HUP recalls that in the statement which it issued on Sunday, HHO pointed out the operation's significance for the realisation of human rights, notably the right to a safe and secure life and the return of displaced persons, while at the same time warning that "some consequences of that offensive were also the negation of some rights" through the killing of civilians and ethnic cleansing which was carried out through "almost synchronised activities" of the then Krajina regime and Croatian authorities.
According to the HHO statement, the public has been informed of enquires which the HHO has carried out and which show undoubtedly that in August 1995, after the completion of the military offensive, almost 700 civilians were killed on the area which was integrated by the operation. The statement says that the HHO enquires also show that ethnic cleansing was at work on one-fifth of the state territory given that over 150,000 people, who had been Croatian citizens until then, left the area thanks to almost synchronised activities of the Krajina power-wielders and the Croatian authorities.
Assessing that such a statement was an act of spreading untruths about the Homeland Defence War in the public, the HUP association sued the HHO president and executive director, Zarko Puhovski and Ranko Helbrant respectively, for slander.
HUP President Tomislav Dragun wrote in the lawsuit and in a press relase today that they (Puhovski and Helbrant) "defamed HUP, which is a promoter of the legal protection of Croatian citizens, as well as all war veterans and victims from the Homeland Defence War, namely all Croatian patriots".
Puhovski considers the HUP lawsuit as "so much preposterous and pointless that it does not deserve any comment".
The plaintiffs obviously do not understand Croatian, as 'uljudba' means culture, and the lawsuit being lodged for the expression of one's own opinion is the negation of any culture, Puhovski told Hina on Tuesday.