OKUCANI, May 1 (Hina) - The ninth anniversary of Operation Flash, in which Croatian soldiers and police liberated western Slavonia after four years of Serb occupation and restored control over the Zagreb-Lipovac highway, was marked in
Okucani, some 120 km southeast of Zagreb, on Saturday.
OKUCANI, May 1 (Hina) - The ninth anniversary of Operation Flash, in
which Croatian soldiers and police liberated western Slavonia after
four years of Serb occupation and restored control over the
Zagreb-Lipovac highway, was marked in Okucani, some 120 km southeast
of Zagreb, on Saturday.#L#
The operation was launched in the morning of 1 May 1995 and was
successfully completed within 36 hours.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the anniversary, Parliament President
Vladimir Seks said the Homeland War and 1995's operations Flash and
Storm had been legal and legitimate means sovereign and
internationally recognised Croatia used to defend its survival,
independence and territorial integrity.
"Operations Flash and Storm were no criminal joint enterprise whose
purpose was ethnic cleansing, and nobody will succeed in altering the
truth about the Homeland War, which was a just and liberating war,"
Seks said.
Also present was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Family, War
Veterans' Affairs and Inter-Generation Solidarity Jadranka Kosor.
Speaking of the problem of economic development in western Slavonia,
she said solutions would be defined in a new law on formerly
war-affected areas, which she hoped would be adopted by the end of the
year.
The parliament and government leaders paid respects to the 42 soldiers
and police killed in Operation Flash by laying wreaths near the main
cross in Okucani. Wreaths were also laid by delegations of the
president of the republic, the interior ministry, Kosor's ministry,
Homeland War associations, local authorities and Defence Minister
Berislav Roncevic.
(Hina) ha