LINTA: NO JUSTICE FOR MASSACRED SERB CIVILIANS IN GRUBORI AND OTHER EXECUTION SITES

BELGRADE, AUGUST 25 /SRNA/ - On the occasion of the 31st anniversary of the massacre of Serb civilians in Grubori near Knin, Chair of the Association of Serbs from the Region Miodrag Linta said that the fact that this crime, too, has gone unpunished confirms that the Croatian judiciary is neither independent nor professional, but instead serves Croatian political efforts to deny and belittle Serb victims.

Linta recalled that the massacre of six Serb civilians in Grubori, which is part of the Knin village of Plavno, took place as many as 21 days after the Storm military operation, pointing out that at least 32 Serb civilians, with an average age of more than 70, including nine women, were killed in the hamlets of Đurići, Dubajići and Bursaći.

"Some of the victims were killed by gunfire, some were slaughtered, and some were burned alive in their own homes. No one has been convicted for this monstrous crime, as is the case with many other crimes against Serbs. All those accused were acquitted in final verdicts, with the hypocritical and cynical explanation that, supposedly, there was no evidence," he said.

Linta said that Croatian courts had convicted only two members of the Croatian Army and police for mass crimes against more than 2,000 Serbs during and after the Storm operation, handing down a combined sentence of just 17 years in prison - an insulting and shameful punishment - with one of those convicted being of Serb nationality and the other of Albanian nationality.

"Many of those who believed they could kill Serb civilians and that nothing would happen to them for doing so were right," Linta said.

He stressed that this clearly and unequivocally demonstrates that Croatia has not confronted its dark past and that its fundamental foundation remains the false myth of the "Homeland War," according to which Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav People's Army and Krajina Serbs were supposedly aggressors and the sole perpetrators of crimes, while Croats were allegedly the only victims and liberators, the Association of Serbs from the Region said.

Linta said that the truth was completely different and reiterated that Serbia has a national, civilizational and moral obligation to establish a Memorial Centre for Serb Victims in the territory of the former Yugoslavia.

"The goals of the Memorial Centre should include, among other things, the struggle for the truth about the suffering of our people in local and international public, compiling a register of Serb victims, documenting sites where Serbian civilians and prisoners of war were executed, erecting memorial plaques at numerous execution sites, and preserving lasting remembrance of Serb victims," he concluded.