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Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040617-091443-9457r.htm
Conflict in the Balkans
Helle
Dale claims that Croatian troops forced tens of
thousands of Serbian civilians out of Croatia
("Balkan ghosts," Op-Ed, Wednesday). This claim —
also made by the International Criminal Tribunal —
is untrue. The Croatian Serb leadership publicly
admitted that it ordered and coerced its people to
leave Croatia ahead of the Croatian offensives. The
U.S.-backed Croatian actions recovered
Serbian-occupied territory that had been conquered
on the back of ethnic cleansing. The U.S.-Croatian
actions also saved Bosnia, saving untold thousands
of lives.
Mrs. Dale should take a closer look at the
tribunal she says should be supported. One of the
top Serbian officials involved in the occupation of
Croatia, Savo Strbac, far from being investigated,
is a top associate of the U.N. prosecutors. He is
helping them prosecute the very Croatian generals
who, with vital American support, stopped Slobodan
Milosevic in his tracks. They will not get a fair
trial.
The United Nations will smear the United States
for helping the Croats stop Mr. Milosevic, Radovan
Karadzic and Ratko Mladic — a "crime" in the eyes of
many at the United Nations who were happy to indulge
the Serbian rampage across Croatia and Bosnia.
BRIAN GALLAGHER
London
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While reading the Op-Ed column "Balkan ghosts"
by Helle Dale, I found two statements disturbing
because they do not represent the truth.
Mrs. Dale writes, "Croatian troops swept through
the Serb-controlled region of Krajina, forcing tens
of thousands of Croatian Serbs to flee." The fact is
that it is not only the Vukovar region that Serbs
destroyed, but these ethnic Serbs in Croatia's
Krajina region also occupied, with the help of the
Serbian-Yugoslav army and paramilitary, one-third of
Croatia after their aggression started in 1991.
They "ethnically cleansed" the Croatian
population, looting and destroying their homes and
committing untold atrocities. When the Croatian army
finally liberated its territory in August 1995,
these Serbs were not "driven out," as the article
states, but were ordered by their own leadership to
leave before the arrival of the Croatian army.
Testimony to that fact was given in Politika, a
Serbian newspaper, in August 1995 in Belgrade by the
Serb Krajina leadership. Anything else is a revision
of history.
In addition, only Serbia and the so-called
Serbian republic in Bosnia have dragged their feet
and not cooperated with the International Criminal
Tribunal, according to the tribunal's Judge Theodor
Meron, while the tribunal is pleased with Croatia's
cooperation.
HILDA M. FOLEY
National Federation of Croatian
Americans
Santa Ana, Calif.
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