ZAGREB, 9 Sept 2021 - The 28th anniversary of the massacre committed by the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina against 33 local Croats in Grabovica was commemorated in that village north of Mostar on Thursday.

The families of the victims and other participants in today's commemorative events underscored that the remains of 17 victims, including a four-year-old girl, had not yet been found even after 28 years since the atrocities were committed.

So far, partial remains of 16 of the 33 victims have been identified, while the remains of the other 17 victims have not still been found.

The families also point out the command responsibility of senior officers of the B-H army.

To date, five members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina have been sentenced for the murders of the Zadro and the Mandić families, however, although we have presented plenty of evidence, no one has been held responsible for this massacre, based on command responsibility, said a representative of the families of the Grabovica victims.

Thus, Nihad Vlahovljak, Sead Karagić, and Haris Rajkić were given 13 years each for the Grabovica atrocities, whereas Enes Šakrak was sentenced to ten years and Mustafa Hota to nine years.

In 2007, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia acquitted General Safer Halilovic, former Deputy Commander and Chief of the Main Staff of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of charges pertaining to his alleged command responsibility for murders committed by Bosnian Army troops in the villages of Grabovica and Uzdol in the Jablanica and Prozor areas of Herzegovina in September 1993.

In July 2014, the Bosnian State Prosecutor's Office indicted two former members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) -- Rasema Handanović and Elmedin Čaušević- who were members of the Zulfikar special unit, for torturing a Bosnian Croat married couple in the village of Grabovica in 1993.

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ZAGREB, 4 Aug, 2021 - On the eve of Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day, War Veterans Day and the central commemoration in Knin, state delegations laid wreaths at Zagreb's central Mirogoj cemetery on Wednesday.

The government delegation was led by Veterans' Minister Tomo Medved and a delegation of the Croatian Parliament was led by Deputy Speaker Željko Reiner.

The delegations laid wreaths at the Wall of Pain monument, the Central Cross in the Alley of Fallen Croatian Homeland War Defenders, the grave of Croatia's first president Franjo Tudjman, and at the common grave of unidentified victims of the 1991-95 war.

Wreaths were also laid by a delegation of President Zoran Milanović, led by his advisor on defence and national security Dragan Lozančić, as well as a delegation of the City of Zagreb, led by deputy mayor Luka Korlaet.

Shortly after that, a delegation of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), led by member of the SDP presidency and MEP Predrag Fred Matic, laid flowers and lit candles at the Wall of Pain monument and the Central Cross in the Alley of Fallen Croatian Homeland War Defenders.

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August 3, 2021 - The Operation Storm Panel by YIHR will bring history experts together to discuss the progress in Operation Storm (Oluja) commemorations and future relations between Serbia and Croatia. The audience is welcomed to participate too.

The 26th anniversary of the Operation Storm (Oluja) is afoot. Marked on August 5, this operation back in 1995 returned every bit of occupied territory back to Croatia, apart from Eastern Slavonia. The event took place during the 1990s in the war Croats refer to as the Homeland War (Croatian: Domovinski rat).

In the light of the anniversary that is set to take place this Thursday, the Croatian branch of Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR) has organised an online panel entitled ''The 26th anniversary of Operation Storm: Challenges and obstacles for reconciliation'' this Wednesday.

As the YIHR website announces, the panel, which will be held via Zoom, will feature a debate moderated by the initiative's coordinator of programmes for justice and reconciliation, Branka Vierda, while the speakers will be Jelena Đureinović and Sven Milekić.

Dr. sc. Jelena Đureinović is a historian and coordinator of ''Transformation and Eastern Europe'', at the Austrian University of Vienna. She earned a Ph.D. in modern and contemporary history at Giessen University in Germany. Her fields of interest are the politics and culture of memory in Yugoslavia and the Ex-YU area. In 2020, Routledge published her book ''Politics of Memory of the Second World War in Contemporary Serbia: Collaboration, Resistance and Retribution'', and she cooperates with a Humanitarian Law Centre in Belgrade as memorialisation programme coordinator.

Sven Milekić is a scholar of the Science Foundation Fund Ireland and a Ph.D. candidate at Ireland's Maynooth University. As part of his research, he is interested in founding and developing veteran associations and exploring how they formed a dominant narrative regarding the war back in the 90's. In 2010, he got his MA at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Zagreb. He cooperates with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), where up until 2018, Milekić worked as a journalist, covering topics including justice, politics, economy, and society. Until 2014, he worked as a coordinator for the Transitional Justice Programme at YIHR.

Established back in late 2008 by a group of young human rights activists in Croatia in consultations and with the support of the regional organisation, YIHR is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation that claims it is convinced that the sanctity of human life is the sole foundation and fundamental value of every open and prosperous society.

''To live in responsible and accountable societies that have learned the lessons of the past and strive towards a positive future based on the respect of human rights, civic values and the rule of law,'' states YIHR when describing its vision.

The Operation Storm panel (for which you must register in order to participate) will discuss expectations for this year's anniversary in both Croatia and Serbia, symbolic gestures and actual social change, a new law on civil casualties of the war, perspectives on the same law in Serbia, as well as on perspectives for war crime processes and the concept of ''isolated incidents'' which could be deemed war crimes during and after the operation. Other topics that include building mutual trust and good relations in the future will also include questions and participation from the audience.

''Last year's anniversary was marked by changes in the official policy towards Operation Storm, known in Croatia as Victory Day (Dan Pobjede) and as the Day of Homeland Gratitude (Dan Domovinske Zahvalnosti). August 2020 saw the public space filled with messages about reconciliation, dialogue, the the importance of facts, condolences for war crime victims, and appeals for a conversation about different views on Operation Storm in both Croatia and Serbia,'' they recalled from YIHR.

They added that the speech of Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on last year's anniversary can be thanked for the above. Plenković also visited Varivode where Croatian soldiers killed nine Serbian civilians. President Zoran Milanović, along with veteran Minister Tomo Medved, visited Grubori, where six Serbian civilians were killed. At the same time, Boris Milošević's attendance during last year's Operation Storm commemoration was the first time in history that a high representative of the Serbian minority in Croatia attended the ceremony.

The downside, however, as YIHR warned, was the medal ceremony for the special police that was lead by Zlatan Mijo Jelić, who is under investigation for allegedly committing crimes against humanity against civilians and prisoners of war.

Meanwhile, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić organised last year's commemoration of what he refers to as the victims of Operation Storm, but without taking responsibility for denying protection to the Serbian refugees from Croatia and for the forced mobilisation of the said refugees.

With several downsides, but many upsides in Croatian terms when approaching this enormously important historical event, this year's anniversary will show whether or not the positive progress will continue or if the overall unusual year of 2020 was a mere one off.

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ZAGREB, 20 July, 2021 - Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman said on Tuesday he expected light to be shed on the fate of missing and killed Croats from Bugojno, central Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he laid wreaths and attended Mass in a church destroyed in the 1990s war.

"It's very important to shed light on the dark past so we can live together, so we can open a new chapter of coexistence. It's important to shed light on the past, on the fate of the missing, the killed. Their families are still alive," Grlić Radman said in Kandija.

Croats in Bugojno are commemorating the 28th anniversary of suffering during the war with the Bosniak Army of BiH. In the summer of 1993, about 16,000 were driven out and about 300 were killed, while 15 top military and political officials, who were captured, taken to concentration camps and then killed, are still being traced.

Tomorrow, the search for their bodies will continue with excavations at Rostova, where the remains of four missing Bugojno Croats were exhumed last year.

In Kandija, Grlić Radman laid a wreath for the Croat victims of the Homeland and other wars.

He said Bugojno was a test for all in BiH in "bringing back the spirit of unity, tolerance, multi-ethnicity."

The minister said it was sad that 16,000 Croats lived in Bugojno before the 1990s war and only 2,500 today.

"It's necessary to create the prerequisites for their return. The Croatian government and all its institutions will help with appropriate crossborder cooperation projects and through EU funds. I'm sure the Croats of Bugojno will be able to return home and that the Croatian identity will be cultivated and shown here again, while respecting all other faiths and nations as it used to be."

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ZAGREB, 15 July 2021 - The law on the civilian Homeland War victims was passed on Thursday by 107 to 16 votes, with five members of the Croatian parliament abstaining from the vote.

During the previous parliamentary debates on the matter, a part of the Opposition expressed fear that new legislation would enable members of the occupying forces to use the entitlements set by the law, however, members of the ruling majority dismissed criticism that this was an attempt to equate the victims and the occupying forces and insisted that the new legislation would rectify the civilizational injustice done to the war casualties.

According to the data provided by the Ministry of War Veterans' Affairs, there will be about 2,500 beneficiaries who will be eligible to use entitlements envisaged by the new legislation.

Željko Sačić of the Sovereignist Party said that the adoption of some of the amendments made the last version of the law better compared to the first bill. He believes that those amendments will make it impossible for the members of the occupying forces and rebels to use the entitlements under the law.

The parliament adopted the amendments to the Law on Homeland War Veterans whereby applications of disabled war veterans for housing rights and social benefits will be dealt with in speedier proceedings.

Amendments to Criminal Code unanimously adopted

The amendments to the Criminal Code that envisage ex officio prosecution of sexual harassment for all categories of victims and introduce a new offense, the misuse of a sexually-explicit video were unanimously adopted on the last day of the parliament's meeting in the spring/summer season.

Besides strengthening protection mechanisms for victims of domestic and sexual violence and harassment, the amendments envisage punishment for revenge pornography.

All those who share with others intimate videos made consensually for personal use without the consent of the person filmed, thus violating their right to privacy, would now be penalized.

Deepfake pornography, i.e. the use of modern technology to manipulate explicit content to violate someone's privacy, is also defined as a criminal offense.

Those offenses are punishable with up to one year in prison, or three if a video becomes available to a larger number of people.

To more strongly counter gender-based violence and better protect victims, the amendments extend the "close person" category to include current and former intimate partners, not just family members, former spouses, life partners, informal life partners, or persons with whom a victim has a child or lives in the same household.

All criminal offenses committed by a close person will be prosecuted ex officio, and the list of offenses without a statute of limitations will now include serious sexual abuse and harassment of children.

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