia, propping up some phony country ten years later, and we are still in Kosovo and will be for the foreseeable future, do the same. What a waste of time resources, and manpower!
Why is it unfortunate? Why force together people who didn't want to live together? I know the Serbs liked it since they were a majority.. but too bad for them. The croats wanted their own country. We should have helped them achieve it peacefully.
Sure it wouldn't have been easy.. but it couldn't have been as bad as what happened.
Fact is that if we really wanted "peace" and not just a predetermined outcome, we should have never got involved there at all. Instead, we are still in Bosnia, propping up some phony country ten years later, and we are still in Kosovo and will be for the foreseeable future, do the same. What a waste of time resources, and manpower!
I'm fine with that.
There were plans for a peaceful resolution to the Bosnian question. Unfortunately, we encouraged Izetbegović to reject them. In other words, we helped them achieve the mess that BiH is today through war
I take it then that you are fine with the idea of the Confederacy rising again and the Mexicans reconquering Aztlan?
Oh, I see now, you supported the ethnic cleansing of non-Croatians from Croatia by whatever means necessary. Yes, the fascist state of Croatia's dreams are finally realized over 60 years after the Allies defeated them.
btt
I had no problem with the idea of an independent Croatia. I had a problem with an independent Croatia under Tudjman, who thanked God that his wife was neither a Serb, nor a Jew.
We backed a bunch of neo-Nazis who took great joy in ethnically cleansing their country of Serbs. And what's worse, is that "the father of their independence", "the George Washington of Croatia" was allowed to be a ranting, raving neo-Nazi racist. That is something that they will never get past, never get over -- which is why a neo-Nazi rocker like "Thompson" who sings of the joy of killing Serbs & Jews in WWII deathcamps like Jasenovac, can still draw an audience of 60,000 in Zagreb.
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