Describing Milosevic as a proponent and protagonist of the idea of a Greater Serbia in the wake of the fall of Communism and the disintegration of the former Yugoslav federation, the Croatian Government said that he was the architect of the four wars that claimed the lives of several hundred thousand people and inflicted suffering on millions of refugees and billions of euros in property damage.
As a result of an ethnic cleansing campaign he masterminded, scores of towns and villages were destroyed and cultural and religious monuments were devastated.
Looking back to that period should serve as a strong warning that such evil must never occur again and that peoples in the region should muster enough strength to shift their attention to the future and turn a new page in their relations, which should be based on the principle of mutual recognition, tolerance, reconciliation and cooperation, the statement said.
Croatian President Stjepan Mesic on Saturday said it was a pity that Slobodan Milosevic, who died in his ICTY cell earlier today, had not lived long to receive a deserved sentence.