In the same way that Kurds, Vlachs, Anatolis, Armenians, Bulgarians, Greeks and Serbs came to Croatia 300 years ago, as fugitives fleeing the Turks, they are now leaving, as fugitives, but now of their own will.
They chose to flee Croatia. They voluntarily decided to leave Croatia en masse. I would tolerate that act, because I consider that every person should have a right to freely decide where they want to live. It is important that they were not coerced by our side.
Because, you know, we cannot now send envoys to change already formed attitudes of the rebel Serbs. Let them live where they feel happier. Why make them unhappy? It would be like applying pressure to Croatian immigrants all over to world to return in order to improve demographic picture of Croatia.
The operation [Storm} was conducted in the most civilized manner. We let the Serbian population make its choice. They chose to emigrate. Now, we shouldn't force them to return.
It is not impossible that they would return as well trained terrorists who would act as a fifth column.
Those who want to return in a good natured and conciliatory way should return, but, I repeat, we must be cautious not to permit return of those who would sow chaos and terror.
We must not blame only two or three war criminals for everything that happened during the last five years. Without support from the majority, they alone could not have done all those terrible things: killed, looted, destroyed and burned.
We must not influence the psychological state of those people in the amount that we are doing now. If they hate Croatian state, why expose them to psychological terrorism?
If Gradisce Croats cannot achieve equality in Austria, they can move to Croatia, but they cannot demand to have their official language, their own judicial system, currency and education.
![MINICTAPCTBO ...[ministry]](stamp.gif)
[In the wake of the Serb exodus from Croatia, Croatian government claimed to have found a number of documents which supported its claim that the Serbs had left voluntarily. The documents were alleged orders for evacuation issued well in advance of the Croatian offensive by Milan Martic, the president of the Serbian republic of Krajina and the commanding officers from the Krajina's Army. However, as can be seen on this photo, published in Feral, the documents were stamped with a stamp which had three letters in latin script (INI), normally used by the Croats, instead of cyrillic script, normally used by the Serbs. The implications were that either the documents were good, but ultimately clumsy, fakes or...]To accuse Croatia of inciting the Serbian exodus based on the three latin letters, after everything seen during the last four years and in the final stretch during the Storm, is a malicious imputation, if not the active waging of a special [propaganda] war against Croatia.
As easily as Veselin Pejanovic, who accuses Political Department of the Croatian Ministry of Defense of clumsy propaganda which even breaks certain war conventions, we can counter with a question: isn't it possible that the above mentioned stamp with three latin letters came out of a shop on the Serbian side with the aim of waging a special war against Croatia?!
Olga Ramljak, Slobodna Dalmacija, 8/17/96
Dr Adalbert Rebic about the Serb refugee column, in Vecernji List.