National Holiday

Today is a public holiday in Croatia – August the 5th – Officially it is called “Day of Victory & Homeland Gratitude, and the Day of Croatian Defenders’’. Wonderful.

What a treat, and even klapa singing and a band to celebrate the day down on the riva. I asked a couple of people what the reason behind the holiday was, but didn’t manage to get a satisfactory explanation – and maybe that was because of who I was asking.

Not one to be thwarted, I googled it (god bless google) and for you, dear reader, here is the explanation;

We will peel it back like an onion, layer upon layer, because as with so many things, things are not simple.

If you are over 20 you will be aware that there was a war fought in these parts in the years 1991 to 1995. From my understanding, the first squirmishes were in the Krajina area, where lies the town of Knin, and this area, although in Croatia, was populated by a majority of Serbians, who decided that the boundary should be redrawn to include the town as an independent Serbian state.

Next layer – to try and make this true, some 200,000.00 Croatians were, recimo, forceably removed, and 2000 Croatians were killed. Babic was the ‘President’ of the ‘independent’ state at the time and he has since admitted his guilt in the Hague War Trials. Subsequently he was found dead in his cell during another trial where he was acting as a witness in the Milosevic trial.

Next layer - Operation ‘Storm’ which was successfully completed 16 years ago to the day, was the military operation in which that area was re-taken by the Croatian forces. Peel that layer back, and you will recall the blog that featured the name Gotovina – he was one of the leaders of Operation Storm. And you will recall that he has been sentenced to 24 years as a war criminal for the atrocities relating to that area.

Yesterday, the president of Croatia, unveiled a monument called “Storm” in the town of Knin where all of this took place.

At the same time, the Serbian Orthodox Church held a memorial service in Belgrade for the victims of Operation Storm.

Oh, and I see that Serbia has issued a counterclaim against Croatia in the International Court of Justice, demanding that they remove this “Day of Victory & Homeland Gratitude, and Day of Croatian Defenders” from the list of National holidays. Immediately. Forthwith.

Goodness me, it’s a complicated issue isn’t it. Interestingly, Serbia is in the throes of its application to become a member of the EU, and Croatia is finalizing their application to also be a member. Guess these issues will all be ironed out at the EU family dinner table over a nice glass of something. Because, after waging a war to be separated from the Jugoslavia umbrella they are going to be joined at the hip under the EU umbrella. I trust it will be a big one.

So, enough already, I'm heading down to the riva to listen to the klapa group. You coming?