During that military and police offensive in August 1995, Croatian forces liberated central and southern Croatian areas from rebel Serb forces.
The ICTY's trial chamber is to render its judgement in the case of these three Croatian generals on Friday.
At the time relevant to the indictment, Gotovina (55) was Commander of the Split Military District of the Croatian Army (HV), Cermak (61) was Commander of the Knin Garrison, and Markac (55) was Assistant Interior Minister and Special Police Commander.
The prosecution at the Hague-based UN tribunal claims that the three high-ranking officers had effective control over the military and police units under their command.
The prosecution accuses the three generals of having participated, from July to 30 September 1995, together with other Croatian officials, in a joint criminal enterprise the purpose of which was to forcibly and permanently remove the Serb population from the Croatian areas held by Serb rebels (the so-called Republic of Serbian Krajina). According to the indictment, the joint criminal enterprise also included the first Croatian president, Franjo Tudjman, Defence Minister Gojko Susak, the Croatian Army Chief of Staff, Janko Bobetko, and Zvonimir Cervenko, who succeeded Bobetko in that position on 17 July 1995.
The prosecution holds Gotovina, Cermak and Markac responsible for having failed to prevent crimes and punish the perpetrators.
It alleges that "an orchestrated campaign" of expulsion of the Serb population was launched before the start of the main military operation on 4 August 1995, mostly through propaganda, misinformation and psychological warfare. News was spread that Croatian forces were about to launch an offensive any minute, and all the time radio, television and other media broadcast messages that "Serbs are free to go" and that large convoys of Serbs were leaving the area. At the same time, Serb civilians were shown maps with marked "exit corridors" in that area.
According to the prosecution, as the military operation progressed, the Croatian forces started shelling civilian areas and entering Serb-populated settlements at night, threatening civilians who still had not fled.
The prosecution alleges that in order to prevent Serb refugees from returning, the Croatian forces started systematically plundering and destroying those settlements at the very beginning of Operation Storm.
The prosecution alleges in the indictment that there were unlawful killings of Serb civilians who did not manage to leave the area, including unarmed men without military status and elderly and disabled people.
The generals are held accountable, according to command responsibility, for the massacre of residents of the village of Grubori.
According to the prosecution, a population policy was carried out to settle Croats in a large part of the area previously held by Serb rebels, with Croatian Army members and other Croats moving into abandoned Serb houses. Even though the official policy granted the Serbs the right to return to their homes or claim back their property, the destruction of Serb-owned property and Serbs' documents made their return impossible in practice.