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GREGORY ELICH:
The invasion of Serbian Krajina?
This study is based on a paper
presented in book "NATO in the Balkans" (ISBN 0-9656916-2-4),
pages 131 - 140.
In early August 1995, the
Croatian invasion of Serbian
Krajina precipitated the worst refugee crisis of the Yugoslav civil
war. Within days, more than two hundred thousand Serbs, virtually the entire
population of Krajina, fled their homes, and 14,000 Serbian civilians lost
them lives. According to a UN official "Almost the only people remaining
were the dead and the dying." The Clinton administration's support
for the invasion was an important factor in creating this nightmare.
The previous month, Secretary
of State Warren Christopher and German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel met
with Croatian diplomat Miomir Zuzul in London. During this meeting, Christopher
gave his approval for Croatian military action against Serbs in Bosnia
and Krajina. Two days later, the U.S. ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbright,
also approved Croatia's invasion plan. Stipe Mesic, a prominent Croatian
politician, stated that Croatian President Franjo
Tudjman "received the go-ahead from the United States. Tudjman
can do only what the Amecans allow him to do. Krajina is the reward for
having accepted, under Washington's pressure, the federation between Croats
and Muslims in Bosnia." Croatian assembly deputy Mate Mestrovic also
claimed that the "United States gave us the green light to do whetever
had to be done." (1)
As Croatian troops launched
their assault on August 4, U.S. NATO aircraft destroyed Serbian radar and
anti-aircraft defenses. American EA-6B electronic warfare aircraft patrolled
the air in support of the invasion. Krajina foreign affairs advisor Slobodan
Jarcevic stated that NATO "completely led and coordinated the entire
Croat offensive by first destroying radar and anti-aircraft batteries.
What NATO did most for the Croatian Army was to jam communications between
[Serb] military commands...." (2)
Following the elimination
of Serbian anti-aircraft defenses, Croatian planes carried out extensive
attacks on Serbian towns and positions. The roads were clogged with refugees,
and Croatian aircraft bombed and strafed refugee columns. Serbian refugees
passing through the town of Sisak were met by a mob of Croatian extremists,
who hurled rocks and concrete at them. A UN spokesman said, "The windows
of almost every vehicle were smashed and almost every person was bleeding
from being hit by some object." Serbian refugees were pulled from
their vehicles and beaten. As fleeing Serbian civilians poured into Bosnia,
a Red Cross representative in Banja Luka said, "I've never seen anything
like it. People are arriving at a terrrifying rate." Bosnian Muslim
troops crossed the border and cut off Serbian escape routes. Trapped refugees
were massacred as they were pounded by Croatian and Muslim artillery. Nearly
1,700 refugees simply vanished. While Croatian and Muslim troops burned
Serbian villages, President Clinton expressed his understanding for the
invasion, and Christopher said events "could work to our advantage."
(3)
The Croatian rampage through
the region left a trail of devastation. Croatian special police units,
operating under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, systematically looted
abandoned Serbian villages. Everything of value - cars, stereos, televisions,
furniture, farm animals - was plundered, and homes set afire. (4) A confidential
European Union report stated that 73 percent of Serbian homes were destroyed.
(5) Troops of the Croatian army also took part, and pro-Nazi graffiti could
be seen on the walls of several burnt-out Serb buildings.(6)
Massacres continued for several
weeks after the fall of Krajina, and UN patrols discovered numerous fresh
unmarked graves and bodies of murdered civilians. (7) The European Union
report states, "Evidence of atrocities, an average of six corpses
per day, continues to emerge. The corpses, some fresh, some decomposed,
are mainly of old
men. Many have been shot in the back of the head or had throats slit,
others have been mutilated... Serb lands continue to be torched and looted."
(8)
Following a visit in the region
a member of the Zagreb Helsinki Committee reported, "Virtually all
Serb villages had been destroyed.... In a village near Knin, eleven bodies
were found, some of them were massacred in such a way that it was not easy
to see whether the body was male or female." (9)
UN spokesman Chris Gunness
noted that UN personnel continued to discover bodies, many of whom had
been decapitated.
(10) British journalist Robert Fisk reported the murder of elderly Serbs,
many of whom were burned alive in their homes. He adds, "At Golubic,
UN officers have found the decomposing remains of five people... the head
of one of the victims was found 150 feet from his body. Another UN team,
meanwhile is investigating the killing of a man and a woman in the same
area after villagers described how the man's ears and nose had been mutitated."
(11)
After the fall of Krajina,
Croatian chief of staff General Zvonimir Cervenko characterized Serbs as
"medieval shepherds, troglodytes, destroyers of anything the culture
of man has created." During a triumphalist train journey through Croatia
and Krajina, Tudjman spoke at each railway station. To great applause,
he announced, "There can be no return to the past, to the times when
[Serbs] were spreading cancer in the heart of Croatia, a cancer that was
destroying the Croatian national being." He then went on to speak
of the "ignominious disappearance" of the Serbs from Krajina
"so it is as if they have never lived here... They didn't even have
time to take with them their filthy money or their filthy underwear!"
American ambassador Peter Gaibraith dismissed claims that Croatia had engaged
in "ethnie cleansing," since he defined this term as something
Serbs do. (12)
U.S. representatives blocked
Russian attempts to pass a UN Security Council resolution condemning the
invasion. According to Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic, American
officials gave advice on the conduct of the operation, and European and
military experts and humanitarian aid workers reported shipments of U.S
weapons to Croatia over the two months preceding the invasion. A French
mercenary also witnessed the arrival of American and German weapons at
a Croatian port, adding, "The best of the Croats' armaments were German-
and Amencan-made." The U.S. "directly or indirectly," says
French intelligence analyst Pierre Hassner, "rearmed the Croats."
Analysts at Jane's Information Group say that Croatian troops were seen
wearing American uniforms and carrying U S. communications equipment. (13)
The invasion of Krajina was
preceded by a thorough CIA and DIA analysis of the region. (14) According
to Balkan specialist Ivo Banac, this "tactical and intelligence support"
was furnished to the Croatian Army at the beginning of its offensive. (15)
In November 1994, the United
States and Croatia signed a military agreement. Immediately afterward,
U.S. intelligence agents set up an operations center on the Adriatic island
of Brac, from which reconnaissance aircraft were launched. Two months earlier,
the Pentagon contracted Military Professional Resources, Inc (MPRI) to
train the Croatian military.(16) According to a Croatian officer, MPRI
advisors "lecture us on tactics and big war operations on the level
of brigades, which is why we needed them for Operation Storm when we took
the Krajina." Croatian sources claim that U.S. satellite intelligence
was furnished to the Croatian military. (17) Following the invasion of
Krajina, the U.S. rewarded Croatia with an agreement "broadening existing
cooperation" between MPRI and the Croatian mititary. (18) U.S. advisors
assisted in the reorganization of the Croatian Army. Referring to this
reorganization in an interview with the newspaper Vecernji List, Croatian
General Tihomir Blaskic said, "We are building the foundations of
our organization on the traditions of the Croatian home
guard" - pro-Nazi troops in World War II. (19)
It is worth examining the
nature of what one UN official terms "America's newest ally."
During World War II, Croatia was a Nazi puppet state in which the Croatian
fascist Ustashe murdered as many as one million Serbs, Jews, and Roman
(Gypsies). Disturbing signs emerged with the election of Franjo Tudjman
to the Croatian presidency in 1990 Tudjman said, "I am glad my wife
is neither Serb nor Jew," and wrote that accounts of the Holocaust
were "exaggerated" and "one-sided." (20)
Much of Tudjman's financial
backing was provided by Ustasha emigres and several Ustasha war criminals
were invited to attend the first convention of Tudjman's political party,
the Croatian Democratie Union. (21)
Tudjman presented a medal
to a former Ustasha cormmander living in Argentina, Ivo Rojnica. After
Rojnica was quoted as saying, "Everything I did in 1941 I would do
again," international pressure prevented Tudjman from appointing him
to the post of ambassador to Argentina. When former Ustasha official Vinko
Nikolic returned to Croatia, Tudjman appointed him to a seat in parliament.
Upon former Ustasha officer Mate Sarlija's return to Croatia, he was personally
welcomed at the airport by Defense Minister Gojko Susak, and subsequently
given the post of general in the Croatian Army. (22) On November 4, 1996,
thirteen former Ustasha officers were presented with medals and ranks in
the Croatian Army. (23)
Croatia
adopted a new currency in 1994, the kuna, the same name as that used by
the Ustasha state, and the new Croatian flag is a near-duplicate of the
Ustasha flag. Streets and buildings have been renamed for Ustasha official
Mile Budak, who signed the regime's auti-Semitic laws, and more than three
thousand anti-fascist monuments have been demolished. In an open letter,
the Croatian Jewish community protested the rehabilitation of the Ustasha
state. In April 1994, the Croatian government demanded the removal of all
"non-white" UN troops from its territory, claimiug that "only
first-world troops" understood Croatia's "problems." (24)
On Croatian television in
April 1996, Tudjman called for the return of the remains of Ante
Pavelic, the leader of the Croatian pro-Nazi puppet state "After
all, both reconciliation and recognition should be granted to those who
deserve it," Tudjman said, adding, "We should recognize that
Pavelic's ideas about the Croatian state were positive," but that
Pavelic's only mistake was the murder of a few of his colleagues and nationalist
allies. (25) Three months later, Tudjman said of the Serbs driven from
Croatia "The fact that 90 percent of them left is their own problem...
Naturally we are not going to allow them all to return." During the
same speech, Tudjman referred to the pro-Nazi state as "a positive
thing." (26)
During its violent secession
from Yugoslavia in
1991, Croatia expelled more than three hundred thousand Serbs, and
Serbs were eliminated from ten towns and 183 viilages. (27) In 1993, Helsinki
Watch reported: "Since 1991 the Croatian authorities have blown up
or razed ten thousand houses mostly of Serbs, but also houses of Croats.
In some cases, they dynarnited homes with the families inside." Thousands
of Serbs have been evicted from their homes. Croatian human-rights activist
Ivan Zvonimir Cicak says beatings, plundering, and arrests were the usual
eviction methods. (28)
Tomislav Mercep, until recently
the advisor to the Interior minister and a member of Parliament, is a death-squad
leader. Mercep's death squad murdered 2,500 Serbs in western Slavonia in
1991 and 1992, actions Mercep defends as "heroic deeds." (29)
Death squad officer Miro Bajramovic's spectacular confession revealed details:
"Nights were worst for [our prisoners]... burning prisoners with a
flame, pouring vinegar over their wounds mostly on genitalia and on the
eyes. Then there is that little inducton, field phone, you plug a Serb
onto that... The most painfull is to stick little pins under the nails
and to connect to the three phase current; nothing remains of a man but
ashes... After all, we knew they would all be killed, so it did not matter
if we hurt turn more today or tomorrow."
"Mercep knew everything,"
Bajramovic claimed. "He told us several times: 'Tonight you have to
clean all these shits.' By this he meant all the prisoners should be executed."
(30)
Sadly, the Clinton administration's
embrace of Croatia follows a history of support for fascists when it suits
American geopolitical interests: Chile's Augusto Pinochet, Indonesia's
Suharto, Paraguay's Aifredo Stroessner, and a host of others. The consequences
of this policy for the people affected have been devastating.
REFERENCES:
To come.
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Last revised:
Dec. 28, 1998
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