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Help finding Croatian NGO report

Anonymous Sat 12 Apr 2025 14:10:45 No.1523701 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By:

In 2003 the Croatian NGO HHO released a report detailing 83 Serbian civilian casualties during Operation Flash, titled "Vojnoredarstvena akcija Bljesak," per these two articles,
https://www.index.hr/vijesti/clanak/hho-iznio-imena-83-srpska-civila-koje-je-navodno-ubila-hv-tijekom-bljeska/150324.aspx
https://www.novilist.hr/novosti/hrvatska/puhovski-da-tijekom-bljeska-je-bilo-zlocina-sada-se-stvara-nepotrebna-domoljubna-histerija/

I tried looking for the name, but aside from those articles, I only got this comment section on b92
https://www.b92.net/eng/all-comments/80039
Which linked to what would have been the report
http://www.hho.hr/adminmax/files/documents/Bljesak%20-%20izvjestaj.pdf
However, it's a 404, and doesn't seem to be on the Wayback machine.

Can anyone who speaks Croatian please help?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 13 Apr 2025 16:21:23 No.1523785 Report

Quoted By: >>1523788

You are looking for this reference:

Hrvatski helsinški odbor za ljudska prava (HHO), Odjel aktivizma, Izvještaj vojno-redarstvena akcija
„Bljesak“, III. Dio, bivši UN Sektor Zapad, Zagreb 30. svibnja 2002., 2.;

I got it from this report (page 245):
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/197899849.pdf

I would contact the HHO organization directly and ask for that document:
https://www.hho.hr/kontakt/

By the way, while researching this, people quoted the numbers of killed Serbian civilians from that same report as 53, 83 and 283. I don't know which number is correct.

However, it seems like the 83 victims are split into 30 killed in the morning and 53 killed later, after they decided to stay.

"Of the 83 identified civilians, 30 were killed in the morning hours of May 1, 1995, in a refugee column that was retreating from Western Slavonia towards the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina."

"The remaining 53 Serbian civilians, the report further states, were those who decided to stay in their homes and await the Croatian army. Most of them were killed in the Western Slavonian village of Medari. Of the total of 24 Serbian civilians who remained in that village, 22 were killed. Only two girls were left alive, because, the HHO report states, a Croatian soldier recognized them and prevented their liquidation."
VOA - HHO iznio imena 83 srpskih civila ubijenih u akciji "Bljesak" (24/7/03) - 2003-07-24
https://ba.voanews.com/a/a-37-a-2003-07-24-9-1-85999367/1160107.html

Master Thesis that also refers to that report:
Bljesak i Oluja - hrvatske vojne akcije u Domovinskom ratu - Zvonar, Zvonimir
"According to data from the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights from 2002, 30 Serb civilians were killed or disappeared at that time. According to the same source, during Operation “Flash”, Croatian soldiers killed, or in those events killed or disappeared, a total of 53 Serb civilians"
https://repozitorij.ffos.hr/en/islandora/object/ffos%3A1673/datastream/PDF/view

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 13 Apr 2025 16:54:40 No.1523788 Report

Quoted By: >>1523797

>>1523785
Thank you.
The confusion over casualties is partially because HHO released two different reports; their earlier report from 2002 had 53 civilians killed, and their later report from 2003 had 83 civilians killed, because they had an extra year to examine evidence and confirm deaths.
I want to check the 2003 report, because I don't know what towns and villages ~25 of those casualties would be from; 30 civilians were killed in air attacks on retreating Serbian convoys where Serbian military and civilian targets became mixed together, and ~28 civilians were murdered in the massacre of Medari village. That leaves ~25 unaccounted for.
As for the 283 figure, that seems to be of Serbs killed overall; civilian AND military/rebels.

I guess contacting HHO directly might be my best bet. Thank you again.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 13 Apr 2025 18:37:22 No.1523797 Report

Quoted By:

>>1523788
No problem.

That's interesting. I am not a historian so I can't really analyze the sources and facts, only what I read as a layman.

Not sure if this helps, but I found a report from HHO, but it's from 2001 (?):
https://oluja.sensecentar.org/media/sg1/sg1-04-vojna-operacija-oluja-en.pdf

It's from this page:
"Storm in The Hague"
https://oluja.sensecentar.org/oluja-en.html#cilj
("Exhibit: Military Operation Storm, Report of the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights")

I found the name of the report through this archived link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030810064058/http://www.hho.hr/english/izdanja.htm

You can dig through the archive of the whole HHO page manually (sort by the "From" column):
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.hho.hr/*

I could only find this reference to that linked PDF from the OP ("Bljesak - izvjestaj.pdf"). It was published on the site in 2005:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120404062112/http://www.hho.hr/civilne-zrtve-operacije-bljesak

There might be some other useful references here:
https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Operation_Flash#References

Anonymous

View Same Google ImgOps iqdb SauceNAO lcb102gulpdf-3-or8.png, 27KiB, 752x695

Anonymous Mon 14 Apr 2025 21:50:20 No.1523925 Report

Quoted By:

Interesting:

>The Secretary Will Deny All Knowledge Of Your Actions: The Use Of Private Military Contractors And The Implications For State And Political Accountability
>by Saad Gul

>In March 1994, Croatian Defense Minister Gojko Surak appealed to the United States for assistance in transforming his armed forces, then reeling from stinging defeats at the hands of their Serb and Muslim foes. His plea fell on sympathetic ears in Washington. There was just one problem: a U.N. embargo tied the Pentagon’s hands when it came to direct military aid. In its stead, Washington suggested MPRI, a private military contractor (PMC) that offered tactical and strategic consulting services. ...

>A few months after the contract - officially termed the "Democracy Transition Assistance Program" - was implemented, the Croats unleashed Operation Lightning Storm, a multi-pronged assault integrating air, artillery, and fast moving infantry attacks against the Serbian stronghold of Krajina. Analysts detected a strong American flavor to the offensive and mocked MPRI claims that it had confined itself to lessons in democratic etiquette as disingenuous.

>[11] Garmon, supra note 9, at 336–37 ("[T]he United States broke a UN sanction when MPRI admitted to training Croatian forces and offering direct assistance to its forces. UN sanctions were further violated when Croatia transferred weapons received from MPRI to other regions of the former Yugoslavia. MPRI clearly played an active role not only in the Croatian offensive, but also in thwarting international sanctions imposed against the region, sanctions the U.S. government voted for in the UN Security Council and an embargo the U.S. military officially helped enforce.").

Source:
Lewis & Clark Law Review / Upcoming Issues / Print Law Review, Volume 10 / Number 2 / Summer 2006
https://law.lclark.edu/law_reviews/lewis_and_clark_law_review/past_issues/volume_10/number_2.php

PDF: http://law.lclark.edu/live/files/9635-lcb102gulpdf

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