(Image shows: A Serbian soldier helps a wounded comrade, Vukovar 1991. He was killed going back into the combat zone to rescue another. The wounded soldier was later killed in action)
What exactly did happen in Vukovar?
A selective silence
When the British government slapped a sanctions ban on a photo exhibition showing atrocities against the Serbs, Joan Phillips went to Belgrade to get the full story - and the photographs
The day I left Britain for Belgrade my mind was on what was happening in Krajina, so my attention was caught by the headline on the back page of theGuardian: 'Croats continue offensive as UN investigators discover mass grave' (26 January). Thinking that a mass grave of Serbian dead must have just been discovered in Krajina, I scanned the article, only to discover that the grave was in Vukovar, the dead were Croats and they had been killed more than a year ago.
In a war which has exacted a high toll of suffering on all sides, how could anybody argue that the massacre of one group of civilians is more or less important than that of another? Yet this is effectively what the Western media has managed to do. Whether intended or not, the Guardian's juxtaposition of the two stories had the effect of cancelling out what is happening to Serbs in Krajina today and focusing attention on what happened to Croats in Vukovar more than a year ago.
What exactly did happen in Vukovar when war was raging in Croatia in late 1991? Thanks to the media, Vukovar will be remembered as a symbol of Serbian aggression. But why did the Serbs destroy Vukovar, when almost half its population was Serbian? An explanation has never been given. We were left to conclude that the Serbian forces who laid waste to Vukovar were evil men.
To understand what happened in Vukovar we have to fill in the background to the media images. The Belgrade exhibition helps to redress the balance. The problems there started in spring 1990, long before the first shell fell, when Franjo Tudjman was elected president of Croatia on a nationalist ticket. From this point on, the Serbian minority in Croatia had good cause to fear for its future. Tudjman's government began by removing Serbian street names, and ended up by removing Serbs - from their jobs, their houses and their land.
In and around Vukovar, where Serbs made up 37 per cent of the population, and Croats 44 per cent, trouble began almost as soon as Tudjman was elected. Following Zagreb's example, state and private firms began sacking Serbs from their jobs. Tensions increased in Borovo Selo, on the outskirts of Vukovar, as Croatian militants began intimidating Serbs by bombing their homes, restaurants and shops. Signs appeared in Borovo saying 'No dogs or Serbs'.
In the climate of fear and insecurity generated by Tudjman's nationalist policies, Serbs began flooding out of Croatia into Bosnia and Serbia well before the war began. Bojana Isakovic's exhibition shows photographs of Serbian refugees leaving Borovo in May 1991. The war in Croatia did not start until July 1991. By the time the battle for Vukovar began, Serbs were already living in fear of their lives.
Yet somewhere along the line, the media managed to turn the story around. Vukovar, home to 31 000 Serbs as well as 36 000 Croats, became a symbol of Croatian suffering. Everybody seems to have forgotten what the photographs on these pages show: when the Yugoslav federal army marched into Vukovar it found the streets strewn with the corpses of Serbian civilians slaughtered by the Croats.
There is little doubt that Serbian irregulars took their revenge on Croatian civilians once they had control of the city. But the mass grave containing dead Croats at Ovcara outside Vukovar should not obscure the fact that the whole of Vukovar became a mass grave for Serbs while the town was under Croatian control.
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Arms and defence equipment flowed into Croatia directly and indirectly from Germany. Mass arming of HDZ members took place, the police force was expanded and the National Guard was re-equipped as an Ustashi army. May 28, 1991, saw a nazi style rally of the “Croatian Armed Forces” at Zagreb football stadium.
Then the killing of individual Serbs started. Memories of 1941 stirred and the exodus began. The day after the rally, Serbs from Borovo Selo fled from Croatia. The killings, which started early in April 1991 at Plitvice, escalated during July, August and September. At Vukovar, Serbs were subjected to torture, rape, and murder for many months before the conflict was presented to the world as “brutal aggression by the Yugoslav Army against peace-loving Croatians”. The murders are documented and proven.
Around 5,000 Serbs were rounded up and held in the Borovo footware factory complex at Vukovar. From this Croatian concentration camp hundreds of Serb men, women and children were taken out and slaughtered. Mutilated bodies thrown into the river were carried downstream into Serbian territory. These were recovered, photographed and their identities painstakingly discovered.
Read all here.....
http://4international.me/2008/03/19/tudjman-the-croatian-ustashe-nazi-genocide-of-krajina-serbs-in-1991/
http://4international.me/2008/03/21/tudjman-the-croatian-ustashe-nazi-genocide-of-krajina-serbs-part-2/
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From Srpska-mreza
A Half-century Later, A Refugee Once Again
http://articles.philly.com/1991-07-16/news/25783909_1_refugee-center-croatian-fascists-belgrade
Yugoslavia the avoidable war! 10 clips
A good documentary about a war that coulld have been avoided very easy. Kapitalist desires wanted a war because that was most profitable. And taking over territories is nothing different than taking over corporations, especially when its so easy to manipulate the people within these entitys.
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Tomislav Mercep in Vukovar, Pakracka Poljana, Gospic, Zagreb and Pakrac
http://www.pressonline.com.mk/default-en.asp?ItemID=39589925A78A9C4E8318FC5A3C1A4AA4
Recently declassified CIA document says the Croatian governments protected paramilitary unit leader Tomislav Merčep
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/crimes.php?yyyy=2007&mm=01&dd=09&nav_id=38967
Tomislav Mercep Role in Atrocities against Serb Population i Croatia (Pdf)
http://www.krajinaforce.com/dokumenti/mercep_zlocini_izvjestaj_cia.pdf
Dnevni List (Germany)
Serbs were attacked first. Yugoslavia was attacked and not Croatia. Susak, Glavas and Vice Vukojevic attacked Borovo Selo to provoke a war", says Boljkovac in an exclusive interview for "Dnevni List, Vesti" which is intended for Serb readers living in Germany
How the war in Vukovar Started: From the trial against Vojislav Seselj in Hague. (ONLY IN SERBIAN)
How the war started in Vukovar 1.deo 1/3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMefqz3rgPo
How the war started in Vukovar 1.deo 2/3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_4SnxlEIWc
How the war started in Vukovar 1.deo 3/3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zmc3WjZq0E
How the war started in Vukovar 2.deo 1/2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p320jzciMAM
How the war started in Vukovar 2.deo 2/2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV4E3Z8pVmM