Gospic Mayor Milan Kolic said today that Gospic residents paid tribute to soldiers who died in liberating operations and to many civilian victims who were killed in shelling attacks launched by Serb rebels who were deployed around Gospic.
"In the morning of 9 September 1993, units of the 9th Guards Brigade of the Croatian Army and the Interior Ministry special police carried out a magnificent operation to make the enemy retreat and to free Gopic's wider area, bringing peace days to the town," the mayor said during today's ceremonies.
Some of the participants in the 9 September 1993 operation also today in Gospic held a news conference to clear some controversies surrounding the Medak Pocket operation, including charges which the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague pressed against Croatian Army generals, Mirko Norac and Rahim Ademi, accusing them of war crimes in that operation.
The chairman of the association of the Homeland Defence war veterans who were special police, Zeljko Sacic, told the conference that "in the military sense, the operation was conducted in a professional fashion and in compliance with international legal regulations".
Describing the liberating operation as legal and legitimate, Sacic refuted allegations that Interior Ministry special police units also had clashed with the UN troops deployed in the Gospic area at the time.
Those are big lies, Sacic said adding that French soldiers from the UNROFOR had activated an explosive device which had been planted by Serb rebels, Sacic said explaining some events from the operation.