A (HYPOTHETICAL) SPEECH FOR PRIME MINISTER RACAN...

by Brian Gallagher

Hrvatski Vjesnik - 3 August 2001

 

Croatia needs to explain its concerns over the Hague Tribunal - it has not done so, leading to misrepresentation in the world's media. Perhaps if Prime Minister Racan gave the following speech on the day of the Croat indictments, things would be much improved:

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the press, welcome to Vocin. Given so many of you are from the international press, I will speak in English. I will tell you why we are here and not in Zagreb presently.

Firstly, many of you will want to know how we are to respond to the indictments given the Croatian public's understandable anger. We shall, unlike Yugoslavia, comply with our international obligations. We should like to point out that Croatia has been handing over people to the Tribunal for years now. We have not been awarded with $1.3 billion for any of them.

Instead, there is talk of sanctions against my country if we do not hand over the two indicted suspects. My countrymen are rightly concerned as to this double standard: Why does this not apply to Yugoslavia where indicted war crime suspects still roam freely?

Might I also point out that our entire military command has been investigated to the highest levels. Our chief of staff was questioned, and our military archives made available. There is no hint that the Tribunal will do the same in Serbia.

My fellow citizens have other concerns over the Tribunal that I myself share.

The Tribunal speaks of hundreds of murdered Serbs, yet they are reluctant to discuss the 15, 000 Croats slaughtered during the Serb invasion, occupation and annexation of no less than one third of Croatia, let alone the hundreds of thousands ethnically cleansed. Let us also not forget that Croatia did not invade Serbia.

That is why we are in Vocin today. Here, and in neighbouring villages, appalling massacres of Croat civilians took place in 1991. The Tribunal has refused to investigate them. We consider this to be a moral outrage. If these crimes are not investigated, some may claim they never happened. That is why we are here, in Vocin: we refuse to let these crimes be forgotten.

The Tribunal claim that they have indicted Serbs for crimes in Croatia. But these few indictments cover only a minority of the crimes committed.

For Vukovar, the indictments are insufficient. Thousands perished in Vukovar. Are we to seriously believe that less than a handful of middle ranking Yugoslav Army officers and a former mayor were responsible? That it had nothing to do with Belgrade? Who ordered the Yugoslav Army into Croatia? Who gave the orders to destroy Vukovar? Why have they not been indicted?

In fact it was not just Vukovar, the whole of Eastern Slavonia was occupied, villages cleansed. The city of Osijek was bombarded. Where are the indictments? And what of elsewhere? The attack on Sibenik? The slaughter at Skabrnja? The bombardment of Gospic? And many, many others.

The slaughter in Croatia went on for months; you all saw it on television. If our Generals can be indicted for not preventing and punishing random war crimes over operations that lasted a few days, how is it that the Yugoslav Army's military and political leaders have escaped indictments on those grounds for operations that lasted months and for which openly stated purpose was to create an ethnically pure 'Greater Serbia' out of my country?

By not investigating these crimes, the Tribunal are effectively denying them. The disproportionality in indictments means history may be re-written to say both were sides were equally guilty. This would be a lie.

To add insult to injury, of the little they have done in Croatia, the Tribunal has failed to achieve a single conviction.

I think it is becoming clearer to you why the citizens of my country are so angry at the moment.

Some final points on the indictments we have received. In the background details that they fail to mention that "Krajina" was an illegal structure set up on the back of genocide and ethnic cleansing most of which of course, have not been investigated by the Tribunal.

We also note that the reference to the UN Protected Areas fail to mention that the UN reneged on the agreement to disarm the Serbs and return people home. Indeed, the few remaining Croats were ethnically cleansed under their noses.

As for the allegation that 'Operation Storm' was an ethnic cleansing exercise, this is absolute nonsense. Might I remind you all that one third of our country was occupied; we had a right to take it back at any time. If America or Britain were one third occupied I'm sure they would take it back and rightly so! What is more, the UN 'safe haven' of Bihac was about to fall to the Serbs. Had it done so, all of its good citizens would have been slaughtered, just like at Srebrinica a few weeks earlier; and Greater Serbia established. We had to move quickly. Don't forget also that invading Serbs from occupied Croatia also besieged Bihac - the very same Serbs the UN were supposed to be disarming.

Yes, the Serb population fled the occupied territories. But not at our instigation. The Serb leadership ordered it - it was organised and moving just as Storm started. I would also point out that over 3,000 Croat corpses have been dug up in the former occupied territories since the war - this no doubt concentrated some people's minds.

Yes, we accept that Croats committed war crimes that should be punished; we have taken steps ourselves in that direction. But they were random crimes, not part of a plan. They amount to a few hundred at most, and hardly comparable to 15,000 plus.

Your press packs have copies of the Serb orders to evacuate Croatia, as well as extracts from the book written by Serb Generals entitled "Knin fell in Belgrade".

They also have many details on the massacres and ethnic cleansing not investigated by the tribunal, as well as details of those crimes by our citizens that we are ourselves are bringing to trial, unlike Yugoslavia.

Full documentation is available to you, copies of which are available in all our embassies and consulates. Any questions?"

 

© Brian Gallagher