Croatia: Wartime leadership 'turned a blind eye' to crimes against Serbs claims ex-president

Zagreb, 22 April (AKI) – Croatia’s wartime leadership was aware of and tolerated crimes against Serbs at the end of 1991-1995 war of independence, former Croatian president Stipe Mesic said Friday in an interview with daily Novi List.

Mesic was present when wartime president Franjo Tudjman was informed about the torching of Serb villages, but did nothing to stop it, according to Mesic, who served as president from 2000 to 2010.

“I was present when one of his ministers informed Tudjman that Serb villages in western Slavonia were being burned in three shifts,” Mesic said.

“He literally said: ‘Burned in three shifts’,” Mesic added.

Mesic, now 77, founded with Tudjman the Croatian Democratic Union that led the country to independence from the former Yugoslavia, but split from the party and was elected president as an independent candidate after Tudjman’s death in 1999.

Minority Serbs in Croatia rebelled against Croatia’s secession and formed their own self-proclaimed republic. But the rebellion was quashed in the military operation “Storm” in August 1995.

The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in mid-April sentenced two former Croatian generals, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac, to 24 and 18 years in jail respectively, for crimes against civilians committed in the operation.

The tribunal said Gotovina and Markac were members of a “joint criminal enterprise”, headed by Tudjman, aimed at expelling minority Serbs in Croatia.

Croatian forces indiscriminately shelled Serb villages and towns, killed civilians and sent some 200,000 Serbs fleeing to Serbia,” the court said.

The verdict stoked angry protests in Croatia, with war veterans accusing post-Tudjman governments of having submitted evidence to the tribunal. The court accepted as key evidence transcripts of Tudjman’s meeting with military leaders in which he told them to use “all means” to make “Serbs disappear” from Croatia.

Croatian politicians and some media have questioned the authenticity of the transcripts, but Mesic said the key evidence was in audio and video recordings from the meeting where Tudjman gave instructions to military leaders.

"The Hague tribunal had to act because there was no political will in Croatia to try ourselves crimes which were undoubtedly committed by our side”, Mesic said.