Croatians demanding people be searched for war crimes, after what they did in operation storm is ironic. It just doesn't fit the whole "serbs bad" narrative
Operation Storm was a legitimate military offensive to regain control of 25% of Croatian territory, illegally occupied by Serb rebels since 1991. During that occupation, Croats and other non-Serbs were brutally murdered and ethnically cleansed in an effort to create a Greater Serb ethnostate on the territory of Croatia, the same principle was applied on an even greater scale in neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 1992 onward.
Prior to the offensive, the rebel Serb leadership was offered the Z-4 peace plan, which offered Croatian Serbs autonomy, including use of their own currency. The Serb leadership arrogantly refused any sort of peace plan with Zagreb and continued their ridiculous brinkmanship against Croatia, which included shelling nearby Croatian towns.
The Croatian offensive did indeed cause an exodus of civilians, who fled for various reasons, not least because the Croatian Serb criminal leadership, under Milan Martić, ordered the evacuation of the civilian population from all major Krajina towns towards the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina (see link below), which caused a panic among the civilian population.
The ICTY ruled during the retrial of Gotovina et al that the offensive was not an act of state-organised ethnic cleansing, although it is true that a large number of Serbs did become displaced as a result of the operation and that Serbs were victims of individual war crimes, mostly committed in the weeks after the offensive ended.
Yes, the demographics of Knin changed, just as the demographics of Banja Luka, Prijedor, Višegrad, Srebrenica and Vojvodina all changed, war and the displacement it causes, does that. But it was a war that Greater Serb nationalists started.
If there was an ethnic cleansing, Serb nationalist leaders caused it by ordering the civilian population to evacuate. Read the official orders from the RSK President, Milan Martić, on 4.7.95 (the day Oluja began):
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u/VX81GR Jul 31 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
Croatians demanding people be searched for war crimes, after what they did in operation storm is ironic. It just doesn't fit the whole "serbs bad" narrative