Croatia Leader Extends Hands of Peace to Serbs

Croatian President Ivo Josipovic extended the hand of peace to Serb citizens Sunday as he marked the anniversary of the crushing of a Serb rebellion in 1995, an operation pivotal in ending the war.

"Croatia won the war, it is a great achievement... but Croatia still has to battle to win in peace," Josipovic said at a ceremony at the former ethnic Serb rebel stronghold of Knin marking the 17th anniversary of Operation Storm.

"Winning in peace means also extending a hand to our Serb citizens, acknowledging and bowing to their victims" from the 1991-1995 war, Josipovic said, voicing hope that Croatia will become a "shining European star".

Zagreb is set to join the European Union next July.

On the eve of the anniversary, Croatian Serbs called for fair treatment for all victims of the war regardless of their ethnicity.

The Serb National Council, an umbrella organization of Croatian Serb parties and institutions, said that although the conflict ended 17 years ago "there is not equal treatment of crimes and victims".

Unbiased prosecution of war crimes and respect of the rights of ethnic Serbs were among the key criteria for Zagreb's membership of the 27-nation EU.

Croatia's proclamation of independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991 sparked a war with Belgrade-backed ethnic Serb rebels who seized a third of the country.

The Croatian army launched Operation Storm on August 4, 1995, sending in about 130,000 troops in an 84-hour offensive that saw it recapture a region that had been in Serb hands since 1991.

Several hundred ethnic Serbs were killed and tens of thousands fled Croatia during and after the operation, which paved the way for the end of the war that in total claimed about 20,000 lives.

Two former Croatian generals -- Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac -- were sentenced by a U.N. court in The Hague last year to prison terms of 24 and 18 years respectively for war crimes committed against ethnic Serbs.

Ethnic Serbs are still Croatia's largest minority, accounting for 4.5 percent of the population of 4.2 million -- down from a pre-war level of 12 percent.