storm - Hrvatski memorijalno-dokumentacijski centar Domovinskog ...

Th e documents in the second chapter of the Appendices cover the Bihać crisis, caused
by the assault of the Serbs from Bosnia&Herzegovina and Croatia on the UN safe area
of Bihać. Th ey start with a memoir piece - the memories of Lieutenant General Krešimir
Ćosić, Ph.D. on the negotiations in the United States with American political and military
offi cials, which resulted in Operation Winter ’94 mounted by the Croatian armed forces
and the resolution of the fi rst Bihać crisis. Th ere follow 44 documents, largely of Serbian
origin, on the events at Bihać from 27 October 1994 until 3 August 1995, showing that
Bihać was an extraordinarily important objective in the Serbian plans. However, it could
not be achieved because of the tough resistance of the 5 th Corps of the Army of B&H
and the 101 st Regiment of the Croatian Defence Council (unit composed of Croats from
the Bihać area), supported by assistance from Croatia. Documents testify that Serbian
strategists shrunk from no means in their attempts to take Bihać, and even mounted a
covert operation involving the use of biological agents in poisoning food smuggled into
Bihać and intended to cause widespread disease among the troops of the ARBiH 5 th
Corps but also among the population of Bihać.
Th e third chapter of the Appendices includes 22 documents showing that plans of
the rebel Serbs concerning evacuation of the population form the occupied territory of
Croatia in case of any assault by Croatian armed forces such as Storm existed already in
1993. Th ey include the “Decision of the RSK Supreme Defence Council on the evacuation
of the population from the municipalities of Benkovac, Obrovac, Drniš, Gračac and
Knin towards Srb and Lapac” issued in the aft ernoon hours in Knin on 4 August 1995.
At the end, the Appendices present in a separate section the contents of the socalled
Plan Z-4, which the rebel Serbs in Croatia did not even want to consider, and the
memories of the representatives of the international community involved in the attempts
to implement the plan. Th eir statements describing the way in which the representatives
of the Serbs in Croatia refused to accept the off ered Plan as a platform for talks clearly
confi rm that any attempt to achieve a peaceful reintegration of the occupied areas into
the constitutional and legal system of the Republic of Croatia was doomed to failure
because of the intolerant position of the Serbian leaders.
Th e documents presented in the Appendices can be said to be a direct and argumentsupported
response to questions why, unfortunately, there was no alternative to the
military option, why the Croatian leadership could no longer delay Storm, and who was
responsible for the exile of Croatia’s ethnic Serbs on the eve of and aft er Storm. Th e
following facts also show how unconvincing are the claims that Croatia was hasty in
mounting a military solution, and that more time should have been left for negotiations
- the condition of Bihać’s defences was dramatic and the fall of Bihać would
considerably, even decisively improve the position of the Serbian armed forces;
- the leadership of the rebel Serbs turned down all peace initiatives - by the Government
of the Republic of Croatia and by the international community - and even Plan Z-4
which envisioned an extremely broad autonomy for the Serbs in Croatia, almost “a state
within the state”;
- the continuous endeavours of the Serbs from Croatia and from Bosnia&Herzegovina
focused since 1991 on the creation of a single Serbian state in the occupied parts of
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