MATE GRANIC: ‘CROATIA DIDN’T DO ETHNIC CLEANSING’

Sense

11/18/2009

While Granic didn’t deny that there were isolated crimes against Serbs and their property during and 
after Operation Storm, he claimed that the Croatian authorities wanted to defeat the enemy and to have 
the civilians remain in their homes. Why was a minority of Serbs allowed to return immediately while 
most of them had to wait two and a half years to come back

Immediately after Operation Storm, in August 1995, Croatia came under fire from the international community 
because of the murders of the Serbs who had remained in Krajina and the destruction of abandoned Serb 
property. Continuing his evidence in the defense of General Mladen Markac, Mate Granic, who served as 
Croatian foreign minister at that time, said that President Tudjman and the people around him were ‘deeply 
worried’ over that. At first they thought it was just a media campaign. However, by 20 or 25 August 1995 
it was clear that there were widespread crimes and that they had to take radical measures to stop them. 

Granic didn’t deny that there were individual crimes, maintaining that some elements in the international 
community unfairly accused Croatia of ethnic cleansing. In Granic’s view, it was a sort of conflict of 
great powers in which Germany and America supported Croatia while Great Britain harshly condemned Croatian 
actions after Operation Storm. Granic claims that the British were not pleased when their efforts, with 
Lord Owen’s mediation, to achieve a peaceful solution failed. Croatia then became a part of the US peace 
initiative and Operation Storm was launched as part of it. The aim of the Croatian offensive, and the 
US plan, Granic recounted, was not just to liberate Krajina but to advance into BH and weaken the Bosnian 
Serb military position. This was to force Bosnian Serbs to sit down at the negotiating table. The witness 
emphasized that at that time the Croatian authorities didn’t make ‘a single step’ without consulting 
the US administration.

Today Granic was adamant that there was no ethnic cleansing in Krajina. In Granic’s view, Serbs left 
because their evacuation was ‘planned, organized and encouraged’ by the RSK leadership. The aim of the 
Croatian authorities was to defeat the enemy, Granic said, and to have the civilian population remain 
in their homes. This is how Granic challenged the allegation in the indictment that there was a joint 
criminal enterprise headed by President Tudjman, with generals Gotovina, Cermak and Markac as participants.

In an effort to prove that the Croatian authorities were determined to make the Serbs stay in Krajina, defense 
counsel Goran Mikulicic showed minutes from the meeting of the Croatian government of 7 August 1995. 
At the meeting Granic and other ministers spoke of a need to urge the civilians to stay. Presiding judge 
Orie remarked that the Trial Chamber had heard a lot of evidence indicating that by 7 of August 1995, 
most of the Serbs had already left Krajina. ‘How are we to understand the call to Serbs to stay when 
they had already left’, Judge Orie asked the witness. A small number of Serbs had not left yet, Granic 
said, primarily those in Sector North; however, Sector North is not mentioned in the indictment against 
the Croatian generals.

In addition to its efforts to make Serbs stay in Krajina, Croatia did everything to make it possible 
for those who had fled to come back to their homes as soon as possible, Granic noted. In the beginning, 
however, a mass return was not possible for security reasons. On the other hand, individual requests 
for the so-called family reunion, the return of people whose family members remained in Croatia, were 
granted as soon as possible. In 1998, Croatian authorities and international humanitarian organizations 
drafted a plan for a large-scale return. The presiding judge then asked the witness if it meant that 
if a whole family fled, the family members had to wait up to two and a half years to come back because 
they didn’t have anybody to ‘reunite’ with. Granic confirmed that it was indeed the case.

Granic’s examination-in chief was completed today; in its course, defense counsel Mikulicic showed a 
number of transcripts from the government meetings, meetings with President Tudjman and the correspondence 
between Croatian and international officials. Most of the documents confirmed Granic’s claims. As the 
hearing today drew to a close, Gotovina’s defense counsel Luka Misetic began cross-examining the witness.