Croats, Serbs Come Together to Remember ‘Storm’ Victims

With flags hoisted on homes and public buildings, and a well-rehearsed official ceremony, Croatia is readying to celebrate the 24th anniversary of a military offensive that snuffed out a rebel Serb statelet and ended Croatia's 1991-95 war of independence from socialist Yugoslavia.

But some have already held their own more low-key commemoration of the four-day blitz code-named Operation Storm.

On Saturday, around thirty young people, Serbs and Croats, visited two small, forgotten villages where Croatian Serbs lost their lives during and after the 1995 offensive, among more than 600 Serbs believed to have been killed. Up to 200,000 fled for neighbouring Serbia, which had backed the rebels during the war.

Nikola Puharic, of the Croatian branch of the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, YIHR, said they had gathered "to show solidarity with all victims of crimes committed in the aftermath of the Storm military operation".

Activists in Varivode raising a banner that reads: 'Too Young to Remember, Determined Never to Forget'. Photo: BIRN.

Speaking in front of a memorial to nine killed Serbs in the village of Varivode, west of the former rebel stronghold of Knin, Puharic said the activists wished to demonstrate to political leaders in Croatia and Serbia "that cooperation on issues of commemorating crimes, expressing solidarity with victims and realising victims' rights and justice is possible and necessary between two states."

The nine were executed in their homes or yards by Croatian soldiers and police in September 1995, almost two months after Operation Storm was declared over on August 7.

 'Story told many times'

Jovo Beric, whose parents were among the victims, talking to reporters. Photo:...

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