Therefore, there cannot be purely individual good or evil, because humans are social beings, members of a community and society that significantly shape and determine their actions. Also, there are circumstances that may significantly affect the attitude and behavior of individuals.
All of this should be very seriously taken into account when discussing and judging those who committed (if indeed they did commit them) crimes in our Homeland War. It should be very seriously taken into account that we mostly had volunteers among our defenders and some of them, for sure, were not in very good health. But, no one can blame them for that, even those who received them in the ranks of defenders, because frequently there were not enough healthy volunteers (perhaps because healthy volunteers were not "willing").
To that we need to add the possibility that some possible culprits, men who possibly committed war crimes, were themselves, or perhaps some of their close or distant relatives, were victims of war crimes. That is why the worst possible set of circumstances was possible. It does not excuse the culprits, but it obliges those who judge crimes and culprits.
Therefore, it is not true that all crimes are made equal, especially not those committed in self defense, by exceeding permissible defense (that can include bombardment of houses with enemy armed civilians, but cannot include prisoners) with respect to planned occupation, expulsion of non-Serb population, and occupation of houses and land of an internationally recognized sovereign state (let us recall Badinter's commission).
Thus, we find it difficult when foreigners and global power brokers draw parallels between guilt of those who committed illegal act, perhaps sometimes even crimes, in self-defense, which was also conducted against all odds, because the occupier had much more weaponry and he used it for destruction of homes, schools, hospitals and churches, with those who did so according to the in advance prepared and agreed occupiers' genocidal plan.
But we find it even harder when identical parallels are drawn by those who were elected and chosen to protect the interests of every citizen of Croatia and the whole Croatia, under the motto "a crime is a crime and everyone must be held responsible".
They include individuals who avoided taking part in the defense of Croatia and refused to assist expelled Croats, and today gloat both in the country, and especially abroad, exclaiming the above mentioned motto.
True, no one sensible and correct can say that a crime is not a crime, but no one sensible, just and patriotic can say that all crimes are made equal and that circumstances in which crimes are committed do not matter (the verdict in General Blaskic's case clearly indicates how much the Hague tribunal cares about circumstances in which crimes are committed).
Statements that everyone should be individually held responsible for crimes hides within an inflexible formal-judicial view, which frequently does not take into account what preceded the crime, nor the circumstances in which the crime was committed, nor a possible illness or trauma of the perpetrator, nor the fact that crimes were committed within a liberation war. Therefore, a moral act in which a personal life was invested for the liberation of the Homeland from the barbarian occupation and barbarian occupier.
All of this applies to those who had the commanding role in the Homeland War, for those for whom it has been proven that they viewed the war as a defensive and patriotic act, and who in their wartime orders did not even consider possible crimes of their collaborators and fellow soldiers. They are mostly accused of a failure to take measures to identify perpetrators of crimes, even though that is a collective act, and personal responsibility is impossible in this particular case [sic].
In that, it is necessary to keep in mind the situation during the war and everything already said about wartime circumstances and those who could have committed crimes, as well as the fact that they were mainly commanders.
This is not meant as a denial of responsibility for such an omission, but we want to warn that the responsibility does not only affect individuals, but also many others in the so-called command chain.
Some will say that there would be no space for all of them in the Hague, but in that case in our hearts and conscience, there must not be a place for responsibility of only individuals, especially those who, even in an advanced age, diligently fulfilled their patriotic role. Consequently, they definitively do not deserve to spend the last years of their lives in a prison cell in the Hague.
All of this may be mistaken for relativization and apology of crimes that did take place. But, I say decisively "no" to such an interpretation of this article. This is only an attempt to warn that possible war crimes committed in the Homeland War as a rule are not only individual crimes; together with personal responsibility of perpetrators of crimes, they also include a difficult and dramatic wartime situation, full of personal and collective trauma.
In such a situation, it is frequently difficult to distinguish personal responsibility for crimes from that which is the consequence of a wider context of wartime circumstances, especially when they are imposed by barbarian occupiers.
Those who demand that perpetrators be held individually responsible regardless of the circumstances, and mental and general health of the perpetrators know nothing about human intellect, life, society, history, nor about a wider interpretation of legal norms that does not boil down to a narrow legal interpretation.
Such an interpretation implies total absence of humanism, love for the fellow man and patriotism. Such an attitude is apparently based on the view that every man at every moment is capable of fully controlling his behavior and acts, which is obviously, psycho-socially and legally impossible.
Let us recall the warning of the late cardinal and Zagreb archbishop Franjo Kuharic, said in 1991, when in a sermon he warned; "if someone sets your house on fire (he is referring to the enemy, author's remark) do not return in kind, if someone kills your mother or father, do not kill their mother or father...". Some of those who are now in power dismissed such warnings and claimed that it bothered some defenders, who were victims of grave crimes committed by the enemy.
But that is only a confirmation of the truth about humans and their weakness and inability to stay composed and responsible during difficult wartime circumstances. We must not forget that truth when some would like to place all responsibility on individuals, even for acts they did not personally commit (as for example General Bobetko). All this happened during worst circumstances in the Homeland War and we must not forget their decision to sacrifice their lives for the freedom of the Homeland.
Does the Homeland today dare deliver them on a tray to the Hague, when it has been proven that the Hague tribunal ignores everything we talk and think about, and has to do with the very survival of us as a nation and a state?
Thus, those who would quickly extradite everyone indicted by the Hague prosecutor should think carefully whether they have given an adequate contribution to the defense of the Homeland and how they would feel if they were indicted by the Hague tribunal, even if they did not commit any crimes.
The response along the lines of "let them prove their innocence in the Hague" is more than hypocritical, and insensitive. Besides, it violates the fundamental legal doctrine that "everyone is innocent until proven guilty".
There is no simple answer to the question what should be done in the situation when the Hague tribunal is "printing" new indictments every day, but we can definitively say the following:
Just like the Homeland War and participation in the Homeland War was not a private matter, thus the defense of those who were prepared to sacrifice their lives and health - and many of them did sacrifice them - cannot be their private matter, or even their personal sacrifice, because whether they are found guilty or not cannot be only their personally matter. To be indicted and tried is already a big sacrifice.
Thus, the Homeland, and that should imply everyone among us, has the obligation to offer understanding and legal and other support, because they were also prepared to sacrifice their lives for the Homeland, which is the greatest sacrifice.
But, politics should be excluded from such support, because this has to do with sacred values, built in the very foundation of our Beautiful Homeland, and one must not sell out sacred values in the name of any goals.
All of that could be the beginning of the well known divisiveness in the Croat people, illustrated by the well known proverb: "three Croats, four political parties".
If that does not happen, then another set of mass protests inspired by Serbs is possible, perhaps in a different form, this time with the goal of total annihilation of the Croat people.
The author is a political scientists and writer from Zagreb