In one day in September 1993, in the process of aggressively shoring up the crumbling UN peacekeeping mission in Croatia, Canadian soldiers killed as many as 27 Croat soldiers in a series of firefights. Letting Canadians know of this little-known battle is nominally at the heart of journalist Carol Off’s The Ghosts of Medak Pocket, and […]
Tag Archives: Canada’s Secret War
Articles, Croatia, Serbia
I fought at Medak Pocket. And I’ve never really left that dark, bloody place
22
May
May
Arriving in Zagreb, Croatia, in April of 1993 we stampeded down the stairs from the aircraft to the waiting minibus. It was garishly painted with no seats, just strategically placed poles. We crammed in and within milliseconds the air became almost solid with cigarette smoke. The nine-hour flight from Winnipeg hadn’t been aboard a smoke-free […]
22
May
May
MEDAK, CROATIA—Canadian veteran Rob Deans is still haunted by the shell-scarred ruins and forgotten landmines of Croatia’s Medak Pocket. It’s been 20 years since he was last here, but not a day goes by when he doesn’t think about this place. “I can picture the trees, the path, the burning garage, everything,” says Deans, who […]
17
May
May
Created in the aftermath of the First World War following the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Yugoslavia was a multi-ethnic country with several constituent republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro) – each one with a distinct identity. Tensions among the various ethnic and religious groups boiled over in 1991 with declarations of […]