Date: November 17, 1994
Author: Valentina Krčmar, Director, Mothers for Peace – Bedem Ljubavi (Toronto Chapter)
Addressed to: The Honourable André Ouellet, Minister of External Affairs, Government of Canada
View the Original Letter: krcmar book 2_Part151_Part31.pdf
About This Letter
On November 17, 1994, Valentina Krčmar, writing as Director of Mothers for Peace (Bedem Ljubavi), appealed to Canada’s Minister of External Affairs, André Ouellet, ahead of the third anniversary of the fall of Vukovar, one of the most devastating events of the Croatian War of Independence.
Her tone is solemn, imploring, and filled with anguish as she urges the Canadian government to speak out in remembrance of the victims and to demand accountability for the atrocities committed by Serbian forces during and after the city’s siege.
“On Nov. 19, 1994, the Canadian-Croatian community will be remembering and mourning the victims of the Serbian aggression that died in the town of Vukovar.”
Krčmar recounts the horrors of November 19, 1991, when Vukovar fell after a three-month siege, resulting in widespread destruction, mass killings, and the disappearance of hundreds of civilians and hospital patients.
“On that day, three years ago many died: among many others, over 200 wounded from the hospital disappeared, and according to the UN are somewhere in graves. We know that all of them were horribly tortured and killed afterwards.”
Her letter gives voice to the grief of survivors and families still searching for loved ones, including Canadian citizens with missing relatives. She draws particular attention to the brutality inflicted upon women and children:
“On November 19, 1991, many children and women were raped in the town of Vukovar. In Croatia there is a six-year-old (now) who was raped and cannot be cured at all — imagine how old she was when she was raped in the town of Vukovar on November 19, 1991.”
Krčmar pleads with Ouellet to protest publicly in the name of humanity, demanding answers from international authorities and the Serbian government regarding the missing, the mass graves, and the fate of Vukovar’s hospital patients.
“We are asking you that you protest in the name of humanity; in the name of us, Canadian citizens; and especially in the name of love and peace — the fact that our mothers cannot find the graves of their children, that the children can never visit the graves of their parents.”
She closes with a call for moral responsibility — a direct appeal to conscience that transcends politics and borders:
“It is your duty to demand explanations to all of the above questions. We, Canadian Croats, ask you this in the name of humanity, in the name of our dead and missing.”
This letter exemplifies Krčmar’s enduring mission: to ensure that the atrocities of Vukovar were neither forgotten nor silenced, and that those who perished would be honoured through truth and justice.
