storm - Hrvatski memorijalno-dokumentacijski centar Domovinskog ...

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CONCLUSION
There have been quite a few speculations about the political background of Operation Storm.
Th e criminal conduct of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Serb army in the Srebrenica safe area
followed by their joint assault on Bihać together with the Croatian rebel Serbs had a bearing
on Croatia’s position. It became a factor which could help to resolve the Bosnian-Herzegovinian
crisis with, of course, a price - understanding for Croatia’s interests in the area not controlled by the
legal government. Th ere was obviously a tacit agreement of an infl uential part of the international
community to a quick liberating operation. In addition to liberation, Operation Storm also had a no
less important humanitarian feature, the lift ing of the blockade of the Bihać area, and this point must
not be forgotten.
Th e SVK was on the defence and in this respect compensated for the numerical superiority of
the Croatian forces. In terms of armaments and military equipment it was a match for the HV, and
it was even superior in armour. Its weakness lay in the fact that it was the military force of a system
which no grounds for independent existence. Th e RSK was a creation emerged from the unrealized
pan-Serbian plans about a similar state. Th e political and territorial entity which gave birth to SAO
Krajina was only a tactical step supposed to give the Serbs in Croatia legality and legitimacy as
the SFRY broke apart and to get them the international “green light” for remaining in the rump
Yugoslavia. However, the project failed, i.e., the JNA did not defeat the Croatian army - that being the
only way in which Croatia could be forced to accept the Serbian diktat concerning borders. Th erefore,
SAO Krajina became the RSK, an attempt to create a state, aft er the autonomy project failed, which
would join up with the Serbian-Montenegrin part of Yugoslavia. Aft er that it tried to maintain a
kind of political-territorial organization through UNPROFOR and UNCRO, and succeeded in the
eff ort for several years although the rebel Serbs harboured doubts about the international forces. But
time worked against the RSK and its position and internal political conditions deteriorated because
it had no material base, just as it did have the human and in particular the intellectual potential to
create something more organized than a region with few laws, a lot of autocracy and, perhaps most
accurately, rule of the stronger. An illustrative assessment was provided in mid-July 1995, on the
eve of Storm, by a Yugoslav Army colonel engaged in the SVK Air force and Air Defence: As you
travel across the RSK and visit its towns, you can easily note that nothing has been done in terms of
development. Th e existing resources are being exploited and the outcome is sought from some other side.
Th ere is no normal objective such as required for every organized society. All social wealth is stagnating.
Popular culture has taken a wrong turn. All sense of reality in time and space has been lost... Th e
people of the RSK are exhausted by the condition which stifl es every initiative. Fear from the ustashi
killers has gradually and systematically prevailed. Because of “destroy everything Croatian” people live
in fear of the ustashi doctrine of “kill everything Serbian”. And when the self-preservation instinct is not
channelled, it is clear what manifestations are possible. 543
543 M. Sekulić, «Knin je pao u Beogradu» (Knin Fell in Belgrade), 232.