Croatian slaughter goes unremarked

By Stella L. Jatras


Stella JatrasIn 1991, Yugoslavia, our ally in World War II and one of the original founders of the United Nations, was denied its seat in the U.N. because it refused to give up its sovereignty. Yet Croatia was recognized as a sovereign state, admitted into the U.N., and is being considered for future membership in NATO (Th e Washington Times, May 1).

Th is is the same Croatia about which columnist A. M. Rosenthal, in the New York Times of April 15, wrote: "In World War II, Hitler had no executioners more willing, no ally more passionate, than the fascists of Croatia. Th ey are returning, 50 years later, from what should have been their eternal grave, the defeat of Nazi Germany. Th e Western Allies who dug that grave with the bodies of their servicemen have the power to stop them, but do not." Th is is the same Croatia about which Th e Washington Times reported ("Pro-Nazi extremism lingers in Croatia, June 15, 1997): "A German tank rolls through a small village, and the peasants rush out, lining the road with their right arms raised in a Nazi salute as they chant "Heil Hitler." Mobs chase minorities from their homes, kicking them and pelting them with eggs as they fl ee into the woods. Europe in the 1940s? No. Croatia in the 1990s."

It appears, however, that one of the Western allies is beginning to wake up. In Canada, the ship has hit the sand, so to speak. From the April 28, 1998 issue of the Ottawa Citizen: "Almost fi ve years aft er it happened, a House of Commons committee has heard details of Canada's fi nest hour during its peacekeeping mission to the former Yugoslavia. Col. Jim Calvin told politicians yesterday the story of the operation at the Medak Pocket, where Canadian soldiers were involved in a 15-hour fi refi ght, and, later, a tense standoff with heavily-armed Croatian troops." From the Calgary Herald: "MPs listened in silence Monday as a colonel recounted the story of the Canadian army's biggest fi refi ght since Korea, the 1993 Battle of the Medak pocket, that left troops picking up 16 corpses of murdered civilians and nursing their own wounds." "Sgt. Rod Dearing couldn't see the Croatian soldiers who were trying to kill him but he could hear the rattle of their AK- 47s and see their bullets kick up earth just centimetres away. Th e Croats wanted to delay the Canadians to enable their ethnic cleansing units to fi nish their killing and looting [of Serbs]. A Croatian general stood in the middle of the road, glaring and yelling at the Patricians [Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry]. Th e Canadians knew what was going on behind the barricade, but they were in the open and the Croats were in fortifi ed positions.

Th e soldiers came on the remains of two teen-age girls who had been held captive by the Croats. Th ey had been shot and set on fi re. What was left of their bodies were still smouldering when the Canadians found them. A few of the men started pouring water on the corpses because they were too hot to be put into body bags. Scattered on the ground were hundreds of pairs of surgical gloves. It appeared that more people had been murdered and the Croats wore the gloves when piling bodies into transport trucks for removal out of the area. Days later the Croats turned over 50 bodies. (Th e Ottawa Citizen, Oct. 7, 1996). A color photo which accompanied the article showed the leader of the Canadian peacekeepers, with the caption, "Lt. Col Jim Calvin, left , had to calm his outraged soldiers aft er they discovered the carnage."

Only now are the Canadian people being told of the Croatian refugee who went from being a small-time Ottawa pizza peddler to become Croatia's defense minister and his role in the attack on the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry in 1993. Th is was Gojko Susak's thanks to the country that welcomed him as a refugee and gave him the opportunity to enjoy the benefi ts that only a democracy can off er. It is time that the Canadian people demand to know the truth from their ministers and ask why they have been allied with the resurgent neo-Nazi state of Croatia.

Although Canadian media in 1998, five years after the fact, covered in detail the events of the battles and of the victims, nowhere did they mention that the victims were Serbian men, women and children, as though it were irrelevant. Th e Battle of the Medak Pocket, as it is known, was never identifi ed in the Canadian media as being a Serbian town where the slaughter by Croatian troops had taken place.

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