storm - Hrvatski memorijalno-dokumentacijski centar Domovinskog ...

169 th mtbr we are again asking you to bring in another unit which will protect this people
together with our TO units. 530 Th ere was no justifi cation for such a view, because Croatian
forces were on the defensive and the JNA in one of the better phases of its war against
Croatia.
Similarly, the combat readiness report of the Knin Corps Command of January 1992
stated that the people of the Krajina were absolutely against the JNA leaving the area: Th e
Serbian people would leave together with the Corps units because they did not trust the UN
peacekeeping force without the JNA in Krajina. 531
A similar case refers to the response of the RSK population and political parties aft er
Operation Flash, as reported by the Security Department of the General Staff of the
Serb Krajina Army to the SVK commander: Th e view prevails among the people that
Western Slavonia was sold out by Serbia and Slobodan Milošević, and that the consequence
of this new situation is a more intensive exodus of the population of this part of Krajina
mainly to the SRJ, that is, Serbia. 532 Aft er that the president of the Krajina Serbs wrote,
in his letter to the President of the Republic of Serbia: Mr. President, the tragedy which
struck the Serbian people by the latest Croatian aggression against Western Slavonia has
grave and incalculable consequences for the solution of the overall Serbian issue. Not only
has territory been lost, not only have hundreds of civilians come to grief; what enhances
anxiety even more in this terrible moment is the widespread popular belief that the Serbian
issue has been betrayed by the very Serbs. Rumours about its surrender are spreading
across the Krajina; people claim in disbelief that we have been forgotten both by Serbia
and by Republika Srpska. In many villages and towns people are packing and preparing to
leave. 533
At the time Milošević was requested to send, on a temporary basis, about two thousand
troops of the Yugoslav Army and the Serbian Ministry of the Interior to garrisons in the
Krajina in order to restore the psychological stability of the population with their presence
and give the rebel Serbs in the RSK time to improve and stabilize the situation. 534 Because
of Operation Flash the RSK Republican Civil Defence Staff ordered the mobilization of
all regional and municipal civil defence units with the following tasks: continuous duty
service; “organized and preparatory measures and actions for the implementation of all
protection and rescue steps with particular focus on securing shelter, evacuation and
relief of the population”; determination of the condition and capability of enterprises
and organizations of interest for protection and rescue. 535
530 VSA MORH: OpŠTO Vojnić, 11 Oct. 1991; Request.
531 HDA, RSK: 9th Corps Command, str. conf. no. 23-34 of 22 Jan. 11992; Report on the Corps’ combat
readiness for 1991.
532 POA: SVK General Staff , Security Dept., str. conf. 33-136 of 5 May 1995; Reactions of the population and
of the political parties to the loss of Western Slavonia.
533 POA: RSK, President of the Republic, 6 April 1995; Request. Th e context obviously demonstrates that the
date is wrong. A letter with the identical contents was also delivered to the SRJ President Zoran Lilić.
534 Ibid.
535 POA: RSK, Republican Civil Defence Staff , no. str. conf. 01-44/95 of 1 May 1995; Order.
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