General Gotovina - Croatians outraged after guilty verdict

[Onur]

Indigen, i know the current map of Croatia but i was talking about the times before the creation of Yugoslavia. Also, before 1920s, there was Serbs, Bosnians and Hungarians living in current eastern Croatia. So, there wasn't only catholic Croats in that eastern parts before 1990. Hungarians left/expelled from there first, then Bosnians and Serbs followed.

Besides that, i don't think there was any large catholic Croat community outside Dalmatia during the 450+ years of Ottoman regime. I can easily guess that catholic Croat community settled outside dalmatia only after Ottoman regime was over and most likely after Serbs and Croats decided to become yugo-slav brothers.

I don't know much about the history of that part of Balkans but i can easily guess that because catholicism and Ottoman regime doesn't fit to each other. Also, Serbian church would never allow large community of catholics settle inside Ottoman territories either if you consider the conflict between orthodoxy and catholism during that era. Also, another indication is Ottoman regime in Hungary. Ottoman authorities either killed or expelled all catholic opinion leaders of Hungary when they occupied it or they escaped to the Austria themselves. They only allowed simple peasants and villagers to continue to live in Hungary because catholics always considered as biggest enemy both by Turks and all other orthodox people of Ottoman empire.

So, during Ottoman regime, that eastern part of current Croatia has been ruled by Bosnians and Serbians. As you know, even Serbian church has been restored by the request of Bosnian muslim Mehmet Sokolovic pasha from the Ottoman sultan. The abolishment of the Serbian church after Ottoman conquest was the request of Istanbul patriarchy. When Mehmet Sokolovic restored it, Istanbul patriarch protested him by telling that muslim Mehmet pasha shouldn't intervene to the christians!

[George S.]

I found something intersting on why croatia is the way it is.
During the Great Turkish War (1667–1698), Slavonia was regained but hilly western Bosnia, which had been a part of Croatia until the Ottoman conquest, remained outside Croatian control and the current border, which resembles a crescent or a horseshoe, is a remnant of this historical outcome. The southern part of the 'horseshoe' was created by the Venetian conquest following the Siege of Zara and was defined by the 17–18th century wars with the Ottomans. The de jure reason for Venetian expansion was the decision of the king of Croatia, Ladislas of Naples, to sell his rights on Dalmatia to Venice in 1409.[24]
During more than two centuries of Ottoman wars, Croatia underwent great demographic changes. The Croats left the riverland areas of Gacka, Lika and Krbava, Moslavina in Slavonia, and an area in present day north-western Bosnia to move towards Austria where they remained and the present day Burgenland Croats are direct descendants of these settlers. To replace the fleeing Croats, the Habsburgs called on the Orthodox populations of Bosnia and Serbia to provide military service in Croatian and Slavonian Krajina. Serbian migration into this region, which had started in the 16th century, peaked during the Great Serb Migrations of 1690 and 1737–39. The rights and obligations of new populace of the Military frontier were decided with the Statuta Valachorum in 1630.[25]

Looking at the map it looks like the croats got a raw deal but a lot depended on the way it was settled long time ago.The croats came to croatia in the 6 century bc from iran? When they came the bosnians were there allready & supposedly can trace all their way to the illyrians & some sort of albanian link.

[Soldier of Macedon]

In a sudden turn of events, Gotovina (along with Markac) has been freed, much to the celebration of Croats and dismay of Serbs. Here are some articles in relation to the event:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/croatia/9682855/Croatian-hero-Ante-Gotovina-acquitted-of-war-crimes.html

The unexpected result has sparked jubilant scenes in Croatia as people cheered and wept with joy as they watched a live broadcast of the UN court in Zagreb's central square. "A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders," said Zoran Milanovic, the Croatian Prime Minister in Zagreb. "I say thank you to them for surviving so long for the sake of Croatia." Last year's conviction of General Gotovina for a criminal conspiracy to commit war crimes dealt a severe blow to Croatia's image as victim of Serb aggression during the break-up of Yugoslavia. Gen. Gotovina, and a more junior general, Mladen Markac, were acquitted on appeal by a 3-2 majority in the five judge UN appeals chamber in the most stunning reversal in the war crime court's 18-year history. Both men showed no emotion at the decision but their Croatian supporters in the court's packed public gallery cheered and clapped the court ordered them to be freed immediately.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/croatia-celebrates-after-gotovina-and-markac-convictions-overturned/story-e6frg6so-1226518625797

THE Yugoslav war crimes tribunal has overturned the convictions of two Croat generals for murdering and illegally expelling Serb civilians in a 1995 military blitz, and both men returned home to a hero's welcome. The decision on Friday, by a 3-2 majority in the UN court's five-judge appeals chamber, is one of the most significant reversals in the court's 18-year history and overturns a verdict that dealt a blow to Croatia's self-image as a victim of atrocities, rather than a perpetrator, during the Balkan wars in the 1990s. The ruling triggered scenes of rapture in court and among Croat war veterans watching the ruling on big screens in the capital, Zagreb, but also produced fury in Serbia where it was seen as further evidence of anti-Serb bias at the tribunal. Even liberal Serbs warned it created a sense of injustice and could stir nationalist sentiments.

In The Hague, neither Ante Gotovina nor Mladen Markac showed any emotion as presiding judge Theodor Meron told them they were free men, but their supporters in the court's packed public gallery cheered and clapped. On a lawn outside the tribunal, supporters sang, waved a Croat flag and sipped champagne, while the generals were returned to their jail cells to complete release paperwork before being flown back to Croatia. Thousands of people, including Croatian war veterans, celebrated in the main square of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.

“Finally, we can say to our children that we are not war criminals,'' said veteran Djuro Vec. “We fought for justice, and that our fight was righteous and just.'' On their arrival in Zagreb, the two were welcomed by Croatia's Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic and other top officials and a red carpet graced the foot of the plane's steps. Gotovina told the cheering crowd singing patriotic songs at Zagreb's main Bana Jelacica square that “this is our joint victory''. “We have won, the war is over and let's turn to the future,'' Gotovina said as the crowd chanted Croatia's main wartime call, “to war, to war for our people.''

Gotovina, 55, and Markac were sentenced to 24 and 18 years respectively in 2011 for crimes, including murder and deportation. Judges ruled both men were part of a criminal conspiracy led by former Croat President Franjo Tudjman to expel Serbs. Serbia claims that some 600 Serbs were killed and more than 200,000 driven from their homes during the operation. Tribunal prosecutors put the death toll lower, at 324, but told the court the victims included elderly and disabled villagers, many of whom had been shot in the head. The appeals judges said prosecutors failed to prove the existence of such a conspiracy, effectively clearing Croatia's entire wartime leadership of war crimes in the operation known as Operation Storm.

It occurred at the end of Croatia's battle to secede from the crumbling Yugoslavia and involved grabbing back land along its border with Bosnia that had earlier been occupied by rebel Serbs. Following the judgment, Serbia said it had scaled back cooperation with the UN war crimes court to protest the acquittal, Beta news agency reported. “The Serbian government decided on Friday to reduce cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to a technical level...,'' Beta quoted Serbian deputy prime minster Rasim Ljajic as saying.

Serbia's nationalist President Tomislav Nikolic declared the “scandalous'' decision by the Hague court was clearly “political and not legal'' and “will not contribute to stabilisation of the situation in the region but will reopen all wounds.''

http://www.nolanchart.com/article9961-gotovina-and-markac-acquittal-exposes-ictys-political-agenda.html

In spite of the Tribunal’s finding to the contrary, "the permanent and forcible removal of Serb civilians from the Krajina region" was absolutely the goal of the Croatian government. On September 12, 1993, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman told his cabinet that "Croatia must resolve the [Krajina] problem by war, contrary to international norms, meaning by ethnically cleansing the Serbs from Croatia." In fact the permanent and forcible removal of Serb civilians was Croatia’s goal even before the war started. From October until December of 1990, the 12th department of the KOS (Yugoslav military counter-intelligence) secretly videotaped Croatia’s Defense Minister, Martain Spegelj and Croatia’s Interior Minister, Josip Boljkovac. Spegelj can be seen on the videotape telling Boljkovac that "Serbs in Croatia will never be there again for as long as we are there." (See also English transcript of the video)

Speaking about Knin, a Serb-inhabited city in the Krajina region, he says: "Their Knin will never be Knin again." He tells Boljkovac that "We are going to resolve Knin in that way, slaughter. We have international recognition for that and then we slaughter them." Aleksandar Vasiljevic, the KOS agent who filmed the video, testified for the Prosecution in the Slobodan Milosevic trial. He told the Tribunal, "There’s absolutely no doubt that this is absolutely trustworthy material because I filmed it myself and I had it in my own possession." Gotovina and Markac personally participated in the planning of Operation Storm, and the transcript of the meeting where Tudjman and in generals discuss it is in evidence at the Tribunal. At the meeting, President Tudjman lays out the goal. He says, "We have to inflict such blows that the Serbs will to all practical purposes disappear." He says, "it is important that those [Serbian] civilians set out, and then the army will follow them, and when the columns set out they will have a psychological impact on each other."

Gotovina, whom the Tribunal would now have you believe is innocent, is clearly in favor of the plan saying, "if we continue this pressure, probably for some time to come, there won’t be so many civilians just those who have to stay, who have no possibility of leaving." Tudjman discusses the propaganda that should accompany the operation. He says leaflets should be given to Serbian civilians saying, "We are appealing to you not to withdraw, we guarantee -- this means giving them a way out, while pretending to guarantee civil rights etc…" In addition to "pretending to guarantee civil rights" for Serbs, Tudjman wanted to make it look like the Serbs had provoked the attack. He said, "every military operation must have its political justification" and so the Serbs "should provide us with a pretext and provoke us." Chief of staff Zvonimir Cervenko suggests, "We should ask Markac to do that."

Markac, who the Tribunal also says is innocent, responds by suggesting that "We accuse them of having launched a sabotage attack against us and of heading towards Maslenica, of intending to go over Mt. Velebit to the road from Karlobag to Starigrad, that they want to cut it off, and that’s why we were forced to intervene." At that point the Croats begin to discuss false flag operations whereby they stage a fake "Serbian attack" in order to give themselves a pretext to attack the Serbs. Gen. Davor Domazet says, "I think it would be best to do it in the following way. They are using Udbina airport, we can organize an explosion as if they had struck with their air force and in this manner we can disguise all our axes." and so on. Tudjman explains in the planning meeting with his Generals that he will agree to send a delegation to the Z-4 peace negotiations in Geneva "as a mask." He says, "I am going to Geneva to hide this and not to talk … I want to hide what we are preparing [so] we can rebut any argument in the world about how we didn’t want to talk."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/serb-nationalists-burn-croatian-flag-angry-over-release-of-croat-generals-by-un-war-court/2012/11/17/00127984-30b3-11e2-af17-67abba0676e2_story.html

BELGRADE, Serbia — Serb nationalists burned a Croatian flag Saturday to protest a decision by a U.N. war crimes court overturning guilty verdicts against two Croatian generals, and the prime minister called the decision a blow to reconciliation in the postwar Balkans.

Many in Serbia are furious that appeals judges at the Netherlands-based tribunal on Friday freed Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac, who had been previously sentenced to lengthy prison terms for killing and expelling Serbs from Croatia during an offensive in 1995. “This will have serious consequences at reconciliation in the region,” Serbia’s premier Ivica Dacic said. “How can someone demand that we condemn all crimes if others are allowed not to condemn the crimes against Serbs?”

Croatians, meanwhile, consider the decision proof that they were the victims in the Balkan conflict. The fighting in Croatia was part of the wars that erupted across the Balkans with the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The most deadly was in Bosnia, where Serbs battled Muslims and Croats in a four-year struggle that claimed some 100,000 lives. Hundreds of supporters of the extremist Serbian Radical Party rallied in front of the presidency building in the center of Belgrade demanding that the government abandon plans to join the 27-nation European Union and cut ties with the court in The Hague, Netherlands.

The crowd carried banners reading “Stop The Hague” and chanted nationalist slogans in support of the party leader, Vojislav Seselj, whose own trial is ongoing at the tribunal for the role in the atrocities against non-Serbs. “Serbia has done nothing to help its own heroes who are jailed in The Hague,” said Radical Party official Nemanja Sarovic. Later Saturday, a separate protest by another far-right group was held in front of the EU headquarters.

Even liberal Serbs have warned that Friday’s ruling created a sense of injustice and could stir nationalist sentiments. Serbia’s government has scaled down cooperation with the tribunal, while Serbia’s President Tomislav Nikolic said the verdict was political. Dacic insisted “this verdict was clearly political ... designed to clear Croatia of crimes committed against Serbs.” Serbian media on Friday and Saturday repeatedly carried file footages of tens of thousands of Croatian Serb refugees fleeing in August 1995 in long columns on tractors, cars and carts. Many still have not returned to their homes.

In Croatia, the two generals received state honors and a hero’s welcome on Friday, with tens of thousands jubilant people gathering in the capital, Zagreb, to greet them. The country is also marking a remembrance day this weekend in the eastern town of Vukovar, which was heavily bombed by the Serb-led military in at the start of the Serb-Croat war in 1991. The war erupted when Croatia declared independence from Serb-led Yugoslavia triggering a rebellion by minority Serbs. About 10,000 people died in the conflict.

[momce]

I simply challenged YOUR claims that "all Croatian towns and cities had Italian/Latin names before the creation of Yugoslavia", and I stick to that position, i.e. NOT ALL Croatian towns and cities had Italian names.

Secondly, I also challenge your hypothetical claim that "maybe Croatia would be Italian territory today if Brits, Americans wouldn't allow creation of Yugoslavia" on the basis that Croats would have fought for their independence and won it, though I would concede that it is possible that ISTRIA and parts of Dalmatia could have been Italian.


It is well known and recorded that Italian soldiers were not the best regarded for bravery or abilities in the last two world wars and the below info will highlight that.

well God bless the Italians for not being enthusiastic about fighting in those sham wars