In September, 1993, Canadian troops stationed in an area of Croatia
known as Vojna Krajina engaged in a fierce battle with Croatian forces
attacking a predominantly Serb enclave. The engagement, little known
outside of military circles, was not publicized by the Canadian
government, which was hesitant to draw attention to the increasing dangers
the country's troops were facing abroad. But this December, Ottawa will
finally honour the soldiers who took part in that firefight by presenting
them with a unit commendation. Maclean's tells the story of the battle:
PTE. SCOTT LeBLANC'S machine gun jackhammered against his shoulder as
he fired at the Croatian troops dug in 150 metres away. Grenades exploded
around him; bullets and orange tracer-fire screamed through the smoky air.
The Croatians hammered the Canadians for 15 hours straight -- thinking the
30 soldiers from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry would
buckle and run like other UN peacekeepers had often done. But the
Canadians, members of one of three platoons making up the Patricia's
Charlie Company, held their ground. "They're trying to flank us,"
LeBlanc's section leader barked, sending a jolt of adrenalin through
LeBlanc's exhausted body. Standing halfway out of his trench, the
19-year-old reservist swung his gun around and opened fire on the
Croatians. "We could see muzzle flashes and threw everything we had at
them," recalls LeBlanc, now a 28-year-old lieutenant who has just returned
from Afghanistan. "After that, everything got real quiet."
The fierce battle took place in September, 1993, about a year and a
half after Canadian peacekeepers had first arrived in the former
Yugoslavia. Vicious fighting and appalling acts of ethnic cleansing made
their task of disarming and separating the various combatants nearly
impossible. Especially volatile was one mountainous region of Croatia
called Vojna Krajina, or Military Frontier, home to an isolated pocket of
some 500,000 Serbs. Fiercely nationalistic, the Krajina Serbs began to
drive out Croats. But on Sept. 9, Croatian Commander Rahim Ademi launched
an attack to capture an area of Serb-controlled territory in Krajina
called the Medak Pocket. The UN, fearing that 400 Serbs living in four
unprotected villages in the area were at risk of being slaughtered by
Croatian troops, ordered the Patricia's into the area -- and into the
biggest firefight Canadian forces had been involved in since Korea.
Five months into a six-month tour of duty, the Canadians were led by
Lt.-Col. James Calvin, 41. The 875-man battle group was a patchwork of
regular and reserve soldiers. In fact, 70 per cent of the front line
soldiers were reservists -- a makeup that, Calvin says, could prove
dangerous in a war zone. "Reservists are just as long on valour and
courage," the now-retired Calvin told Maclean's from his home on Wolfe
Island, Ont., near Kingston. "But you can't expect one to do the same
things you expect from a regular soldier."
Still, after four months in the region, Calvin considered his force
seasoned, especially with his hand-picked group of platoon leaders,
including reservist Lt. Tyrone Green. The morning of Sept. 9 started
nicely enough for the Vancouver native in charge of 9 Platoon, Charlie
Company, with sunshine poking through the cracks in the boarded windows of
the platoon's quarters, a two-storey concrete building on the outskirts of
the Serb-held town of Medak.
But as Green dragged a razor across his chin, his morning shave was
interrupted by incoming artillery shells. With soap still clinging to his
face, Green, who is now a captain in charge of a Canadian Forces
recruiting office in Vancouver, grabbed his helmet and raced to his M-113
armoured personnel carrier. At one point he was knocked down when a shell
landed in a nearby ditch. He wasn't hurt, but four Canadians were injured
in the shelling. "We counted 500 or more shells by the end of the first
day," says Green. "About a dozen fell in our compound and one landed about
10 metres from the front door."
Not knowing where the shells were coming from, Green sent Sgt. Rudy
Bajema to establish an observation post. For the next five days, Bajema
watched as the Medak Pocket was attacked by more than 2,500 Croat troops,
backed by tanks, rocket launchers and artillery. The Serbs finally slowed
the Croatian advance on Sept. 12, but it was not until they launched
rockets into a suburb of Zagreb, Croatia's capital, that the Croats
relented and accepted a UN ceasefire.
Calvin, who didn't really expect the Croatians to live up to the
agreement, ordered his troops to occupy the Croat positions. "We started
taking fire almost immediately from the Croats," recalls LeBlanc. The
battle raged for the next 15 hours. It was so intense that at night the
light from burning buildings reflected off the soldiers' blue UN helmets,
prompting them to wrap them in khaki-coloured T-shirts. Finally realizing
the Canadians would not back down, the Croats sent word to Calvin that
they wanted to talk. They had good reason to call a truce: the Canadians
had killed 27 Croats while not taking a single casualty.
Joined by Col. Michel Maisonneuve, a Canadian officer from the UN
headquarters in Zagreb, Calvin met with Ademi at his headquarters in a
town near the fighting. Ademi sat on one side of the table, blustering and
yelling at the Canadians. "He looked like he was enjoying the role he was
playing," says Calvin. "Emotions were very high and I was irate my men
were getting shot at." But after an hour and a half, Ademi finally
relented and promised to pull his troops out at noon the next day.
The Croatian commander, however, was determined to terrorize the Serb
civilians living in the area before he left. By 10 a.m. the next morning,
a thick umbrella of smoke covered all four towns in the Medak Pocket as
the Croats tried to kill or destroy everything in their wake. The
Canadians witnessed scenes that still haunt many of them. "They could see
what was happening from their foxholes," says Calvin. "My soldiers knew
their role was to protect the weak and the innocent and they were
absolutely incensed." But fearing the ceasefire agreement with Ademi would
collapse if they advanced, the Canadians could do nothing but hold their
ground.
Finally, when the noon deadline passed, the Canadians raced ahead, but
immediately encountered a company of Croat troops behind a barricade --
and supported by missiles launchers and an ominous Soviet-era T-72 tank.
Calvin approached the senior Croat brigadier; their conversation quickly
became heated. The large, bearded Croat ordered his men to cock their
weapons and point them at the Canadians. "We knew they were stalling so
they could clean up evidence of their ethnic cleansing," Calvin recalls.
Calvin did not order his troops to fight, and instead tried another
gambit. With the Medak attack almost a week old, the international media
had converged on the area. As negotiations with his bearded counterpart
deteriorated, Calvin held a news conference in front of the barricade and
bluntly described the atrocities he believed were being committed by the
Croatians. Realizing his country's reputation was in jeopardy, the Croat
commander suddenly stepped aside. "The transformation was instantaneous,"
says Calvin. "He made a big show of removing the barriers."
The Patricia's then pushed on. Every building in their path had been
demolished and many were still smouldering. Corpses lay by the side of the
road, some badly mutilated and others burned beyond recognition. "We knew
it was going to be bad," says Green, "but the things we found there were
worse than anything we expected."
The Canadians documented everything they saw. Calvin's subsequent
report helped convince the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia to issue an indictment in 2001 against Ademi, charging him with
crimes against humanity. Made public one year ago, the report is a brutal
list of murder and torture. Among the victims: Sara Krickovic, female, 71,
throat cut; Pera Krajnovic, female, 86, burned to death; Andja Jovic,
female, 74, beaten and shot. In all, the Patricia's found 16 mutilated
corpses -- some with their eyes cut out.
The soldiers rotated home four weeks later, but there was no hero's
welcome. At the time, Canadians were focused on the disturbing revelations
that a teenager named Shidane Arone had been tortured and killed by
Canadian peacekeepers in Somalia. Kim Campbell's Conservative government
was also facing a federal election and didn't want the increasing dangers
Canadian troops were facing in the Balkans raised as an issue. "When we
got back to Canada a couple of weeks later, the first thing I did was call
home," says LeBlanc. "My folks hadn't heard anything about the battle."
The force did receive high honours from the United Nations in 1994,
when its members were given the United Nations Force Commanders'
Commendation -- the first of its kind and only one of three ever awarded.
And, this December, the Canadian government finally plans to honour the
troops by presenting them with a unit commendation. But the honours only
go so far. With vivid memories of the battle, many of the soldiers still
suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome.
As for Ademi, his case rests in legal limbo. After the indictment, he
voluntarily turned himself over to the war crimes tribunal, proclaiming he
had a clear conscience because "I did not order any atrocities." Last
February, the UN granted him a provisional release on condition he return
to The Hague when the trial proceeds, likely next year. Calvin may be
called to testify. "Ademi should be called to account," he says. "No
soldier should be able to get away with
that."
