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Croatian and Bosnian Croat politicians by a statue of 1990s Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, erected in Knin for the 20th anniversary of Operation Storm in 2015. Photo: EPA.

The Youth Initiative for Human Rights on Tuesday presented a guide to help politicians to say sorry for crimes committed against Croatian Serb civilians during and after the Croatian Army’s victorious Operation Storm at the start of August 1995.

The guide, entitled ‘How to Apologise for Crimes’, says an apology would represent a form of symbolic reparation by state officials to the victims. Croatian forces and other unknown perpetrators killed an estimated several hundred Serb civilians during and after the operation.

“Symbolic reparations such as apologies strongly contribute to reducing social segregation, mutual intolerance and hate in society by resolutely, clearly and unambiguously condemning perpetrators of violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law,” the guide says.

“With these symbolic gestures, the victims get back their dignity and hope that the brutality will not be repeated,” it adds.

According to the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, the apology should be publicly offered to victims in their presence at the place where the crimes took place, or one that has a strong symbolic significance.

The apology should include the recognition of specific crimes committed and the acceptance of responsibility for them, the guide says. It should also include a condemnation of the crimes and all activities that led to them.

Politicians should list efforts to investigate and punish the crimes, give victims the instruments at their disposal for reparations and remedies, and stress values that will lead towards “reconciliation, coexistence and tolerance”, it adds.

The guide notes that in 2005, the UN General Assembly passed the Resolution 60/147, which recommends a public apology, “including acknowledgement of the facts and acceptance of responsibility” by states for crimes committed by their forces.

The guide also lists what it describes as good and bad examples of apologies given by statesmen in recent history.

It analyses a statement by the former British Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010, in which he admitted and apologised for crimes committed by British forces in Derry in Northern Ireland in 1972, when 14 Irish civilians were killed on what became known as ‘Bloody Sunday’.

The guide analyses how Cameron admitted the crimes without any attempt to downplay them, and called for such violence to be prevented in the future.

As bad examples, the guide offers the examples of two former Croatian presidents – Stjepan Mesic and Ivo Josipovic – when they expressed regret for crimes committed in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s.

Although it welcomes Josipovic’s move to express regret for crimes caused by Croatia in the Bosnian war, it argues that this was “an expression of regret and not an apology”.

It also says that Josipovic did not make his statement to the surviving victims or talk about specific crimes, although he did visit the village of Ahmici, where Bosnian Croat forces committed a major crime against Bosniaks in 1993.

During Operation Storm in 1995, Croatian forces regained territory controlled since late 1991 by rebel Croatian Serbs, who had been helped by the Yugoslav People’s Army and Serbian paramilitaries.

The operation led to a humanitarian crisis, as up to 200,000 Serb civilians left Croatia during and after the operation. The UN refugee agency estimates that in 1995, a total of around 250,000 Serbs left Croatia.

According to the Croatian Helsinki Committee, 677 Serb civilians were killed during and after the operation.

The Croatian state considers Storm its most important military operation during the 1990s war. Although the state admits that individual crimes were committed, it rejects suggestions that they were planned by the country’s leadership.

Read more:

Croatia’s Operation Storm: Crimes Unpunished 22 Years On

Croatia Honours Operation Storm Victory, Mourns Deaths

Campaign Urges Croatia to Apologise to ‘Storm’ Victims

Croatian HDZ Member ‘Threatens NGO’ over Storm Apology