page_title: Varivode massacre
section_title: Commemoration
hierarchical_section_title: Varivode massacre / Aftermath / Commemoration
caption_attribution_description: This file was uploaded with Commonist. Hrvatski: Ivo Josipović, 16. obljetnica vojnoredarstvene operacije Oluja u Kninu
context_page_description: 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 and Croatian police killed nine Croatian Serb villagers, all of whom were between the ages of 60 and 85. After the war, six former Croatian soldiers were tried for committing crimes in the village, but were all eventually released due to lack of evidence. In 2012, the Supreme Court of Croatia ruled that the Republic of Croatia was responsible for the killings, dubbing the massacre an "act of terrorism," and the following year the municipal court in Knin announced that the Government of Croatia must provide compensation to the children of a couple who were murdered.
context_section_description: A wooden monument was erected to commemorate the victims of the massacre. In April 2010, the plaque was destroyed by a Croatian war veteran and had to be rebuilt. The monument's destruction was condemned by then-Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor. "The Prime Minister called on the Interior Ministry and other institutions to launch an immediate investigation and to solve the case immediately, in order for the perpetrators to be found and punished for this act of vandalism," the Croatian government stated. The rebuilt monument was unveiled by Croatian President Ivo Josipović on 10 May 2010. The new monument is built out of stone, has the names of the victims inscribed in both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, stands ten meters tall and cost the Croatian government 60,000 kuna to construct.
  The Croatian President stated, "retaliation, robbery and crime are impermissible, and the blood and shame cannot be washed away." The nine Serbs were killed at a time when there was no war and they were innocent victims of retaliation, Josipović said while addressing the crowd of several hundred people after laying flowers at the monument. Milorad Pupovac, a Croatian Serb MP and president of the Serb National Council, stated, "We have decided to erect this monument for those who have been forgotten, for those whose suffering has gone unrecognized. We hope that the individuals responsible for this crime will be brought to justice and that the ones who tolerated it will show themselves. The possibility is open that we all, the Orthodox and Catholics, Croats and Serbs, after the erection of this monument to the ethnic Serbs civilians who suffered in the 1991–1995 war, can motion away from these things so that they no longer divide us so that we can all feel a mutual-responsibility to ensure that these crimes never happen again."
caption: Croatian President Ivo Josipović condemned the killings in 2010.
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