CROATIA: A decade after 200,000 Serbs fled their homes to escape advancing Croatian troops, Belgrade is furious at grand plans for today's anniversary of "Operation Storm".
Thousands of Croats are expected to gather in the southern town of Knin to hear prime minister Ivo Sanader hail Operation Storm as a glorious counter-attack that routed Serb forces and hastened the end of the war in Croatia and neighbouring Bosnia.
But preparations for the event have been coloured by Belgrade's anger at its perceived triumphalism, and Zagreb's awareness it cannot encourage unalloyed public pride in a victory won by a fugitive war crimes suspect, Gen Ante Gotovina.
Operation Storm saw Croatia regain a third of its territory from Serb rebels who, with Belgrade's support, opposed Croatia's independence and tried to carve out their own state in that country's Krajina area.
With the tacit approval of the West, Zagreb's rearmed and rejuvenated troops rapidly retook Krajina in August 1995, sparking panic among Serb civilians whose families had lived there for centuries, but who fled to Serbia in fear of reprisals.
What most Croats see as an episode of immense national pride, Krajina Serbs regard as a calamity, and less than half those displaced have returned to their old homes. And the approach of today's celebration in Croatia has reopened old wounds.
"Operation Storm was historic proof of the Croatian nation's ability to establish, defend and preserve its independence and statehood," declared president Stipe Mesic.
"It also created conditions for ending the war, not only in Croatia but also in Bosnia," where Croatian forces united with local Muslim fighters to subdue the Serbs.
But most Serbs see things very differently.
"Serbia and the whole Serb nation today remember thousands of innocent people who were killed and hundreds of thousands of Serbs that were expelled from their homes," prime minister Vojislav Kostunica said yesterday. "A whole nation . . . was rooted out in just a few days," he added. "The column of refugees . . . was a horrific crime . . . and the biggest ethnic cleansing since World War II."
Three weeks after laying a wreath at a memorial for 8,000 Muslims killed by Bosnian Serbs at Srebrenica, Serbian president Boris Tadic denounced Zagreb's refusal to apologise for atrocities against Serb civilians during Operation Storm.
Mr Mesic countered that cases of murder and looting were isolated incidents, rather than part of any plan to clear all Serbs from Krajina. Mr Sanader did nothing to calm Serb ire by calling Operation Storm a lasting inspiration to his people. "Storm was important not only for the liberation of occupied territory but also for restoring self-confidence, and faith in the future," he said.
Today, thousands of Serbs are expected to march to the Croatian embassy in Belgrade with a list of about 2,600 people believed to have disappeared during Operation Storm. But Croatia's leaders know their most dangerous critics reside closer to home.
Many veterans of Operation Storm have threatened to boycott the official celebrations, in protest at the government's public support for the capture or surrender of Gen Gotovina and his prosecution at the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague.
The EU has postponed accession talks with Croatia until it finds Gen Gotovina or proves he is abroad. This week, in Mr Sanader's home village near the coastal city of Split, a huge poster of Gen Gotovina appeared, along with the words: "He is a hero. What are you?"
