Croatia | Was Operation Storm Legal?

On 4 August 1995, Croatia launched a huge military offensive - Operation Storm - to retake control of the breakaway Republic of Serbian Krajina, the RSK. Over quarter of a century later, the anniversary of the Operation has become a controversial and highly divisive annual event in the Balkans. While Croats celebrate it as Victory Day, the day when then their "Homeland War" - the Croatian War of Independence - was won and their quest for full sovereignty and independence finally realised, Serbs regard it as a moment for national mourning, an occasion when hundreds of thousands of ethnic Serbs were ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homelands. More generally, the operation still raises important questions about how countries use military force to retake secessionist territories. So, how should we regard Operation Storm?

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Operation Storm, known as "Oluja" in Croatian, was a decisive moment in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. It marked the moment when an attempt by ethnic Serbs in Croatia to breakaway and form their own separate state as a prelude to union with Serbia was defeated. But while the events have since become mired in controversy, and have become an annual point of friction, it's important to set them in their full context. While many Serbs regard Operation Storm as an act of ethnic cleansing, a view now shared by many outside observers, they all too rarely recognise the acts of ethnic cleansing that led to the creation of a Serb breakaway state, the RSK, on Croatian territory. Meanwhile, in their annual celebrations marking the defeat of the Serbian Krajina's attempted secession, Croatia fails to acknowledge how Operation Storm saw the permanent forcible displacement of around a quarter of a million ethnic Serbs.

CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction and Titles
0:36 Secession and the Use of Force
1:47 Geography and Demographics of Croatia
2:17 Croatia in Yugoslavia and the Start of Fighting
3:54 Croatian Independence and the Republic of Serbian Krajina
5:22 The Homeland War and Operation Storm "Oluja"
7:54 Court Cases for Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide in Croatia
10:35 The Republic of Serbian Krajina and Operation Storm

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South East Europe and the Balkans    • SOUTH EAST EUROPE  

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FURTHER READING & USEFUL SOURCES

Human Right Watch Report 1996 https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/Croa...
Gotovina Indictment ICTY https://www.icty.org/x/cases/gotovina...
UN Secretary-General’s Report (August 1995) https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/U...
Milan Martic Judgement
https://www.icty.org/x/cases/martic/t...
Croatia vs Serbia International Court of Justice https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/118

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KEYWORDS

#Croatia #Serbia #OperationStorm
#InternationalRelations #Secession #Statehood
#Independence #InternationalLaw #InternationalHistory
#Balkans #Krajina #RSK #Oluja

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