Marić: 4th August – Croats celebrate while Serbs mourn
On 4 August 1995, the Croatian Armed Forces attacked the Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina, despite the fact that it was under UN protection and that its representatives in Geneva and Belgrade had accepted the international community's proposal for a peaceful solution to the conflict a day before that. This was operation "Storm", carried out 26 years ago.
In a few days, the resistance was broken and the Serbs of the Western Krajina started pulling back to the east, in the direction of the Republic of Srpska (B&H) and Serbia, leaving 25,000 of their houses, 78 churches and 181 cemeteries to be destroyed and desecrated. The number which exceeds 220,000 expelled people makes this operation one of the largest ethnic cleansings in the world after the Second World War, as evidenced by demographic indicators: according to the 1991 census, more than 580,000 Serbs (over 12%) lived in Croatia, while in 2011, only about 180,000 of them remained.
Due to the mass expulsion and killing of civilians and prisoners during and after the operation, "Storm" was characterized in the indictment before the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague as a joint criminal enterprise aimed at permanently and forcibly expelling Serbs from the area where they lived for centuries.
Despite that, those responsible from the ranks of the political and military leadership of Croatia have never been convicted for these crimes. While Croatia celebrates the anniversary of this operation as Victory Day, Serbia marks it as a Remembrance Day of the suffering and persecution of Serbs. The painful past cannot be changed, but preserving the memory of it is not just an expression of reverence for the victims. Attitude towards victims from other nations and sincerity in the desire for these sufferings not to be repeated open the perspective for sustainable coexistence and strengthen the commitment to peace, making joint steps towards the future the primary goal and obligation for the sake of the generations that inherit us.
By opting for reconciliation and cooperation with everyone in the region, Serbia reserves the right to remember and fight against being silent about its victims and against the celebration of their graves.
In the long history of their statehood, the Serbian people have gone through great temptations marked by enormous material destruction, desecration of our cultural and historical heritage, but above all by immeasurable losses of human lives.
Only in the sufferings in the twentieth century that marked the two world wars, but also the Balkan wars that preceded them, millions of victims irreparably changed the national demographic picture in this area. During the Second World War, a planned, organized crime took place, based on the racial laws of the Nazi puppet, the Independent State of Croatia, the goal of which was the complete elimination of Serbs.
At the end of the last century, unfortunately, the strengthening of secessionist tendencies led to a civil war which, along with the lack of democratic capacity of the republican political leaders of the former Yugoslavia, resulted in the disintegration of the country, the foundations of which were embedded with millions of Serbian victims during the two world wars. The new cruel conflict opened the old wounds and created a difficult legacy that still burdens the lives of the people living in the area of the former SFRY.
Although the wars of the 1990s were part of the breaking news in the media, some events remained insufficiently known, and all aspects of their complexity were not properly analyzed. This is also the case with operation "Storm". The consequences of that are difficulties in achieving the necessary and healing reconciliation between the peoples who lived together until recently and who will inevitably have to share good and evil in this area in the future as well.
Source: Opinion