Homeland War veterans and citizens gathered in the Parish Church of St. Michael in Pakostane on Sunday to voice their support for Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac ahead of an appeals hearing in their case before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, scheduled for Monday.
The two generals are charged with war crimes committed by Croatian forces against Serb civilians during and after Operation Storm in the summer of 1995. In its judgement of April 15, 2011, the ICTY trial chamber sentenced Gotovina to 24 years in prison and Markac to 18 years.
Pakostane, situated on the Adriatic coast between Zadar and Sibenik, is the home town of General Gotovina.
"In this way we want to express our support for our generals Gotovina and Markac so they will know that the Croatian people are with them and that they will not be left alone in these most difficult and decisive moments. With our prayer and lighting of candles we also want to show the world the unity of the Croats and our dissatisfaction with the trial chamber's ruling," said Boris Muzanovic, head of the Zadar branch of a veterans' association that organised the event.
The association said that with their action they wanted to emphasise that the first-instance ruling was unjust and that the prosecution's portrayal of Operation Storm as a joint criminal enterprise was untenable.
The event was organised as part of a global campaign, called "The Flame of Freedom", which was launched by the Croatian World Congress and was being held in many towns in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in Croatian communities and Catholic missions worldwide.
