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Croatian general on trial for war crimes

THE HAGUE: Former Croatian general Ante Gotovina went on trial for war crimes on Tuesday, accused of unleashing a “nightmare” of persecution and murder on Croatian Serbs during the 1990s Balkan wars.

“This trial arises from the forcible elimination of Krajina Serbs from Croatia and the destruction of their community in August 1995,” prosecutor Alan Tieger said at the opening of the trial before the UN war crimes court.

Gotovina, 52, and two other Croatian generals, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity including persecution, murder and plunder during what was dubbed ‘Operation Storm’. The lightning military operation led to the recapture of Croatia’s Serb-held Krajina region in 1995, crushing one of the last pockets of Serb resistance.

Between 150,000 and 200,000 Serbs were forced to flee the Krajina region to Bosnia and Serbia during the offensive in which more than 150 Serb civilians died, according to the indictment. Tieger said the operation left “a scarred wasteland of destroyed homes and villages,” as Croatian troops led by Gotovina and his co-defendants “shelled towns and villages” and caused the “panic-stricken flight” of Serb civilians.

“For those who remained, largely the elderly and the infirm, life became a nightmare. While homes and villages were plundered and destroyed on a massive scale, many were murdered,” he added.

Gotovina smiled broadly and waved at the public gallery before the start of the trial. He and his two co-defendants have denied all the charges. afp

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