-------- Original Message -------- *Tudjman's Transcripts Used By Hague Prosecutors (Croat leadership clearly planning ethnic cleansing)* <http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1807660/posts> *Javno ^ <http://www.freerepublic.com/%5Ehttp://www.javno.com/en/croatia/clanak.php?id=30226> *| March 27, 2007 ** The Hague prosecutors will substantiate their theory of the crime committed in the course of Operation Storm with presidential transcripts. HINA
The Hague prosecutors will substantiate their theory of the existence and goals of the joint criminal act that occurred during Operation Storm with the so-called presidential transcripts, shows the prosecution's submission before the hearing. The cleaned up version was released before the start of the Hague trial of the Croatian generals Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak, and Mladen Markac. In the same submission, prosecutors offer an overview of the evidence which they will use to prove the three generals' responsibility for the crimes against Serbian population committed before, during, and after Operation Storm, in the period between July and September 1995. According to the prosecution, these crimes were committed by means of ethnic cleansing which had been conceived as part of the joint criminal act. As the prosecutors claim, those who participated in the act, along with the first Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and the three prosecuted generals, also include the late Defence Minister Gojko Susak and generals Janko Bobetko and Zvonimir Cervenko as well as other known and unknown participants. President Tudjman, "believing that international political circumstances were in favour of the taking of Krajina, *finalized the military plans for 'Storm' on July 31, 1995, together with other military and political officials*," writes the prosecution based on the transcripts of the Brijuni meeting, which was *attended by, among others, generals Gotovina and Markac*, and points out that one of the goals of this operation was to "ensure the escape of Serbs." The prosecution cites Tudjman's words that *it is "...important that civilians go and then the army will follow them..." * The prosecution also *quotes general Gotovina's statement from the Brijuni meeting, saying that a great number of civilians were already leaving Knin in the direction of Banjaluka and Belgrade and that they should continue "the pressure" so that "the only ones who stay are those who have to or do not have a way to leave."* According to the prosecution, *general Gotovina defined this pressure on the civilian population on August 2 by ordering an artillery "attack on the towns" Drvar, Knin, Benkovac, Obrovac, Gracac*. The prosecution thinks that there were no justifiable goals for the military in those towns as well as that weapons used in the attacks were unsuitable for war in the areas populated by civilians. "The effect on the civilian population was as it had been planned on the meeting on July 31, 1995 frightened civilians escaped from those areas to safety, individually or in masses," concludes the prosecution. In the submission, the prosecutors write that *Tudjman had advocated the bringing about of ethnic homogeneity in Croatia*, which they substantiate with the "presidential transcripts" of the conversations that he had in the autumn of 1995 with, among others, his closest collaborators such as Gojko Susak, Hrvoje Sarinic, and Nikica Valentic, as well as that *he had rejected the idea of the Serbs' return as unacceptable*. In this manner, reports also state that, *after Flash, Valentic told Tudjman that the Serb problem in western Slavonia had been solved and there were not more than a thousand of them left and only 300 or 400 of them constituted a political factor*. In late August 1995, Sarinic said that *inspiration should be drawn from the state of affairs in western Slavonia. "This was very positive for us because no one has come back." * In the submission, the prosecution refers to about ten transcripts of the President's office . The three general's defence attorneys must deliver their submissions before the hearing, in which they will lay out their defence, by April 5.
