FREE CROATIAN GENERALS - PEACEFUL PROTEST- CANBERRA - 17.07.2011 PART 2

The recent decision by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) based in The Hague, Netherlands, sentencing Croatian Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac to 24 and 18 years in jail respectively, is a travesty of justice. The ICTY held that Gens. Gotovina and Markac were guilty of "command responsibility" for overseeing alleged crimes and the expulsion of ethnic Serbs from Croatia during the August 1995 military campaign, known as Operation Storm.

The ruling was not only biased and legally flimsy, but falsely convicts two innocent men. Rather than being war criminals, they are heroes and patriots, who oversaw a military operation that restored Croatia 's territorial integrity and delivered a decisive blow to Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic's genocidal goal of a "Greater Serbia." For over three years, paramilitary Serb forces—aided and abetted by the Yugoslav army—occupied over a third of Croatia , ethnically cleansed 180,000 Croatians and murdered over 15,000 civilians. Countless media outlets—The Washington Times, Newsweek, The Jerusalem Post and The Wall Street Journal—have investigated Operation Storm and concluded that not only were the Croatian generals innocent of any wrongdoing. But that the operation was a U.S.-sponsored campaign that was a stunning success: civilian casualties were minimized; the military assault was completed within three days; and the defeat of the Serbian rebels eventually resulted in the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords, establishing regional peace and security.

The orders to evacuate the ethnic Serb population from the so-called "Krajina" zone of Serbian occupation were sent from Belgrade several days prior to the commencement of Operation Storm. Knowing that military defeat was inevitable, Milosevic deliberately ordered that the ethnic Serbs of Croatia be transferred and repopulated in Bosnia and Kosovo to further his revanchist aims. This was done before Croatian forces had even attacked the zones of Serbian occupation. Hence, the entire basis of the Gotovina and Markac convictions and their prosecution rests on a giant fraud: The removal of the Serbian population was done by the paramilitary Serb authorities in Knin under orders from Belgrade . Hence, whatever "ethnic cleansing" took place could not—and was not—committed by Croatian forces. Therefore, Operation Storm could not have been a "joint criminal enterprise" as alleged by the ICTY. The entire judgment is bogus and a gross historical injustice.

The convictions not only condemn two innocent men for crimes they did not commit. They criminalize Croatia's entire war for independence, falsely alleging that Operation Storm was a massive war crime. This inevitably calls into question Croatia's international borders, and possibly paves the way for radical Serbian nationalists to again seek to annex large swathes of Croatian territory. The ICTY has delivered a deeply politicized judgment with very dangerous political implications—for the Croatian people and the region in general. We demand that the ICTY's assault on Croatia's dignity and territorial legitimacy be stopped immediately; Gens. Gotovina and Markac must be released; and that all further prosecutions of Croatian military officials end. In short, we demand real justice.


WE DEMAND THE IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF GENERAL ANTE GOTOVINA & GENERAL MLADEN MARKAC

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• CANBERRA
• CROATIA
• ANTE
• GOTOVINA
• MLADEN
• MARKAC
• PROTEST
• AUSTRALIA
• COMMUNITY
• ICTY
• UNITED
• NATIONS
• HILLARY
• CLINTON
• BILL