BELGRADE, November 29 /SRNA/ – The Veritas Director Savo Strbac told SRNA that by today's Hague judgment against six leaders of former Herzeg-Bosnia, which confirmed the involvement of the Croatian state leadership in a joint criminal enterprise in BiH, the accusations against Serbia, the JNA, Montenegro, and even BiH, that they carried out an aggression against Croatia, have returned as a boomerang.
“It has now been returned to them /Croatia/ in some way as a boomerang from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, by declaring that they /Croatia/ actually committed aggression against another country – BiH,” Strbac has said.
He has said that nothing worse could happen to Croatia than the fact that the Hague Tribunal today confirmed the first instance judgment in the case of Prlic that there was a joint criminal enterprise led by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman aimed at ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks from parts of BiH.
“They say that it is not a verdict to the state, although it essentially is because, if you posthumously judge the most responsible people in Croatia for a joint criminal enterprise, whose goal was ethnic cleansing and “the establishment of entity in accordance with the old borders of Croatia,” then it is certainly a judgment against one state and one nation,” Strbac believes.
He has pointed out that the verdict confirmed the joint criminal enterprise in which, apart from Tudjman, Croatian Defence Minister Gojko Susak and Chief of Staff General Janko Bobetko were involved, with the aim of ethnically cleansing the territory of Herzeg-Bosnia and joining it to “Greater Croatia” according to “banovina” formed before the Second World War.
“Nothing worse could have happened to Croatia than the confirmation of the first-instance verdict. Croatia tried to do everything possible. It asked twice to be accepted as a friend of the Court, but it was declined,” Strbac said.
He has assessed that the Croats “managed to reverse the verdict against their generals in the Storm Operation,” which was more serious crime, but crimes against Muslims, who are accepted as the greatest victims of the war, were crucial in the Prlic case and the joint criminal enterprise being upheld.
Strbac has concluded that “Muslims in BiH, and especially within the Croat-Muslim entity, will use this judgment to the maximum and that the position of Croats who have complained that they are unequal will not improve, but will create big problems for them.”
“As they use the verdict against /General Ratko/ Mladic even before Mladic, I believe that Muslims will use it to the maximum,” said Strbac.
When it comes to the relations between the two countries, Strbac has stated that, despite the fact that a judgment is handed down for individual responsibility, it does not exclude the possibility that the conclusions of this, now already enforceable verdict, will be used before international and national courts.
Strbac has said that those who survived the torture or whose family members were killed or went missing would be able to easier claim compensations after this judgment.
He has estimated that the intention to divert media attention from the verdict may be behind the move of the convicted Slobodan Praljak, who according to his lawyer was drinking poison in the courtroom, in order to challenge the correctness of the court decision.
“As far as I know, Praljak was an artist, I know that he is also a businessman, so it is possible that in this way he intended to divert the media's attention from the judgment,” Strbac said.
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