Despite coronavirus, Croats to celebrate criminal Operation Storm: State leadership "to go to Knin"

Foto: Tanjug/HINA/Damir Sencar/Ilustracija

Photo: Tanjug/HINA/Damir Sencar

Croatian President Zoran Milanovic and Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic will jointly mark the 25th anniversary of the criminal Operation Storm, during which 250,000 Serbs were expelled from their homes and more than 1,800 killed.

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Milanovic will stay in Knin on August 4 and 5, and the details of the two-day celebration of Storm are still being arranged by the president's cabinet and the government.

At the moment, there are several scenarios of what the whole event will look like, so it is questionable whether Milanovic will be able to organize a reception for Croatian war commanders at the Knin Fortress on the evening of August 4, as mentioned before, where he should award medals to individuals and present them with higher ranks.

Everything, Defense Minister Tomo Medved told Vecernji List, should become clearer after the meeting between the Organizing Committee for the celebration and the Croatian Institute of Public Health, which will be held on Friday in the Ministry of Defense. According to the minister, decisions regarding the organization based on the latest epidemiological situation should be made at that meeting.

The meeting between Milanovic and Plenkovic, this time in Knin, will be interesting considering one of their last appearances, the one on the 25th anniversary of operation Flash (Bljesak) in Okucani, which ended quite ingloriously. Namely, Milanovic then refused to participate in the celebration itself, after he realized that some people who were members of the protocols were wearing T-shirts with the Ustasha (Croat WW2 Nazi allies) greeting "For home ready". It is known from sources close to Milanovic that this time they will be very careful not to repeat such a thing, that is, to make sure such a situation does not occur in the protocol itself.

The military-police Operation Storm lasted August 4-7, 1995, during which Croatian forces killed at least 1,800 people of Serb ethnicit and expelled 250,000 more.

The attack began early in the morning on August 4, and a day later the Croatian army entered the almost completely abandoned and previously heavily and randomly shelled Knin. The resistance of the RSK (Republic of Serb Krajina) army was broken quickly, the operation officially lasted 4 days, ending with the fall of the RSK and the establishment of Croatia's control over that territory.

While Zagreb celebrates this day as Day of Victory, Homeland Thanksgiving. and the Day of Veterans, in Serbia it is marked as one of the saddest events in history, with commemorations and remembrance of the victims driven out of their homes at that time.

(Telegraf.rs)