The Serb National Council and the municipality of Kistanje organized on Tuesday a commemoration in Varivode and Gošić to honour 16 elderly persons of Serb nationality who were killed in these villages in September 1995 following the Operation Storm.

The SNC said that along with the Deputy Prime Minister for social affairs and human rights, Boris Milošević, MPs Anja Šimpraga and Veran Matić, a special Serbian President’s special envoy for missing persons, also present at the commemoration marking the deaths of Serb civilians were Aleksandar Tolnauer, President of the Croatian government’s Council for National Minorities; Šibenik-Knin County Prefect Marko Jelić, Deputy Mayor of Knin Kristina Perić, MP in the Republic of Serbia Assembly Sanja Lakić, activists Zoran Pusić and Vesna Teršelić and numerous representatives of Serbs in county and local authorities in the area of Šibenik-Knin and Zadar county.

In his address, Deputy PM Milošević stressed that an investigation for Varivode had been launched immediately after the event, but added that truth and justice had not been served.

“A grave crime was committed here, and this was more than 50 days after the operation Storm had finished. A massacre that should not have happened, as there was neither a cause nor need for it,” said Milošević, emphasising that the “inhabitants of Varivode were neither on the enemy side nor the enemy force.”

In his words, this was “he only crime which reached the media at the moment when it was committed and which had prompted such a reaction of the public and politics.”

Milošević recalled that the commemoration in Varivode was also an opportunity to show piety for the victims of the Croatian nationality, primarily the innocent victims from Škabrnja, and to the Croatian family from the hamlet of Šašići near Ervenik, which was brutally killed in a manner that is difficult to understand for any normal person.

“Unfortunately, the majority of victims will not receive justice in court, but it is our duty here to send a message that every war crime must be punished regardless of perpetrators’ nationality. We seek justice for the murders of the elderly from Varivode and Gošić, so that the perpetrators are convicted both in court and socially. Verdicts in war crimes cases are important, they send a message that a crime cannot be justified by some higher goals. Every victim, regardless of nationality, has our respect and this is the policy of this government,” emphasised Prime Minister Andrej Plenković’s envoy, Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milošević.

MP Anja Šimpraga said it would be hard to find a village in the northern Dalmatia and Lika where no civilians were murdered during or immediately after Operation Storm.

According to President Aleksandar Vučić’s envoy Veran Matić, they gathered in Varivode today also so that “answers could be given why crimes in this and in other places have not been punished.”

“The fate of the missing persons must not be divided into that of Serbs and Croatians, Croatia and Serbia, but joint commitment to finding all the missing should be a bridge to build trust, which is the only path towards reconciliation,” Veran Matić said.

After the service and the address in Varivode, all guests also visited the neighbouring village of Gošić, where they laid flowers as a sign of remembrance of their suffering.

Six members of the Croatian police force were suspected of the crimes in Varivode and Gošić, but after a procedure before the County Court in Zadar and a retrial, the defendants were acquitted, and the investigation was back where it began and is now focused on unknown perpetrators, members of Croatian army.

The SNC said that some of the victims’ family members had managed to obtain damages in court for the deaths of their loved ones.