Linta dissatisfied with rejection of Serbia's counter-claim

BELGRADE - President of the Coalition of Refugee Associations in Serbia Miodrag Linta said Tuesday he was not content with today's decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to dismiss Serbia's counter-claim charging Croatia with committing genocide against the Serb population during the 1991/95 war in Croatia.

Linta said that the Serbian legal team had provided the Court with enough evidence that Croatia's Operation Storm had been a criminal offensive whose goal was not only to expel but also to destroy the Serbs in the Knin region.

"The mass crimes that took place, not only during and after Operation Storm, but also during and after other Croatian operations, even in cities and towns where no armed conflicts occurred, were part of a single plan by the Croatian leadership to destroy the Serbs as people," stressed Linta.

He said it was good that the ICJ rejected Croatia's claim accusing Serbia of genocide in its entirety and that it had found that the Croatian side had committed mass crimes against Serbs and had been responsible for ethnic cleansing of the Serbian Krajina.

With the judgment rendered, it is now high time Croatia exhumed bodily remains of the Serb victims from all known grave sites, resolved the issue of missing persons in cooperation with Serbia and prosecuted those responsible for the war crimes committed against Serbs.

The time has also come for Croatia to return all seized homes and other property, and many other acquired rights, to the expelled and persecuted Serbs.

It is time for Croatia to start to respect the national and cultural rights of the Serbs who have remained in Croatia, to prevent hate speech against Serbs and attempts to detract from the weight or even deny that the...