Čedo, You Won't be Coming Back

To understand the role of Franjo Tuđman, President of Croatia from 1990 to 1999, in Operation Storm, one likely needs to go back a few years and recall his views on the state, the nation, and coexistence. Tuđman believed in ethnically homogeneous states, dreamt of a "Greater Croatia", considered Bosniaks to be "members of a different civilisation" and "a dagger whose blade is turned toward the heart of Europe", and viewed Serbs as an "excessively numerous" ethnic group and "a strategic threat to the state".

His rigid positions came into full display during the meeting held on the Brijuni Islands in Croatia on 31 July 1995, where he gathered his closest associates — politicians, soldiers, and police officers — to plan the military and police operation known as Operation Storm. The meeting included legitimate discussions about achieving military dominance and reintegrating the occupied territory of the Republic of Croatia, which had until then been under the control of the leadership of the "Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK)". However, beyond that, there was another clear goal that could not be achieved by legitimate means and without crimes: the forced displacement of the entire — or at least the vast majority of — Serb population from the "Krajina" region.

At the Brijuni meeting, Tuđman demanded the following from those present: "To strike in such a way that the Serbs practically disappear, that is, that what we don't immediately take must capitulate within a few days." He also said, "It is important that civilians leave first, and then the army will follow... When the columns start moving, such a thing has a psychological effect on everyone." Finally, he explained that Serbian civilians should "be given a way out", while at the same time "supposedly guaranteeing them human rights."

While saying the part about "supposedly guaranteeing human rights", Tuđman, as can be heard on the audio recording of the meeting, let out a chuckle. This caused considerable discomfort in the courtroom of the Hague Tribunal for his closest associates, who were left to explain away the president's words and laughter. In fact, Miomir Žužul insisted that the word "supposedly" did not refer to the verb "guarantee" but to the noun phrase "human rights".

Krajina Serbs who did not understand or accept that they had been "given a way out" of Croatia experienced first-hand what such "guaranteeing" looked like in practice.

When the "supposed" appeal to Serb civilians bore fruit and the majority of them left Croatia, Tuđman redirected resources to prevent the return of the displaced. The government he de facto controlled adopted the "Decree on the Temporary Takeover and Administration of Certain Property" on 31 August 1995. That document stipulated that both movable and immovable property would be (temporarily) seized from all those who had left — that is, Serbs — if they did not return and request the restitution of their property "into their possession and for their use" within thirty days. The decree allowed that "certain property" could then be allocated to those in need of it, such as "displaced persons and refugees, returnees whose property was destroyed or damaged in the Homeland War, disabled veterans of the Homeland War, families of killed or missing Croatian defenders from the Homeland War (...)". In other words, to Croats.

After pressure from the international community, primarily American diplomacy, the deadline was extended to ninety days, but the core remained unchanged — those who did not return could forget about their property.

Even if they had wanted to return, Serbs who had fled were prevented from doing so. Tuđman's remarks at various high-level meetings made this perfectly clear. At one such meeting on 30 August 1995, when he was told that a number of Serbs were trying to return to Croatia, the president stated plainly that they should "simply be told they cannot enter", because "if we let 204 in now, tomorrow there will be 1,204, and in ten days 12,000. So, nothing for now." At a similar meeting on 22 August 1995, when then Minister of Reconstruction and Development Jure Radić suggested that areas vacated by Serbs should be "urgently colonised with Croats" and that under no circumstances should more than ten percent of Serbs ever live there again, Tuđman cut him off, saying: "Not even ten percent." The meeting transcript also reveals Franjo Tuđman's fixation with Croatian returnees from Argentina, Australia, and Paraguay. When Jure Radić mentioned that he had never seen a more beautiful image than graffiti on a wall in a liberated area that read "Čedo, you won't be coming back", Tuđman responded by saying that "by next year" 200,000 to 300,000 people should be brought back to Croatia in order to "solve the problem politically."

If there had been any doubt about Tuđman's views on Serbs and the kind of Croatia he wanted, it was dispelled by his public statements after Operation Storm. At a meeting in Knin on 26 August 1995, he said the following: "There is no going back to what used to be — where in the middle of Croatia they spread a cancer that was destroying the Croatian national being and which did not allow the Croatian people to truly be their own on their own land." Triumphantly, he added that the Serbs from "Krajina" had "disappeared in two or three days" and that "they didn't even have time to grab their dirty money, foreign currency, or even underwear."

All aspects of the actions of the then Croatian president before, during, and after Operation Storm paint a clear picture of his ambition for an ethnically cleansed "Krajina" and a Croatia without Serbs.