Croatian Serbs Commemorate Victims of 1995 Operation Storm

Croatian Serb advocacy orgnisations and other human rights organisations on Wednesday started a six-day campaign to commemorate the Serbian civilian victims of the Croatian army's 1995 Operation "Oluja" ("Storm").

The operation terminated an ethnic Serb rebellion but also resulted in some 200,000 Serbs being expelled or fleeing the Knin region in southwest Croatia.

The Croatia-based Serb National Council, SNV, Documenta - Center for Dealing with the Past and the SENSE Transitional Justice Center, together with the Serbia-based based Humanitarian Law Centre, HLC, on Wednesday started the campaign to commemorate the civilians who perished during and after the operation.

The campaign is based on video excerpts from the interactive narrative "Storm in The Hague", which covers five key points of contention between the prosecution and defence at the trial of Croatian generals Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak, and Mladen Markac: the goal of Operation Storm, the purpose of shelling Serb-held areas, murders, destruction and the plunder of property and preventing returns.

Operation Storm lasted from August 4 to 7, 1995, and saw Croatian forces overrun the rebel Serbs' self-proclaimed statelet, the Republic of Serbian Krajina, RSK. It is celebrated in Croatia each year as a crucial victory and as a key factor that ensured the country's existence as an independent state.

However, in a series of attacks during and after the operation, over 600 mostly elderly Serb civilians were killed, and around 200,000 Serb refugees left the RSK territory in August 1995, only some of whom have since returned.

Generals Gotovina, Markac and Cermak were tried before the Hague war-crimes court, the ICTY, for being part of a joint criminal enterprise to commit...