Croatia | Was Operation Storm Legal?

[@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?

[@kristijanEX]

Great video, but you missed a key detail. Republika Srpska Krajina's president Milan Martic issued an order to evacuate the Croatian Serbs from Croatia to Bosnia & Herzegovina/Serbia.
This proves that Croatia had no hand in a major ethnic cleansing operation and all incidents were due to individuals unlike the initial ethnic cleansing of the RSK army in 1991 & 1992.

[@user-xj3ve7wt8k]

Is there any hope that Serbia and Croatia can find common ground ? Yes, when Serbia goes through the catharsis of the 90s and faces aggression against Slovenia, Croatia, BiH and later Kosovo. Which, of course, will not happen, where even 30 years later they deny the genocide in Srebrenica. Can you imagine Germany denying the holocaust of the jews and that there are hundreds of murals of Hitler in the cities ? So...yea.

[@astrolonim2032]

I think both sides have a tendency to celebrate their “national heroes” who cemented their nations and ignore those people’s genocide-adjacent actions (much like japan or turkey). Doesn’t seem like a great recipe for future common ground.
Great video as always, sound sounds ok by the way :)

[@bilic8094]

I see no hope at all the two peoples will always have there differences and not just for this it goes back to 1941 for many.

[@freeaigle7548]

Est-ce que tu peux nous faire une vidéo sur les fractions et ethnique algérienne comme kabyle, chaoui, targui, Mzab ...etc tu peux écouter l’historien Bernard Lugan l africaniste spécialiste de l’Afrique nord.
La Kabylie a sa culture et sa langue propre a elle, on ne peut pas vivre avec des êtres différents de nous.
S’il vous plait fait nous une sur la Kabylie et le sahel.

[@teokastelan2930]

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

[@damonmelendez856]

Croats and BiH armies were 20km from Banjaluka in 1995; they were on the verge of expelling Serbs from all of western BiH. They were ordered by the USA to bring the operation to a halt

[@teokastelan2930]

@@damonmelendez856 Yes they were ! Ratko Mladic couldn’t believe that the Croatian Army is that close. So they switch of the power grid in whole Banjaluka ! The scouts were practically in the city. Ah bloody war…

[@johnmcgovern5372]

I was there, it didn't matter. we were getting Western arms through Hungary very quickly. My unit 108 HVO were getting FALS and G3's and a ton of 7.62 Nato ammunition through that route. The idea that there was an embargo wasn't an issue on the ground

[@teokastelan2930]

@@johnmcgovern5372 I know that. But I think in the very beginning it would make the difference. That’s my opinion…

[@johnmcgovern5372]

@@teokastelan2930 In terms of small arms it was never a problem. There was always more rifles than people to give them to however artillery and tanks were a different story that never really got solved during the war. We often were facing artillery and tanks with just RPGs and Mortars so in that sense it was an issue.

[@ipe7739]

you are not competent to speak about this topic.....you left out a million facts such as the Z4 plan, the Croatian embargo until 1994 and many others.your presentation is superficial.🤦‍♂...in order to draw any conclusions, you need to investigate much deeper...

[@oliverdanko2084]

And you are not competent too with your fascist crest in your avatar.

[@ggeronimo4412]

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

[@ggeronimo4412]

Also you didnt say that a large amount of "civilian" men population of serbs had weapons brought to them from Serbia by JNA while Croatian "military" had nothing till year 1994

[@tanja-k]

We are so lucky to have you explaining this for everyone.
Thank you for being there in person and providing this eyewitness account 🙂.

[@vherox3826]

@@tanja-k there are literal documents proving all of this online along with pictures and statements lmao

[@perperius4714]

Croats didn't accepted Plan Z4 and even if Serbs signed, Croatians def. wouldn't.

[@ggeronimo4412]

@@perperius4714 Yes they did. Tuđman did

[@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.

[@r.j.lombardi111]

Well I know that Germans and Hungarians got into trouble too

[@cv990a4]

One key issue about "ethnic cleansing" in Operation Storm is whether the Serb population was ejected from their homes by the Croats or whether the Serbs left of their own accord. My understanding is that it's more the latter than the former, that when the Serb resistance collapsed, Serb commanders told Serb civilians to flee and most Serbs left Krajina in advance of Croats actually getting to their dwellings.
One could easily say that Serbs were afraid of reprisals given what Serbs had done to Croats earlier in the war - certainly that was a reasonable fear. So one could say that it's a distinction without a practical difference. But actually, whether it was ethnic cleansing does hinge on whether Serbs fled pre-emptively, or whether they did it because Croats were actually physically ejecting them from their homes.
For an example of ethnic cleansing, consider Serbia's actions in Kosovo in 1998/1999 when it made an explicit attempt to drive as many Albanians out of Kosovo as they could, in some cases actually marching women and children to the Albanian frontier to ensure they left Kosovo.

[@atisalvaro]

@@cv990a4 The leadership of the illegal Serb Krajina Republic organized exercises of civilian abandonement th-cam.com/video/UYjh3aAvczc/w-d-xo.html. They publicly invited their population to go away from its territory on August 4th. 1991.. Savo Štrbac admited the reasin of THEIR decision shortly afterwards: "It was decided to opt for an exodous, in order to avoid a great massacre that IS going to happen, in order to save a biological mass for something I hope will occur in the future." th-cam.com/video/gzpcJJZS0SM/w-d-xo.html

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

​@@cv990a4 The key issue is Croats are hypocrites as they turn around and apply the same logic to their people in Central Bosnia and northern Herzegovina, who they claim were evicted forcibly by the Bosnian Army, when many of the same conditions apply, such as leaving in advance of the Bosnian Army, meaning we are still a vast ocean away from arguing on principles that apply universally as opposed to self-interested concern about "truth" when it absolves you but not when it can be used against somebody else.

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

​@@cv990a4 Croats do not object to the legality of Krajina because they accept universal international law and ethics, they object to it because they were the ones persecuted. Everything Serbia has done in Croatia, Croatia has done in Bosnia-Herzegovina, with the exception their victims resisted and contained the aggression, which did not happen in Croatia, Kosovo or in Serb-occupied eastern/northern Bosnia.

[@lamisura757]

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!

[@petarticinovic2710]

He's British. They hate us.😅

[@quirkygreece]

@@petarticinovic2710 I’m British and I’ve worked extensively in Croatia to help restore and rebuild the country - I don’t hate you, so don’t go spreading words of hate - that’s what causes wars in the first place. Peace and friendship to you.

[@mariocroatia9321]

​​@@quirkygreece He's talking about the British government at the time.They really hateed us and were helping Milošević.Read the ICTY files.Milosevic even threatened to expose British leaders who helped him.Google also British role around the Srebrenica genocide.... You will be surprised

[@atisalvaro]

@@quirkygreece Krajina was illegal. It spread on 31% of Croatia. there were 54% Serbs on this territory. Most of non Serbs, particularly Croats were forced to leave. The leadership of Krajina was exercising evacuation, prior to Oluja. It gave orders to civilians to leave. They were NOT forced by Croatia,.. They were ordered to leave by Martić. The whole rebellion project broke into peaces. They thought that the exodus would provoke a military intervention from Serbia, but Milošević said: "Why would I help them, while they are escaping as rabbits?" Now Serbs refuse to admit the defeat and invent that they were expelled.

[@quirkygreece]

@@atisalvaro Indeed.

[@user-pc2jp2yr3c]

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

[@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.

[@violetlatner6366]

Popular will is a mandate for secession, in relation to the rights of peoples to self-determination.

[@TGSSMC]

​@@violetlatner6366might be, what if by popular will Spanish speaking people of Miami decide to break away from Florida and USA, with military assistance from Spain, then exile all other people from there by military force or kill them. What would happen then? Would it be alright cause of their right to self-determination.

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

Apply this logic to Croat population of Herzegovina and Central Bosnia, then we are talking serious business about winding back some of the atrocious war propaganda that is now being used to justify interference in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Croatian government believes Bosnians expelled Croats because of a flight but Croats did not expel Serbs in spite of a flight. You have taken lessons from the Serbs in lying, perhaps now you have even excelled.

[@atisalvaro]

@@hasibhakanovic6682 Moslems have lost ground in eastern Bosnia, and settled those people in central Bosnia, in order to make a Moslem majority there. They surrounded central Bosnian Croats, in a siege, with 3:1 forces, aiming at destroying them. No Croatian authority has ever ordered a departure of Croatian population from central Bosnia, opposite to the exercised plans od evacuation of Krajina, that was ordered by Krajina on 4th. of August 1991. Moreover Croatian authorities called Serbs not to leave. If Sarajevo signed Vance-Owen agreement why it did not abide to it?

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

​@@atisalvaro This is a nice conspiracy theory, but I thought Croats were about to be subjugated to Islam, and the Muslims wanted to impose Sharia law?

[@DD-qw4fz]

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.

[@nekilik921]

@@bilic8094 Iz koje si ti klinike izasao, ajde drzi se RTS-a

[@igorsvacic217]

More shells fell on Vukovar HOSPITAL in one day than on entire RSK during same time.

[@mariocavlovicak3220]

Knin was in the beginning the capital city of Croatia. During the Turkish occupation of Croatia Krajina Capital of Croatia is Zagreb

[@damirglavas7940]

@@bilic8094 th-cam.com/video/9u1qdyoJV9g/w-d-xo.html

[@bilic8094]

@@damirglavas7940 th-cam.com/video/Dqxh2SezpJ4/w-d-xo.html

[@antuskantus4928]

Video tries to portray both side as equally brutal, which is REALLY misleading. Operation Storm was completely legitimate and to highest standard of military execution. He says that Croatian military forced out Serbs from their homes despite them leaving before any croatian army unit entered towns or villiges and with evacuation being orderd by Serb president. (he even says how all defense broke down at the begining of shelling). Serbs fled fearing retribution for 4 years of murder and rape. However, couple revenge killings did happen but there is no proof that it was systematically planned. All operations will have few criminals doing bad things, especially huge ones like this one that has quarter of a million personnel mobilizided. Besides ICTY has determened that croatian generals werent responsibile for revenge killings. At the end he mentions negotiations like they didnt happen. Yes they did Serbs rejected Z4 plan that would give them autonomy inside Croatia. So stop with your all sides are bad rhetoric, like those lies will make Croats and Serbs plant flowers together.

[@antuskantus4928]

@@JamesKerLindsay because you pin on Croatian side blame for ethnic cleansing despite International Criminal Courts for former Yugoslavia rulings, despite ICJ negative rule on genocide in operation Storm. The fact that Serbian population left long before they could be expelled or worse. Croatian commenters are right not to accept your version where Croatia is responsible for crime it didn't commit or even at that time could. Why should they when it's not the truth?

[@northernstar4811]

@@JamesKerLindsay You had the ridiculous situation where the Serbs in Croatia in a U.N controlled area were shelling the town of Bihac over the border in Bosnia & Herzegovina a supposed U.N safe zone. The situation was a joke. Serbian "Sheriff" Milan Martic ( he got jailed for 35 yrs for his war crimes) fired a surface to surface rocket at Zagreb in 1995, killing seven people. The rocket was fired from a U.N controlled area. What was the U.N doing, sipping tea?

[@antuskantus4928]

@@JamesKerLindsay I'm familiar with the ruling.
ICTY no ethnic cleansing (but you still for some reason accuse Croatia for that) and ICJ no genocide but some crimes (murder, arson, rape) happened. It's naive to think that huge operation will not have some criminal actions. Point is that it wasn't ordered by the command and you present it like there was systematic plan to commit war crimes and you don't have any ruling to back that. So all things considered in the real world it was up to all military standards. I doubt you hold Us drone strike operations or in fact any Nato operation up to the same standard as operation Storm cos it would make all of NATO member states responsible for war crimes.

[@LMisetic]

@@JamesKerLindsay James, again respectfully, you are incorrect: Operation Storm was most certainly not ethnic cleansing, as that term was defined by the Security Council's Commission of Experts in 1994:ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy to remove an ethnic or religious group through means that violate international law (See paragraphs 129 and 130 of this report: undocs.org/S/1994/674). There was never a "policy" to remove the Serb population by means of violations of international law. Never. It was not demonstrated at the ICTY or ICJ. As for the ICj's findings on genocidal acts, you should know that whenever you can prove that three murders took place, you have sufficient "acts" to establish genocide. What matters, however, is the intent, and there clearly was no such intent in Operation Storm.
Finally, to the extent that your justification for this claim will be that it is "generally accepted" that Operation Storm was ethnic cleansing, I will apply that same logic and ask you again: it is OK for a serious scholar to conclude that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump based on the fact that it is "generally accepted" by many that it was, without any critical assessment of the beliefs of those people?

[@OkOk1100]

@@LMisetic why does Croatia have one of the highest emigration rates in the EU? the standard of living was much higher in the region during the Yugoslav era.

[@oliverbenis]

The Serbs were told to stay in their homes during Operation Storm but were ordered to leave by their own government. You failed to mention this key point in your talk.

[@JamesKerLindsay]

Thanks. But it is important to understand the psychology, especially in such situations. Would Croats have stayed put in the face of an advancing Serbia army?

[@oliverbenis]

Let's not forget that the Serbian civilians that remained after Operation Flash were told to go back to their homes once the Croatian Army had liberated Western Slavonia. If the civilians had remained in their homes during Operation Storm then a lot more of them would have stayed instead they left with the retreating army.

[@JamesKerLindsay]

@@oliverbenis Again, if you were in that situation, and knowing how brutal the war had been up until that point (on both sides), would you have just stayed in your home? I don’t think anyone on their right mind would have done so - no matter how many promises were made by the advancing forces.

[@oliverbenis]

There were negotiations before the commencement of Operation Storm where the rebel Serb were told to disarm and that their rights would be respected. They rejected the proposal and then Operation Storm was launched. It is also important to note the the Bihac pocket was close to falling and that Storm prevented this. Many Bosnak civilians were also liberated after the siege of Bihac was lifted.

[@Silent33091]

​@@oliverbenis
"the rebel Serb were told to disarm and that their rights would be respected."
Not their rights for self determination i guess.

[@therionman52]

Ok, so you clearly took the anti-Croat side, as traditionally British, and sided with the Serbs. Not surprised at all. They (RSK) were given a choice, a Z4 plan, to be the part of Croatia, under a huge autonomy. They even should have had their own money, police, government ect., but they refused as they considdered the territories they held as part of Greater Serbia. Same way you failed to mention that the Serb civilians "fled" because they were ordered to leave by the Serb authorities. They wanted to portray Croatia as agressor force responsible for ethnic cleansing and genocide, which is clearly a false accusation. Fleeing Serb armed forces even drove over their own civilians and later claimed that they were killed by Croat shelling. They wanted to live in Serbia, they got that opportunity.
But let me ask You a question. Let's put it hypothetically this way. A national minority proclaims their independence in the middle of UK, banish all the people that are not of their ethnicity, burns their homes, rapes the women, murders the elderly, and shells british towns on a daily basis. You spend four years negotiating with the rebellious side, but they refuse all your suggestions for peace. During that time your citizens are being killed, your towns burn... What would Britain do?! I mean You, the Brits, fought the war (and lost) with the young USA after they proclaimed their independence, right? And the colonies were never at the British soil...
The UK has raided, ravaged, enslaved half the planet for half a millennia, and now you people moralize Croatia for fighting for our SOVEREIGNITY?! Wow!

[@bubassvaba6221]

I agree! Even some serbs agree that its their foult, becouse, its the foult of one who started the war, to be blames for crimes, casulties etc.

[@therionman52]

@@makomaro That is where you're wrong, Croatia never tried to annex Herzeg Bosnia, nor was it ever a plan. HRHB was founded as an answer to Serb agression in 1991. It's goal was to protect the lives of Croat people who lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina, after it became clear that Muslims (at the time) were not going to help defend Croat inhabited territory of B&H and that they could not rest on Bosnian government help. The only reason Croats didn't suffer the same faith the Muslims did, is because of the fact they weren't living in a delusion and prepared for the worst, as the worst eventually did happen.
As for Kosovo, it's the same deal as it was with the RSK. Belgrade supported the RSK, didn't it? But that support later came back to bite them in the ass.

[@bilic8094]

@@makomaro let him have it good job don't let the croatians get away with the biggest ethnic cleansing since WW2 .

[@thadayu5639]

@@therionman52 But Serbian nationalists hate Britain and believe that British government always hated Serbs and wanted to kill as much Serbian civilians as possible - firstly by Tito's hands 1944-46, and than in Storm by hands of Croatian army, and than by NATO bombing.

[@ljubicakovalovski3666]

@@thadayu5639 ma nemoj srbski nacionalisti mrze Britaniju,Britanija im glavni oslonsc u njih se ogledali i u Osmanije.

[@invictusrei]

No one will deny us of Oluja '95! 🇭🇷

[@lacman6159]

Alr fascist

[@romeolajh1602]

@@lacman6159 traktorista 95

[@invictusrei]

@@lacman6159 yes, we are immediately fascist. Uneducated poor man.

[@lacman6159]

@@invictusrei Hitlers puppet

[@cte4dota]

@@invictusrei Respect history you are.

[@toniceovic8245]

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

[@violetlatner6366]

I hope you don't think that justifies the horrible atrocities against their civilians.

[@toniceovic8245]

@@violetlatner6366 Offcourse npr. Nothing can justify crimes. Same as norhing can justify attrocoties against Croats in years before Operation Storm

[@whitemetal6831]

@@violetlatner6366 What atrocities lmao, thats like the Germans blaming the Americans and Soviets for "atrocities" in 1945 after killing, burning and pillaging Europe for 6 years. If it wasnt for the prowess and force with which the Croatian military chopped the head of the neo-nationalist Serbian snake, scaring off any future conflicts on Croatian soil and subsequently making way for the liberation of Bosnia, you wouldve witnessed a second "holocaust" on any nationality other than Serbs in the region..

[@mariocroatia9321]

​@@violetlatner6366That's debatable.Do you justify war crimes against Germans at the end and after WW2?

[@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.

[@daniel72122]

The facts are purposefully ignored.
When the ICTY court makes a legal judgement proving Operation was not ethnic cleansing but a legitimate military operation and the facts are still denied, nothing you can do. Who needs laws when you can just deny them.

[@violetlatner6366]

You are obscuring some of the key facts. In the last round of talks that involved the Z4 plan being brought up, RSK was more willing to negotiate with it than in the past, which Croatia responded to by making further demands, namely the immediate dissolution of Serb authorities and their replacement with a Croat civil administration. This resulted in the end of the last chance at peace before Operation Storm, not Serb intransigence.

[@atisalvaro]

@@violetlatner6366 Ask those who brought Z4 to Knin how they were welcomed by its president!

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

"Peaceful minorities"... haha, what a joke you people are. Croatia was intended to be a Croat ethno-state not for sharing, despite the nonsense about democracy and human rights standards. In wartime Croatia itself, around six thousand automobiles were seized by the Croatian government from Bosniaks living in Croatia, some of whom had lived there for decades. To this day there is enormous pressure to assimilate minorities. The reality is Croatia, even with perks for minorities, is so homogeneous ethnically that minorities can't exercise political power in any meaningful way. Unbelievable you lot have the gall to make these ridiculous claims.

[@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.

[@user-xj3ve7wt8k]

Well yea. And the best thing is...they filmed everything themselves, which was later used at the International War Crimes Tribunal. th-cam.com/video/Xz42ucCGunU/w-d-xo.html

[@petarjovanovic1481]

Sure, why not. You do know that people here have brains?

[@gottmituns813]

@@nemanja162
The Constitution of Yugoslavia guaranteed the right of self-determination of the Republics, 90% of the Croats voted in favor. As of 1991 the Yugoslav army became a purely Serbian army.

[@gottmituns813]

@@nemanja162
And the Croats who lived in the Krajina and were expelled or killed by the Serbs? that is called ethnic cleansing.
In 1991 there were 35% Croatians in Krajina, in 1992 there were 5%.

[@daniel72122]

th-cam.com/video/LKJfdWfgNjA/w-d-xo.html
For real evidence on operation Storm.

[@phreak2day]

This was really really really badly prepared... It doesn't amount to more than reading Serbian international propaganda. From a professor I certainly expected more. While the entire conflict might appear complex at first, it's actually quite simple to understand once one digs just a bit deeper.
Here's a summary:
- Yugoslavia was failing economically, this caused economic tensions which started to cause national tensions and a need for all states included in the federation to exit it and be the creators of their own destinies instead of relying on the will of Serbia. Of course, Serbia didn't like that
- Croatia, along with Slovenia, activated their right under the Yugoslavian constitution to secede. Slovenia was successful but Croatia was pressured by other European and World countries to "try and make it work". Croatia (foolheartedly) agreed and activated a moratorium on the decision which lasted for 3 months, which is a very reasonable timeframe. Things didn't improve (which was expected) so Croatia went ahead and seceded
- To show what it thought of Croatia's secession, Serbia bombed the capital city of Zagreb. Soon after that Croatia was under full attack from Serbia, either by entering Croatian territory with their weaponry or by usurping armies already stationed in Croatia which were previously part of the Yugoslavian National Army (JNA)
- The European and World countries "gifted" Croatia with an arms embargo for their effort of trying to "make it work" while it was under full attack. Croatians basically resorted to "sticks and stones" to defend themselves against attacks with tanks and planes
- By any account this is an armed invasion of a sovereign country since (now foreign) weaponry has been imported into the country and used to conquer it. The argument of "it wasn't officially recognized yet by the international community" falls flat since: A) it had the right to secede under the Yugoslavian constitution, B) borders were already in place since Yugoslavia was a federation and not a "single mass of territory", and C) "international recognition" came anyway and still while the war was still underway and before operations Flash and Storm were performed. The only result was that Croatia suffered while the "world leaders" did a "great job" once again...
- Serbian slaughter and ethnic cleansing ran rampant even though, I repeat, Croatia was a sovereign nation which, as such, had every right to defend itself
- Finally when the arms embargo was lifted and Croatia was able to fend itself properly. And there was no NATO alliance to help, Croatia had to fight for itself
- Operation Flash laid the groundwork for Operation Storm, having military actions which were so quick results in lesser lives lost (whether civilian or armed forces)
- Before Operation Storm began all areas that would be attacked were warned in advance to prevent loss of civilian life. This is well documented
- When Operation Storm began, Serbia organized transport for civilians from the areas affected by the operation. At first to "save them from being slaughtered" (even though that would never happen since no "excessive shelling" occurred anyway nor was anything like that ever planned) but then they decided to spin the whole thing as "forced removal of civilians" even though they were the ones that organized the transportation and moved them to Serbia themselves. This is also very well documented
- Serbia did not like the fact that Croatia was so successful so they started talking about "forced deportations" and other nonsense. Since they lost the war they were hoping to not loose "history" and have been trumpeting a so-called "mutual responsibility" ever since. Which is laughably untrue since Serbia entered Croatia's borders, not the other way around. Croatia never entered Serbia's borders, even when searching for Croatians abducted into Serbia during their slaughter on the eastern part of the country. The so-called "criminal enterprise" argument is one such laughable example
- Croatia did not evade taking part in the Hague trials, it even insisted on the court for ex-Yugoslavian conflicts to be established since it wanted to prove without a doubt that it was innocent and wrongfully attacked. It also didn't want to (rightfully) execute the Serbian warlords which were slaughtering everyone and everything in Croatian territory but instead insisted on international rule of law. The court ended up being compromised and a complete joke since they couldn't grasp the simple fact that Serbia entered and attacked Croatia within its own borders and that there is no way Croatia could beheld accountable for that. It's like having a bully at school that comes to your home, breaks down your door, starts to brutally hit you, you chase them out and don't take any revenge - and then you are treated as partially accountable for being bullied. Laughable!
- Serbians live peacefully in Croatia and even have a parliamentary representative. Croatians do not live as well in Serbia and up until recently didn't even have a representative in the Serbian parliament
- The only reason that the commemoration of Operation Storm is "considered divisive" is only because Serbia is butt-hurt for losing a war that THEY STARTED and have been spreading lies ever since. It's only considered "divisive" in Serbia, nowhere else, and since they are a loudmouth everyone seems to be buying into these laughable lies. Operations Storm didn't just bring an end to the war in Croatia but also to the one in Bosnia and Herzegovina - 2 wars concluded with 1 military operation. If that's not worth commemorating then nothing is! And aggressors don't have any say in this!
- For true peace to reign between the two countries Serbia needs to admit (mostly to itself) what it had done. Without that we will continue to have such laughable rhetoric about "divisive commemorations" and "both sides are to blame"
Conclusion: Croatia had EVERY RIGHT to defend itself and Operations Flash and Storm were COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED by every possible and conceivable metric. And the commemoration is 100% JUSTIFIED and should in fact be commemorated widely in the "international community". It's the least that could be done for all the blood they have on their hands because of their inaction. And to have a safeguard against something like this again occurring in the future. Although, in some ways it already did in Ukraine.
You're welcome, professor. I expect you to do better next time.
Or better yet: make a follow-up which properly addresses the events. The lies need to stop! We hear the rattling of guns becoming louder every day due to the ineptitude of the "international community" which approved the creation of Republika Srpska, an "autonomous country" WITHIN A COUNTRY in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croatia and Bosnia will be once again left holding the bag for the lies being spread in "informed looks and articles" such as this one.
Side note: I'm really glad that the same mistakes are not being repeated in Ukraine like they were in Croatia. I really am. The situation is exactly the same: a foreign nation is taking a country's land by force. But it's sickening to see virtue signaling for Ukraine on one side and then content like this on the other. Every sovereign nation has the right to defend itself. No exceptions. And rest assured that the massacres conducted in Bosnia would have been avoided if Croatia was not under arms embargo, and there would have been a lot less bloodshed in general since the whole conflict would have ended in a matter of days (as was the case in Slovenia) and not 5 years like it ended up being.

[@samonaprid7782]

Explained 👍

[@tombaur8316]

[@user-ur8fb6mt7n]

🙌🏻

[@davemacdonald4892]

My wife’s parents and grand parents are from this region. I visit and stay in a village every year, whats left of it. Close to 500k ethnic Serbs forced to leave the region.My wifes father drove elderly woman to Belgrade on a tractor. Stories of many civilians slaughtered. The once thriving villages and areas where the Serbs had lived for 100s of years are ghost towns. It is staggering how Croatia get away with and think its okay to consider this Storm as a national day to celebrate. Im a NZer.

[@phreak2day]

@@davemacdonald4892 That's very disingenuous. I understand you're taking that stance because of your wife, and I even applaud you for sticking with her, but the content of your reply indicates that you didn't even read what I wrote. Croatia didn't perform ethnic cleansing operations nor did it perform forced removal of the population - that was was all commanded by the Serbian authorities (all of which is very well documented) and now they play the victim. Croatia wanted to leave Yugoslavia peacefully, same as how Czechia and Slovakia separated peacefully. That's why it went along with the whole postponement of the separation to begin with, to avoid armed conflict. Croatia did everything right and by the book. But no, we're all supposed to listen to unfounded claptrap like this. It's a justification for Serbia to enter another sovereign nation's territory with tanks and to "cry foul" for getting its ass kicked for doing so - give me a break! Comments like this are the same copy/paste comments one always reads, and they are nothing more than thinly veiled justification of armed occupation and war. As an adult you should be aware of this. And you should also be aware that there would be no need for Operation Storm if Serbia hadn't invaded Croatia. Therefore, every military operation performed by Croatia was legitimate, including Operation Storm. And no one will pervert history to say otherwise, especially not Serbia whose political leadership still today consists of the same butchers that caused the entire war. 30 years later the same people and the same story! Well it's finally time to quote the great Vojko V: "Ne može!"
P.S. In regards to how Serbs live in Croatia nowadays: they live peacefully and even have permanent reserved seats in the Croatian parlament, all the while Croatians in Serbia are little more than a footnote.
P.P.S. If you're truly honest about your disgust for human suffering then you would also condemn the Serbian slaughters in Vukovar, Škabrnja, Srebrenica and everywhere else. And just in case you're not aware why Serbia did what it did take a look at "Načertanije", if you're honest about your disgust for human suffering you'll look into it because it's been the main point of Serbian politics ever since it was written. And then you'll understand that Serbia has no one to blame but itself.

[@mocnitikut]

Serbs are trying to make Greater Serbia from 1844. up to now.

[@voiceofreason1829]

Trying... but every year they are only getting smaller

[@mocnitikut]

@@voiceofreason1829 yes but all medias in Croatia becoming their, and they are in every goverment...

[@LUKAZZY]

Tell me where is the grave of Croatian king Zvonimir... There is none..

[@voiceofreason1829]

@@LUKAZZY cry more servant😊 king tomislav is documented in variuos places. I bet you cant find graves of ppl who died before thousand of years ago, especially if they were small rulers, and not some pharaons

[@bilic8094]

@@LUKAZZY That's funny I mean everyone has a grave except the so called croatian kings 😁.

[@noel0733]

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

[@damirxcv8546]

Sorry friend, as a croat i must say, that Krajina was never croatian, let’s be honest. And god forbid new war. We’re still paying back too Americans ( weapons that we purchased 😉). Have a nice day

[@northernstar4811]

@@damirxcv8546 The so called "Krajina" was called the "Croatian Military Frontier" when it was under Austria until 1881 when it was re-attached again with the rest of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia.

[@noel0733]

@@damirxcv8546You are not a Croat. A real Croat knows that Krajina (Militärgrenze) always was a part of Croatia-Slavonia which was a part of Austria-Hungary.

[@noel0733]

@@duramajin3118 cry little Serb 😂

[@northernstar4811]

@@lonelyherzegovinawarrior153 If you are Serbian you can look up your old homeland called the " Eyalet of Rumelia". Good old days.

[@lilynola6341]

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.

[@northernstar4811]

@@milosperic3117 Perhaps they should not have listened to Slobodan Milosevic and his "Greater Serbia" plans in 1991. It was a bit of a disaster.

[@northernstar4811]

@@miloskovacevic8912 There are plenty of videos on You Tube showing what the Serbs were doing in Croatia in 1991. Had the majority of Serbs in Croatia not listened to Milosevic and not taken up arms against Croatia they would be in a better position today.

[@lilynola6341]

​@@miloskovacevic8912 , Croatian soldiers never went to another country to kill nor steal. The Serbian army was active last time in the 1990s in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in killing and destroying other nations, so the Serbs can claim the land as their own. This is how Serbian Republic (Republika Srpska) was created in Bosnia in the 1990s. Some Croatian villigers were killed in Serbia (part of that territory used to belong to Croatia historicly), even there was never any fighting there before the NATO attacked Serbia 1999 in order to imobilise the Serbian military. The NATO intervention has ended all Serbian wars of occupation of the neighbouring nations territories. Manipulations and lies, that how the Serbs steal what does not belong to them. A boy who sat next to me in school was killed by the Serbs and many of my friends. There is no a single Croatian minister in Serbian Parliament, that would represent Croatian minority who live in Serbia.

[@497novakl]

@@lilynola6341 such bullshit. Explain why serbs would invade that wasn't their own when there was a significant serb population in every one of those states and they held historical claims to those areas. And nice of you to brush off the war crimes committed by the Croats, bosniaks, and Albanians given that they committed violence against the serb populations, many of whom didn't even fight. Лажеш као увек а ујо.

[@joeychestnut2437]

@@497novakl historical claims? They have no historical claims in Croatia or in BiH. Historical claims - Hrvatski Zemun, Vojvodina.
Now jump on a 🚜 my Bulgarian/Wallachian - Turko peasant. 🚜🚜🚜🚜🚜🚜🚜🚜 Beep Beep

[@guardianofcroatia2620]

Brilliant victory Croatian army 🦾🦾🦾

[@reljabrajovic1754]

Against who? Civilians?

[@flair500]

@@reljabrajovic1754 chetniks

[@reljabrajovic1754]

@@flair500 So its only the Chetniks but when Croat civilians are in danger thez are not all ustashe. Give me a break.

[@anonimusistine7378]

And Croatia lost that war,EU and Nato take everything in that poor country...

[@guardianofcroatia2620]

@@anonimusistine7378 Sweet dreams ...

[@lukayoutubuka]

Very similar war with todays war in Ukraine. Just like Ukraine, Croatia has been a victim of Serbian expansionism for many years. The same is still present today as Serbia strongly supports Russia. Thankfuly Croatia is now a part of EU and NATO and the reason for joining is the protection against Serbia. So you cannot blame Ukraine for wanting to join these organisations because they also need protection. All of that being said - operation Storm was perfectly legal just like any offensive which Ukranians undertake.
We will never forget 🇭🇷💪

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

Everything Serbia did to you, you turned around and did to Bosniaks, both in the NDH and in the fantasy Herzeg-Bosnia. You can't be a victim of aggression and an aggressor, it is an undefined concept in international law. Without Serb-Croat collaboration, Yugoslavia could not have existed... when Tito mentioned "brotherhood and unity" do you think he was referring to unrecognizedAlbnians and Bosniaks, impoverished Macedonians?😄

[@nukana-wb9bm]

​@@hasibhakanovic6682 actually bosniaks attackted croats and not otherwise...and during the NDH bosniaks were proud ustashe and handzar member while croats were partisans...less then 1 percent of partisan soliders were bosnian muslims...you hade much more hungarians and italians there

[@matkosisko2800]

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

[@sinisaskarjan9828]

The operation Storm also ended the siege of Bihac... the serbs started an ofensive there and it would have been a bigger genocide than Srebrenica.

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

Ah yes, you cared about Srebrenica. That's why you were in the Lasva, Neretva, Vrbas valleys with your regular forces marauding in Bosniak villages and towns as the Bosnian Serbs and the Yugoslavs were attacking Cerska!

[@nukana-wb9bm]

​@@hasibhakanovic6682 croats defend themself against ISIL and Al-qaida in lasva and neretva...whats wrong about this?

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

​@@nukana-wb9bm Serbs and Bosniaks defend themselves from the Ustase (responsible for over million deaths in WWII) and Catholic Inquisition, just like Orthodox Christians and Muslims defended themselves from Catholics in twelfth and thirteenth century.
Peruca, no problem.😘

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

​@@nukana-wb9bm Just to let you know, the first Catholic Church in Mostar (the 'Croatian' city) was built in 1868.😁

[@nukana-wb9bm]

@@hasibhakanovic6682 just the know almost all catholic churches were destroyed by ottomans in bosnia and dalmatia after occupation (bihac, jajce) croatian City...hrvoje hrvatinic

[@zvonimirvidovic1714]

Why don't you make documentary video about Vukovar under siege from august till november 1991 and Škabrnja in november the 18th 1991? Maybe you can find answer on your title question there. Greetings from Croatia, independent and free state 🇭🇷

[@zvonimirvidovic1714]

@Anonymous Bosch unfortunately for you, serbian war crimes done in Vukovar and Škabrnja happened in the end of 20th century when mankind used VHS technology so everything was recorded. As for ethnic statistics of Vukovar, it was allways town with Croatian majority which can be seen in any census. For that reasons theese kind of lies you mentioned can never be used as fact, just as another provocation which you so urgently write in any topic concearning Croatia or Croats, because you cannot accept the fact Croatia is independent state.

[@zvonimirvidovic1714]

@Anonymous Bosch your words, just like your name, are fiction. That's main difference between us. You produce lies and repeat it ever since Turks left territory east of river Drina. Unlike you, we have written history and know who our ancestors were, by name, untill 10th century. You only know for yours that they were Ottoman Turks, mostly of lower social status. This is why you have this need to read, write and know anything and any time something happens in Croatia, because you know you are so far away from where we are, and will probably stay there for a long time. Take your passeport if you want to go to the seaside. Cheers!

[@ukilectric]

"Independent state of Croatia"
"Croatia, the independent state"
Surely a coincidence, right? 🤔

[@zvonimirvidovic1714]

@@ukilectric what's your point?

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

He can make a video on Ahmici 😀

[@erikvanderheeg5729]

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.

[@JamesKerLindsay]

Thanks. Militarily it may have been a textbook operation. However, from a human perspective it had a devastating effect. Communities that has lived in those lands for hundreds of years were forced out. So, yes, it should be studied if war colleges want to teach their aspiring officers how to commit ethnic cleansing!

[@user-nt3uh8ru6s]

@@JamesKerLindsay It was due to Milošević's scare tactics that the serbian population started leaving. Watch any documentary about the Operation Storm, the Croatian soldiers enter villages yelling "we won't harm you, we have food and water". On the other hands, look at the videos of RSK Army entering the villages; drunken yelling, threats, cursing and mocking. You should do a little more research on this topic to see what happened on the day of OS. Cheers.

[@damirglavas7940]

Your comments are misleading and inaccurate 🤔🙄 You persistently defend the theory and ethnic cleansing of Serbs by Croats in Operation STORM, and you don't mention a single second of 5 years before that operation of ethnic cleansing by Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo? Interesting?
How much are you paid for that false propaganda from Serbia,profesore?
Because you are persistently doing what Serbia has been doing for 20 years ... trying to equalize the blame for its aggression on Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Politics in the five war years of Serbian convicted criminals in The Hague has come to fruition in Operation Storm and no normal person can side with them and defend everything they did during the war operations without compromising themselves and their objectivity and you just keep defending the Serbs and Serbia false propaganda, you are doing it very wholeheartedly as far as I can see.
"Being ignorant who beleves and repeat lies or
being the expert who,twists the truth...
I can't decide,what's worse ?"
- Glavaš Damir

[@hrvojestanic1791]

What is your problem?? Did you hear about ICTY??! War is started 1991. with aggresion on Croatia... Serbs loose the War which they started...and we are happy!! No more Sudeten land or Srbska Krajina!

[@ginjordom6065]

@@JamesKerLindsay Communities that have turned against their neighbours and conducted ethnic clensing,they got what they deserved,take no prisoners.

[@bobnonomen9244]

Well, let me educate you James, you who doesnt have a clue what was going on back in the days becouse you were sitting somewhere safe and comfortable.
Causes of the break up are very simple, Belgrades hegemonistic style of rule, meaning serbs are superior over all the other nations inside Yugoslawia with most of the money floating to Belgrade.
Croatia declared independence out of Yugoslawia. Serbia attacked Croatia with the goal to take over all the land where only one serb lived declaring it as serbian land and yes there was serbs living in Croatia and yes there were serbs fighting for Croatia in that war. You can find it anywhere, any serb in Croatia at that time who didnt take a gun to fight recognised Republic of Croatia was a regular citizen and anyone who wanted to stay home - could stay home.
So on, before operation Storm there was numerous offers to the serbian side and one of the biggest was full autonomy inside of SAO Krajina with they own police, money and government inside of Republic of Croatia. Serbs refused it becouse they idea was anexing Republic of Srpska (BiH) and SAO Krajina to Serbia making the state of Great Serbia which was btw a british idea long way before wwl to take over the western Balkan from the Austrian Empire which had a great relationship to banovina Croatia (british written book Načertanije, official author Ilija Garašanin).
They refused that plan and offer, and after 4 years of prosecuting, terrorising and killing croatians making over *600.000* croatian and non serb refugees, they got what they deserved in a clean military action and political way. Before operation Storm Croatia had the "go ahaed" by the West. Why? Becouse the serbian extreme right wing only understands one language - force.
Now, if I understood you correctly, you spoke about negotiations to bringing back teritorry. That happend too on the East Slavonian part of occupied Croatia becouse there was a operation planned - Thunder to retake Eastern Slavonia but it never happend becouse after Storm the serbs were willing to negotiate and that was a smart decision and they could do it also earlier but they did everything with force.
You mentioned also croatian brutalities and commanders in trial, but you "forget" to mention what happend in Vukovar in that siege and later in Srebrenica and most likely it would happend in Bihac (west Bosnia) if operation Storm never happend.
Also it is available everywhere on the net, a lot of serbs stayed in the occupied zones after Storm and they still there. The serb civillians that fled did it on recomendation of they own military forces which generals and leaderships run them over in their tanks. Yes, they run over they own people convoys.
At the end, you have to know that Croatia defended its people and territory from the serb agression.
Not like England/UK through history who conqered others making the biggest genocides all over the world in the past 1500 years.

[@rsrs1136]

Serbia didnt attack Croatia LOOOOOOOOOOOL

[@bobnonomen9244]

@@rsrs1136 Serbia didnt attack Croatia? Smoke another one bro

[@damirglavas7940]

@@rsrs1136 th-cam.com/video/ou6aTVn5SSA/w-d-xo.html

[@ShadowlessMan]

Lol croatian money was going to Belgrade omg u are such a bad liar serbia and croatia had the most money in jugoslavija croatian money was not going to serbia and serbian money was not going to croatia that where i stop reading your BS they money from both countries have gone to bosnia kosovo montenegro and slovenia serbia had enough money and dont forget thats not what serbia ruled it was from the croat tito he was ruling and he forced serbia and croatia to send there money to kosovo montenego bosnia and slovenija

[@bobnonomen9244]

@@ShadowlessMan BS!
Tito was not a croat, the real Tito was killed in Kavkaz.
Most money was floatkmg to Belgrade.
Continue reading if you can handle the truth about our war!

[@yourdailydoseofcommonsense3988]

Just look the Serbian logic at that time and logic of Great Serbia Serbs came to Knin when they where running away from Turks and welcome d them and then they want independence wtf

[@lukasunjic750]

And they call that land their own 😂

[@ivantulumovic861]

Nobody died so I don't understand why is that a problem? That was a very professional act compared to Vukovar

[@reljabrajovic1754]

Yeah... Nobody died...

[@shieldshockerwot]

Was operation Storm legal? Yes it was, more then your operation in Falklands for sure.

[@nashbridges-cu6dy]

How can be legal to expel innocent people from their homes??? 😳😳😳

[@mariocroatia9321]

​@@nashbridges-cu6dy They weren't expelled.They fled

[@nashbridges-cu6dy]

@@mariocroatia9321 why? Nazzi vampires from ww2 reincarnated?

[@petarticinovic2710]

@@nashbridges-cu6dy They did it to us. We returned the favor.

[@nashbridges-cu6dy]

@@petarticinovic2710 you are complete the same like serbs and only they are blamed now I understand Serbian revolt.

[@northernstar4811]

I think its also important to state the goals of the Serbian minority that lived in Croatia. The radical Serbs who led the Serbs in Croatia wanted a "Greater Serbia" and did not want to live in Croatia at all or be ruled by the Croats. They completely rejected the Z-4 Plan which was supported by the Americans & also the Russians as a way to end the conflict. Milan Martic was the Serbain "Sheriff" in Croatia, a man described as useless by British politician Lord Owen. Martic actually said the Serbs did not want to live in Croatia under any circumstances. Martic also fired a surface to surface rocket at the Croatian capital of Zagreb in 1995 and he admitted this fact on T.V. He got a 35 years jail term for war crimes at the Hague court. So with this type of war criminal Serbian leader any kind of deal or normality was impossible.

[@generalposlijebitke6688]

All in all, situation in so called "Serbian Kraina" from the very first day was builded that "Eather we will win and live in Grater Serbia, or we will all flee to Serbia." Even the saying something in that territory that will include living in Croatia as authonomy is considered like treason. You could be killed. I mean really, killed... Veljko Đakula for example was kidnaped and tortured just because he make some treade deals with Croats... Funny is that the serbian polititians openly say that... That is why they even dont want to look Z4 plan... That thing was unimaginable... Nothing except indipendence... Indipendence or we will all flee to Serbia... And they really flee, days before Croats enter so called Krajina... They practice fleeing for months...

[@Mike8827]

Well, as usually there’s the other side of the medal which is called „Greater Croatia“, which clearly had as its ultimate goal the regain of the territory of the „Independent state of Croatia“ , this time really independent , as is visible from Croatian efforts in Bosnia and the attempted creation of the Croatian republic of Herzeg-Bosna. I don’t blame any side , but if irredentist nationalism on both sides is thriving , coexistence is usually not an option .

[@generalposlijebitke6688]

@@Mike8827 Tudjman wanted to do something like Banovina Hrvatska, not Greater Croatia and we can only assume that. If he wanted Independent State of Croatia in borders from WW2, he would not be in Bosnia alliied with Serbs, instead with Muslims. They would not kill Blaž Kraljević who was exactly for that what you talk about... You had two parties in Bosnia, one for Serb and Croat alliance of Šušak, and other Muslim Croat allaince of Blaž Kraljević. Did you knew at all that Serbs and Croats were allies in Bosnia most of the war? But, back to content, while there are lots of videos, even from Serbian current President where he clearly say to Croat Serbs that they will live in Greater Serbia, that parts of Croatia with Serbs will never ever be again in Croatia, can you please show me one statement where any of Croat politicans ever said Greater Croatia please... Ever!
th-cam.com/video/o6DY4Eskp88/w-d-xo.html
4:12

[@Mike8827]

@@generalposlijebitke6688 my current President ? That would be Frau Merkel , but doesn’t matter now . anyway , the ICTY for former Yugoslavia clearly stated that Tudjman had the intent to join Croat areas in BiH to increase the territory of the Croatian state , which ultimately might have left BiH unable to exist and split between Serbia and Croatia . The territorial goals might have gone no further than that , simply for the reason that the bulk of the Yugoslavian military was under Serbian control at that time . But the intent was the same . The Croatians did not want to live under Serbian control , nor did they want the current federation with the Bosniaks.

[@northernstar4811]

@@Mike8827 There is no such thing as "Greater Croatia" only "historic Croatia" which means the old border on the Drina River. This old border was the border between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox church ( see a map online of the Great Schism from 1054 AD. ). It also was the old Roman border between the Western Roman Empire & Eastern Roman Empire. The Ottoman Turkish invasion of Europe changed everything.
Greater Croatia as you call it would mean part of Serbia or Montenegro that traditionally was never part of Croatia. Croatia has never wanted that, just its old lands back. Franjo Tudjman for his part wanted only the "Banovina of Croatia" eastern borders back but only if he could get them legally in the case of a total break up of Bosnia & Herzegovina. Most foreigners are cluless about all this.

[@josiptm4171]

It's a liberation of our own land and we can do whatever we want because it's ours and the story of that land is not from 1918, it's from the time when ottomans expanded their land and Krajina was a fortification to save Austria and Hungary from them

[@engkozino9470]

Croatia can take their country back by any means necessary.

[@jakovvodanovic9165]

ICTY ruled Storm was not an act of ethnic cleansing. Crimes were commited against Serbs, but they were not part of the leadership plan. Also, around 133000 Serbs returned to their homes after the war and are now living in Croatia with full parliamentary representation.
EDIT: I wrongly calculated the number of Serbs that returned.

[@JohnJhones]

133 000 Serbs returned to Croatia according to official Serbian People's Council reports from 2015.

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

How many Bosniaks return to Prozor? 😁😁

[@davemacdonald4892]

Numbers are inflated, more might have returned but villages were destroyed and are nothing more than ghost towns, after living peaceful lives for many generations. Very sad.

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

​@@davemacdonald4892 "Peaceful lives"? World War 1, 2 and of course the 90s. There was not a house in Serb territories in Croatia which did not give a male to these wars.

[@milanlabus1582]

a few too many peoples houses were burned down for it to not be ethnic cleansing

[@Levi-wi3fz]

No one from croatia forced 200000 thousand serbs out beside Milošević, get your facts right

[@JamesKerLindsay]

That is wholly and completely incorrect. I don’t deny Milošević’s role. But the Serbs in Croatia had their own fears and concerns as Yugoslavia began to break apart - a process Croatia played its part in shaping. And they didn’t just pick up and leave their ancestral homelands because Milošević told them to. They were being attacked and were forced to flee. This doesn’t excuse what happened to Croats ethnically cleansed earlier, but to say that this was all wholly and completely down to Serbia is simply untrue.

[@LMisetic]

@@JamesKerLindsay The imprecise terminology you use leaves much open for interpretation. You say "they" were attacked and "forced" to flee. If by "they" you mean hundreds of thousands of Serb civilians, then your opinion has been refuted by the ICTY. Even the Trial Chamber that convicted Gotovina never made such a finding. And no, they were not "forced" to flee, if by that you mean that Croatia did something intentionally to compel hundreds of thousands of Serb civilians to flee. If by "they" you mean that Krajina Serb forces were attacked, and Serb civilians subjectively felt like they had to flee, then this would be more accurate, but it would not be ethnic cleansing.

[@JamesKerLindsay]

If you are being bombed and pick up and leave then I think it is fair to say that by any reasonable definition someone is being forced to flee. This is terminology used on the news every single day. The debate over what bombing denotes indiscriminate is a legal discussion, which hasn’t actually been answered. But there’s really no challenging the fact that shelling took place and that any reasonable person would feel the need to escape from potential harms way. Regardless of how accurate or inaccurate (or neither) that bombing may subsequently be judged!

[@LMisetic]

@@JamesKerLindsay Sorry, but this is incorrect. As I have already mentioned to you several times, not a single Serb civilian of the tens of thousands you claim were "forced" out has ever stated (either at the ICTY or elsewhere) that they felt compelled to flee due to "bombing" or "shelling." Your video cites the 1996 Human Rights Watch report. Did it escape your attention that one year after Operation Storm, HRW did not quote a single Serb civilian who claimed to have left due to fear of shelling? But HRW did cite civilians who explained the real reasons they left. The story about "shelling" causing Serb civilians to flee was not invented until 2006, in the third indictment against Gotovina. The first two indictments against him from 2001 to 2006 make no such allegation. What you are unintentionally doing is spreading post hoc Serb propaganda and mythology which has no factual basis in the life experience of any Krajina Serb.

[@markojuric4954]

@@JamesKerLindsay Miloševeć told them nothing. This was according to the previous draft agreement between Tuđman and Milošević.
In the beginning of the war, the US was supporting Yugoslavia as the one state and Milošević's concept one citizen one vote what in the situation of Serbs majority meant Serbian supremacy. Other federal units except Montenegro oppose that. After the war has begun the US started supporting Croatia and others . . . but the most important part took place in 1994 when Croatia was already well exhausted by the war and facing major financial problems when Tudjman agreed to surrender the Croatian National Bank and privatize commercial banks in exchange to support operation Storm from the US-led West on the politically, intelligence-wise, logistically and financially way.
This meant that the Americans told Milosevic not to interfere in the conflict, and Tudjman not to do anything on Croatia's eastern border (Vukovar region) with Serbia.
With the loss of the Croatian National Bank, Croatia exchanged the Serb occupation of part of its territory for debt slavery when Croatia began to slowly hand over property and resources to the global mafia, the same one that is terrorizing us today with coronavirus.
For your information, operation Storm cannot be viewed in isolation from the war in the break-up of Yugoslavia.
The finalization of the general war trade in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina took place in Dayton at the end of 1995, where Tudjman ceded Bosnian Posavina to Milosevic for the peaceful reintegration of eastern Slavonia what was completed in 1998, and gave up the third entity for Croats in the Federation to Izetbegovic. Milosevic returned 20% of the territory held by the Serbs in BiH in order to gain the entity of the Republika Srpska, so at the end Republika Srpska got 49% the territory of BiH.

[@johnmarin9369]

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.

[@genijalac4656]

Its not serbian krajina country...Its croatian teritory.Serbrs is not forced to run away,we give them autonomy and safety if they stay,but they run...We win that day,we was defending our country from serbian attack...THat is all true!!!

[@nemanjajovanovic2957]

How do you explain killings of so many civilians, and bombing on serbian refugee columns, and croatian soldiers who maltreated and killed people from those refugee columns? Do you call that giving autonomy and safety?

[@genijalac4656]

@@nemanjajovanovic2957 How do you explain this...Where is war happen?In Croatia or Serbia?What is that?We defend ourselfs...Croatian army is not like serbian army,Your army kill my brothers and sisters in my homeland,croatan army never was in serbia...Shut up and stop lie.05.08.1995. Remember that and never come back!Vukovar,škabrnja,srebrenica...remember thaf names!

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

​@@nemanjajovanovic2957 I can explain it. Your thuggish, sadistic narco-army across occupied territories of Croatia preferred attacking, starving, shelling Bosnians in Bosnian Krajina to defending Serbs in Croatia and their legitimate rights. With your forces in BiH, the result was you couldn't defend yourselves in Croatia across an enormous undefended front. The rest is history. What Croats did to you, you did to them, and what you did to them, they did to you. Moreover, some of what you did together to the Bosniaks of Central Bosnia in that hideous besiegement of almost an entire country, and keep in mind everything the Croats did to Bosniaks in Central Bosnia you enabled as you were supplying them indeed there were no other supply lines, you got back in the rear.

[@XMasterWoo]

I think you forgot to mention the fact that the serbian secesion was illegal, while the ceoatian one was fully legalno under the 1974 yugoslav constitution.

[@nashbridges-cu6dy]

If serbs from croatia sign croatian separation then yes, thats how constitution 1974 said. But if they say no then its illegal.

[@mariocroatia9321]

​@@nashbridges-cu6dyNot true.Also the highest UN courts have found that Serbia was directly involved in the rebellion.It was a international conflict not a civil war as Serbian Ultranationalists want to sell it now days

[@asteriX7487]

@@nashbridges-cu6dythere was referendum held in Croatia 1990 and 90% voted to separate meaning Majority of Croatian population voted to separate from Yugoslavia. All other things done by “ rsk” leadership was act of terrorism, beginning with “balvan revolution “ then coming to Bloody Easter on Plitvice 1991, Borovo selo on 2nd of May 1991 where they massacred 12 of Croatian Police officers. Not to forget all Croatian defence weapons were seized by JNA and given to Serbian population. At the end of the story the will proclaim themselves as victims while they keep forgetting what they were doing 4 years (ie Vukovar- Ovcara, Borovo Commerce, Vupik , Skabrnja, Nadin, Saborsko, Lovas, Ilok (ethnically cleansed in August 1991, all Croatians living in Ilok had to leave their homes)..

[@nashbridges-cu6dy]

@@asteriX7487 ofc croats voted yes what about serbs?

[@asteriX7487]

@@nashbridges-cu6dy they were minority in Croatia , and they refused to take part in Referendum

[@Korisniknovi]

Well, Croatia didn't adopt the new constitution in July 1990 but on 22.12.1990. it's even called "the Christmass constitution".
And "Krajina" wasn't established in December 1991. but effectively on 17th August 1991. when they blocked roads and train tracks and the Yugoslav (effectively Serb) army intercepted Croatian police helicopters and prevented establishing of law and order.

[@eddybulich3309]

Please - we were stuck in a convoy in searing heat in August 1990 outside of Knin because the Serbs put up road blocks back then. Well before the war hit off. Raskovic was going around the country side stirring up the animosity.

[@damirglavas7940]

@@eddybulich3309 Truth!

[@milanlabus1582]

your "establishing of law and order" gave flashbacks to 1941 I'm not surprised the civilians intercepter them many of those people were holocaust survivors themselves

[@Korisniknovi]

@@milanlabus1582 Nobody gives a fuck about your feelings.

[@e.a.poecrnimacak354]

​​@@milanlabus1582 After the WW2, number of Serbs in Yugoslavia was higher for almost one million, while Croats were the only people of Yugoslavia who suffered a huge lose in their population according to official data of population census before and after the war. Why Serbs don't want the complete investigation of this alleged genocide and exhumation in order to honor their people properly? When the stories about Ovcara in Vukovar started, Croats wanted investigation and exhumation as soon as possible to know what really happened to their people and to burry them properly. So, what's the problem for Serbs about this? Besides, one crime can't justify the other, Croats could easily use Vukovar and Ovcara only to call for revenge and preventive action of killing all Serbs to prevent it happening again. But they won't, no normal person would ever even think of that. It's incredible that someone can even think of justifing one crime with the other. Afterall Croats were not the ones who considerered every single Serb a chetnik during 90s (as a Croat I strongly condem everyone who thinks something like that today), they were not singing songs about slaughtering people of other nation. But Serbs did, every single Croat was ustasa for them and had to be killed.
And the action of Yugoslav army was illegal, it was military coup and from that moment every action from Croatian side against the army and officials in Belgrade was legit action.

[@twisted_tea]

if my grandfather moved into YOUR house lived there had a family and then i claimed your house as mine would you kick me out?

[@youwayo]

SQUATTERS’S RIGHTS

[@twisted_tea]

@@youwayo that's a US law

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

That's what you did in Bugojno and Mostar, don't kid around.

[@snokehusk223]

Their families didn't live there for hundreds of years.

[@snokehusk223]

@@Maric54 Serbian

[@zmajooov]

In some parts of Croatia they lived since the Slavs settled the Balkans, in some since 1690, which makes it 300 years in the minimum, so don't lie on facts that are easily verified.

[@snokehusk223]

@@zmajooov Croats were the only ones who settled Balkans. Serbs later became Serbs from a Croat tribe Rascians. So they didn't live in Slavonia, Dalmatia or Bosnia when Crots came because there weren't no Serbs until 18th and 19th century when Habsburgs called them. The reason why i said hundred years because when people see it they mean like thousand years. But it is true that first ones came around 300 years here but not a large number definitely.

[@zmajooov]

@@snokehusk223 stop using heroine, it never works out.

[@snokehusk223]

@@zmajooov hah, I am the follower of Christ so I do not do drugs

[@Josip9888]

Long story in short is what happend: they came with tanks, went back in tractors 🚜

[@Piciji_Grip]

@@OkOk1100 I don't know wheather you are from Balkans or outside reader, but professor failed to mention massacres of Vukovar in Croatia (800 civillians) and Srebrenica in Bosnia (8000 civillians!) commited by Serb forces. Also, almost every city and village they occupied there were incidents and massacres commited. I am aware of incidents commited by Croats and Bosniaks, but it really is uncomparable to what Serbs did to us, and there were around 300 Croat soldiers arrested after operation Storm, so Croat soldiers were acountable for what they did. And also around 200,000 Croats and non-Serbs were expelled from Serbian Krajina. And you have to understand RSK administration were scaring their population with some heavy propaganda such as "Ustashas are coming to do another genocide, remember what happened in ww2" so when Croatians entered Krajina territory, Serb population started fleeing in a hurry and in chaos. Tuđman himself held a speech before and after Operation Storm calling for Serb population to stay in their homes and coorporate with Croatian goverment. Both Tuđman and general Ante Gotovina called for return of Serb population to Croatia but only very few did return.

[@OkOk1100]

@@Piciji_Grip "And you have to understand RSK administration were scaring their population with some heavy propaganda such as "Ustashas are coming to do another genocide, remember what happened in ww2" so when Croatians entered Krajina territory, Serb population started fleeing in a hurry and in chaos."
How is that

[@OkOk1100]

@@JamesKerLindsay Also in 1991, Croatia and Tudjman changed the law so that Serbs became 2nd class citizens.

[@thejosh3855]

@@OkOk1100 no, they didn't

[@vladimirbotic2603]

@@Piciji_Grip retardi to nikad neće priznati oni za dva ubijena civila naprave propagandu ko da je ubijeno 200 a šta su sotone napravile to je njima normalno i onda se ćude odmazdi Hrvata i Bošnjaka jedina nacija koju ni jedna susjedna država ne podnosi su Srbi

[@gottmituns813]

BOG I HRVATI
🇭🇷

[@krivoslavci]

Ko nije neka pati!

[@echo2302]

Croatian lands are not Serbian ancestral homes. They fled to Croatia during Ottoman conquest during which Serbia was conquered but not Croatia. Croatia was reduced to rubbles but never surrender, if Croatia fell Serbs would now call Austria their ancestral homeland.

[@Dislociran]

i see how this would be the justified reason for Croats to murder my grandparents torture my uncle steal more than 2 000 000 $ in assets owned by fathers family all before the start of the war or so called Serbian aggression. Thank god my Serbian grandpa who suggested to my Serbian dad and my Croat mother to go on vacation to Serbia before he and grandma where tied to the chair and blown up. should mention that my mothers family who is ethnically Croat who stayed in Croatia faced severe repercussions because my mother chose to go to that vacation and not come back because her husband and children were no longer welcome. But somehow in this nationalist country after more than 20 years of living in it she never faced discrimination of any sort.

[@echo2302]

@@Dislociran Što želiš ispriku? Traži to od 250 ljudi koje ste zaklali na Ovčari, od 8000 ljudi koje ste zaklali u Srebrenici. Meni je žao što se dogodilo tvojoj obitelji, ja ne podržavam ratne zločine, ali to ne mjenja činjenicu u kojoj se državi ratovalo. U Srbiji jedan metak nije ispaljen ako nisi to znao. Cijelu JNA ste iskoristili protiv nas i još kažete niste bili agresori.
I Hrvatski rat za neovisnost ne mijenja što sam rekao. To je i dalje istina.

[@Dislociran]

@@echo2302 mislim da si promasio deo gde se to sve mojoj porodici ili obitelji desava mnogo pre zlocina koje si ti naveo i koje su ocigledni zlocini u mojim ocima i nemam problem da to kazem a definitivno ne ocekujem da mi se iko izvinjava u ime naroda za nesto sto su pojedinci radili. Hrvatska se vec pobrinula da mi to pojasni na nacin sto mi je naplatila 10000e za sudske troskove jer ocigledno nisam proteran i sve mi nije uzeto na osnovu moje nacionalnosti nego zato sto sam pocinio zlocine 5 godina posle zlocina pocinjenih nadamnom

[@echo2302]

@@Dislociran A kad si točno bio protjeran ako mogu znat?

[@personaldove]

@@Dislociran Why not demand a right of return?
I'm sure there are still Serbs in Croatia.

[@bojanbilandzija9761]

No ethnic clensing, sorry mate

[@northernstar4811]

This is what US president Biden said about Afghan terrorists:
"We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay,"
So imagine if Tudjman had the same policy to the Serbian terrorists that attacked & terrorised Croatia from 1991 to 1995. Tudjman went along with a complicated Z-4 plan that the Serbian side had no interest in and that they rejected. In other words the Serbs in Croatia did not want to compromise they opted for a war that they lost even though they were better armed.

[@petarticinovic2710]

@Marsonic None more so than the British, who probably green lighted Milosevic to go to war in the first place. Now they all want to vacation and retire there.

[@stevie6621]

Tudjman said that Serbs would cease to exist on record and he also said there would be no war if Croatia did not want it. The terrorists are the "Croatian government" and their so called army that illegally broke from SFRY and committed crimes against Serbian civilians.

[@nekilik921]

@@stevie6621 Explain to me why are there 2 Times more Croatian civilians killed than Serbian ones and what did that "legitamate" army do in Vukovar and Dubrovnik

[@boombang857]

Amazingly idiotic analogy.

[@LMisetic]

Mr. Ker-Lindsay makes several key assertions here for which he provides no evidence, and indeed are contradicted by the plain evidence. He repeats several times that Serbs were "forced out" of their ancestral homes in Western Slavonia and in "Krajina". He doubles down on these assertions by claiming - without support - that it is "widely accepted" that Operation Storm was an act of "ethnic cleansing." This assertion is contradicted by the final judgment of the ICTY in the Gotovina case, as Mr. Ker-Lindsay notes, and is certainly not accepted by the United States. He claims that a meeting of the Croatian leadership on 31 July 1995 was for the purposes of planning to "force out the Serbs" - again, an assertion expressly rejected by the final judgment of the UN Tribunal that looked into the matter. Let me also pose the question: if you believe that 200,000 to 250,000 Serbs were "forced out" of the "Krajina," by what means did Croatia force them out? What exactly did Croatia do to force them out? I ask because the Prosecution in the Gotovina case argued that it was the "arillery barrage" which scared Serbs into fleeing, but the Prosecution was never able to identify a single Serb who ever claimed to have left because of fear of artillery fire. Anyone interested in the real reasons for the departure of the "Krajina" Serbs during Operation Storm can watch the video on prepared last year on this very subject, except my video provides evidence to support my assertions: th-cam.com/video/LKJfdWfgNjA/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=LMisetic

[@s871-c1q]

Just a heads up for anyone curious:
-Disabled comments (doing this is always a bad look)
-Only videos concerned with Croatia
-Provides no background on himself

[@OkOk1100]

@@s871-c1q this guy misetic is a Croatian revisionism history expert

[@OkOk1100]

@@s871-c1q I would bet that his father and grandfather are nazi ustasha

[@northernstar4811]

@@OkOk1100 The "National Socialist German Workers Party" was a German political Party. You do understand that? Right?

[@OkOk1100]

@@northernstar4811 🤡

[@dangovorcin]

I would suggest the author to take some courses about Croatian history.

[@JamesKerLindsay]

No need. I understand the region and its history perfectly well.

[@drzavahercegbosnaponosna5974]

dan, a što si očekivao od njega?! da bude istinit, LOL?!?! just FUCK HIM!

[@momcilogavric4930]

Better not 😁

[@mateduhpas133]

@@JamesKerLindsay ha ha you just thinking you know. You were deceived by Serbian propaganda. Read the book Serbia's secret war by Philip J Cohen. Maybe then you will understand all balkans wars.

[@drzavahercegbosnaponosna5974]

@@mateduhpas133 mate, ne radi se o "nerazumijevanju". radi se o svjesnom i podlom podvaljivanju hrvatima što sustavno rade njihove službe. engleski je to pas, ops, Ker.

[@zamor34]

How many Croats left, murdered between 1991-1995...90% of Serbs didn't even want to accept Croatian president and for them Croats were "Nazi" and "Fascist"...They flee to Serbia because of fear, anger and they were just Disappointment with a whole "krajina" army. Croatia did suffer trough this war and they went straight over border with their army equipment.

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

They were right about that. That's why your cameras mostly avoided the Neretva Valley, particularly around October 1992 when sights of blackshirted thugs bearing fascist memorabilia were especially common.

[@YourD3estinY]

@@hasibhakanovic6682 Oh, very suprising that an invasion, the killing of Croatian police following the log revolution and the undermining of the terrotiorial integrity of the Socialist Republic of Croatia (later Republic of Croatia) caused the radicalization of some Croats.

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

​@@YourD3estinY The police were sent by the Croatian regime as combatants, and Serbs started the log rebellion after Croatia had agreed to the division of BiH. The victims in Ahmici were not combatants, not a single one. There was not a single armed individual anywhere in or around Ahmici. And talk about "territorial integrity" of the "socialist republic" of Croatia if Croatia rejects precisely those same principles in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It's just rehearsed nonsense. So what if Serbs rebel in Croatia?

[@YourD3estinY]

@@hasibhakanovic6682 Police aren't necessarily combatants, though it can get muddy in civil war scenarios. But at that time there wasn't an armed conflict yet, as the ambushes and attacks on police forces were only the first steps to an all out war.
I don't know much about the Bosnian war, but I agree it was foolish to support Croatian separatists in Hercegovina. Tudjman was an opportunist, thinking Bosnia couldn't survive the dissolution of SFRY. His policy regarding Bosnia was clearly wrong, as can be seen in the various ICC verdicts on Bosnian-Croat war criminals. Even co-founders of his party (Stipe Mesic and Josip Manolic) critizised him for his aggressive strategy.
I find the alleged conspiracy to carve up Bosnia interesting, as it obviously shows that Tudjman didn't want to wage war against the Serbs. This would have been a clear attempt to find a compromise with Milosevic, at the expense of Bosniaks. Though it is difficult to understand how such an agreement would've looked like, because it obviously failed to materialize and because varifiable information is scarce.
Edit: By that time multiple atrocities against civilian populations had been committed aswell, by both Serbian Paramilitaries and the JNA. Also, the Serbian combatants attacked police stations as they expanded their territories, so (following your logic) they weren't all "sent as combatants" either.

[@Ivan.933]

Dear readers,
Hitler justified his attack on Czechoslovakia by claiming that there was discrimination against the German minority. In the 1990s Milosevic (the Serbian leader) committed aggression against Croatia by claiming that the Serbian minority was discriminated against. Milosevic committed aggression in a much more clever way however, as he was able to claim that the Yugoslav army was fighting. In reality, the Yugoslav army had been transformed into a de-facto Serbian army.
The sinister Milosevic plan to create a so-called Greater Serbia (planned, financed and implemented in Belgrade) could only happen thru aggression because Serbs were a minority both in Croatia and Bosnia & Hercegovina. In reality, therefore, it was one battlefied.
Hence, while the wars in Croatia and Bosnia & Hercegovina were disguised as civil wars, they were actually wars of Serbian aggression. One notable reference is Margaret Thatcher. Another, Phillip Cohen’s book. Regards.

[@bignuschungus3955]

True, and because of Miloševićes actions Yugoslavia failed as a state.

[@boombang857]

This rhetoric is incredibly tedious. It was a civil war, Croatia never existed as a sovereign nation (unless you believe that the NDH was a legitimate country). Only Serbia and Montenegro did. You illegally tried to secede, every sovereign nation would protect its integrity. If you gave the Serbs the same right to self-determination it probably wouldn't escalate the way it did. The problem was your fascistic leaders did not just want independence, but a country without Serbs. And you got away with ethnic cleansing, both in the WWII and during this shameful operation.
Serbs are to blame as well, no question about that, but this picture you are trying to paint is so oversimplified and illegitimate, it's actually scary. I just hope that this nonsense isn't taught in your schools (probably is).

[@Ivan.933]

Nonsense? Why don’t you tell that to the people of Vukovar or Srebrenica who were taken by the Serbian (I am sorry Yugoslav army) and were never to be seen again. Vukovar resembled Stalingrad. Of course this is taught in schools as everything I said is based on documents and evidence.
Everybody in the region knows that when it comes to history, the Serbian establishment is a notorious liar. It is evident that you, as have many Serbs, have been manipulated by Serbian propaganda. The only way for the Serbian establishment to carve out a greater Serbia is thru lies and genocide.
There was no region in Croatia in 1991 (or ever in history) with a Serbian majority. So even if the Serbs in Croatia were given the right to secede (they have above and beyond what other minority’s have in Western Europe) they could not! Of course it is possible that the Serbs create a brand new region, ethnically cleanse the non Serbs, and using war and genocide, attempt to secede. Sound familiar? Of course. That is exactly what your beloved Serbs did. You did it in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Did the Croatian minority in Serbia do something similar? Did the Bosnian community in Serbia do something similar? Neither did. Nothing disturbing like that would ever even come into question.
May I remind you that the Croatian government in 1991 was democratically elected. As a Partisan the President of Croatia fought against fascism in WWII!
Your comments would be laughable if they were not sad because it is precisely your kind of thinking that caused war and bloodshed in the 1990s. Be a man and take full responsibility for the Serbian aggression on Croatia and other states / territory’s of the 1990s. No relativism. Not happening. Clearly you have learned nothing. I will pray for you.

[@boombang857]

@@Ivan.933 The bubble you live in will not help you.

[@siveric32]

@@boombang857 what a brainwashed fool you are.... live your delusions but live them the hell away from Croatia

[@vristeciorao]

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

[@JamesKerLindsay]

You can certainly explain it. But as I say when people make this point, almost every subject I cover could have a whole university module dedicated to it. They are meant as a starting point. Not the last word.

[@vristeciorao]

@@JamesKerLindsay Ok then. because it looks like you are trying to explain, was it ok for allies to carpet bomb whole cities in effort to break 3rd reich.

[@lukarogovic4594]

Looks like James doesnt get the fact that the truth is deep waters

[@teetman322]

I am not even going to criticize your lack of information, I just invite you to Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia and ask the local people about the war on the war hit areas (you won't find any in Serbia though). Listen to people who were there during the war and their stories and then remake the video.

[@abc-eq9so]

He will find the 200 000 that fled Krajina in Serbia

[@bluesloverdelux5010]

@@abc-eq9so yeah,you fled,because we were "nazis"and you were scared.When your own lies bite you in the ass.

[@teetman322]

@@abc-eq9so They fled Croatia my man. None of the Serbs were invaded in Serbia. Also, they were invited by the president to stay. No troops had the order to chase them. Although there definitively were some rogue soldiers who acted out of revenge and did war crimes - don't know them, but I assume so in the war. On the other hand, the Serbian Chetniks were ordered to kill all children and old people in Split. They massacred villages in Slavonia, which was never in history owned by any Serbian state - neither was any Croatian province owned by the Serbian state. The plans for Greater Serbia are known now. It wasn't hidden. There is no point in defending evil my friend. You don't have to be so defensive, just be humble and stay silent if some ignorant foreigner brings up misinformation. Situation in Krajina was similar as Kosovo, then how can you support that Kosovo is Serbia, but try to nationalize and separate provinces of other countries like self proclaimed Krajina and Republika Srpska. That is called hypocrisy, and invalidates every argument you make, since it isn't constructive and only seeks to gaslight.
Kosovo is Serbia. There is no Krajina and there is no Republika Srpska. If we do not agree to the sanctity of territorial integrity, then we will just keep killing each other and if you support that ...

[@abc-eq9so]

@@teetman322 lol greater serbia. I always laugh when i hear that. I guess jasenovac was also a fun fair for refugees

[@teetman322]

@@abc-eq9so Irrelevant to the subject at hand. You are doin a strawman false argument.

[@arminxvs3372]

Could you (or have already) make a video to explain when an ethnicity has the right to split and proclame indepency? Serbs in the Balkans always come up with that argument like "why can't Serbs decide their fate but the countries could even Kosovo could"?

[@mikevarga6742]

Because the world does not need follow the American model of diversity..just bc it's America's way, doesn't mean it's the only way..damn so many useful American allies get away with it and much more..let Serbs have their place

[@arminxvs3372]

@@mikevarga6742 What American model exactly?

[@mikevarga6742]

@@arminxvs3372 large corp conglomerates, multi culture ism , etc.. the trans issue tells a big part. A nation must bend over to the whims of a group thst doesn't make up half a percentage of the population..our culture really allows for major deflections from things that really matter.

[@arminxvs3372]

@@mikevarga6742 Sorry but I still lack the connection to the bosnian population haha

[@ukilectric]

No ethnicity/national minority has a right to proclaim independence without a consent from the mother state. The only exception was at the end of colonial era when all the colonies were given opportunity to choose to go independent. Nowdays, national minorities *do* have a right for self-governence which comes exclusively in form of autonomous governance *within* the mother state.
The reason why Serbs make this argument is because the law was violated against them and so they seek compensation by having the law now be suspended in favour of their interests. The argument isn't legalistic, it's supposed to be logical, and is entirely based on Wetsern powers' blatant disregard for the international law against Serbia.

[@rudolfohisena1836]

Why it is illegal to take back your lands?

[@dooder9612]

Its like asking why is it illegal to take bread out of the store? without the context of how you've done it it has no use.
Did you fight an army? good its legal.
Did you bomb civilians and ruin their families?

[@tor1950]

The reason for storm is Bihač enclave if there was no storm the Bihač enclave would have experienced the destiny of Srebrenica

[@zagrepcanin82]

Srbi zohari bi pobili sve

[@nakajaka9200]

not just bihac but whole balkan!

[@AmarEcd1233]

That is simply not true. Bihac defended itself throughout the entirety of the war with no help from the outside. Stop telling lies.

[@outplayed2303]

@@AmarEcd1233 That is completely false, Croatia constantly delivered arms and supplies to Bihać, there are documents available. Go see the letter Dudaković sent to Croatia, begging for help.

[@AP-qs2zf]

@@AmarEcd1233 without croatian army. BIhac would be another srebrenica. Learn to be greatful

[@NunaNaman]

Hi, how many years of research you did before publish this video?

[@22222roro]

2 days

[@mariocroatia9321]

British government who was actively helping Milošević sent him on a mission

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

​@@mariocroatia9321 Just like Zagreb sends you here to deny the crimes of the sociopath Tudjman.

[@nukana-wb9bm]

​@@hasibhakanovic6682 there were no crimes from tudjman but from islamist alija izetbegovic

[@v21829]

Happy Victory Day - 5 Aug 2021 🇭🇷

[@jovanjorgovan23]

In chronic lack of any other victories, let the forceful expulsion of terrified civilians pose as one. God and Croats!

[@v21829]

@@jovanjorgovan23 Serbian propaganda. Serbs in Croatia fled from their homes because their own separatist government ordered to, even when Tuđman said that Serbs will be protected. Serbs were afraid that their crimes from the start of the war will be punished in same way, but that's far from truth. Peaceful integration of Eastern Slavonia, Srymia and Baranja is an example where Serbs are still protected like an endangered species by the Croatian Government. Our crimes were punished immediately after the war, and you Serbs still run from them. God and the Croats! Good day to you sir.

[@jovanjorgovan23]

@@v21829 I can't decide which is more reprehensable, believing in or simply parroting this fascist nonsense. What is wrong with you?

[@v21829]

@@jovanjorgovan23 You Serbs call real history nonsense so you could live in your bubble of how Serbs are heavenly people. Some Serbs maybe deserve heaven, but your war criminals deserve eternal hell. I won't discuss anything with you anymore. Pick up a history book that wasn't written by your pseudo-historians in cyrillic. Goodbye from beautiful Croatian Adriatic coast.👋 P.S. God and the Croats 🇭🇷

[@warlok007]

@@jovanjorgovan23 Fact under serbjugo army command orders serbservants ran away like mice.

[@user-xj3ve7wt8k]

With pride and and with all your heart, celebrate the magnificent Operation Storm every year, far into the future. After five years of terror, destruction of cities and war crimes, it ended the Greater Serbia aggression on Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia&Herzegovina, and after Srebrenica genocide stopped the continuation of genocide and the greatest ethnic cleansing of non-Serbians from Vojvodina and Bosnia&Herzegovina after the WW2.

[@OkOk1100]

NATO, USA, Germany enabled you guys to commit the biggest ethnic cleansing since WW2.

[@user-xj3ve7wt8k]

@@OkOk1100 The world has not given Serbs over a thousand years in prison for fun...

[@BM-jm2tg]

@@user-xj3ve7wt8k You celebrate former killings and other people's suffering, not even dreaming of something more beautiful that you could leave to the world

[@user-xj3ve7wt8k]

@@BM-jm2tg Happy Operation Storm ! LOSERS !

[@OkOk1100]

@@user-xj3ve7wt8k kangaroo court. How many innocent lives did bombs from the Bush's and Clinton regime kill? Where is there day in court?

[@domagojlipusic3937]

I would just add that the Operation Storm had pockets that were left out for civilians and army to leave. Otherwise you would have a situation like in Mariupol. Also most of the Serbian "civilians" were armed so it's hard to tell war crimes from just self defence. I know this as I live in a town liberated in Operation Flash. Most Serbs left, but some that stayed still have basements full with weapons. Last year one of them threw a handgrenade on electricans, all 3 wounded, one still in hospital.

[@ukilectric]

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

[@domagojlipusic3937]

@@ukilectric for what? Telling the truth or fighting of 15-17% of population that didn't want Republic of Croatia in it's smallest historical borders?

[@ukilectric]

For propagating those immoral lies clearly aimed at justifying borderline sadistic treatment of civilians by the Croatian forces. And also for blatant attempt to use people's suffering in Ukraine for your argument on historical revisionism.

[@siveric32]

@@ukilectric the only shame I feel is that we didn't continue the push all the way to drina river. Then and only then would balkan know peace.

[@tombaur8316]

@@ukilectric ashame?
for what?
liberating his own country from a illegal millitary occupation?
the serbs get ass kicked like all croatia occupators in the last 1300 years, from hungary, bulgaria, mongols, ottomans, austria and nazi germany, and till now at last the serbs.
and the same will happen to the next one who try to attac or occupy croatia.

[@filijala7925]

Operation Storm brought peace to the region.

[@ukilectric]

Aha... sure Jan.

[@kategoried7501]

@@ukilectric Croats with Operation Storm actually stop the war which Serbians started.

[@kosovoisserbia8937]

Operation Slovenian pits 1945 is what brought peace to region.

[@497novakl]

@@kategoried7501 само настави лагати уво

[@497novakl]

@@bangi2757 cccc

[@antoniokralj842]

Croatia won the war in both mainland and it setup all for diplomatic talks and fast end of war in Bosnia and H, so 100% has all rights to make that day festival, its army victory day

[@miloskovacevic8912]

Yup... nothing says festival like ethnic cleansing. Im always suprised how blissfully you ignore those parts or your history.

[@antoniokralj842]

Ignore.?If you mean i dont care, then you 100% right, after you win any war you are gonna have that any way, look what happen to germans after ww2, or Croatian population in Bosnia during ottoman rule, and do you hear us cry and cry all days obout that! Serbs after end of war in Balkans were hated to the point im surprised that you even have any population...

[@miloskovacevic8912]

@@antoniokralj842 you dont care? Ok, that makes you a trash human being at least you re being open about it.

[@taeril1]

@@miloskovacevic8912 it's interesting how you like to pretend that war in Croatia started in 1995.
Actually war started 1991, over 700 000 Croats and others were ethnically cleansed from these territories, over 7000 thousands killed, of those killed, around 50% were civilians, of those killed civilians, around 50% were women and children.
Yeah, Croatia had right to fight for freedom and and foreign occupation of its territory as to enable Croatian refugees to return to their homes.
Do you celebrate end of ottoman empire occupation of Serbian lands? Also mass exodus of all Muslim people occurred at that time, but they didn't go alone as was case in Croatia in 1995, they were forced to leave, and many of them were Serbs as well. Or you cry because your good ottoman liberators left you alone?

[@taeril1]

@Anonymous Bosch yeah of course, 700,000 Serbs killed in one place.
Similar like Serbian president who often says that 20 members of his family was killed in Jasenovac.
So I googled about it, I've seen some guy, from his previous fascist radical party, claimed in a book that only one member of Vučić family died in ww2 in bar fight.
But of course, this might as well be typical fascist propaganda, directed against Vučić because he left this party. So I looked further and found article about this book, where they by name list members of Vučić family died in a ww2, and there they list by name Vučić family members, forgot the exact number but rather big number, now I can't know if they are all related to Vučić in reality as this might as well be Vučić propaganda directed to clean him off his ex fascist party propaganda.
Any way, there they state that only one of those, they claim is from Vučić family died in concentration camp, and even that was not Jasenovac but Jadovno.
Further, in Yugoslavia when they were counting all the people died in Yugoslavia during Nazi occupation, they come up with number of 692,000 for whole of Yugoslavia, and they put anyone on this list, even those who Communist slaughtered after the war through out the Yugoslavia. As they wanted to have this number as high as possible, as they used it to ask for compensation from Germany, after the war.
And there you have got this number of 700,000 people Serbs killed in Jasenovac, of course, even this number was to little for Serbian nationalists, so they as well claim 1.5 million and more.
Similar like they inflate number of killed Serbs during NATO action against Serbia, where in Serbia they regularly claim that 2000-4000 Serbs were killed, while real number, based on research done in Serbia is around 900 people, from that around 200 were Albanian civilians and anther 200 Serbian civilians.
But that's just standard Serbian Nazi propaganda, similar like during surrounded Sarajevo during last war, where Bosnian (yeah Bosnian, but in Serbia you are still denying Bosnians existence and call them Muslims instead, trying to bandwagon on anti Muslim propaganda, like you often do in other caresses as well, like in ww2 you bandwagoned on Holocaust wagon and using this to claim that Serbs were also victims of Holocaust in ww2, even though Serbs were actively carrying out destruction of Jews in Serbia as well). Any way, as said before, in surrounded Sarajevo, where Serb Nazis were regularly killing Bosnians on streets, marketplaces and in homes Bosnians, often kids with snipers, 1600 of l kids just in Sarajevo. During this time in Serbia on national television you were running news about Turks in Sarajevo feeding lions in a Zoo with Serbian children.
Typical Nazi propaganda, which you like so much, as Serbian royal family liked Hitler and his ideas so much, and especially they liked to photoshoot with Hitler as well

[@miltonmiles6324]

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.

[@nepoznatinetko7210]

Well, judging by what James said in the video, we in Croatia were wrong to reclaim our country and were better to end up like Bosnia - fully unfunctional and with 500 000 radical Serbs blocking any progress and holding rampant hate towards us.

[@bilic8094]

@@petarjovanovic1481 my brother went to montenegro and crossed in croatia for one day and they smashed his car in because it had belgrade plates but the funny thing was it wasn't even his car it was a rental that he picked up at the airport.

[@Max-cr8wp]

@Black Siberian Army That’s major cap since NATO bombed Republika Srpska positions and by journalists words, weapons Croatia used were from East Germany given to them by NATO and EU

[@joekerr9197]

Actually Croatian army crossed over in Bosnia-Herzegovina where they continued in the cooperation with the Bosnian forces (Croats and Bosniaks) and continued on in the "Operation Maestral" which was ultimately stopped on the intervention of the US and NATO. That military operation was going so well that it would almost certainly crush the Serbian resistance in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Instead the US and NATO stopped it, creating the current status quo resulting in the current shitshow that is modern-day Bosnia-Herzegovina.

[@tomislavb5760]

@@Max-cr8wp Wrong Nato attacked Udbina Air base earlier in 1995 but most of that damage was repaired and Udbina was fully operational again by August 1995. The only other NATO attack was on a surface to air radar system which was targeting/tracking NATO aircraft sometime in late July.
Oluja (Storm) was a well organised and successful military operation conducted over 3 days. Sucked that it had to happen but for Croatia it was necessary.

[@mariocavlovicak3220]

So-called Krajina (vojna krajina)was never Serbian territory matter fact Knin Was once capital City of Croatia

[@JamesKerLindsay]

It is not a matter of whether it was ever 'Serbian' territory. I don't believe that territory intrinsically belongs to one nation or another. In fact, I think this belief stands at the heart of many of the conflicts we see today.
Put another way, Kosovo was once the heart of Medieval Serbia. Do you believe that Serbia has a right to that territory over the wishes of the vast majority of its inhabitants? And do you believe that it had the right to ethnically cleanse those inhabitants, who had tried to secede, in order to claim back this historic territory?

[@northernstar4811]

@altin kamberi You are right in the sense that in 1389 AD Kosovo was not part of "Moravian Serbia" or under the control of Prince Lazar of Serbia.

[@kategoried7501]

@@JamesKerLindsay can you give us a proof that Kosovo was the "heart" of "medieval serbia"?

[@altinkamberi4395]

@@kategoried7501 History seems to say otherwise.
In Illyria and Bulgarian empire Kosovo was named DARDANIA since 4th century (note that slavs didn't migrate in balkans till 7th century)
A term that albanians in Kosovo still identify with, there is no evidence of Kosovo being serbian. Albanians churched abonded after islamic spread were destroyed and those same building stones used to build serb monastiries.

[@nemanja162]

@@altinkamberi4395 albanians arent illyrian or dardanian. There is no proof for the rubbish you are spouting here 😂

[@matemasklin8434]

Serbs were not forced out by Croat forces. They were evacuated by their own leadership.

[@JamesKerLindsay]

Do you really believe that?

[@OkOk1100]

do you remember what happened in that same region 50 years prior? Jasenovac?
Do you think that maybe had something to do with the fleeing civilians?

[@matemasklin8434]

@@JamesKerLindsay Why have you erased my response where I quoted ICTY court and gave a link to it?
I presented objective evidence where it is clear that evacuation of the Serbian population was planned and executed by their leadership. Mr. Martic gave that order personally. Since you're erasing comments that do not fit your narrow view, I shall stop discussing this matter here.

[@nekilik921]

@@OkOk1100 their problem

[@OkOk1100]

@@nekilik921 ok ust@sa nazi fascist

[@kristijangrgic9841]

What is not mention here but should be is Srebrenica. There was another Muslim pocket at Bihać and Serb forces were preparing to take it. There was a fear in international community that another but much greater Srebrenica would happen. Plus anger at Serbs for massacre at Srebrenica which was under UN protection and dissarmed by UN. This is why Croatia received political "green" light from Western powers for Operation Storm and Flash.

[@Tony_Soprano41]

Hi profesor. One thing you point out out through whole clip is that Serbs were forced out from their homes. That is simply not true and here is why. In weeks before Storm began, Serbian Krajina leaders and military officials were having drills and tests about quick evacuation in case of an attack from Croatia. They did that because they (Serbs) were feared of retaliation against civilians because they did that to all Croatian population in towns and villages occupied in 1991. So they prepared for this scenario in their minds weeks before Storm started. As I understand that they did that to minimize casaulties, they also had a choice given by Croatian government to stay and to accept peacefully Croatian army and police and with that to accept fully integration into Republic of Croatia. Most of them refused and set to journey BY THEMSELVES with all kinds of vehicles, mostly tracktors. So Serbs choose to flee and to leave the country. Nobody forced them out.

[@nashbridges-cu6dy]

Serbs didn't trust to croats couse of nazzi croatian genocide in ww2 thats the main point of everything.

[@milanlabus1582]

explain why a quarter million people would flee their homes to go sleep on the street and in refugee tents?

[@Tony_Soprano41]

@@milanlabus1582 Fear of retaliation. Serbs were thinking that Croats will do to them same as it was back in 1991 when Serbs commited massacre through whole Croata, from Vukovar all the way down to Dubrovnik.

[@milanlabus1582]

@@Tony_Soprano41 and were they right to think this or not?

[@Tony_Soprano41]

@@milanlabus1582 If you are not wrong about some crime, then you dont have to worry about anything. Many Serbs stayed and nothing happened to them. Most of them went to Serbia, some of them drivven with fear, but many of them with knowing they are war criminals

[@bv9078]

thanks for this interesting video, although you missed one important fact called Plan Z4.
Take a deep dive into this and you should see some more background because this is the backbone of the events happening in '95.

[@fenix-iw4mg]

Very superficial analysis. You did not mention that before Operation Storm the Croatian Serbs were offered plan z4 hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Z-4 , which offered the Serbs the antithesis of autonomy. That plan offered the Serbs a "state within a state", which the Serbs rejected, because the Serbs only wanted Greater Serbia hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velika_Srbija.
Likewise, it cannot be compared to the way in which the Serbs occupied Croatia in 91, where they shelled civilian targets including hospitals and churches, etc., in contrast to Oluja, where only military targets were attacked. Likewise, the Serbs did not have a plan to just occupy a part of Croatia with a Serbian population, but attacked cities where Croats were in large majority (Zagreb, Zadar, Šibenik, Dubrovnik)
Just for comparison, all Croatian churches were demolished during the so-called Krajina, while after the storm all churches remained intact and the Croatian army guarded them so that no one would damage the churches. Compare the battle for Vukovar and the liberation of Knin and everything will be clear to you. After the occupation of Vukovar, the Serbs killed all the wounded from the hospital in Ovčara.
Slobodan Milošević had a plan for evicted Serbs from Croatia to settle in Kosovo, that is why the order came to evacuate the Serbs during the Storm.
After the end of the Storm, there were a number of crimes (murders) committed by individual Croats, as well as house robberies, but there were no planned mass murders committed by Croats.
After 2000, Croatia worked to return Serbs to Croatia, where a large number of Serbian houses were rebuilt. Today, Serbs have great rights in Croatia, so they are in coalition with Croatian governments.
I think you should make a new video where you explain everything in more detail.
Could you please make a video about the siege of Vukovar.

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

It can be directly compared to Croatian Army's activities in regions of Central Bosnia and Herzegovina, where it engaged in the same atrocities against towns where Bosnian Muslims were a majority, including Gornji Vakuf, Prozor and Mostar.

[@lavordavor7738]

Very disapointed with this analisis and James in general, ignoring fact that more then 300k croats where expeled from krajina, ignoring dosent of media and gov. Recordings encuriging people to leave while croatia was droping fliers from airplines telling them there is nothing to amd ignoring example of prior operation bljesak where serbs lost badly, no crimes where done and all who came back where not harmed, very superficial, it was our country that was attacked and ocupied, our people in concetrstin camps, we where excecuted, raped, kidnaped and our town bombed with forbiden caset munition while we did nothing that constition did allow us to do. Somehow after all peace offers we are judged on liberating teritory and homes of 300k croats from entity that was terorist state. Easiest unsub

[@stef562]

Propala mu velika Srbija pa sad malo ljut.

[@joeblack5393]

Im just surprised that you failed to mention the trading that was going on in regards to Bosnia - brokered both by US and UK+France. The Serb self-proclaimed states failed and were defeated because they refused to agree to what Milsevic was telling them (and then as a consequence he denied them any help) and Croatia received card blanche to reintegrate these regions, in exchange for forcing Croatians in Bosnia to integrate with Muslim majority (which was led to their present day status of pretty much being irrelevant and heading toward disappearing).
Essentially Croatia was just a brief side show in what would develop later in Bosnia.

[@joeblack5393]

@@markojuric4954 Huh? What are you even talking about?

[@markojuric4954]

@@joeblack5393 Self-proclaimed state by Bosnian Serbs was an answer to the overvoting by Muslims and Croats at the referendum at the beginning of the year 1992. Is that okay for you?

[@joeblack5393]

@@markojuric4954 Yes, i am aware of the history.

[@user-pn7jz9vr2z]

@@joeblack5393 and, tell me, why should Serbs not have a right now to hold a referendum in RS

[@joeblack5393]

@@user-pn7jz9vr2z Referendum is a basic democratic right, so i cant see any argument why they shouldnt have a right to referendum.

[@luxembourgishempire2826]

Heck yeah loving these videos James.

[@nativetorontonian]

U beat me! Haha

[@JamesKerLindsay]

Thanks. By the way, is the sound OK at your end. Someone else said it came across as low.

[@luxembourgishempire2826]

@@JamesKerLindsay Sounds ok to me James. Keep up the good work! Perhaps a video FINALLY on South America?
Still no video on it? (This isn't a bash on you just a reminder)

[@JamesKerLindsay]

Thanks. I certainly haven’t forgotten! This was one that I had wanted to do for ages. As I mentioned, I have some South and Central America ideas lined up.

[@nativetorontonian]

@@JamesKerLindsay like why French Guinea is still Part of France, & wasn't forced to break away during the end of colonialism after WW2

[@mmajst0r]

Thank you for trying to sintetize the events objectively. You didn't take any side, but tried to explain what happened. You just failed to show the role and responsibility of great powers in these conflicts. Now it seems that this is just some balkan thing, but it actually is not...

[@markokrompic]

I Totally agree.

[@geoeconomics5629]

Great powers started this whole mess in Yugoslavia

[@redknight4805]

Only problem with this is is that sometimes not taking any sides is the furthest thing from the truth.

[@geoeconomics5629]

There is no NEUTRAL
you are with us or against us

[@redknight4805]

@@geoeconomics5629 Well, I wouldnt go that far. All I am saying is that being neutral and not taking sides is sometimes neither objective nor in the service of truth. For example, if I said that all sides during WW2 commited atrocities and that therefore we shouldnt be taking sides in a war... I bet that from a typical "fence sitter" perspective this would sound like an "objective" and "neutral" argument. From my perspective, it would be neither neutral nor objective.

[@grigorijefimovic1087]

I believe that question was already answered by an international court of law. Here is a short answer: yes.

[@nashbridges-cu6dy]

Yeah but people are not stupid, only idiot doesn't see what actually happens there..

[@grigorijefimovic1087]

@@nashbridges-cu6dy you mean only a serb doesn't see?
In '91 they banished a million and more croatians from their own land then proceeded to bomb our cities and terrorize our people for 4 years until 95 during which period many cities and towns were destroyed, and for the lucky people this only meant running to the shelter almost daily during the serbian air attacks. Lucky ones lost nobody, not even a limb, they just endured psychological torture for 5 years.
So, in '95 serbs definitely had it coming.
Serbs don't know that, they think we did something wrong to them, how dare we destroy their bombs with our cities.
If serbs who lived here for centuries as they say were ready to respect this country, then i would say let them all come back and let this country treat them good so it never occurs to them to betray their brothers croatians again. But im afraid serbs haven't learned, looks like they became more agressive even.

[@asterixx6878]

I would be lying if I said that Croats in general became 'sad' when the Serbs left Croatia in 1995. In fact, it was completely unexpected that so many of them chose to leave Croatia. But, no one forced them to leave their homes.
The Serbs themselves chose to leave Croatia, partly because their leaders had brainwashed them and partly because they were afraid of being prosecuted for the war crimes that many, many of them had committed.
Do not forget that all non-Serbs were killed or expelled from 'krajina', as early as 1991. In retrospect, it is understood that the Serbs did not want to meet those they had expelled, terrorized and humiliated.
For those who are interested, there are many videos on youtube, where you can see how the Serbs plan to leave Croatia, long before operation Storm.

[@asterixx6878]

@CRAM MARC I guess this this is one of the most telling clips. The clip was used in The Hague as proof that the Serbs were planning to leave Croatia in the event of the fall of their quasi-republic.
th-cam.com/video/UYjh3aAvczc/w-d-xo.html

[@daniel72122]

@CRAM MARC th-cam.com/video/LKJfdWfgNjA/w-d-xo.html
Most detailed presentation you will ever find with an abundance of visual and audio evidence.

[@ginaz1622]

Yes nothing to do with our homes being burnt and family killed. My grandma and other old people in the village executed. Yes we choose

[@daniel72122]

@@ginaz1622 I'm sorry individual soldiers commited crimes in the aftermath of the operation in retaliation for their family and friends being savagely murdered. I am honestly sorry. But do no equate individual crimes with systemic war crimes from Serbian political elite

[@ginaz1622]

@@daniel72122 Individual, this happened systematically from one Serb village to the next. If you look on Google maps you will see thousands of burnt houses still where the Serbs once lived. Half my mums village was killed and they are still in mass burials if we could at least have the remains returned it would help with the healing process. In the village I lived in our neighbours were shot on the street by the Croatian army. The only reason I am alive and the rest of the village survived was because the people from the Croatian village next to ours came and intevened and stopped them from killing us all. I have no hate for normal Croatian people and have many Croatian friends in Australia. However brushing the crimes committed against the Serb community as propaganda or as random acts of violence will never enable the region to heal.

[@markopinteric]

This is a very nice review, but I think two important points have been overlooked.
First, in 1995 the international community brokered a peace agreement, the so-called Z-4 plan, which provided for the reintegration of Serb-occupied territories and self-government. Although the Croatian leadership was already seeking military reintegration, they accepted the plan to retain Western support in the hope that the Serbs would reject it. And just as they had hoped, the Serbs (once again) overplayed their hand and after Serbian rejection of the plan Croatia was given the green light to proceed with the operation.
Second, it should be noted that the evacuation of Serb civilians from Croatia had been organised by the Croatian Serb leadership itself and planned long before the Croatian military operation. The Serb civilian population was afraid of Croatian retaliation after reintegration and was willing to evacuate. It could be argued that this was done to forestall Croat atrocities, but this made it much more difficult to prove that the ethnic cleansing was part of a premeditated plan by the Croat leadership.
(Disclaimer: all my comments on TH-cam are temporary and I withhold the right to delete them without notice)

[@markopinteric]

If I may add a more personal comment, the Croatian army seems to be laser focused to achieve military objectives rather than taking revenge on Serbian civilians. This is the real reason why the military operation was so successful. If you focus too much on civilians (as the Russians are doing now in Ukraine), you will do much worse on the battlefield. This is an important lesson for all future wars.

[@perperius4714]

Croatia never really accepted Plan Z4.

[@markopinteric]

@@perperius4714 How can you not really accept the plan? Either you accept it or not. By the way, read Wiki: "Tuđman accepted the plan (which Croatia considered unacceptable) as a base for negotiations with the RSK,[32] hoping that they would dismiss it."

[@markopinteric]

@@perperius4714 You either accept the plan or not. Wikipedia: "Tuđman accepted the plan (which Croatia considered unacceptable) as a base for negotiations with the RSK,[32] hoping that they would dismiss it.[15]"

[@perperius4714]

@@markopinteric
Tuđman said they accepted plan "as start point of negotiations", but Tuđman said to his generals and officials that Croatia will never accept this or similiar plan. Croatian parliament later rejected the plan after constitutional Court marked plan as "incompatible". Tuđman's secretary Vesna Škare Ožbolt said that plan also politicialy absolutely unacceptable.

[@zlatkoroncevic100]

what is worse is to attack another country and occupy its territory or for it to regain its territory

[@DJKureX]

CROATIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@theconqueringram5295]

The war left deep scars in the region.

[@JamesKerLindsay]

Thanks. Indeed. This is why I wanted to make the video. I’ve seen how the discussion over Operation Storm has become more and more polarised with the passing years. And this is coming out clearly in the comments. It would seem that the younger generations of Serbs and Croats - remembering that anyone under 40 probably doesn’t have a clear memory of events - are being brought up with a very particular account of events that sets it in very specific national terms.

[@faetont]

@@JamesKerLindsay I was contemporary of those events, and after 30 years I don’t even bother reading comments from Croatia or Serbia on those events, because those are the same old comments put on repeat button. What you have just said is very true, paradoxically with passage of time the memories of war are now closer than like 20 years ago when everyone was tired of war and war stories.

[@user-xj3ve7wt8k]

@@faetont 30 years is not a lot of time. How can you forget that your whole family was executed in front of the doorstep only because they were Croats ? For no other reason. Yes, it is easy for foreigners to speak about the "current situation" in the Balkans, where the rest of Europe has not had a war on its soil since the time of WW2. Generations and generations of people who lived in peace...but they want to sell something they do not understand.

[@mirkovukovic4156]

@@user-xj3ve7wt8k why are you talking only about serbian crimes, tell something abouth croatian crimes.. in 1991 many serbian people didnt forget about croatian crimes in ww2.. that is problem, you hawe Ante Pavelic on your wall and you are talking how serbian people are horrible.. we are all the same in war, we all make crimes an that is priblem

[@nikator160]

@@mirkovukovic4156 nor did Croats, especially government.. they are still bringing it back all the time

[@vordag]

James, your video is biased favoring serbian side ... you can see that in comment section

[@JamesKerLindsay]

Sorry. Not true. I am absolutely clear on what Serbia did. I focus explicitly on the crimes committed by Serbia. It is not biased to point out that Croatia also committed an act that has widely been seen to amount to ethnic cleansing. It is a statement of a reality that Croatia would prefer the world to forget. And it is important to recognise that while Croatia complained that Serbs were attempting to break away illegally, it supported a similar such effort in neighbouring Bosnia. By the way, if you think I’m pro-Serb you might want to take it up with the Serbs who accuse me of anti-Serb bias in my videos on Bosnia and Kosovo. I’ve been working on the region long enough to understand that things aren’t as black and white as people from the region would like outsiders to think it is.

[@LMisetic]

@@JamesKerLindsay Operation Storm is also "widely seen" not to be ethnic cleansing, and this view has been affirmed by an independent UN Tribunal, unlike the claims of those who "widely see" Operation Storm as ethnic cleansing. One would expect an academic who wishes to challenge the conclusions of a UN Tribunal to sift through the competing narratives and arrive at his own independent assessment based on the evidence.

[@JamesKerLindsay]

@@LMisetic Thanks Luka. I have been meaning to respond to your other messages. There is a legal perspective and there is a political one. Now, if I’m right, there isn’t a formal crime of ethnic cleansing in international law? To be sure, there are formal definitions of crimes that we would generally term ethnic cleansing, but ethnic cleansing is not a legal term in its own right. It was a term invented by policy analysts and political observers. It therefore falls under a rather different threshold - maybe best thought of as a the ‘walks like a duck’ criterion. And on this one, there is a general view that what happened was ethnic cleansing. Just as we could say that Serbia didn’t formally commit genocide in Bosnia under the strict letter of the law, it is widely accepted that it did in fact do so by political observers.
But on Croatia’s acts under Storm, I suggest you take this up with Carl Bildt, perhaps the most seasoned European political figure when it comes to the Balkans. After all, he was the first HR to Bosnia in 1995. In his recent ECFR piece he explicitly called Operation Storm ‘ethnic cleansing’. If he can use it, I think it is fair to say that this can now be considered a widely held view. As he states:
“Summer 1995 became the most intense period of the war since its initial months in 1992. There was the sense that this was likely to be the last summer of fighting: everyone was exhausted and keen to secure territory before the war came to an end. We saw an ultimately unsuccessful Bosnian Muslim effort to break the siege of Sarajevo; the Bosnian Serb capture of Srebrenica and the genocide that followed; the Croat Operation Storm offensive, which produced the single largest act of ethnic cleansing of the war; and, eventually, the subsequent offensive against the Bosnian Serbs in Western Bosnia.”
ecfr.eu/publication/bosnia-to-war-to-dayton-and-to-its-slow-peace/

[@LMisetic]

@@JamesKerLindsay James, ethnic cleansing was a term defined by the Security Council's Commission of Experts, which concluded in 1994 that ethnic cleansing is "contrary to international law," because it must be committed by acts that violate international law. Accordingly, your attempt to escape the lawfulness of Operation Storm, both from a jus ad bellum and jus in bello perspective, by claiming that you are using "ethnic cleansing" as a "political" term, is simply untenable. You can find the report of the Commission of Experts here: undocs.org/S/25274, see page 16, paragraphs 55-57.
As for your reliance on Carl Bildt as proof of a "widely held" view, I will say charitably that this is not a serious scholarly analysis. I doubt you would accept in a Ph.D dissertation this one sentence from a book by politician Bildt as proof of a "widely held view", particularly where you can find multiple other diplomats who hold the exact opposite view, including former US Ambassador Peter Galbraith, who expressly has stated that Operation Storm was not ethnic cleansing. And particularly where Bildt's view is directly refuted by a judgment of a UN Tribunal. (By the way, I tried to call Bildt to testify as a defense witness in the Gotovina case, he refused).
In summary: ethnic cleansing requires proof of a violation of international law, and you cannot establish that Croatia intended to expel Serbs in violation of international law, nor that 200,000 to 250,000 Serbs were expelled in violation of international law. Regards, Luka

[@JamesKerLindsay]

Thanks. Indeed, on its own, I wouldn’t accept the view of one person. But we need to accept his stature and direct experience when making an assessment. Interestingly, I’m also reading George Packer’s biography of Richard Holbrooke. He also uses the term. And I was clear to say widely held, not generally held. But it depends what your view of ‘widely’ held is.

[@northernstar4811]

The Serbian warlord Arkan ( real name: Željko Ražnatović) took some Serb soldiers fleeing from the Croatian army`s "Operation Storm" and locked them up in dog cages, tied them up in chains and made them bark like dogs as a form of punishment for running away. If the Croats had done something like this to the Serbs you would never hear the end of it.

[@ukilectric]

This type of mentality is problematic, because it is entirely based on whataboutism. Regardless of the fact that Serbia (like any other country, really) has criminals within its borders doesn't in any way, shape or form justify or reduce the abhorrent, immoral and borderline sadistic behaviour of the Croatian forces.

[@northernstar4811]

@@ukilectric The Croatian army secured Croatia`s international recognised borders with Bosnia and Herzegovina which had been under Serbian control.
The Serbian terrorists who had occupied parts of Croatia fled along with many Serbs civilians. The Serbs fled not because of the Croatian Army but because they were ordered to by the Serb leadership, a signed Serbian order exists. There are even videos on YT showed the Serbians practising a withdrawal before "Operation Storm" started.
The other reason was that many Serbs didn`t want to hang around to face their former Croat neighbours (160,000 + persons) who had been ethnically cleansed from their homes in 1991 by their Serb neighbours. The Serbs knew the Croats would find their houses looted and burnt out.
Many of the Serbs had looted their Croat neighbours houses and in some cases beaten or murdered their family members. During the Serbian occupation of parts of Croatia from 1992 to 1995 over 900 mainly elderly Croats who had remained behind in their homes had been murdered by the Serbs even with the U.N stationed nearby.

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

The Serbian warlord Arkan was in Croatia's custody, yet released. Interesting.

[@fmacroatia1741]

Totally legitimate
Totally lawful
Totally legal
Dear James dont be sad

[@Courageous39]

Total ethnic cleansing. From 12% to 3%. Second time in fifty years, 1941-1945 and 1991-1995.

[@rexgamer8201]

@@Courageous39 🚜

[@fmacroatia1741]

@@Courageous39 they wanted to live in one country.. so we pushed that aim a bit.

[@bvonm9557]

Answer is : NO

[@HZV1492]

What you mean no? we tried to make peace with them and they said no so thats why we took our land back 💀

[@engkozino9470]

Give it up. Croatia defended Croatia went on offense. Game over Croatia won.

[@Dislociran]

Good for you. Hope you got everything you wanted.

[@petarticinovic2710]

@@Dislociran We got rid of what we didn't want.😁

[@YourD3estinY]

@@petarticinovic2710 And they mostly went on their own, even though individual crimes were committed following the offensive (i.e. after most Serbs have left or were already on the move). A threat to Croatian statehood, a fifth column that (luckily) eliminated itself, by leaving for Serbia or Republika Srpska.

[@dariobotkuljak9673]

This is partially misinforming. Prior to operation Storm, Serbs were offered a major authonomy within Croatia, which they refused to accept

[@12123188]

Don't forget to mention that autonomy was offered only for around the half of the territory inhabitated by a Serb majority.

[@BeogradskiKrajisnik]

@@12123188 Plus the Croats openly admitted that even if the Serbs did accept it, they would not, and that the operation might not have happened in august but perhaps in november, december or the following year.

[@boombang857]

Knowing what you guys did in the WWII and how unreliable you are, no wonder they refused. Not to mention the historical context you always tend to ignore. WWI, look up what was offered to Serbia and Italy.

[@dariobotkuljak9673]

@@boombang857 so, alleged crimes during WWII could be used as a justification for any present or future decisions, including war crimes?

[@boombang857]

@@dariobotkuljak9673 Of course not, there's no justification for war crimes! But, it would be irresponsible to ignore historical reality and political narratives. Croatia's path to independence had many fascistic elements to it. This is undeniable. That plus the historical context I mentioned = carnage. Also, these are not "alleged crimes", and it's disgusting to even suggest it.

[@psychic_beth]

I recently found this channel and I'm loving it so far. I'm currently studying a master's in economics with a specific interest in international development economics, so a lot of IR issues are very interesting to me as a result.
I've been looking for more academic content creators in this field that actually know what they're talking about, since there's so many channels that just spout opinions with not much behind them, in a very "layperson" style, which isn't necessarily bad but there's a lot of bad takes.

[@JamesKerLindsay]

Thank you so much Bethany! I am so pleased you found the channel and find it useful. Part of the reason I started it was because I remember being in the same position when I was doing my master’s in IR. I was always really interested in case studies and applied ideas. But there wasn’t a lot out there then that provided a crossover. It’s therefore so nice to hear that the videos are appealing to the next generation of students and practitioners!Good luck with the studies! And do let me know if there are any topics you would like to see me cover. I’m always really keen to hear suggestions.

[@psychic_beth]

@@JamesKerLindsay Cheers, thank you!
I would love to see a video (or maybe more than one) about some of the UN's organisations (e.g. IMF, UNHCR, World Bank), how they work, and why they are important (especially with the resurgence in isolationist sentiment under Trump during his presidency)

[@JamesKerLindsay]

@@psychic_beth Thanks again Bethany. Great suggestions! A few others have asked me to look at international organisations. Let me see what I can do.

[@mariocavlovicak3220]

This is nothing but a bullshit propaganda it's not true it is a lie made up by Serbia

[@stevie6621]

@@mariocavlovicak3220 What's a lie? "oluja" was a crime of ethnic cleansing plain and simple.

[@anirudhparthasarathy3387]

I love the new graphics on your videos. It gives a much larger picture as to all the events during the 90s whereas as a reader based outside, most of the news is focused on Milošević and Serbian transgressions.

[@JamesKerLindsay]

Thank you so much. Fortunately, there was some really great footage readily available for this video. And I really enjoyed editing it in. I think it does make a big difference. Sadly, I won’t be able to do this on every video. Sometimes there just isn’t footage available. At other times it is just too expensive to obtain. But I will try to do it more. And your support helps a lot! :-)
Have a great weekend!

[@smuggler4982]

Milosevic and Serbs? after 30y same lies,same story,same CNN globalists BS...First Operation Storm was made by US army-retired military generals and former US secret service officers, Blackwater and others ... because the US government allegedly did not dare to interfere in the war, Croats were only infantry, and Serbs in Krajina were betrayed by the political leadership of Serbia, under threat from the West, by bombing..What happened in the end in the 99th.-because of innocent Albanians 😂 That is the whole story about which some nations, created in 1995 as a former communist project, today celebrate and make hymns about it ...😁👏🏻🤫 but situation in the world is changing,,soon there will be time for pay back...we will liberate the occupied Serbian territories, because there will be no globalist dads to keep their poodles, the same Hitler poodles from ww2, they will not be left stone on stone, I guarantee you that ...☦️🇷🇸💂🏻‍♂️💂🏻‍♂️💂🏻‍♂️🏴‍☠️

[@JamesKerLindsay]

@@smuggler4982 A lot of random words from someone I guessing wasn’t even born at the time. People (Serbs) I know and am close to suffered a lot during the Yugoslav wars. Talk of reclaiming lost territory is nonsense. This sort of thinking helped cause the fighting in the 1990s. And no one I know who actually lived through it wants to go back to it!

[@smuggler4982]

James-Im war veteran from kosovo war 99..yes i was to young for croatia,bosnia but i still remeber very well of everything,expecial agresion on yugoslavia and hell we going thru on ground but still menage to hold on...all bcs western lies...so bro dont give lessions pls

[@JamesKerLindsay]

@@smuggler4982 Sorry. Not buying it. ‘Bro’ is certainly not the language I’d expect from a 40-something Serb. :-) (Indeed. The whole tone is wrong. And I say that as someone who knows Serbia extremely well. In all my years spent there, I have never come across someone who uses language like this. If you’re going to pretend to be middle aged Serb try to sound like one!)

[@ogaduby]

Yugoslavia was formed, among others, by REPUBLIC of Croatia... Yugoslavia was a Federal Republic, comprised of 6 (socialist) republics. Croatia was a country on its own, with a kingdom of its own, through history intertwined with others and just like Slovenia had a legal right to secede from Yugoslavia and more so, break away from communism.
No Croatian (nor Bosnian) soldier every set a foot inside Serbian territory. Never, not a single one (during Yugoslav wars). And after 4 years of conflict, one develops a pure hatred towards other side and when Storm was afoot and all those soldiers were, basically "let loose", like it often happens in wars, "shits happen".
Were crimes committed? For sure... Can you blame the whole country and bring the whole LEGITIMATE (justifiably called liberation) operation into question? Absolutely not!
Just like Russians now in Ukraine, Serb armed forces had NO BUSINESS inside Croatia nor Bosnia... Serbs started BOTH wars in Croatia and Bosnia, and ones in Kosovo and even in Slovenia... Civilians should never suffer but war is hell. Serbs started it. Croatians had every right to defend themselves. Operation Storm is a justified, legitimate VICTORIUS operation that ENDED a 4 year long war in my country. SLAVA HEROJIMA!
And Slava Ukrajini too - they're going through same hell as Croatia did, most likely worse. They ALL hate and despise Russian soldiers on their soil.. ALL OF THEM. Lots of crimes will happen there too, but ALL Ukrainian operations are legitimate. And Honorable!
Peace!

[@NikolaM123]

Ok ustashe

[@boombang857]

Croatia was never a country on its own. I will re-use my statement from a different post:
It was a civil war, Croatia never existed as a sovereign nation (unless you believe that the NDH was a legitimate country). Only Serbia and Montenegro did. You illegally tried to secede, every sovereign nation would protect its integrity. If you gave the Serbs the same right to self-determination it probably wouldn't escalate the way it did. The problem was your fascistic leaders did not just want independence, but a country without Serbs. And you got away with ethnic cleansing, both in the WWII and during this shameful operation.
Serbs are to blame as well, no question about that, but this picture you are trying to paint is so oversimplified and illegitimate, it's actually scary. I just hope that this nonsense isn't taught in your schools (probably it is).

[@urvanhroboatos8044]

This is how it all started.
Serbs constituted c. 36% of population in 1990. Strong Serbianization of JNA had begun in 1987 (they’d been preparing for their greater Serbian adventures); there are texts in Croatian, but most people would not understand, so you can find it by Googling the title:
How Aggression Against Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina Was Prepared or the Transformation of the JNA into a Serbian Imperial Force Domazet Lošo
Federal Yugoslav Army/JNA had been financed by all Yugoslav republics (Serbia plus Montenegro 36%, Croatia 28%, Slovenia 19%,..). So, Serbs literally “stole” all these planes, tanks, ships, rockets, guns, howitzers, … and, via their fifth column, Croatian Serbs, embarked upon their provincial imperial expansion: they wanted to occupy the entire Bosnia and Herzegovina & ca. 70% of Croatia. This was a combined aggression: Serbia proper + Montenegro +JNA + Croatian, later Bosnian Serbs.
Had they not possessed/stolen all others’ arms, there would have been no war.
Croatia did try, during 1990 & early 1991, to import as many arms as possible for her police (there was a legal loophole), but she was prevented by Serbian-Yugoslav authorities, as well as European countries & US, which gave green light to Serbs to finish off the job of occupying Croatia (Slovenia was let free to go). UN resolution 713 on “arms embargo” was actually the encouragement of greater Serbia forces, who took JNA under its control, to occupy Croatia & most of the rest of Yugoslavia-except Slovenia.
To paraphrase FDR- this day will live in infamy, at least for Croats and Bosnian Muslims. It was American, European, Soviet, Chinese,… politics, fully supporting 1/3rd of a people of one country to impose terror, ethnic cleansing, dictatorship & eventually mass murder- with their blessing; nay, cooperation.
But- Croats were more resistant then US & EU hoped. NATO strategists calculated that Serbianized JNA would occupy entire Croatia in two weeks; it took her almost 3 months to subdue one city, Vukovar. True, Croatia suffered many losses & lost, until the end of 1991, c. 25% of her territory - but Croats never surrendered. They didn’t succeed to import any significant amount of weapons (only some AKs & a small amount of anti-tank missiles); yet they- against explicit wishes of the US (James Baker, Cyrus Vance,..) succeeded to capture a part of JNA barracks located in Croatia, with a number of tanks, rocket launchers etc. This was perhaps 15-20% of all that was in Croatia (not even remotely close to 28% of all that belonged to the JNA, and which would be fair in a dissolution of a country- but then, there would have been no war.

[@mariomijic7110]

The Croatian president did not organize any meeting on the expulsion of Serbs. At the beginning of 1991 he repeatedly warned them on national radio and television not to listen to Belgrade because they would be manipulated and would lose everything. They laughed because they had the JNA behind them. No one expelled the Serbs, they left because they did not want to live with us and because Slobodan Milosevic wanted to settle them in Kosovo to change the ethnic picture in relation to the Albanians.

[@bilic8094]

It was the biggest ethnic cleansing of one group of people since WW2 you can try to water it down all you want but in the end it was the shelling that drove the people out nobody leaves their homes at free will.

[@bilic8094]

Also here's where tudman says it th-cam.com/video/NvsOIYmW6wU/w-d-xo.html

[@mariomijic7110]

@@bilic8094 I think we call that war. Artillery is part of it and it striked legit points. As I said we have International court decision about it so try to understand altough I know it is difficult. Maybe at home you have Slobodan Milošević picture on the wall so I know it is not easy.

[@JamesKerLindsay]

Sorry, but you are incorrect on both scores. Have you read the transcripts of the ICTY case against Gotovina? The meeting most certainly took place (although the ICJ later said that it didn’t amount to intent fir the purposes of genocide, as Serbia later claimed). And the idea that Croatia put out statements reassuring Serbs is completely and utterly wrong. It did the exact opposite in the run up to the operation. It left no doubt about what was coming and effectively told people to get out as fast as they could. It was only when it started that it tried to say that it would respect their rights. But I don’t suppose many people would have heard that in the midst of shelling. Seriously, I know that this is seen as a moment of national celebration in Croatia. I accept that. And I purposefully presented what the Serbs did. But Croatia also has to accept that this wasn’t the nice, clean operation that the sanitised history in the country presents it as being.

[@JamesKerLindsay]

You do realise the UN Security Council Resolution 1009 explicitly condemned Croatia fir shelling civilian areas. And let’s not forget them at the highly controversial ICTY appeal has been heavily criticised not because it acquitted Gotovina on the grounds that the shelling didn’t happen, but because it disagreed with how the original trial came up with its definition of what constitutes indiscriminate shelling. So, it is in fact wrong to say that international Court judgements have entirely exonerated Croatia on this score. At best, they’ve created an ambiguity that hopefully another Court in another situation won’t ever have to answer!

[@Asamations]

Love the footage you provided James. You're definitely getting better in terms of video making. Sorry I don't really know much about the Balkans so can't really comment on the information's accuracy. But knowing you and your background. (From what I've read) I am sure you know what you're talking about.
Btw did you see 2 days ago border clashes occured between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Armenia has asked Russia to deploy troops to its border with Azerbaijan to keep the peace. Hopefully the ceasefire holds. Anyways keep up the good work!

[@josipivanic6755]

it si southeast Europe and not balkans

[@AP-qs2zf]

@@KGG4 South east Europe

[@mariojanecic183]

"Operation Storm began with a MASSIVE artillery bombardment"!? And you really dared to emphasize the word massive?! Wow!
Well, allow me to illustrate something about massive bombardment for you, professor.
Here you can see Vukovar after the Serbian offensive - th-cam.com/video/Uqxe4qntYXQ/w-d-xo.html
and here is Knin after the Operation Storm - th-cam.com/video/jTak0K_tn9A/w-d-xo.html

[@That_GuyYouTube]

Wonder if Ukraine military is going to do this to ethnic Russians living in East Ukraine.
Clearly Ukrainians and Russians weren’t coexisting well before 2014. I doubt they can share a state together, unless it ends up like Bosnia.

[@avengerpetruss1863]

The Serbs are to blame for the fact that they left the country they were fighting against with tractors, which they destroyed and set on fire, they wanted a great Serbia, now let them enjoy Serbia, it is not something big, but it is theirs,

[@northernstar4811]

@@Tonixxy I thought you only needed one. Look up what genocide means you have no idea.

[@Tonixxy]

@@northernstar4811 Serbs should have split you between themselves and Italians post WW1 and be done with it.

[@northernstar4811]

@@Tonixxy They did.

[@Tonixxy]

@@northernstar4811 how?

[@nekilik921]

@@Tonixxy By giving Istra and Zara to Italy and annexing the rest

[@marinamaras4067]

You forgot to mention AVNOJ (under former Yugoslavia every republic including Croatia had a right to seperate at any time within their defineid borders), and you also forget to mention Z-4 Plan which was offered to Serbs, meaning they would gain autonomy in excange for Croatians to be returned to occupied territores, They refused. Btw, they never had autonomy in Croatia because their population was around 12 procents. You also forgot to mention that operation Storm was after Srebernica, when there was serious treath that another muslim enclave Cazin , Bihać would fall. When operation Storm finished,that particular region was no longer surrounded by Serbian territory. We understand, you want to show that we are all the same, yet Serbs had a war in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, thay had problems in Macedonia, Vojvodina and today in Montenegro (their long standing friends). And that's entire former Yugoslavia for you,my friend.

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

I thought Croats hated AVNOJ, and regarded it as a Serbian imposition? It looks like Croats benefitted from Serb rule in a number of ways Bosniaks and Albanians didn't.

[@jelenajm1160]

I wanted to mention a few things in addtion to the points that you have brought up to illustrate the context in which the Serb minority territories in Croatia can be fully understood. The vast ethnic minority settlements of Serbs in Croatia settled in the regions on modern day croatia between the late 1600's and mid 1730's, during the time of the Ottoman invasion of the southern Balkans where these minorities stayed up until the greater portion of the 19th century after which the Serb populations incrementally reduced, primary as a result of Croatia's successive and repeated ethnic cleansing efforts of it's minority populations.The Serb popuations reduced dramatically in WW2 during which Croatia collabrated with Nazi Germany in ethinc cleansing efforts of Jews, Serbs and Roma out of it's territory. After WW2, Serbs still remained a dominant ethnic minority until the Balkan wars of the early 1990's where the numbers of Serbs reduced yet again. My own Serbian family was expelled out of Croatia as refugess (along with throunds of other Serbian families) in 1992 from the region of Slavonia (a portion of Croatia where there was historically a large documented Serbian population since the 1600 century. I have been able to trace back my own family to Croatia territory back to 1735 through census information.

[@user-jo3tn6cu4n]

fake and lies

[@mrasabaharsa-kq2fn]

Tell us about serbian genocide and ethnic cleansing of bosniak and albanian people in the 1990s
Srebrenica, Prijedor, Foca, Posavina, Sarajevo, Visegrad, Zvornik, Kozarac, Jajce, Bijeljina, Banja Luka, Vukovar, Dubrovnik, Skabrnja etc.
Serbs bunch of hypocratic cry Babys talking about ethnic cleansing while they are genocidal themself and started EVERY WAR in the balkans...

[@hasibhakanovic6682]

​@@mrasabaharsa-kq2fn Don't list Vukovar, Dubrovnik and Srebrenica in the same categories. Vukovar was a battle between armies. A few hundred grenades fell on Dubrovnik, which was rebuilt by 1992. You don't have our permission or any right to talk on our behalf or compare our plight to anybody else's. We also do not want our suffering to be used to absolve the Catholics of guilt for the war.
Serbs expelled Catholics from small areas of impoverished Croatia and did not commit genocide. Catholics, however, began a campaign to occupy Bosniak parts of the Vrbas, Neretva and Lasva valleys and exterminate the Bosniak populations of these areas. So, Croatia is the only country that is an internationally designated aggressor in the former Yugoslavia with its leadership ruled as participants in a JCE in another country.

[@mrasabaharsa-kq2fn]

​@@hasibhakanovic6682 in vukovar there was no croatian army....the 4th strongest army in europe entered the town and did a horrific massacre among civilians, also the completely town was destroyed, and hospitals with children was bombed by serbian and bosniak JNA soliders...again there was no croatian army back then...
In dubrovnik same thing happened, the JNA (serbs, bosniaks and montenegrins) bombed 99% civilians...Not just the old town...
The serbs occupied 30% of croatia and in all These areas croats and other non-serbs (hungarians, czechs, slovaks, germans etc.) were ethnic cleansed, by serbs
About bosnia you were also wrong, serbs attacked bosnia and in just 2 months they Took over 70% of bosnia, then alija izetbegovic begged tudjman for help and croatian army went to bosnia...instead of bosniaks for being thankful...they betrayed croats, and ethnic cleansed 200.000 croats from central bosnia (Vares, zenica, bugojno, travnik, fojnica, jablanica, Konjic etc.) If croats from lasva (vitez, busovaca) amd other placed wouldnt have defend themselfes...they would also be extermianted by bosniak and ISIL-troops or mujahedeen...so the end of the Story croats did the biggest war crime (to save bosniaks from serbs, for example in bihac)...because you are unthankful and supporting serbs who almost exterminated you completely
Also serbs did 92 percent of all war crimes in bosnia and croats only 5 percent

[@nukana-wb9bm]

​@@hasibhakanovic6682 "catholics however, exterminated all of bosniak population in neretva, lasva etc"
Typical islamic taqiyya (lying)...Infact the muslim population in hvo regions (hercegovina, zepce, lasva) is the same as before the war...while croatian population in bugojno, travnik, kakanj, vares, fojnica, konjic TOTALLY disapeared...probably because muslims ethnic cleansed central bosnia from Christian people and were Acting like ISIS in syria

[@ScoopzyDaizy]

Your video, while it attempts to be "objective", simply ignores the circumstances. For 4 years Croatia was torn to pieces, its people tortured and murdered, their houses pillaged and burned at the hand of yesterday's neighbours. The fact that the entire operation was done in 3 days shows that the people that occupied the liberated area were nothing more than well armed (by the JNA) brutes and peasants that preyed upon unarmed / severely under equipped civilian populace whose country and army was under arms embargo, so they had nothing to defend themselves with. The fun for Serbia stopped when ultimately they faced a well equipped and well organized military force, at which point they called it quits and decided to run. The so called "army" of Krajina drove tanks and APC's OVER the convoys of their own people because they were blocking the road to Bosnia. There's literally a video ON TH-cam of squashed civilian vehicles (cars and tractors) and people.
On the other hand, the Croatian defenders of Vukovar held their ground with nothing but automatic rifles and some RPG's to stop and hold at bay the 4th largest military force in Europe at the time for 3 months. Anyone who knows anything about Vukovar knows what happened to the citizens when the city ultimately fell.
If they truly believed Krajina (or any part of Croatia) to be their own they would have stopped at nothing to defend their land till the last bullet, just as Croats did.
I'm also sick and tired of people going "yEs bUt UStaShA iN WW2 diD tHiS aNd ThAT". Yea no shit? Is everyone now Ustaša because they took arms in 91. and decided to defend their country? No. Serbs had more than their share of killing in WW2, often killing their own people, especially the Chetnik regime which was, funnily enough, fascist as well. In no way am I defending the Ustaša regime - fuck every war criminal - I'm just saying what needs to be said.
Did our troops commit crimes in the Homeland ward? Some probably have, but the overwhelming majority left their wives and small children at home to go die in order to secure their futures. That's all that matters, in the end, politics can go to hell.

[@nik1184]

Dear James... The things you're saying don'tmake sense. What do you mean we used military force this and that what were we supposed to do they first took everything from us guns and everythang and attacked us. Then when we group and take their guns its a problem... We were defending ourselves. RSK was never a thing ita what they were sayin(the serbs)
And Bosnians are now also trying to sue us for killings of their people but we fucking saved their hole country with 7 operations clearing up land, we were feeding them, giving them a shelter and everything...
My dad was in the war in every piece of the country... They were rocketing every town, every village every fucking day. And they're the victims. Like what the fuck.
We never wanted war we just wanted to be a Republic.
They took everything and still lost.
And they're trying to sue us.
This shit doesn't make sense.
We never murdered civilians. We shot ehat was shooting at us.
And genocides they did are not talked about half of my fucking familiy is still to this day missing. They commited genocides in Bosnia too. And in my own village. And operation storm was just push not many were killed. I dont umderstand like when we got guns and military vehicles to defend its a problem. What should of we done let them kill us all...

[@user-qn2yf3ok5f]

there are people going thru documents and archives for years and are not willing to talk about things with certainty and authority, then comes british agent of chaos making 12 minutes of youtube video,what and who gives you authority to talk about things u need to spend years of studying?

[@JamesKerLindsay]

Haha! This has to be one of my favourite comments ever. I am a professor of SE European politics who specialises in conflict. I have literally spent decades studying the Western Balkans - including working on documents and doing interviews with protagonists. I have written extensively on the region. It’s all in my profile. www.lse.ac.uk/LSEE-Research-on-South-Eastern-Europe/People/James-Ker-Lindsay Seriously, if you’re going to write silly little criticisms of people’s apparent lack of qualification to comment on an issue perhaps take a just a moment to look at their profile in future? :-)

[@user-qn2yf3ok5f]

@@JamesKerLindsay u can have degrees up the yin yang,situation in balkans is unresolved ,especially in bosnia,things can go downhill wery fast,we need peacemakers not analysts

[@warlok007]

@@user-qn2yf3ok5f ...pro-serb hegemony biased analyst.

[@JeanLucCaptain]

That sounds very arrogant and high handed and frankly ACADEMIC lie I can see it coming from the lecture pulpit. This isn’t some classroom. Peoples lives are at stake and tensions could boil over at anytime as Ukraine and ISREAL has proven.@@JamesKerLindsay

[@mariocroatia9321]

​@@JamesKerLindsay Will you also cover the British role in the Balkan Wars of the 90's?Milosevic said in his trial that he will name British leaders who helped him

[@user-kh6iu3cz6y]

We dont need no foreginer to tell us what happened.U were not there u did not live it so keep your opininions for yourself...

[@Shiljamannn]

Krajna fell because Milosevic and JNA retreated. It was instructed from outside... Milosevic is seen as a traitor because of it among the Krajna Serbs. From a Serbian high rank military source that was active in the 90s, many of the Milosevic's decissions were directly influenced by the Americans and the EU... It was a pklicital agreement it seems.

[@northernstar4811]

"Krajna fell because Milosevic and JNA retreated. "
In 1995 the JNA wasn`t in Croatia, at least officially. They did have some specialists on the payroll ( salary was paid by the Belgrade govt) . Milosevic armed Serbs in Croatia and they collapse after day 1 of "Operation Storm".

[@nekilik921]

It fell beacuse of Croatian army

[@Dislociran]

@@nekilik921 shure

[@themastermarko]

@Dislociran ono kad napises “shure” umjesto sure

[@logikus8638]

@@nekilik921 Literally nobody aside from Croatians believe that. That's like believing Albanians on Kosovo got independence because of their own military might.