Croatia | Was Operation Storm Legal?

On 4 August 1995, Croatia launched a huge military offensive - Operation Storm - to retake control of the breakaway Republic of Serbian Krajina, the RSK. Over quarter of a century later, the anniversary of the Operation has become a controversial and highly divisive annual event in the Balkans. While Croats celebrate it as Victory Day, the day when then their "Homeland War" - the Croatian War of Independence - was won and their quest for full sovereignty and independence finally realised, Serbs regard it as a moment for national mourning, an occasion when hundreds of thousands of ethnic Serbs were ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homelands. More generally, the operation still raises important questions about how countries use military force to retake secessionist territories. So, how should we regard Operation Storm?

Hello and welcome! My name is James Ker-Lindsay. Here I take an informed look at International Relations with a focus on territorial conflicts, secession, independence movements and new countries. If you like what you see, please do subscribe. If you want more, including exclusive content and benefits, consider becoming a channel member. Many thanks!

Operation Storm, known as "Oluja" in Croatian, was a decisive moment in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. It marked the moment when an attempt by ethnic Serbs in Croatia to breakaway and form their own separate state as a prelude to union with Serbia was defeated. But while the events have since become mired in controversy, and have become an annual point of friction, it's important to set them in their full context. While many Serbs regard Operation Storm as an act of ethnic cleansing, a view now shared by many outside observers, they all too rarely recognise the acts of ethnic cleansing that led to the creation of a Serb breakaway state, the RSK, on Croatian territory. Meanwhile, in their annual celebrations marking the defeat of the Serbian Krajina's attempted secession, Croatia fails to acknowledge how Operation Storm saw the permanent forcible displacement of around a quarter of a million ethnic Serbs.

CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction and Titles
0:36 Secession and the Use of Force
1:47 Geography and Demographics of Croatia
2:17 Croatia in Yugoslavia and the Start of Fighting
3:54 Croatian Independence and the Republic of Serbian Krajina
5:22 The Homeland War and Operation Storm "Oluja"
7:54 Court Cases for Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide in Croatia
10:35 The Republic of Serbian Krajina and Operation Storm

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KEYWORDS

#Croatia #Serbia #OperationStorm
#InternationalRelations #Secession #Statehood
#Independence #InternationalLaw #InternationalHistory
#Balkans #Krajina #RSK #Oluja

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[JamesKerLindsay]

5 August - celebrated as "Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day" in Croatia - has become an increasingly divisive moment in the Balkans. But how should we really view the celebrations/commemorations? Is there any hope that Serbia and Croatia can find common ground in how the date is marked? Or will it become an ever more damaging annual occurrence?

[teokastelan]

If it wasn’t the embargo on the weapons on Croatia, the war could be shorter.

[ggeronimo]

Operation Storm happend at end of war. In 3 days serb civilian population had lived through things that croatian civilians were going through for 4years. You didnt mention the most important thing: plan Z4 and several other plans of Tuđman/UN that were supposed to end war peacefully. But serbs didnt accept any of them. Z4 plan was right before operation storm, Z4 would give RSK:1) greater autonomy inside Croatia.
2)Allow them to use Serbian language, have serbian in schools, have cyrillic alphabeth everywhere in that province. This plan was accepted by croatian parlament and president. But it wasnt accepted by Serbs. After this the West AND Russia gave Croatian leaders a green light to launch the operation. I see this as Serbian politics fault. And you didnt mention that "western slavonia" was peacefully given back to Croatia after the operation. And no Serb was forced to leave. Same could have happend with RSK only if Serbian politicans were smarter. After the operation storm serbian presidend milosevic laughed at serbian civilians who escaped and said "you ran away like rabbits". His stupid ideas also led to NATO bombings in 1999

[atisalvaro]

Was SAO Krajina legal? It was proclaimed in 1990, on an arbitrary territory, with a 52% Serb majority, out of any legal basis within Yugoslavia. An ethnic cleansing followed, mostly towards Croats, but as well towards the others, except for a few Slovakians and Russins in the Danube area.

[TheSouth-jf]

The Serbs already lost in 1992 when Croatia got recognised, the Serbs just didn't realise it at the time.

[invictusrei]

No one will deny us of Oluja '95! 🇭🇷

[noel]

Croatia did a great job! The Krajina was always Croatian land. Greetings from your old Brother Austria 🇦🇹🇭🇷❤

[DD-qwfz]

The fact Gotovina and the other Generals were dragged around in he Hauge over a couple of Artillery shells landing on Knin (all targeting actual military instalations) with arbitrary never before used strict guidelines on artillery fire to the point of apsurd, really shows how little evidence there was about all the nonsense the prosecution tried to cobble up. Meanwhile Croat towns through the whole war were being fired upon for simple "fun" or actual terror against civilians, most of the time this fire came from serb held parts of Croatia and the ICTY never made a fuss about it as was with Knin. Perhaps the worst case was with Vukovar in Croatia and Sarajevo in Bosnia. Serbs also used cluster rockets against Zagreb when OP Storm and OP Flash started, actual terror attacks.

[johnmarin]

Why is this question being raised? We needed to recapture our homeland and did. One of the most impressive military feats, considering we weren't well armed when we were invaded.

[atisalvaro]

Serbs were not "forced out from Croatia" at all. Its military and political leadership had organized civilians pull out exercises prior to the Action Storm, and have ordered its population to leave. It's quite different from forcing someone out. They counted on thus provoking a counterattack by Serbia, that did not occur. Non legal Krajina was formed by a popular will of rebbeling Serbs. In a fake referendum of April 1991., similar to actual referendums in Donbas, they illegally seceded from Croatia.

[hamobu]

This wasn't a case of Croatian Serbs declaring Independence but of Serbia invading Croatia. Serbia tried to sell it as a Croatian civil war to get around international law, but the whole thing was organized and initiated in Serbia.

[toniceovic]

You didnt mentioned very important facts that happened before Operation Storm. Serbs were offered peace agreaments and they overrulled all of them

[MarkVBos]

Key facts are: Over 16, 000 croatians and its peaceful minorities died in defense of Croatia's independence, versus 6000 serbian deaths. Serbs ethnically cleaned over 300, 000 croats from their occupied territory, and destoyed Vukovar, bombed Dubrovnik, totally demolished over 380 churches and religious buildings. The Serbs rejected all international peace plans, and rejected the famous Z4 plan, which Croatia accepted, and would of assured high automomy for the Serbian ethnically clensed Krajina. Operation Storm was an internationally approved operation to re-integrate the country. Days before Operation Storm, the Serb leadership told the serb population of about 100, 000 to flee, dispite Croatian governments requests and assurances for Serbs to stay. The facts show the serbs only have themselves to blame.

[miltonmiles]

Thank you James. This situation Croatia finds itself in, to me, is in direct contrast to Bosnia’s situation. While the Croats were victorious against the Serbs, the Bosnians and their allies the Bosnian Croats weren’t able to completely win over the Bosnian Serbs, resulting in the weird federation that is Bosnia today, with weird arbitrary internal borders achieved through ethnic cleansing. I imagine that if Croatia wasn’t strong enough, they’d find themselves in a similar predicament as Bosnia is in today.

[matkosisko]

Britanac priča o tuđim nedjelima, mogli bi mi malo o Irskoj, Indiji, Africi...

[lilynola]

Actually, you are not completely right. When the Croatians regained the control of the territory, occupied by the joined military actions of the Jugoslav Army and Serbian Chetniks, the Croatian Government have asked the Serbian civilians to stay (inspite previously the Serbians ethnically cleansing Croatians from the same land). But the Serbian military government issued a decree asking all the Serbs to withdraw from Croatia. That decree was signed by the Serbian commander Milan Martic. First conflict was in Slovenia, the Yugoslav Army attacked Slovenia (10 days war). Croatia (Croatian railways) blocked military transport over its territory from Serbia to Slovenia, and thus that war was short.

[vristeciorao]

This video is just top of the ice. You cant explain 5 years war in 12 minutes. A lot of facts are missing.

[erikvanderheeg]

Oluja '95 - a splendid example of maneuver warfare mainly performed by field artillery and dismounted infantry. Ought to be studied at war academies for years to come.

[lamisura]

Dear Mr James,
As a Croat, I have to express my disagreement with some of your claims in this video ... without going into your motives and reasons for describing the crucial events in the bloody five-year war very superficially, I have to tell you that you should check the facts a little better before expressing your views.
At the end, you explain that the result of Operation Storm was the permanent forced relocation of about a quarter of a million ethnic Serbs who had lived there for centuries... That's not correct! They were not ethnic Serbs who lived there for centuries.
Serbs came to Croatia mainly as a result of the Ottomans expansion into the Balkans, but they were never so numerous to form such a majority anywhere that would give them the right to declare some territory as a Serbian land. They would have done it if it had been so! The largest number of Serbs were deliberately settled in Croatia during communist Yugoslavia, as members of the Yugoslav People's Army - JNA, People's Militia and many other regime services, institutions, state companies, etc. which were reserved mainly for Serbs. Thus, they tried systematically increase the Serbian minority so they can claim the same status for them as two "autonomous" provinces in Serbia (Vojvodina and Kosovo).
When the Serbian rebellion began in Croatia, an even greater number of Serbs came to Croatia; paramilitary groups, volunteer units - Chetniks, ex JNA officers and agents of the regime in Serbia. All of them grouped in the occupied regions and worked together with local Serbs on the ethnic cleansing of Croats for five long and bloody years. Do you have any idea how the Croats felt then...
In the end, if they hadn't arrived to Croatia in '91 on tanks, they wouldn't have left Croatia on tractors in '95! So, it could be said - they just got what they were looking for!

[filijala]

Operation Storm brought peace to the region.