<http://www.srna.co.yu> www.srna.co.yu
Serbian Press Agency SRNA, Bijeljina August 3, 2008 STRBAC: "OPERATION STORM" THE FINAL ACT OF ETHNIC CLEANSING OF SERBS FROM CROATIA BANJA LUKA - Croatian forces' Operation Storm, which began on August 4, 1995, and resulted in the expulsion of 220.000 Serbs in a few days from most of the Republic of Srpska Krajina (RSK) was the final act of ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Croatia, stated the director of the Veritas Documentation Information Center, Savo Strbac. Strbac said that there are frequent attempts to suggest the number of 250.000 Serbs who left the regions of Banija, Lika, Kordun and north Dalmatia during Operation Storm is the total number of Serbs who left Croatia during the last war, which is not true. He reminded that official Croatian statistical data shows that during the period from 1991 to 2001 400.000 Serbs left Croatia. "Operation Storm is still going on today because individual Serbs are still being killed in Croatia, individual Serb houses that remain are still being destroyed, and the Croatian state is preventing Serb returns and making it impossible for them to live there by a series of discriminatory laws, thus accomplishing the plan of Franjo Tudjman, who said that the Serb question in Croatia will be solved when Serbs comprise only three percent of the population," emphasized Strbac at a press conference in Banja Luka. According to Strbac, approximately 1.400 people per year return from Serbia to Croatia, most of them elderly, while at the same time more than 3.000 relocate from Croatia to Serbia. According to UNHCR data, which Strbac presented today, out of 120.000 Serb petitions to return only 52.000 returned to Croatia. Strbac emphasized that Croatian forces' Operation Storm was an act of ethnocide and added that the paradox of this operation is that the operation was carried out by a member of the UN in a zone under UN control, he said. According to Veritas' data during Operation Storm about 230.000 Serbs lived in the attacked region of RSK, 30.000 of whom were armed. "Croatian forces, not counting members of the [Muslim] Bosnia-Herzegovina Army's Fifth Corps and NATO aviation which first bombed and destroyed all relay systems, consisted of 135.000 soldiers in direct attack and 7.400 members of the Croatian Defense Council (HVO)," emphasized Strbac. Veritas' data includes the names of 1.922 people killed or missing, 62 percent of whom are civilians. Among the victims are 534 women and 19 people under the age of 18. At today's press conference Svetlana Siljegovic presented the Bulletin published by Veritas which includes testimony from 37 witnesses, the number that has so far testified before the Hague tribunal in the case against Croatian generals Mladen Markac, Ante Gotovina and Ivan Cermak, who are accused of the crime of a joint criminal enterprise whose goal was the forcible and permanent removal of Serbs from the region of Krajina during Operation Storm. Ms. Siljegovic said that the concept of the Bulletin includes excerpts from the media about this trial, and that an effort is made to include at least two media reports of every testimonial. "The Croatian media reporting is completely biased but frequently the Serb media report on the trial as if the trial concerned events in Rwanda, sometimes falling for the quotations from Croatian media," said Ms. Siljegovic. The commemoration of the exodus of the Serbs during Operation Storm is held yearly under the slogan "Lest it be forgotten". This is the second time this event is being held thanks to the sponsorship of the Committee for Nurturing Traditions of Wars of Liberation of the RS Government. __,_._,___
