The Youth Initiative for Human Rights welcomes the judgment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia in the case of Prlić and others. We wish to express our gratitude to all who invested in the work of ICTY and thus ensured the process of restoring justice in spite of the fact that the Republic of Croatia and other countries in the region are not capable of objectively and professionally conducting proceedings for establishing responsibility for crimes.
This is the moment in which the Republic of Croatia should pay special attention to ICTY’s legacy and initiate a serious process of dealing with the past. By ignoring and denying the legacy of this Tribunal, Croatia cannot build a responsible society founded on the principle of the rule of law.
In order to achieve a responsible, free and just society, we propose to government representatives to initiate the process of abolishing of the Declaration on the Homeland War.
This document is not based on truth, it monopolises and prevents free public speech about the wars of the 1990s and closes down the space for facts-based analysis, research, debate and discussions. In order to protect the values of democratic and free society, we must not allow for obvious lies to be institutionally protected and thus prevent free public debate.
The second article of the Declaration on the Homeland War states the following: “The Republic of Croatia waged a just and legitimate defensive and liberation war, and not an aggressive war of conquest towards anyone, in which war it defended its territory from the Greater Serbia aggression within its internationally recognised borders.”
The above is the most obvious example of incompatibility of the Declaration with ICTY judgments, which have clearly established international character of the armed conflict between the Republic of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, thereby establishing that the Republic of Croatia had a control over the armed forces of Croats in BiH; the political goal of separating a part of BiH territory and uniting it with the Republic of Croatia. has also been established in these judgments.
Although ICTY makes decisions based on individual criminal responsibility, we, as the citizens of Croatia, as well as the authorities of our country, must unequivocally condemn politics which the leadership of that period, led by Franjo Tuđman, pursued in Bosnia and Herzegovina. We, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, are committed to persistently working on building a society of peace, tolerance and justice, always reminding of responsibility for committed crimes and for aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina.
