The Serb National Council and the municipality of Kistanje organized on Tuesday a commemoration in Varivode and Go\u0161i\u0107 to honour 16 elderly persons of Serb nationality who were killed in these villages in September 1995 following the Operation Storm.<\/p>\n
The SNC<\/strong> said that along with the Deputy Prime Minister for social affairs and human rights, Boris Milo\u0161evi\u0107, MPs Anja \u0160impraga and Veran Mati\u0107, a special Serbian President\u2019s special envoy for missing persons, also present at the commemoration marking the deaths of Serb civilians were Aleksandar Tolnauer, President of the Croatian government\u2019s Council for National Minorities; \u0160ibenik-Knin County Prefect Marko Jeli\u0107, Deputy Mayor of Knin Kristina Peri\u0107, MP in the Republic of Serbia Assembly Sanja Laki\u0107, activists Zoran Pusi\u0107 and Vesna Ter\u0161eli\u0107 and numerous representatives of Serbs in county and local authorities in the area of \u0160ibenik-Knin and Zadar county.<\/p>\n In his address, Deputy PM<\/strong> Milo\u0161evi\u0107 stressed that an investigation for Varivode had been launched immediately after the event, but added that truth and justice had not been served.<\/p>\n “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 Milo\u0161evi\u0107, emphasising that the “inhabitants of Varivode were neither on the enemy side nor the enemy force.”<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n Milo\u0161evi\u0107 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 \u0160kabrnja, and to the Croatian family from the hamlet of \u0160a\u0161i\u0107i near Ervenik, which was brutally killed in a manner that is difficult to understand for any normal person.<\/p>\n “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\u2019 nationality. We seek justice for the murders of the elderly from Varivode and Go\u0161i\u0107, 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 Plenkovi\u0107\u2019s envoy, Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milo\u0161evi\u0107.<\/p>\n MP<\/strong> Anja \u0160impraga 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.<\/p>\n According to President Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107\u2019s envoy Veran Mati\u0107, they gathered in Varivode today also so that \u201canswers could be given why crimes in this and in other places have not been punished.\u201d<\/p>\n “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 Mati\u0107 said.<\/p>\n After the service and the address in Varivode, all guests also visited the neighbouring village of Go\u0161i\u0107, where they laid flowers as a sign of remembrance of their suffering.<\/p>\n Six members of the Croatian police force were suspected of the crimes in Varivode and Go\u0161i\u0107, 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.<\/p>\n The SNC<\/strong> said that some of the victims\u2019 family members had managed to obtain damages in court for the deaths of their loved ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Serb National Council and the municipality of Kistanje organized on Tuesday a commemoration in Varivode and Go\u0161i\u0107 to honour 16 elderly persons of Serb nationality who were killed in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":4782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n