Operation Oluja
Course of Operation Oluja
| date | August 4 to August 7, 1995 |
|---|---|
| place | Republic of Croatia |
| Casus Belli | Rejection of the Z-4 peace plan for peaceful reintegration at the conference in Geneva by the representatives of the Republic of Serbian Krajina |
| output | Defeat of the Serb troops and conquest of the Republic of Serbian Krajina by the Croatian armed forces |
| consequences | Reintegration of the area into the national territory of Croatia and end of the Croatian war |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
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| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 180,000 soldiers 280 tanks 200 armored personnel carriers 800 guns 120 rocket launchers 24 MiG-21 combat aircraft 38 Mi-8 helicopters 12 Mi-24D helicopters |
40,000 soldiers 200 tanks 350 guns 20-25 rocket launchers 12 Galeb and Jastreb combat aircraft |
| losses | |
| unknown number of civilians | |
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The Operation Storm ( "Storm", Croatian Operacija Oluja ) was a major offensive in the Croatian War during the Yugoslav wars in the Croatian Army and police units in August 1995 within 85 hours the major part of 1991 resulting Republic of Serbian Krajina conquered previously about one-third Had controlled Croatia.
The Croatian war ended with the military victory over the Serbian paramilitary troops in Krajina .
After several years of unsuccessful negotiations, and most recently the rejection of the Z4 plan during peace negotiations in Geneva by the leaders of the Krajina Serbs , the first attacks by the Croatian army took place in the UNPA sectors south and north.
The offensive began on August 4th and ended on August 7th, 1995. The fighting extended along a front line of 630 km and over a total area of 10,500 square kilometers, which affected 18.4 percent of the total area of Croatia . During and after this mission, war crimes against Serbs occurred and around 200,000 Serb civilians fled.
August 5th is a national holiday in Croatia as the day of victory and domestic gratitude .
background
At the beginning of 1995 the Z4 plan , a proposal for the peaceful reintegration of the Republika Srpska Krajina into the Croatian state, with guarantees of far-reaching autonomy close to sovereignty, was presented. This was rejected by the Krajina Serbs and instead sought a union with the Republika Srpska and Serbia . As a result, the willingness of western states to support the Croatian side in recapturing their national territory grew. In May 1995 the Blitz military operation started , with which a Serb-controlled part of western Slavonia was regained. In retaliation, the then President of the Republika Srpska Krajina, Milan Martić , ordered rocket attacks with cluster bombs against Zagreb ( rocket fire on Zagreb ), Sisak and Karlovac , killing seven civilians and wounding 176.
Before Operation Oluja, the UN protection zone of Srebrenica fell on July 9, 1995. After the conquest by General Ratko Mladić 's troops, women and children were separated from men aged 12 and over (up to 8,000), the men were then deported and were murdered by mass shootings and buried in mass graves in the surrounding forests. This Srebrenica massacre was the largest war crime in Europe since the end of World War II . After the fall of Srebrenica and Žepa , apart from Sarajevo, only Bihać and Goražde remained as a UN protection zone .
The Army of Republika Srpska ( Army of Republika Srpska ) began a massive shortly before Operation Storm military operation in the city of Bihac, which was besieged for almost three years. About 70 percent of Bosnia-Herzegovina was under Serbian control at the time. The city, which had been besieged and starved for months, was weakened, as the defenders, who were already lightly and inadequately armed, and the population were almost completely cut off from aid deliveries and supplies.
The Bosnian commander of the defense of Bihać, Atif Dudaković , appealed to the Croatian government to start Operation Oluja as soon as possible to prevent the fall of the city. Today we have information that the USA and NATO also supported Croatia politically and also called for the operation to begin as soon as possible. Operation Oluja ended the Serbian siege of Bihać and the whole of western Bosnia was recaptured by Operation Maestral.
In Operation Summer '95 at the end of July 1995, the Croatian army conquered further areas in southern Bosnia and thus encircled the southern part of the Krajina, which was under Serbian rule, on three sides. As a result, during the negotiations on the Z4 plan in Geneva on August 3, 1995, the Prime Minister of the Serbian Republic of Krajina , Milan Babić , told Peter W. Galbraith , the US ambassador to Croatia, that he would accept the Z4 plan. This declaration was not accepted by Croatia, also because Martić had refused to accept the plan at all.
Operation Oluja, its meaning, implementation and effects are discussed and analyzed very controversially. On the part of the Croatians and Bosniaks, this operation is considered a liberation and the end of the war. On the Serbian side, Operation Oluja is not only regarded as the greatest military defeat in the Yugoslav war, but also as a synonym for displacement and war crimes and devastation suffered on its part.
The operation
The operation began in the early hours of August 4, 1995. At the same time, a message from Croatian President Franjo Tuđman was broadcast nationwide on radio and television . This was directed on the one hand to the Serbian paramilitaries and asked them to give up, and on the other hand to the Serbian civilian population, who were granted full civil rights.
The Croatian forces attacked the RSK military at the same time at thirty tactically significant points in the Bjelovar, Karlovac, Gospić and Split zones. Serbian radars were destroyed by NATO air support . The Croatian army broke into the war zone at various points between 5 and 15 kilometers, quickly captured Sveti Rok and surrounded the town of Knin . Artillery was also used to support the Croatian troops. In return, Serb forces attacked civilian targets in Sisak, Šibenik, Gospić and Ogulin.
On the second day of the action, around noon, news spread that the Croatian troops had marched into the town of Knin. Numerous other cities were also conquered. Serbian civilians were evacuated from the area and fled, along with parts of the military, via the village of Srb to Bosnia and Herzegovina . The number of refugees, including 40,000 Serb paramilitaries, is estimated at up to 200,000. The Serb forces from Bosnia and Eastern Slavonia then shot at targets in Županja , Vinkovci and Osijek . The Dalmatian port city of Dubrovnik was also shot at.
On the third day, the Croatian Army, the HVO and the 5th Corps of the Bosnian Army gathered on the Croatian-Bosnian-Herzegovinian border and liberated the besieged city of Bihać . The main Serbian paramilitaries in Croatia were either surrounded by this point or were on the verge of being broken up.
On the fourth and last day of the action, all the villages in the war zone were essentially conquered. Serbian planes from Banja Luka attacked various Croatian cities, killing two people and wounding 11. Two Serbian planes were shot down during the bombardment of Mačkovac and Savski Bok. At 6 p.m. the Croatian Defense Minister, Gojko Šušak , announced that Operation Oluja had been terminated from a military point of view.
The military Operation Storm led by the almost complete reconquest by the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina occupied territories of Croatia (then about 32% of the territory of Croatia) to the end of the war in Croatia and made possible the recovery of critical transport links and the return of more than 170,000 Croats who were expelled from their ancestral home by the JNA in 1991 or had fled.
Consequences and war crimes
consequences
Operation Oluja (storm) is not only seen as a decisive and devastating blow against the Republic of Serbian Krajina, but also as a turnaround in the Bosnian War, as Operation Oluja ended the month-long siege of the city of Bihać . After the conquest of the entire Krajina and the smashing of the siege ring around Bihać, all of western Bosnia was recaptured and the army of the RSK and paramilitaries weakened militarily and morally.
Immediately after the end of Operation Oluja, the Maestral (northwest wind ) military operation agreed in the Split Agreement between the Bosnian and Croatian governments began together with Bosnian government troops . The Serb-controlled territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina shrank from 70% to around 49%, due to the significant military superiority of the Croatian and Bosnian armed forces advancing jointly with the help of Western states and their weapons and the HVO (Hrvatsko Vijeće Obrane, Croatian Defense Council in Bosnia). Operation Maestral was stopped after only a few days due to massive pressure from the international community, as there were fears that the war would expand and Serbia would pull into it.
Despite its premature stop, Operation Maestral is rated as a very great military success, as it not only liberated large parts of Bosnia, but primarily increased the military and political pressure on Belgrade due to the defeat of the Serb forces by Operations Oluja and Maestral It became clear that they saw a risk of complete defeat in Bosnia and were thus forced to sign the Dayton Peace Agreement , which ultimately led to the end of the war on the territory of the former Yugoslavia.
Facilitating the return of the displaced Croatians
Already at the beginning of the Croatian War , almost the entire Croatian and other non-Serbian population had been driven out by Serbian militants and the Yugoslav People's Army . In May 1995, 210,592 people were living in the area controlled by the Croatian government who had been expelled from the so-called “ Republic of Serbian Krajina ”. Of these, 83,683 came from northeastern Croatia ( Slavonia ) and 126,909 from those areas that were later recaptured by the “Bljesak” and “Oluja” operations.
War crimes
200,000 Serbs fled the advancing Croatian forces before and during the operation in the direction of Bosnia and Serbia . Only part of the displaced Serbian population returned to Croatia.
Among those who remained, several hundred, according to Serbian sources 700–1200, Serb civilians were killed after the operation. According to a report by the Croatian Helsinki Committee , a total of 400–800 Serbs were killed by marauding Croatian troops during and after the offensive. However, according to Serbian sources, 2,669 people were still missing in 2005.
During the Oluja and Maestral operations, there were acts of revenge, reprisals and attacks on the Serbian civilian population. The Hague Tribunal speaks of murder, looting, pillage, destruction, inhuman treatment, humiliation, persecution of ethnic groups, ethnic cleansing and other inhumane acts in the sense of crimes against humanity. According to the 1996 annual report of Amnesty International , most outside killed by fighting Serbs victims of arson, abuse, revenge or extra-legal executions. This was discovered by a UN investigation team.
War Crimes Tribunal
Sector South Commandant Ante Gotovina was charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes before the Hague War Crimes Tribunal in 2001 . On December 8, 2005, he was arrested in the Canary Islands and the case was tried with that of the commander of the special police at the Croatian Ministry of the Interior, Mladen Markač , and that of the commander of the Knin garrison, Ivan Čermak . On April 15, 2011 Gotovina was sentenced in the first instance to 24 years in prison. He was found guilty of the following crimes:
- Persecution as a crime against humanity
- Deportation as a crime against humanity
- Looting of public and private property as a violation of the laws or customs of war
- willful destruction as a violation of the laws or customs of war
- Murder as a crime against humanity
- Murder as a violation of the laws or customs of war
- inhumane action as a crime against humanity
- cruel treatment as a violation of the laws or customs of war
The court also found the co-accused ex-general Mladen Markač guilty: he was imprisoned for 18 years. General Ivan Čermak, however, was acquitted.
When the verdict against Gotovina was pronounced, the then President of Croatia, Tuđman , was also mentioned. One of the judges emphasized: "The then President Franjo Tuđman was the main leader of this criminal organization" and "He wanted the depopulation of the Krajina" .
The judgment was appealed on May 16, 2011. On November 16, 2012, Gotovina and Markač were acquitted of all charges and released from custody. The Appeals Chamber decided unanimously that the lower court's assessment that artillery hits more than 200 meters away from a target considered legitimate as evidence of unlawful attacks on the towns in Krajina was incorrect. With a 3-2 majority decision, it was found that the evidence was insufficient to consider the shelling of the cities ordered by Gotovina and Markač to be illegal. Since the conviction for the formation of a criminal organization to expel Serbs from the Krajina is based on the illegality of the artillery attacks and the first instance did not establish a direct involvement in Croatia's policy of discrimination, this conviction should also be set aside.
Other Information
According to the Croatian Ministry of Defense , 174 soldiers were killed and 1,430 soldiers wounded on the Croatian side during this operation.
According to the UNHCR, around 100,000 Croatian Serbs had returned by 2002 .
Web links
- Mark Danner: Operation Storm . The New York Review of Books, October 22, 1998.
- DW-World
- DW-World
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com): Ten years after the end of the Croatian war: memory of the decisive offensive | DW | 08/04/2005. Retrieved August 27, 2018 .
- ↑ Raphael Draschtak: Military action schemes up to 1995 (PDF; 2.3 MB), page 293.
- ^ Raymond Bonner: Serbs Said to Agree to Pact With Croatia , New York Times, August 4, 1995 (English), accessed November 18, 2012.
- ↑ a b c icty.org: Judgment Summary for Gotovina et al. (PDF; 88 kB) , accessed April 15, 2011
- ^ NATO press info (archived) July 4, 1997
- ↑ International - Dangerous Remembrance: Croatia celebrates "Operation Sturm" . In: Swiss Radio and Television (SRF) . August 4, 2015 ( srf.ch [accessed on August 27, 2018]).
- ↑ www.hr: history
- ↑ [1] , IZVJEŠĆE VLADE REPUBLIKE HRVATSKE O DOSADAŠNJEM TIJEKU POVRATKA I ZBRINJAVANJU PROGNANIKA, IZBJEGLICA I RASELJENIH OSOBA
- ↑ a b c Reinhold Vetter: Nationalism in Eastern Europe: What connects Kaczyński and Orbán with Le Pen and Wilders . Ch. Links Verlag, 2017, ISBN 978-3-86284-393-0 . , Page 124
- ↑ Croatia - History. State Center for Civic Education Baden-Württemberg , 2017, archived from the original on October 21, 2017 ; accessed on October 21, 2017 .
- ^ A b Karl Kaser: The ethnic “engineering”. In: Dunja Melčić (Ed.): The War in Yugoslavia. Prehistory, course and consequences manual. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-33219-2 , pp. 401-414, here: p. 408.
- ↑ Die Welt: Commemoration of the tenth anniversary of Croatia's "Operation Storm" . Retrieved November 21, 2012 .
- ↑ a b ICTY Case Information Sheet (PDF, 145 kB, English), accessed on November 21, 2012.
- ^ ORF: 24 years imprisonment for Croatian ex-General Gotovina
- ^ Ex-Croat generals lawyers move to appeal war crimes verdicts ( Memento of November 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) of May 16, 2011
- ↑ No “criminal enterprise” , orf.at of November 16, 2012, accessed on November 16, 2012.
- ↑ Appeals Chamber acquits and Orders Release of Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markač , press release of the International Criminal Court of 16 November 2012 called on 16 November 2012 found.
- ↑ Summary of the appeal judgment (PDF, 107 kB, English)
- ↑ Detailed appeal judgment (PDF, 1 MB, English)