Wednesday, April 27th 2011

Statement No. 08-11

26th April 2011

Statement No. 8/2011 

In the wake of the judgment rendered by the ad hoc Tribunal in The Hague relating to the legal matter of Gotovina et al., Croatia has once again been confronted with a different view of the events that took place after the military-police operation Storm. This view is, of course, different from what we would like it to be.

Since the Committee was well informed about murders, arson, and other crimes, it notified by word of mouth and in writing all the competent institutions of the state, from the President of the Republic to the police and the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic of Croatia (DORH). Similarly, we provided information about our findings in the field to all religious and international institutions, as well as the media. All our statements and press releases were published in Rijeka’s Novi list, and collected in the book “The CHC Statements 1993-2003.” Moreover, in 2001 the Committee released a collective report on the military-police operations “Storm” and “Flash”.

The judgment of the ad hoc Tribunal in the legal matter of Gotovina et al. has caused a heated debate throughout Croatia, but there is practically no word about the victims of the military-police operations. The prime minister has ordered a “diplomatic offensive” so as to use the help of “our friends” in other countries in order to exert pressure on the Tribunal to change its decision. We feel that this is an unprecedented violation of the rule of law, and at the same time, an attack on the constitutional system and separation of powers. The prime minister has also instructed that an investigation be conducted so as to determine who submitted the transcripts to the Tribunal, even though they were delivered in accordance with the Constitutional law on the cooperation with the Hague tribunal. There is no need to say that such a high-ranking government official should have ordered a detailed investigation into the real number of victims who had been killed in the operation “Storm,” by simply putting into practice the old biblical tenet “only the truth can save us”.

In relation to its activities during the period after the operation “Storm,” the Croatian Helsinki Committee (CHC) used as its motto the famous quote from Pope John Paul II concerning the war in ex-Yugoslavia: “This time no one will be able to say – we didn’t know!” The CHC wants to inform the public of the data that we have at our disposal. We wish to do that since the Croatian Television (HRT) released the data from the DORH regarding the number of Serb victims in the aftermath of the operation “Storm.” These details were aired in the Easter edition of HRT’s main evening news program on 24 April 2011. We feel that the data disclosed on that day is part of a “diplomatic offensive” on the part of all tiers of Croatian authorities. At the same time, the said data prove that not much has changed in Croatia in the last 15 years with respect to the war crimes and the rule of law.  

1. Since the outbreak of the Croatian Homeland War a total of 3,655 judicial investigations have been initiated against persons suspected of war crimes. This number refers to the period up to 31 December 2010. Of the total, 95 members of the Croatian army and police have been charged with crimes. As for the crimes committed over the last 20 years, only 28 members of the Croatian Army and police have been indicted. The other indicted persons are Serbs (a tabular outline classified as per DORH is provided in the attachment). 563 persons were sentenced. According to our data, not a single member of the Croatian Army or police, nor any other person for that matter, has been indicted for war crimes committed against Serb soldiers and civilians after the operation “Storm.”

5. In its declaration, the DORH stated that the difference in the data disclosed by the CHC (677 people killed), and that disclosed by the DORH, revolves around the fact that the CHC “does not separate war victims from victims of war crimes and murders.” The list of victims included in the CHC report includes exclusively the civilian victims killed after the official completion of the military-police operation “Storm.” Our activists were given strict instructions when they were gathering evidence. The CHC list contains only the names of those people whose identity was attested by at least two witnesses. It does not contain the names of people who participated in the insurgents’ units. Our observers received the information about additional several hundred murdered individuals whose names had not been put on our list as they did not meet the criteria. Our activists determined that 20,000 buildings, houses, and dwellings had been damaged, burnt down or completely destroyed in the liberated territories. This figure includes houses and agricultural facilities, but also buildings of public interest such as railway stations, community clinics, schools, power sub-stations, lamp-posts, etc. All this leads us to conclude that the action entailed a systematic destruction whose purpose was to hamper the return of the civilian population and the restoration of regular everyday life. Arson and destruction continued into the years after the operation “Storm,” which is evident from the statements and documents that we had published at that time.

6. We do not know what methods the DORH used when it separated the “victims of war” from the victims of war crimes and murders. In our opinion, all the victims killed after the operation “Storm” had been eliminated as a target group since they were Serb. This means that we are dealing here exclusively with the victims of war crimes. As for the murders that happened after the operation “Storm,” the DORH can process all of them as war crimes. If not, the DORH is implementing a judicial method typical of “legal theoreticians” who think that those responsible for the killings after the end of the Second World War (9 May 1945) cannot be prosecuted for war crimes since the war had already ended. If this “judicial principle” were to be applied, not a single person killed after the operation “Storm” (9 August) could be treated as a victim of war, and, as a result, no one could be charged with war crimes, including generals Gotovina and Markač.  

7. The CHC believes that the above demonstrates how there is no political will in Croatia to process the war crimes that occurred after the completion of the operation “Storm.” The processing of war crimes should be founded on the principles of the rule of law, e.g. international standards set forth in conventions and other legally valid documents. It is necessary to point out that these documents have been incorporated in the Croatian legal norms, and have thus become their integral part.

At the request of the State Attorney General, Mladen Bajić, last Friday we submitted to the DORH 15 copies of our report on the operations “Storm” and “Flash.” Besides, we also offered the DORH our rich archival materials that would do well to be inspected by the representatives of the Ministry of the Interior and the DORH so as to determine what really happened after the operation “Storm,” and initiate legal proceedings which the Croatian government promised to the EU in its action programme. This would dismiss all the speculations suggesting that the DORH and the Croatian courts have not processed individual war crimes committed after the operation “Storm.” Similarly, the legally valid judgments rendered by the Croatian courts would provide relevant evidence that the military-police operation “Storm” had been misused for ethnic cleansing through the joint criminal enterprise. 

For the CHC:                                                                                                                       Ivan Zvonimir Čičak                                                                                                  President 

Attachments:                                                                                                                      1. Transcript of the first Croatian TV programme from 25 April 2011 at 7:30 p.m.                  2. An outline of the official investigation requests, and the persons accused and indicted

    for war crimes as of 31 December 2010