The 25th anniversary of Operation Flash was marked at the ceremony in the central town of Okucani on Friday morning, commemorating the Croatian military action which liberated 500 square kilometres of territory occupied by Serb insurgents in western Slavonia during the 1991-95 war in Croatia.

Okucani, located about 130 kilometres southeast of Zagreb, was the centre of the Serb rebellion and a staging area for terrorist attacks in Western Slavonia during the 1991-95 war.

The operation was launched on May 1 and ended on May 3, 1995. In less than 32 hours, Croatian troops and police regained control of 500 square kilometres of land, including the main west-east motorway and the railway line leading to Eastern Slavonia. About 7,200 troops and police officers took part in the liberation of Western Slavonia, of whom 42 were killed and 162 wounded.

It was the first time during the 1991-1995 war that the Croatian Air Force had used airstrikes on a larger scale.

“Today, we mark the 25th anniversary of this operation as a modern, free country, a member of EU and Nato. We are here to pay our respects to all those who sacrificed everything for our freedom,” Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on Friday. 

Plenkovic, Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandrokovic, and President Zoran Milanovic were supposed to lay a wreath together at the memorial site in the town, but Milanovic abruptly left the event in protest against the salute “For the homeland ready” which was visible on the T-shirts of some war veterans who had arrived in Okucani to participate in the commemoration.

The controversial salute, originally used by the Nazi-allied Ustasha regime in WWII, was revived during the 1991-95 war in Croatia among right-wing paramilitary groups. Milanovic explained he did not want to participate in the event because he found the shirts to be an act of provocation and an insult to the memory of all those who gave their lives for Croatia.