Coalition of Refugee Assocition supports Serbia’s legal team

BELGRADE - The Coalition of Refugee Associations in the Republic of Serbia said in a release Sunday that it supports the request made by Serbia's agent at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Sasa Obradovic to declare Operation Storm, a 1995 military offensive carried out by the Croatian armed forces, a genocide against the Serbian people.

Serbia wants the ICJ to declare Operation Storm a genocide against the Serbian people and to find Croatia guilty of violating the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Coalition President Miodrag Linta said that they also support the request for the ICJ to issue a judgment that would put Croatia under obligation to pay reparations to Serbs expelled from the country, to create the conditions for a sustainable return of all those who want to return to their homes, to stop celebrating Operation Storm as a national holiday and to have the perpetrators of the crimes committed against Serbs punished.

Linta calls for Croatia’s charges against Serbia to be dismissed on the ground that Serbia cannot be held responsible for acts committed prior to creation as a state on April 27, 1992.

He welcomed Obradovic’s position that the dispute between Serbia and Croatia over their mutual genocide charges has not closed the door to the reconciliation of the two nations, adding that reconciliation is possible only if Croatia accepts historical facts and faces its own past.
“Unfortunately, Croatia is still not prepared to accept the facts presented by our legal team during the trial in The Hague and to condemn the anti-Serb policy pursued by the regime of (former Croatian president and commander of armed forces) Franjo Tudjman, whose goal was the creation of a...