Canada should set sights on Croatian war criminal
By SCOTT TAYLOR
Mon, Aug 8 - 7:23 AM
SCOTT TAYLOR
Since the Conservative government decided two weeks ago to publish the
identity of suspected war criminals living in Canada, there have already
been seven of the 30 fugitives turned in to authorities.
While the names and photos of these individuals were made public through the
media, for the sake of protecting their privacy, no further details were
provided about the alleged crimes.
A couple of months ago I bumped into a high-profile alleged war criminal at
a European defence exhibition. Unfortunately, he is not on Canada's wanted
list.
Not only was Agim Ceku wandering about freely at the trade show, as the
current minister of Kosovo security forces, he was actually in the market to
buy new weapons systems. An ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, Ceku had a
successful career in the former Yugoslavian Army.
In 1991, when Yugoslavia began to break apart, Ceku was eager to fight Serbs
and he was quick to join the fledgling Croatian army.
Canadian peacekeepers first encountered Ceku in September 1993. At that
juncture, the ethnic Serbian population in the region, known as the Krajina,
was hoping to secede from Croatia following the country's 1991 declaration
of secession from Yugoslavia.
In an effort to crush the Serb secessionists, the Croats mounted an
offensive against the Krajina in the Battle of the Medak Pocket. These
attacks were initially successful and the Croats quickly captured four
villages from the weak Serbian militia.
But after the successful intervention by the 2nd Battalion, Princess
Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and French peacekeepers, under the UN
banner, the Croat forces withdrew from the Medak.
However, as the Canadians advanced they soon found the grisly remains of
those Serbs unfortunate to have been caught by the Croats in the pocket.
Men, women, children, and even livestock and pets, had been butchered before
the Croats withdrew. During this engagement, Canadian soldiers engaged the
Croatian forces in the biggest battle fought by Canada since the Korean War.
Agim Ceku was not just on the planning staff for the Medak Pocket, he was
actually on the front lines supervising the ethnic cleansing first-hand. We
know this because he was wounded in the village of Gospic — possibly by a
Canadian solider — and spent the next few months recovering from his
injuries in a Zagreb hospital.
By summer of 1995, when Croatians launched the massive offensive, code-named
Operation Storm, to fully reclaim the Krajina, Ceku had completely
recovered, been promoted to brigadier-general and was the commander of all
Croatian artillery.
Nearly 200,000 ethnic Serbs, who were all too aware of the massacre in the
Medak, fled before this Croatian onslaught. Once again, Canadian military
officers bore witness to Ceku's handiwork as the Croatian artillery ignored
UN directives and deliberately shelled the fleeing columns of unarmed Serb
civilians.
Unfortunately, all of the evidence collected by Canadians and their demands
for indictments resulted in nothing, because the U.S. and U.K. senior
leadership saw in Ceku a useful resource.
In 1999, when NATO was preparing to intervene in Kosovo, despite full
knowledge of his alleged war crimes in Croatia, Ceku was appointed to
command the Kosovo Liberation Army.
After NATO's occupation of Kosovo, and on its decade-long struggle to
achieve the status of an independent state, Ceku has remained a top
political figure, including having served a brief stint as the prime
minister.
Based on evidence submitted by the Serbian government, there is a
longstanding Interpol warrant for the arrest of Ceku on war crime charges.
Over the past decade, several countries, including Slovenia, Hungary, and
Bulgaria, have actually detained Ceku, based on the Interpol warrant, but in
each case the U.S. State Department has exercised its clout to have him
sprung.
Given the strong Canadian connection as eyewitnesses to his crimes, if
Canada is serious about bringing such villains to justice, let's set our
sights on putting Ceku behind bars. Those Canadian soldiers who bore witness
to his atrocities deserve no less.
Scott Taylor is an author and editor of Esprit de Corps magazine.
