Davor Marijan, The Storm
Zagreb, September 2007
Price: 180,00 kn
Promotive price: 150,00 kn
The study begins with a survey of the battlefield, the participants and the course of Serbian rebellion in Croatia. Author also discusses the first Bihac crisis, operations of the Croatian forces in the Livanjsko polje and Western Slavonia, the situation in the so-called Republic of Serbian Krajina in the first half od 1995, the second Bihac crisis and the Croatian response (Operation Summer of 1995), political preparations for the Operation Storm, a state of affairs in the so-called Republic of Serbian Krajina, and about war plans and final Croatian military preparations for the operation. The main section of the study deals with the operational activities of the Military Districts Split, Gospic, Karlovac, Zagreb, and Bjelovar respectively, the Croatian MUP Special Forces, the Croatian air force and Croatian navy in the Operation Storm. The special attention is paid to the role of the HVO (Croatian Council of Defense) and 5th BiH Army Corps in the Storm, the actions for securement of the operation, the Military District Osijek defense tasks and the troops on the Southern Battleground, and responses of the Slavonian-Baranyian SVK (Serbian Army of Krajina) corps, VRS (Army of Republic Srpska) and the Yugoslav army, and also to the reactions of UNCRO and UN, as well as the reactions from the world. The author ends his study with an overview of the course of the operation, and mentions various incidents and problems with unrestrained and dishonorable behavior of some HV members. The author also comments on some of the most intriguing questions with regard to the Operation Storm: did the rebelled Serbs leave occupied area of the Republic of Croatia (UNPA sectors North and South) willingly or were they exiled, and did Republic of Croatia commit the “ethnic cleansing” of the rebelled Serbs during the Operation Storm? With this study, the public got the inside look on the Storm from a historian’s perspective, based on historical sources available at this moment. Apart form the study, this book offers an appendix with the documents concerning the important political and military events in the eve of the Storm, which had great impact on its launching (the process of annexation to Serbia and unification of the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the Republic Srpska, i. e. of the Serbs from Croatia and BiH in one single state, and the Bihac crisis), and its consequences (the escape of Serbs from the liberated area). The documents have been selected and prepared for this book by the senior archivist Mate Rupić, Head of the Archive Record Department of the Croatian Memorial-Documentation Center of the Homeland War. The mentioned thematic selection of chronologically arranged documents should provide the answers to the questions why the diplomacy and peaceful efforts could not resolve the problem with the occupied area of the Republic of Croatia, why the operation Storm could not be further delayed, and, finally, why the claims that the Croatian leadership had exiled the Serbs from Krajina and conducted ethnic cleansing are historically unfounded. At the end of the appendix there is a complete text of the Z-4 Plan that the rebelled Serbs even refused to consider, and testimonies of the representatives of the international community which took part in the attempts to secure the realization of the Z-4 Plan. Their statements about the persistent refusal of the rebelled Serbs to accept the Plan that was offered to them as a platform for further negotiations clearly shows that any attempt of peaceful reintegration of the occupied area into the Croatian system was in vain due to the rigidness of the Serbian leadership. The appendix offers direct and founded answers to the questions as to why the military option unfortunately had no alternative, why the Croatian leadership could not further delay the Operation Storm, and who was responsible for the exile of the Croatian citizens of the Serb nationality prior and during the Operation Storm.