Talk:Croatian War of Independence/Archive 7

Biased Article almost on propaganda level
Why there are no images of Serbian refuges nor there is any image of Serbian graves as comparison to those of Croatian. There was according to your own article more then 4000 killed Serbian civilians (comparing to more then 6000 Croatians) and 300000 displaced people which according to actual numbers is even higher considering percentile of Serbs and those declared as Yugoslavs in Croatia before and after the war. Just if those declared as Serbs are counted it is clearly seen that more then 400,000 Serbs had actually left Croatia. Article is very discriminatory and disrespectful to victims of war of Serbian origin. Except one abandoned house nothing illustrates their suffering. Wikipedia took to spread information, one would guess, not propaganda. Just merely counting pictures presenting Croatian casualties (massive graves, refugees, burned buildings) and pictures of Serbian casualties (only one picture of abandoned house) lives impression of heavily biased approach of writers of this article. Ratio is almost 10:1 if not bigger that in nowrecepy way matches numbers of civilians killed on both sides.

It is as writers have set on mission to create image of war that is to discriminate Serbian victims over Croatian victims, to create perception instead to present the facts. Simply comparing civilian death casualties that is less than 2:1 and imagery and wording that is more then 10:1 creates intense feeling of propaganda motive rather then neutral factual approach. Like reader needs to be convinced into something rather than to be informed of something. Not a one single picture of well documented Serbian refuges from massive ethnic cleansing of Serbs in 1995 that was witnessed directly by US ambassador Peter Galbraith as well as Croatian Helsinki Comity. Here are some examples of poorly illustrated articles on this very Wikipedia and lots of other available material on google. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Storm#/media/File:Serb_refugees_leaving_Croatia.jpg https://www.google.com/search?q=serbs+croatia+1995&rlz=1C1GCEB_enUS869US869&sxsrf=ACYBGNTvJfPcx32zFE4LbqY59BCF-yS8hQ:1571675338547&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIlIby4q3lAhWDpp4KHdB2BXIQ_AUIEigB&biw=1397&bih=647#imgdii=4RGZLeyU_bJoGM:&imgrc=ZGhn9W1vrvLBAM: https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/aqpqfz/croatian_soldier_and_serbian_grandma_during_1995/ https://www.google.com/search?q=serbs+croatia+1995&rlz=1C1GCEB_enUS869US869&sxsrf=ACYBGNTvJfPcx32zFE4LbqY59BCF-yS8hQ:1571675338547&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjIlIby4q3lAhWDpp4KHdB2BXIQ_AUIEigB&biw=1397&bih=647#imgdii=ZGhn9W1vrvLBAM:&imgrc=ZGhn9W1vrvLBAM: https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/2kbv0k/massexodus_of_serbs_from_croatia_1995_800x600/ 206.29.176.53 (talk) 19:14, 19 October 2019 (UTC) 172.58.46.247 (talk) 16:35, 21 October 2019 (UTC) 172.58.46.140 (talk) 02:45, 29 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The Talk Pages are for the discussion of Reliable Sources for the improvement of the article. Do you have a Reliable Source you would like to discuss?

Prof. Damaska quote
Why was the following quote removed of Yale university professor Mirjan Damaska, speaking for Croatian television:

The Croatian international legal scholar and Yale University professor, Mirjan Damaška, stated that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) did not determine an aggression: "I could not, unfortunately, agree with the claim that it is clear from the [ICJ] verdict who the aggressor was…An attack on Croatia can be interpreted as an attack by a state on a state or an attack by one component of a federal state on another…If at the time when serious crimes were committed in Croatia, the SFRY still existed, then in the legal sense, one cannot speak of aggression as an attack by a state on a state...The International Court of Justice is of the opinion that Serbia (FRY) was formed at the end of April 1992. According to the judges, the SFRY still existed after the military campaign in Croatia and even after the fall of Vukovar."

Also for the claim in the article that "both international courts ICTY and ICJ" found that "the war was an international conflict" citations of such verdicts need to be provided. I have not found any to date, and the quote by Prof. Damaska above directly contradicts that claim. One citation in the article appears to be a statement by a prosecutor in an ICJ document, not a finding by the judges. Thhhommmasss (talk) 22:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * You cut out almost every second sentence from Damaška's interview. It is true that the ICJ did not determine an aggression, but that is because that was not the subject of the trial and the tribunal was not competent to make such a verdict, as Damaška said in another interview . And what we need are secondary sources (trials/litigations are WP:PRIMARY) that discuss the nature of the conflict or how institutions such as the ICTY view them, like in Bjelajac et al. 2009 (cited in the article) on p. 241 where it says: "In order to provide a legal framework for the conflict, the ICTY chose to consider the war in Croatia after 8 October 1991 as an international armed conflict". Tezwoo (talk) 00:52, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * In the article you cite, Damaska is saying that the crime of aggression had not yet been defined in international law, hence per that argument no international court could have determined aggression, and the word should be taken out of the article. Part of this may be verbiage, i.e. if per prof. Damaska aggression does not exist as a crime in international law, there can only be a finding of "international armed conflict", not an aggression. In fact the other article you cite calls the war in Croatia "an international armed conflict". Therefore, if the term aggression is being used in this article for an ICTY finding of "international armed conflict" in Croatia, then aggression should also be used to describe Croatia's role in the "Croat-Bosniak War" article, since the ICTY made an explicit finding of "international armed conflict" for Croatia's role there.

Btw, in the Damaska quote I cited - "According to the judges, the SFRY still existed after the military campaign in Croatia and even after the fall of Vukovar" - Damaska is clearly stating that the ICJ judges did not consider this to be an international conflict. Thhhommmasss (talk) 01:56, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

International recognition of Croatia began in 26 June 1991, Croatia was accepted to the UN members on May 22, 1992 while the war was still going on until 1995 when the war ended, so it was a war between states and aggression against another state.93.138.132.1 (talk) 15:00, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * That’s not what prof. Damaska is saying about the ICJ. Btw, for the Bjelajac and Ozren cited claim "to provide a legal framework for the conflict, the ICTY chose to consider the war in Croatia after 8 October 1991 as an international armed conflict", their footnote states “See, for example, the amended indictment against Pavle Strugar et al.:” So per the same logic it may be possible to find a comparable quote somewhere which states "In order to provide a legal framework, the ICTY chose to consider Operation Storm as a joint criminal enterprise whose goal was to forcibly displace Serbs from Croatia” and similarly in the footnote explain “See for example the amended ICTY indictment against Gotovina-Makrac”. Then based on this, state in this article “the prevailing view, including both international courts, the ICTY and ICJ, was that Operation Storm was a joint criminal enterprise aimed at ethnically cleansing Serbs.


 * This looks like misleading word play, and I’ve seen no evidence the ICTY ever made a judgement of “international armed conflict” for the war in Croatia, unlike the case of the Croat-Bosniak War where it specifically made such a judgementThhhommmasss (talk) 20:27, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Operation storm is the liberation of the country from the great Serbian aggression and the return of the territory under the constitutional order of the internationally recognized order of the Republic of Croatia. The one who writes has no idea about history like you.93.138.132.1 (talk) 20:59, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * This article is not an opinion column. Statements are made about what the ICTY and ICJ state. Prof. Damaska directly contradicts that the ICJ made a judgement of "international armed conflict". The claims by Blelajac and Ozren point to no ICTY judgment, only a claim in a indictment. Like I said, if claims in indictments are "the prevailing view of international courts", then all claims in the Gotovina-Makrac indictment are also "the prevailing view of international courts" Thhhommmasss (talk) 21:09, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't care what they tell you, it is important that the country is free from the project of a greater Serbia. Today, Croatia is both the EU and NATO, and it is an example to other neighboring countries. Bye93.138.132.1 (talk) 21:26, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

We follow what reliable secondary sources say. If they say that the ICTY considers this conflict (at least since 8 October 1991) to be an international conflict, then that is what we write. See WP:Verifiability:

"In the English Wikipedia, verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. Wikipedia does not publish original research. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than the beliefs or experiences of editors. Even if you are sure something is true, it must be verifiable before you can add it."

So even if an editor goes through all first-instance verdicts, their appeals, additional trials (some cases had more than two trials), their summaries, other court decisions, all of the documents with hundreds of thousands of pages to reach a conclusion that what a certain source says is wrong, we can't make a change based on that because what the editor did was a prime example of original research.

But even if we ignore all of that, the points you are trying to make here are unclear. You mention that we need an "ICTY judgement" on international conflict, but the article doesn't talk about ICTY judgements in regards to ICTY's views. The article uses the wording similar to the one in Bjelajac et al. 2009 p. 241. You mention that "the term aggression is being used in this article", but the only place where "aggression" is mentioned is that in Croatia, the war is often characterized as a "Greater-Serbian Aggression". The other place is a quote of Damaška who says that "aggression" was not the subject of the ICJ trial, though that quote looks unnecessary as the ICJ seems to have been misplaced there, as they apparently did not discuss the nature of the conflict. So the article doesn't say (in WP:WIKIVOICE) that Yugoslavia made an aggression on Croatia.

And I'll answer your question regarding an example of a particular ICTY judgement that classifies this conflict an international one, since you "have not found any to date". It's the Gotovina et al. judgement, page 896:

"The Trial Chamber considered the evidence that from 1991 to 1995 Croatia and Serbian forces conducted military operations against one another. The Trial Chamber also considered the evidence from Dodig, Lazarević, Witness AG-10, and Babić regarding links between the SVK, RSK, JNA and Serbia/FRY, including in the eve of Croatia’s transition towards independence and the outbreak of the armed conflict. In particular, the Trial Chamber considered the evidence pertaining to Serbian President Milošević’s control and influence over SVK forces and Serbia/FRY’s funding, arming and supplying of the Krajina Serbs. Based on the above evidence, the Trial Chamber finds that Serbia/FRY had overall control of the SVK. Recalling the agreement of all the parties that Croatia and Serbia were engaged more broadly in hostilities around the beginning of the Indictment period, the Trial Chamber further finds that the armed conflict that existed at the outset of the Indictment period was international. If it was not already an international armed conflict in 1991, then it became one based on the SVK acting on behalf of Serbia/FRY." Tezwoo (talk) 22:24, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I have not seen the above ICTY judgment. Regarding ICJ, where is the reliable source quote that they determined it was an "international conflict", as the article states. I cited a reliable, verifiable, secondary source, prof. Damaska, who says just the opposite, and you or someone else erased that. Regarding aggression, I agree one can say something like "Croatian politicians claim Serbia committed aggression", just as in the Croat-Bosniak War article it can state "Bosnian politicians state Croatia committed aggression". My point was with respect to international court claims and erasing the Damaska quote Thhhommmasss (talk)

Serb casualties
Why have the Serb losses and casualties been removed? Can somebody please explain why this has been deleted? Tamerlanahayav (talk) 19:12, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * What was removed? Tezwoo (talk) 00:52, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

In the casualties and losses section, only the Croatian casualties are shown. The Serbian military and civilian losses have been removed? Tamerlanahayav (talk) 21:12, 5 February 2021 (UTC)