Djilas Says Those Responsible for Operation Storm Need To Be Punished, People Need Reconciliation

Dragan Djilas (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV)

Party of Freedom and Justice leader Dragan Djilas said on Aug. 4 that the anniversary of Croatia's Operation Storm was a chance for everyone to realize how reconciliation between the peoples of the Western Balkans was necessary while those who committed atrocities needed to be punished.

In a statement Djilas said that "without this kind of thinking there can be no lasting peace nor a better future for everyone who lives in these parts." On the 27th anniversary of Operation Storm he said that Serbian citizens felt grief every Aug. 4 and paid tribute to the innocent victims of crimes which, he stressed, "Must never be forgotten, so that they are never repeated."

"Even 27 years after Operation Storm, which was absolutely an act of ethnic cleansing, we do not know the fate of 1,183 people who went missing," he said, recalling that "for four days in August 1995 over 200,000 Serbs were expelled and 1,800 killed."

"The responsibility for this crime lies upon those who led Operation Storm but also all those who refuse to admit crimes and are preventing Serbs from achieving their property and other human rights," Djilas stressed.