After concluding their bloody business, apparently not the only incident of this kind, all four continued celebrating the glorious liberation action Storm, and then privileges entered through the wide opened doors in to their lives. Those members of the 113rd Sibenik Brigade thus became proud owners of decorations and war veteran pensions, and one of them, the boss of the local HDZ, became an entrepreneur and owner of a chain of foreign currency exchange offices in Sibenik and Split. The copious profits gave him a lot of free time which he spent, among other, at the rallies in support of Mirko Norac.
Were these youngsters, some of whom were only eighteen at the time they committed their crimes, bothered by nightmares? Did they suffer from bad conscience? Or did they continue living convinced that precisely their crimes against elderly Serbs contributed to the holiness of the so-called homeland war?
And then, a few days ago the police knocked on their door, delivered war crime indictments and interrupted peaceful dreams of four heroes. Because, Racan's government, it seems, has finally decided to prosecute criminals, although it will never reach all those who "liberated" us by pulling around our necks the noose of shared criminal responsibility by their hallucinatory implementation of Franjo Tudman's ideas.
For example, will anyone ever hold the manager and political commissar of the Split hospital during the Croatian aggression on Bosnia responsible? We wrote about his pedagogical measures towards Bosniak patients in June 1993: "More than a month ago Alija Turkovic and Dzevad Selimic were brought to the hospital in Firule. Both of them were wounded by sniper bullets while they were forced to dig trenches on the front line in western Hercegovina. Workers of the High Commissar for Refugees provided all the necessary documentation for their transfer to Denmark. A day before departure for Denmark the head of the hospital, Goran Dodig, personally stopped that subversive act and requested from the Mostar HVO a document proving that the two patients were prisoners of war. The requested document arrived quickly and ill-fated Bosniaks Turkovic and Selimic were sent back to trenches in Hercegovina". That very same Goran Dodik was later rewarded for the diligent carrying out of his patriotic duties, which implied grave violations of the rules of war and medical ethics, by the post of the assistant minister of defense, in the ministry of the creator of camps in Hercegovina, Gojko Susak. However, who now remembers Goran Dodig?
Or, who still recalls distinguished HDZ medical coterie at the Military Hospital in Split, whose diligent patriotism nearly led to the death of their colleague, a renowned surgeon, only because his name was Vojislav Maksimovic [a Serb] and because his colleagues tried to compensate their lack of knowledge and professionalism by excessive chauvinism, which led to the creation of an ethnically cleansed hospital, including its walls, so that the glorious stone mosaic with portraits of Partisan fighters, created by Joko Knezevic, was for years comically hidden from the public behind a huge green cover. Dr. Vojkan Maksimovic managed to escape at the last moment the fate reserved for him by his colleagues who were protecting the dignity of the homeland war by cleansing the hospital of "Chetniks" and Serbs. His wife, also a physician in the same hospital and, if that is important, a pure ethnic Croat, tried for years to keep her job, despite threats and all sorts of humiliation. The tragic finale of this distinguished Split family was their collective departure abroad, the loss of their apartment, which was immediately occupied by deserving "liberators" and, finally, last but not the least, Split was denied the expertise of two experienced and excellent physicians. Unfortunately, their numerous colleagues did not manage to avoid jails, maltreatment, attempts to exchange them against their will at borders with Bosnia or Serbia...
Therefore, what category of crime covers the case Maksimovic and similar cases? And are only those who worked on executions of distinguished physicians from Split by spreading false accusations responsible? What about their colleagues who ignominiously kept silent watching all that? What about media storm troopers who gave shape to these and so many more horrendous indictments and are still working on the same jobs?
It is indeed good that the authorities have finally showed their teeth. Unfortunately, the maw is for now only catching small fish, executors of crimes. On the other hand, those who provided ideological food for those crimes, those who taught twenty-year-olds how to kill; so many pasalics and krpinas, those who from the post of the state prosecutor blocked so many investigations, such as for example Vladimir Seks, Bosiljko Misetic, Zeljko Olujic... are today "distinguished" representatives in the parliament, lawyers, judges... Because Racan's government did not have the guts to punish them, if not for creating crimes, then at least because of illegal activities in the privatization, illegal purchase of apartments, and so much other abuse.
Exactly that is the reason that even today the leader of murderers from Pakracka Poljana, criminal type Tomislav Mercep, makes an appearance in the center of Zagreb to arrogantly demonstrate against government's reforms of the welfare state. Would the prosecution of such individuals really amount to revenge? Or would it, just the opposite, be the path to the final recovery of the nation?