Croatia Owes Two Billion Euros To The Expelled Serbs
By Srdjan Misljenovic
05 August, 2015
Countercurrents.org
Serbs who were expelled from Croatia during Croatia’s “Operation Storm” have not yet collected compensation for their seized and destroyed property. They now want to give what they are owed to Obama and Merkel.
Serbs who were forcibly expelled from the Croatia decided that US President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel should receive the money they are owed by Croatia! The bank accounts of Obama and Merkel could soon see an increase of 190 million euros, the amount Croatia owes for unpaid pensions to 15,000 Serbs expelled during the war.
In addition to 190 million euros, Serb immigrants are also willing to renounce two billion euros, which is the amount they say Croatia needed to, but for years has avoided to compensate the expelled Serbs for the 50,000 Serb houses and flats, which were seized, burnt and/or completely destroyed!
Nikola Puzigaća, president of the Association of workers and disabled refugees from Croatia, states that the expelled Serbs are disenfranchised in every sense and that it would be the best if the money-- the debt that Croatia owes to the expelled Serbs-- is transferred to the accounts of Barack Obama and Angela Merkel, because unlike them, they would “surely be able to get the money.”
-In Strasbourg alone we have submitted hundreds of complaints and are preparing new ones. We now have a list of 6,000 Serb refugees from Croatia who are going to sue that country. Our property was burnt to ashes, seized and sold to others, and we are still not wanted in Croatia, in a country that is now in the European Union and claims that it cares about human rights. What about our human rights- asks Puzigaća.
Puzigaća explains that it is a shame that the institutions of the Republic of Serbs have for many years ignored the struggle of the expelled Serbs to regain their property and human rights that were denied in Croatia.
-The Department of the Ministry of Refugees and Displaced Persons in the Republic of Serbs (RS) is a total failure. It’s as if we do not exist for them. We have also been ignored by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbs, and all other institutions and we are left alone to fight and finance the charges we file in courts. But, despite all the difficulties, we will not give up and Croatia will pay one day for the expulsion of the Serbs and the destruction of our property and our lives. If not us, then let them pay the U.S. and Germany - said Puzigaća.
One of the expelled and disenfranchised Croatian Serbs is Zelimir Knezevic, who for years has been trying to recover his home in Knin, Croatia.
- I barely escaped alive with the family before the "Operation Storm". In Knin I left the house and apartment in the city center. My apartment was immediately ceased, and after a few years Ante Stapic, a Croatian man from Busovača, moved into my house with his family and they have been living there ever since. I tried doing everything in my power to recover my property through the Croatian courts, but all of it was in vain - explains Zelimir.
Dusanka Pavlovic, who now lives in Banja Luka (RS), had lived in Ploce, Croatia for 25 years before the war. She says that she has not received her pensions for ten years.
- Since I don’t have any rights, I would like to give all my unpaid pensions to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. He needs the money, and I obviously do not - says Pavlovic.
Predrag Muzgonja, a refugee from Croatia who for 20 years has been leading an unsuccessful battle trying to reclaim his property in Zagreb, says that he now awaits the judgment of the County Court, to which his case was transferred by the Croatian Supreme Court.
-What you have in my case is the obstruction of justice by the Croatian courts, which resolve questions of the recovery of our assets by making us run in circles. I also would like to donate my property to the German Chancellor and the US President, to see what they can do with it; they might have better luck - says Muzgonja.
Translated by Milan Djurasovic
Translator's Comments:
Cynicism and humor is all there is left for the quarter of a million Serbs who were ethnically cleansed from Croatia by the Croatian armed forces in August of 1995. These days Croatia is busily preparing a mass celebration for the twentieth anniversary of the "Operation Storm": on 5 August in Knin (a city that is now devoid of Serbs but where Serbs used to be a majority before the war), the celebration will commence with the raising of the Croatian flag on the Knin fortress and the ringing of the bell tower, which will symbolize the entry of Croatian military units in Knin on August 5, 1995. Opening of a museum devoted to the events of the "Operation Storm" will follow and then a monument to Franjo Tudjman--the first President of Croatia who, with the help of U.S. military advisers, ordered the military operation and upon its completion blessed it with words: "Let them have a safe journey, they were not even able to take their money with them; not even their dirty underwear”-- is going to be revealed while Ustasha singer Thompson has been summoned by the Croatian authorities to sing in front of a crowd of 100,000 people who are expected to flood Knin from all over Croatia in order to collectively celebrate the destruction of 50,000 homes and murders of 2,650 civilians.
Serbian political analyst Dragoljub Andjelkovic states that “regardless of what the "Operation Storm" for Croatia signifies, they are organizing a parade on the graves of innocent people. Every country has to have some myth as its foundation, but the Croatian myth contains terrible crimes. (With the upcoming celebrations) Croatia sends a message that it continues to be stuck in the nineties.”
The histrionic celebrations will be held and they will pass without much international media coverage. Serb victims and their families, for yet another time, are going to be treated like a doormat—third-class citizens who do not deserve justice or mere acknowledgment that they too have suffered. It is these people that the NATO and the European Union are trying to convince to join their side, and these same people are the ones who, despite the Serbian media’s ceaseless spewing of pro-Western propaganda, surprise the European Union leaders with their obduracy and resentment.
Originally published: http://www.novosti.rs/vesti/naslovna/republika_srpska/aktuelno.655.html:560326-Prognanim-Srbima-Hrvatska-duguje-dve-milijarde-evra
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