The Youth Initiative for Human Rights wrote to the State Commission for Decorations and Awards within the Office of the President of Croatia Kolinda Grabar Kitarović and requested for the decorations to be taken away from war criminals Jadranko Prlić, Slobodan Praljak, Bruno Stojić, Milivoj Petković, Valentin Ćorić and Dario Kordić on the basis of the Law on Decorations and Awards of the Republic of Croatia.
In addition to not taking away decorations from war criminals earlier, the President has failed, before her visitation to Bosnia and Herzegovina, to symbolically express discontinuation with aggressive politics of the Croatian leadership towards this state during the 1990s. Ms. Grabar Kitarović has shown that she is not ready to show a minimum of solidarity with victims of crime nor to extend a hand of reconciliation and cooperation to the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina and their political representatives.
Further, by her failure to act, she has expressed disrespect for all war veterans who participated in the war respecting humanitarian law and customs of warfare, and depreciated the constitutional value of the rule of law, and honour and reputation of the Republic of Croatia.
Let us remind you that by the ICTY judgment of 29 November 2017, Jadranko Prlić, Slobodan Praljak, Bruno Stojić, Milivoj Petković and Valentin Ćorić were sentenced to long prison sentences for the war crimes they committed. These crimes were committed as part of the joint criminal enterprise, designed and carried out by, inter alia, former President of Croatia Franjo Tuđman, Defence Minister Gojko Šušak and Chief of the General Staff of the Croatian Army Janko Bobetko. In 2004, the ICTY convicted Dario Kordić to the imprisonment of 25 years for grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and crimes against humanity. All these persons hold the decorations of the Republic of Croatia.
