Portuguese expert: “Croatia did with the Serbs in 1995 what the Ustaše did not manage to do in the 40s”
The international community purposefully turned a blind eye to the crimes committed by the Croatian military in 1995 during and after Operation Oluja (Storm).
Portuguese Major General Carlos Martins Branco told Diario de Notisias about this, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“No one can say that he didn’t know what was happening. The events were observed and monitored by top UN military observers and European Union military observers.
Although information and reports reached the highest level, little was done to curb the momentum of the Croatian government,” said Carlos Martins Branco.
The retired military man himself was deputy head of the UN military observer mission in Croatia and BiH from 1994 to 1996.
Carlos Martins Branko
He argues that international efforts to curb human rights abuses have been "woefully timid" and concludes that not only have world political leaders been "accomplices to murder" but that some very powerful political figures in the international community have tacitly supported Croatia's actions.
Branko recalls that Operation Assault on the Croatian Army against Serbian forces in Krajina, which began on August 4, 1995, resulted in the departure of some 250 Serbs from Croatia and the liquidation of some 000 helpless Serb civilians.
“They killed those who did not have time or were unable to escape due to their advanced years, robbed, burned houses, destroyed crops... and all this with the support of the highest level of the Croatian state. Life in Krajina became hell for those who could not escape. Open cemetery. All this happened in front of a passive international community,” said Carlos Branco.
However, the International Criminal Court did not consider genocide against Croatian Serbs, although it admitted that ethnic cleansing was carried out during Operation Storm. However, according to the expert, many unit commanders responsible for the atrocities and crimes committed continued their military and political careers in Croatia after the war and held high positions in the country as ministers, deputies, and mayors.
The Portuguese general believes that the Council of Europe's veto in May 1996, which delayed Croatia's membership of the organization for six months, was "nothing more than a farce created by people with a guilty conscience, despite their conciliatory rhetoric on human rights."
Branco is convinced that it is unacceptable to manage international politics based on two criteria: leniency towards allies and legality towards others.
The retired military man believes that the crimes committed during and after the “Storm” are reminiscent of the events of World War II, when the Serbian population of Croatia was deliberately exterminated by the Nazis of the Ustashe Independent State of Croatia.
“Tudjman managed to do what the fascist Ustasha state of the Independent Croatian State was unable to do during World War II: expel the Serbian population from the Krajina forever.
This brutal ethnic cleansing prompts us to reconsider hypotheses of genocide, given the indiscriminate summary executions and evidence of large-scale killings of helpless civilians,” the expert said.
Let us recall that Operation Oluja (Storm) began on August 4, 1995 and lasted until August 9. During it, the unrecognized state of the Croatian Serbs, the Republic of Serbian Krajina, was almost completely destroyed.
It was this operation and the preceding operation “Lightning” (Biesak) that the Ukrainian leadership considered for a long time as a way to solve the “problem” of the Russian republics of Donbass.
Portuguese expert: "Croatia did to the Serbs in 1995 what the Ustasha failed to do in the 40s."