Croatia marks bloody fall of Vukovar

ZAGREB: Thousands of Croatians, including a general who was recently acquitted of war crimes by a UN court, gathered in Vukovar yesterday to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the city’s fall to Serb forces in the bloodiest episode of the 1990s war here.
“My heart told me that I have to come here, and I did,” former general Mladen Markac told a TV channel.
“We came to remember in prayers and peace all the victims of Vukovar and the (1991-95) homeland war.” Markac was acquitted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) along with another general, Ante Gotovina, on Friday. The two are widely seen as heroes in Croatia.
The court, based in The Hague, had sentenced Gotovina and Markac last year to 24 and 18 years in jail respectively for war crimes against ethnic Serbs.
Their release sparked euphoria in Croatia, where they received a glorious welcome home, and Vukovar Mayor Zeljko Sabo invited both to attend yesterday’s commemoration in the eastern town.
However, Gotovina did not appear at the event.
Top officials including Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic and President Ivo Josipovic were on hand as the mourners first gathered at the town’s hospital, a wartime symbol of resistance and proceeded to a memorial cemetery in what organizers dubbed a “Memory Column”.
In 1991, some 400 wounded Croats and other non-Serbs were evacuated from the hospital by the Yugoslav People’s Army.
The fall of Vukovar marked the start of Croatia’s war of independence from the former Yugoslavia, which claimed around 20,000 lives.
The battle for the town was crucial for Croatia as it stalled Yugoslav forces long enough to give Zagreb time to arm and prepare troops.
During the Vukovar siege, some 1,600 defenders and civilians were killed and the town was virtually razed to the ground.
Afterward, Yugoslav forces expelled some 22,000 Croats and other non-Serbs, almost half of its population.
The ICTY convicted two Serb officers, Mile Mrksic and Veselin Sljivancanin, for the massacre and sentenced them to 20 and 10 years in prison, respectively.
After the war Vukovar was put under UN administration and reintegrated into Croatia in 1998.
More than 400 people from the Vukovar area are still reported as missing.