The Gošić kllings refers to the mass murder of elderly Serb civilians from the village of

Gošić Gošić ( sr-Cyrl, Гошић) is a hamlet in the municipality of Kistanje, Šibenik-Knin County, in the Bukovica region of Croatia. History 8 Serb civilians in the village of Gošić were shot and killed on 27 August 1995, in the aftermath of t ...

Šibenik-Knin County Šibenik-Knin County (; hr, Šibensko-kninska županija ) is a county in southern Croatia, located in the north-central part of Dalmatia. The biggest city in the county is Šibenik, which also serves as county seat. Other notable towns in the co ...

by members of the

Croatian Army The Croatian Army ( hr, Hrvatska kopnena vojska or HKoV) is the largest and most significant component of the Croatian Armed Forces (CAF). Role and deployment The fundamental role and purpose of the Croatian Army is to protect vital national i ...

(HV) on 27 August 1995, approximately three weeks after

Operation Storm }) was the last major battle of the Croatian War of Independence and a major factor in the outcome of the Bosnian War. It was a decisive victory for the Croatian Army (HV), which attacked across a front against the self-declared proto-state R ...

Background

By March 1991, tensions between Croats and Serbs escalated into the

Croatian War of Independence The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the Government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)—and the Serb-controlled Yugosl ...

. Following a referendum on independence that was largely boycotted by Croatian Serbs, the Croatian parliament officially adopted independence on 25 June. The

Republic of Serb Krajina The Republic of Serbian Krajina or Serb Republic of Krajina ( sh, Република Српска Крајина, italics=no / or РСК / ''RSK'', ), known as the Serbian Krajina ( / ) or simply Krajina, was a self-proclaimed Serb proto-state, ...

(RSK) declared its intention to

secede Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a polity, political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former republics of ...

from Croatia and join the

Republic of Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hung ...

while the

Government of the Republic of Croatia The Government of Croatia ( hr, Vlada Hrvatske), formally the Government of the Republic of Croatia ( hr, Vlada Republike Hrvatske), commonly abbreviated to Croatian Government ( hr, hrvatska Vlada), is the main executive branch of government ...

declared it a rebellion. Between August 1991 and February 1992, the RSK initiated an ethnic cleansing campaign to drive out the Croat and non-Serb population from RSK-held territory, eventually expelling as many as 250,000 people according to

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

. Croatian forces also engaged in ethnic cleansing against Serbs in Eastern and Western Slavonia and parts of the Krajina on a more limited scale. On 4 August 1995, the Croatian Army (HV) launched

to retake the Krajina region which was completed successfully by 7 August. The Operation resulted in the exodus of approximately 200,000 Serbs from Krajina while those Serbs who were unable or unwilling to leave their homes, primarily the elderly, were subjected to various crimes. The

ICTY The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was a body of the United Nations that was established to prosecute the war crimes that had been committed during the Yugoslav Wars and to try their perpetrators. The tribunal ...

puts the number of Serb civilians killed at 324.

Killings

8 of the 12 remaining Serb villagers in the village of Gošić were shot and killed on 27 August 1995. The identified victims were 80-year old Milka Borak, 56-year old Dusan Borak, 77-year old Kosovka Borak, 70-year old Grozdana Borak, 75-year old Vasilj Borak, 81-year old Marija Borak and 70-year old Sava Borak. In October 1995, UN human rights workers matched the names of the five victims to names on crosses in the Knin cemetery. A memorial bearing the names of the eight victims was later added to the village. In August 2019, the deputy leader of the Serbian National Council read a traditional statement of commemoration next to the memorial for the 24th anniversary of Operation Storm.

Legal proceedings

The Croatian authorities publicly acknowledged the murders following the disclosure of the

Varivode massacre The Varivode massacre was a mass killing that occurred on 28 September 1995 in the village of Varivode, Croatia during the Croatian War of Independence. According to United Nations officials, soldiers of the Croatian Army (HV) and Croatian police ...

. On 18 October 1995, the Croatian Interior Minister announced that they had arrested thirteen persons suspected of having committed crimes in the villages of Gošić and Varivode. A combined trial for murders in the villages of

Varivode Varivode ( sr-cyr, Вариводе) is a village in the municipality of Kistanje, Šibenik-Knin County, Croatia. In the aftermath of Operation Storm in 1995 the village was the site of the Varivode massacre. History Prior to the Croatian War of ...

and

Zrmanja Zrmanja (, it, Zermagna) is a river in southern Lika and northern Dalmatia, Croatia. It is long and its basin covers an area of . It was known to the ancient Romans as ''Tedanius''. The spring of Zrmanja is located in southern part of Lika unde ...

was held and six former Croatian Army officers were found not guilty. The soldiers were Ivan Jakovljević, Pero Perković, Neđeljko Mijić, Zlatko Ladović, Ivica Petrić and Nikola Rašić. Petrić however was found guilty and sentenced to six years for the murder of a civilian in the village of Zrmanja and Rašić was sentenced to a year in prison for attempted robbery and the attempted murder of a civilian in the municipality of Knin. The killings in the village were also included in the

's indictment of former Croatian general

Ante Gotovina Ante Gotovina (born 12 October 1955) is a Croatian retired lieutenant general and former French senior corporal who served in the Croatian War for Independence. He is noted for his primary role in the 1995 Operation Storm. In 2001, the Intern ...

. In the appeal of the

trial of Gotovina et al The Trial of Gotovina et al. was a war crimes trial held from March 2008 until (including the appeals process) November 2012 before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), set up in 1993. The ICTY indicted Croatian A ...

which acquitted Gotovina and

Mladen Markač Mladen Markač (; born 8 May 1955) is a Croatian retired general. He was a Commander of Croatian Special Police during Operation Storm during the Croatian War of Independence (1991–1995), and afterwards held the rank of Colonel General. Later, ...

, the

ruled that there was insufficient evidence to conclude the existence of a

joint criminal enterprise Joint criminal enterprise (JCE) is a legal doctrine used during war crimes tribunals to allow the prosecution of members of a group for the actions of the group. This doctrine considers each member of an organized group individually responsibl ...

to remove Serb civilians by force. The Appeals Chamber further stated that the Croatian Army and Special Police committed crimes after the artillery assault, but the state and military leadership had no role in their planning and creation.

References

{{reflist 1995 in Croatia Mass murder in 1995 Croatian war crimes in the Croatian War of Independence Massacres in Croatia Massacres of Serbs History of the Serbs of Croatia August 1995 events in Europe