The Documentation and Information Center “Veritas” reminded the public that on January 22, 1993, the Croatian armed forces carried out an aggression against the southern parts of the Republic of Serbian Krajina within the framework of operation “Maslenica,” during which more than 300 Serbs were killed or went missing, property was looted, and cultural monuments were destroyed.
We transmit their announcement to you in its entirety:
“On January twenty-second, 1993, the Croatian armed forces carried out an aggression against the southern parts of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK). The aggression, under the code name ‘Maslenica,’ was carried out during the implementation of the ‘Vance Plan,’ by which the RSK had been placed under the protection of UN peacekeeping forces (UNPROFOR) a year earlier. It was the third aggression by Croatia against the UN protected area, to which membership it had been admitted two years earlier.
In the next few days, the Croatian armed forces managed to occupy several dozen square kilometers in Ravni Kotari, including the Zemunik airport and several peaks on Velebit, and to take control over the Peruća dam and hydroelectric power plant.
In this aggression, three Serbian villages suffered the most: Islam Grčki, Kašić, and Smoković, as well as the ethnically mixed villages: Murvica, Crno, Zemunik Gornji, Poljica, and Islam Latinski. The Serbs from the mentioned villages were killed, expelled, or taken to prisons and camps. Their wealthy estates were looted, devastated, and destroyed, and cultural monuments, cemeteries, and churches were devastated, desecrated, or demolished, including the Dvori of Janković Stojan in Islam Grčki with the small church of St. George (consecrated in 1675), in which the famous writer Vladan Desnica is buried, and the churches of St. George in Smoković (cons. 1567) and St. Elijah in Kašić (cons. 1872).
In this aggression, according to Veritas records, 324 Serbs died or went missing, of which 55 were civilians, with an average age of 60 years. Among the victims are also 54 women, average age 57 years, and three children up to 12 years of age. Among the victims are also 65 volunteers from the territory of Serbia and BiH, who came to Ravni Kotari to defend their ancestral hearths together with the local Serbs.
Of the total number of victims, the fate of 313 persons has been clarified so far, while 11 are still on the records of the missing, of which 6 are civilians, including 3 women. In the refugee columns, another 165 people died in the following few months, mostly the elderly population. More than ten thousand Serbs were expelled from the aforementioned Ravni Kotari villages and have scattered throughout the world.
One of the more serious crimes occurred on the very first day of the aggression at the Mali Alan pass on Velebit, in the immediate vicinity of the UNPROFOR observation post, when members of the Croatian special police ambushed, killed, and massacred 22 members of the Serbian Army of Krajina (SVK) from the Gračac area. This massacre was committed by members of the Fifth Platoon from the ‘Alphas,’ commanded by Milijan Brkić, known as Vaso, a until recently high-ranking HDZ official and Vice President of the Croatian Parliament in its ninth convocation (2016-2020).
Operation ‘Maslenica’ was planned and executed by Janko Bobetko, Ante Gotovina, Ante Roso, Mirko Norac, and Mladen Markač, with the knowledge and approval of Franjo Tuđman, then President of the state and supreme commander of the armed forces of the RH, who were already at that time or were subsequently promoted to the ranks of generals. At the time of this aggression, the chief of artillery of the ‘Velebit’ sector was a Kosovo Albanian, Agim Çeku, until 1991 a JNA officer, from whose shells, due to indiscriminate shelling deep into the territory of the municipalities of Benkovac and Obrovac, the most civilians suffered. From 1999 to 2006 in Kosovo, Çeku performed the duties of commander of the KLA and the Kosovo Protection Corps, and from 2006 to 2008, the duty of Prime Minister.
Although the aggression was carried out against a UN protected zone and before the eyes of numerous UNPROFOR members, to date, neither before international nor domestic courts has anyone been prosecuted for the crimes against Serbs committed in this action.
According to the official population census in the RH from 1991, a total of 765 residents lived in Kašić, of which 757 (99%) were Serbs; in Smoković 1,029, of which 989 (96%) were Serbs; and in Islam Grčki 1,139, of which 991 (87%) were Serbs. Thirty years later, according to the 2021 population census in the RH, 69 residents lived in Kašić, 162 in Smoković, and 150 in Islam Grčki, without an indication of national affiliation.”
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Source: Veritas, Photo: Wikipedia Creative Commons