CROATIA WAS DEFENDED FROM BH

Sense News Agency

11/10/2009

Ivan Beneta, brigadier general in the Croatian Army, contends that 
‘Croatia had no other way to defend itself’ but to send its troops to BH 
and prevent the JNA from taking over a swath of Croatian territory up to 
the Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag line

Brigadier general Ivan Beneta, assistant chief defense inspector for the 
military sector, is testifying as a defense witness for the former chief 
of the HVO Main Staff Milivoj Petkovic. The witness has known the 
accused Petkovic from their time in the former JNA when both of them 
worked in the reserve officers’ school in Zadar. Beneta remembers 
Petkovic as a ‘successful officer’.

Beneta left the JNA in July 1991 to join the Croatian Army as a 
volunteer. Apart from defending Zadar, Split and Dubrovnik, in 1992 and 
1993 Beneta fought in BH on two occasions. In July 1992 the witness 
fought in the ranks of the HV 4th Guards Brigade to wrest Stolac from 
the JNA. In July 1993, Beneta fought in the HVO ranks in Operation South 
against the BH Army in the Neretva river valley. The witness contends 
that the HV troops did not penetrate deeper than 20 to 25 km into the BH 
territory to ‘defend Croatia’.

Petkovic’s defense brought up the findings of military expert Milan 
Gorjanc, who concluded in his expert report that a country had the right 
to cross into the territory of another country if it was attacked from 
there. Gorjanc thus confirmed the defense argument that the JNA attacked 
Croatia from BH, which prompted the Croatian Army to cross into the BH 
territory. Gorjanc illustrated his findings with a map where he showed 
that in May 1991 the JNA intended to capture southern Croatia from Split 
to Dubrovnik by attacking from Livno and Stolac.

Beneta argued that the JNA had prepared a plan, codenamed ‘S2’, for an 
attack on Yugoslavia from abroad. In Beneta’s words, the plan 
corresponds fully with the plans shown on his map. According to Beneta, 
it transpired later that the ‘actual meaning’ of the S2 plan was to let 
the Serbian troops enter the Croatian territory in an effort to 
implement the plan to create a Greater Serbia which was to have the 
Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag line as its border. Given that this was the 
JNA’s goal, Croatia ‘had no other way to defend itself’ but to cross 
into the BH territory with its forces and prevent the JNA from advancing.
The prosecution will cross-examine Beneta tomorrow.