ON 8 August 1995, on the road next to the Brijuni motel near Gornji Vidusevac, , one of the most famous photographs from Operation Storm was taken. Nowadays, many say that with the surrender of the 21st Kordun Corps, the last major rebel formation which put down its arms, the war in Croatia was over.
Along with the late Lieutenant General Petar Stipetic and Colonel Cedo Bulat, the commander of the 21st Kordun Corps, the photo also shows Captain Miroslav Vidovic, a security assistant and a close associate of General Stipetic.
"On that August 8, the war ended"
"Of course, I remember. I remember everything. Like it was yesterday. Of course, I most remember what I was feeling then, and that is pride and glory. We defended and liberated the state. Right there, on that road, on the hood of a police car, by the act of surrender, the war ended on August 8," Vidovic spoke to Index about the events from 25 years ago.
Let's remind you, on 8 August 1995, General Petar Stipetic shouldn't have even been on the road near Gornji Vidusevac. According to the original plans for Operation Storm, he was sent to Slavonia, to Djakovo, to prevent a possible attack from Serbia and the still occupied Danube region. The Operations in Banija were entrusted to General Ivan Basarac.
However, Basarac voluntarily changed his plans and headed to Petrinja, which resulted in the death of many Croatian soldiers, and the enemy stopped four Croatian brigades. It was similar at the Kupa, which Basarac forced right under the enemies' noses. In two days, the Croatian Army members were killed in the same number as on the rest of the battlefield from Vrlika to Jasenovac. Krajina forces counterattacked, and everything smelled of disaster.
"Stipetic should have been there since the first day, but the politics got involved"
Stipetic should have been there from day one. If only he had been, there would have been many fewer victims. Stipetic was in Zagreb before Operation Storm began. He was constantly training people for the day when the liberation would begin. Basarac was given command under strange circumstances, and not Stipetic. I remember that and I know that it was politics, "Vidovic recounts the events that preceded the surrender.
Vidovic: It was chaos. From today's perspective, it's incomprehensible to me
Vidovic says that General Basarac was wrong about many things. The day before, he changed the direction of the attack. The Gromovi (The Thunders) unit was envisioned to go as a whole, but on the first and second day, a large part of the reserve units did not find themselves at the starting point.
"It was chaos. From today's perspective, it's incomprehensible to me. It was difficult. We entered Knin on August 5, and we didn't move from this side. In fact, we had to defend ourselves," Vidovic recalls of that time.
Stipetic insisted on a maximally professional attitude towards Basarac
Franjo Tudjman then ordered Stipetic to take over Banija and remove Basarac. It was believed that Basarac would not easily give up command, so Stipetic went to Sisak accompanied by the special police and two armored vehicles. But he insisted on doing everything in a peaceful way.
"I was a security assistant, and Stipetic came to me and told me that we had to do the transfer as professionally as possible. That we had to call Basarac, assure him that there would be no procedure towards him at all. I remember Stipetic saying that it would not be fair to a colleague, an officer, and a general to treat him in any other way. Stipetic entered Basarac's office and talked to him. Basarac didn't like it, of course, he went out, but he accepted. Everything went well, "Vidovic recalls.
"We arranged the surrender, but some people were against it"
Stipetic left Basarac's office, and he moved to a smaller room. There he planned a solution to the Operation that led to the surrender of the enemy forces. He decided to bypass the Serb positions that he surrounded.
"A surrender was agreed. We kept them in the surroundings, and within the surroundings, they kept order themselves. Such was the agreement. But some of our commanders didn't accept it. One of them was Basarac. But we talked to him, so he relented. It wasn't easy. Only a day before, 18 members of the Gromovi and their commander were killed, many were killed. But all this was said a long time ago. I have nothing to add," Vidovic pointed out in an interview with Index.
It especially hurts him that the state policy, and especially the former president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, spoke about this historical event as a moment of voluntary surrender of the last enemy forces.
"Stipetic wanted as fewer victims as possible from our and their side"
"Well, of course, it was when we did absolutely everything to make it happen. Stipetic fought for it and succeeded. He didn't divide people when it came to life and death. He wanted as few victims as possible on our side and theirs. It mattered to him. Every life," Vidovic told Index.
The act of surrender itself was one of the brightest events in the Homeland War. Former defense minister Fred Matic said that this historical photo was equal to raising the flag on Iwo Jima.
"Mr. General, Colonel Cedo Bulat, the commander of the 21st Kordun Corps, I hand over the corps to you and congratulate the Croatian army on its victory," a Krajina army officer reported on August 8.
Petar Stipetic and Cedo Bulat, a lieutenant general and a colonel behaved like gentlemen that day. A few years before that, they were comrades, colleagues. Stipetic was Bulat's superior in the 5th Military District of the Yugoslav People's Army based in Zagreb until Bulat went to Krajina, and Stipetic went to create the Croatian Army.
After signing the surrender, the war ended.
"And then the disappointment began"
"You know, and then that disappointment began. They did everything to belittle what we did. And life wasn't fair to General Stipetic himself. When Stipetic died, the speaker of the Parliament Gordan Jandrokovic didn't even want to give a moment of silence. I wouldn't even like to mention or comment on Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, now the former president. Stipetic didn't ask for any special merits or benefits; he stayed in his apartment in Zagreb's Korculanska Street, which he received from that former state. While others were getting apartments, they didn't want to fund the renovation of the windows to Stipetic, "Vidovic tells Index, adding that Stipetic never complained about all this.
For Vidovic personally, the most difficult episode was from the time of Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor. Namely, at that time, there was a search for artillery logs for the Croatian generals' trial in Hague.
"It hurt the most when the police called us, searched the apartments"
"It still hurts today. Stipetic was called by the police a couple of times because of those logs. I don't know who said that we could have those artillery logs. There was no logic in that because we couldn't have had it, and we had nothing to do with it. At that time, they searched our homes; the police called us as we were criminals. And that shows what the attitude towards Stipetic was, "Vidovic recalls, adding that they were ridiculed and embarrassed at the time. The generals were eventually released, and the artillery logs were never found or mentioned.
Miroslav Vidovic today
"It was that contempt towards us leftists. We weren't theirs, that's why they were doing it," says Vidovic. When we asked for an explanation, Vidovic says that it happened because Stipetic didn't want to join the HDZ.
He rejected Susak's invitation to join the HDZ
"That contempt for Stipetic dates back to when the then-Defense Minister Gojko Susak called the generals and asked them to sign the document. The HDZ application form. Stipetic refused. They never forgave him. If they could, they would have gotten rid of Stipetic long before, but Tudjman knew not only how capable Stipetic was but also how necessary he was to the Croatian Army. After all, Stipetic himself proved it countless times," Vidovic recounts.
It should be remembered that three years ago, Glina marked the victory of the armed forces in the Homeland War and the surrender of the 21st Corps of the enemy army, with President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic. Her protocol, as well as the Ministry of Croatian Veterans, didn't remember to invite the retired General Petar Stipetic, whose role in the liberation of that part of Croatia, was crucial. The president additionally made sure to spit on history and Stipetic's role in Operation Storm.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in Glina, completely unprovoked, said that the Serb forces had surrendered voluntarily in the area.
Contempt towards Stipetic because he was not theirs
"No, no. I wouldn't like to talk about Kolinda. Let her deal with football, sports, and show business; she's doing that well. But that's the way it is. And last September, when the monument to Stipetic was unveiled in his hometown Ogulin, there was no one from the right present. Despite giving his best for his homeland Croatia, they didn't forgive him for not being theirs," says Vidovic, adding that the state authorities didn't care about Stipetic. He just didn't matter to them.
"The general went to the grave without regretting anything. He was simply that type of person," Vidovic points out.
Vidovic himself retired in 2002, as did Stipetic. Then he started working at Ina.
"I worked at INA until last year in August, and then I had to leave. New forces came to the company at the time, the forces loyal to the Hungarian side, not the Croatian side. I took the severance pay and left. But that's another story, or maybe the same one, "Vidovic concludes.