Croatian War of Independence
Encyclopedia
The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between forces loyal to the government of Croatia
—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
(SFR Yugoslavia)—and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army
(JNA) and local Serb
forces, with the JNA ending its combat operations in Croatia by 1992. In Croatia, the war is primarily referred to as the Homeland War (Domovinski rat) and also as the Greater-Serbian aggression (Velikosrpska agresija). In Serbian sources, War in Croatia (Rat u Hrvatskoj) is the most commonly used term.
Initially, the war was waged between Croatian police forces and Serbs living in the Republic of Croatia. As the JNA came under increasing Serbian influence in Belgrade
, many of its units began assisting the Serbs fighting in Croatia. The Croatian side aimed to establish a sovereign country independent of Yugoslavia, and the Serbs, supported by Serbia
, opposed the secession and wanted Croatia to remain a part of Yugoslavia. The Serbs effectively sought new boundaries in areas of Croatia with a Serb majority or significant minority, and attempted to conquer as much of Croatia as possible. The goal was primarily to remain in the same state with the rest of the Serbian nation, which was seen as an attempt to form a "Greater Serbia
" by Croats (and Bosniaks
). In 2007, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) returned a guilty verdict against Milan Martić
, one of Serb leaders in Croatia, stating that he colluded with Slobodan Milošević
and others to create a "unified Serbian state". In 2011 the ICTY ruled that Croatian generals Ante Gotovina
and Mladen Markač
were a part of a joint criminal enterprise of the military and political leadership of Croatia whose goal was to drive Krajina Serbs out of Croatia in August 1995 and repopulate the area with Croatian refugees.
At the beginning of the war, the JNA tried to forcefully keep Croatia in Yugoslavia by occupying the whole of Croatia. After they failed to do this, Serbian forces established the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina
(RSK) within Croatia. By the end of 1991, most of Croatia was gravely affected by war, with numerous cities and villages heavily damaged in combat operations, and the rest supporting hundreds of thousands of refugees. After the ceasefire of January 1992 and international recognition of the Republic of Croatia as a sovereign state, the front lines were entrenched, United Nations Protection Force
(UNPROFOR) was deployed, and combat became largely intermittent in the following three years. During that time, the RSK encompassed 13913 square kilometres (5,371.8 sq mi), more than a quarter of Croatia. In 1995, Croatia launched two major offensives known as Operation Flash
and Operation Storm
, which would effectively end the war in its favor. The remaining United Nations Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) zone was peacefully reintegrated into Croatia by 1998.
The war ended with a total Croatian victory, as Croatia achieved the goals it had declared at the beginning of the war: independence and preservation of its borders. However, much of Croatia was devastated, with estimates ranging from 21–25% of its economy destroyed and an estimated USD $37 billion in damaged infrastructure
, lost output
, and refugee-related costs. The total number of deaths on both sides was around 20,000, and there were refugees displaced on both sides at some point: Croats mostly at the beginning of the war, and Serbs mostly at the end. While many people returned, and Croatia and Serbia progressively cooperated more with each other on all levels, some ill will remains because of verdicts by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and lawsuits filed against each other.
resulted from the rise of nationalism in the 1980s which slowly led to the dissolution of Yugoslavia
. A crisis emerged in Yugoslavia with the weakening of the Communist states in Eastern Europe
towards the end of the Cold War
, as symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall
in 1989. In Yugoslavia, the national communist party, officially called the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
, had lost its ideological potency.
In the 1980s, Albanian
secessionist movements in the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo
, Socialist Republic of Serbia
, led to the repression of the Albanian majority in Serbia's southern province. The more prosperous republics of SR Slovenia
and SR Croatia
wanted to move towards decentralization and democracy. Serbia, headed by Slobodan Milošević
, adhered to centralism and single-party rule through the Yugoslav Communist Party. Milošević effectively ended the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina
autonomous provinces.
As Slovenia and Croatia began to seek greater autonomy within the federation, including confederate
status and even full independence, the nationalist ideas started to grow within the ranks of the still-ruling League of Communists. As Milošević rose to power in Serbia, his speeches favored continuation of a unified Yugoslav state—one in which all power would be centralized in Belgrade
. In the Gazimestan speech
, delivered on June 28, 1989, he remarked on the current "battles and quarrels", saying that even though there were currently no armed battles, the possibility could not be excluded yet. The general political situation grew more tense when future Serbian Radical Party
president Vojislav Šešelj
visited the United States in 1989, and was later awarded the honorary title of "Vojvoda" (duke
) by Momčilo Đujić, a World War II
Chetnik
leader, during a commemoration of the Battle of Kosovo
. Years later, Croatian Serb
leader Milan Babić
testified that Momčilo Đujić had financially supported the Serbs in Croatia in the 1990s.
In March 1989, the crisis in Yugoslavia deepened after the adoption of amendments to the Serbian constitution that allowed the Serbian republic's government to re-assert effective power over the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. Up until that time, a number of political decisions were legislated from within these provinces, and they had a vote on the Yugoslav federal presidency level (six members from the republics and two members from the autonomous provinces). Serbia, under President Slobodan Milošević, gained control over three out of eight votes in the Yugoslav presidency, and this was used on May 16, 1991, when the Serbian parliament exchanged Riza Sapunxhiu
and Nenad Bućin, representatives of Kosovo and Vojvodina, for Jugoslav Kostić and Sejdo Bajramović
. The fourth vote was provided by Montenegro
, whose government survived a coup d'état
in October 1988, but not a second one in January 1989. Once Serbia secured four out of eight federal presidency votes, it was able to heavily influence decision-making at the federal level, because unfavorable decisions could be blocked; this rendered the governing body ineffective. This situation led to objections from other republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia
) and calls for reform of the Yugoslav Federation.
(HDZ), led by Franjo Tuđman, who later became the first president of Croatia
. Tuđman made international visits during the late 1980s to garner support from the Croatian diaspora
for the Croatian national cause.
In January 1990, the League of Communists broke up on the lines of the individual republics. At the 14th Extraordinary Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, on January 20, 1990, the delegations of the republics could not agree on the main issues in the Yugoslav federation. The Croatian and Slovenian delegations demanded a looser federation, while the Serbian delegation, headed by Milošević, opposed this. As a result, the Slovenian and Croatian delegates left the Congress.
In February 1990, Jovan Rašković
founded the Serb Democratic Party
(SDS) in Knin
. Its program stated that the "regional division of Croatia is outdated" and that it "does not correspond with the interest of Serb people". The party program endorsed redrawing regional and municipal lines to reflect the ethnic composition of the areas, and asserted the right of territories with a "special ethnic composition" to become autonomous. This echoed Milošević position that internal Yugoslav borders should be redrawn to permit all Serbs to live in a single country. Prominent members of the SDS were Milan Babić
and Milan Martić
, both of whom later became high-ranking Republic of Serbian Krajina
(RSK) officials. During his later trial, Babić would testify that there was a media campaign directed from Belgrade that portrayed the Serbs in Croatia as being threatened with genocide by the Croat majority and that he fell prey to the propaganda. On March 4, 1990, a meeting of 50,000 Serbs was held at Petrova Gora
. People at the rally shouted negative remarks aimed at Tuđman and other Croatians, chanted "This is Serbia", and expressed support for Milošević.
The first free elections in Croatia
and Slovenia were scheduled for a few months later. The first round of elections in Croatia were held on April 22, and the second round on May 6. The HDZ based its campaign on an aspiration for greater sovereignty for Croatia and on a platform opposed to Yugoslav unitarist ideology, fueling a sentiment among Croats that "only the HDZ could protect Croatia from the aspirations of Serbian elements led by Slobodan Milošević towards a Greater Serbia
". It topped the poll in the elections (followed by Ivica Račan
's reformed communists, Social Democratic Party of Croatia
) and was set to form a new Croatian Government.
A tense atmosphere prevailed in 1990, and especially so during the period immediately before the elections. On May 13, 1990, a football game was held in Zagreb
between Zagreb
's Dinamo
team and Belgrade's Crvena Zvezda
team. The game erupted into violence between football fans and police.
On May 30, 1990, the new Croatian Parliament held its first session. President Tuđman announced his manifesto for a new Constitution (ratified at the end of the year) and a multitude of political, economic, and social changes, notably to what extent minority rights (mainly for Serbs) would be guaranteed. Local Serb politicians opposed the new constitution on the grounds that the local Serb population would be threatened. Their prime concern was that a new constitution would not henceforth designate Croatia a "national state of the Croatian people
, a state of the Serbian people, and any other people living in it" but a "national state of the Croatian people and any people living in it". In 1991, Serbs represented 12.2 percent of the total population of Croatia, but they held a disproportionate number of official posts: 17.7 percent of appointed officials in Croatia, including police, were Serbs. An even greater proportion of those posts had been held by Serbs in Croatia earlier on, which created a perception that the Serbs were guardians of the communist regime. After HDZ came to power, some of the Serbs employed in public administration, especially the police, lost their jobs and were replaced by Croats.
According to the 1991 census
, the percentage of those declaring themselves as Serb was 12%; 78% of the population declared itself as Croat. On December 22, 1990, the Parliament of Croatia ratified the new constitution, which changed the status of Serbs in Croatia from a "constituent nation" to a "national minority". This was read as taking away some of the rights that Serbs had been granted by the previous Socialist constitution, and fueled extremism among the Serbs of Croatia. However, the constitution defined Croatia as "the national state of the Croatian nation and a state of members of other nations and minorities who are its citizens: Serbs... who are guaranteed equality
with citizens of Croatian nationality...."
, north of Knin, as the political representation of the Serbian people in Croatia. The Serbian Assembly declared "sovereignty and
autonomy of the Serb people in Croatia". On December 21, 1990, the SAO Krajina
was proclaimed by the municipalities of the regions of Northern Dalmatia
and Lika
, in south-western Croatia. Article 1 of the Statute of the SAO Krajina defined the SAO Krajina as "a form of territorial autonomy within the Republic of Croatia" in which the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, state laws, and the Statute of the SAO Krajina were applied.
Following Tuđman's election and the perceived threat from the new constitution, Serb nationalists in the Kninska Krajina
region began taking armed action against Croatian government officials. Many were forcibly expelled or excluded from the SAO Krajina. Croatian government property throughout the region was increasingly controlled by local Serb municipalities or the newly established "Serbian National Council". This would later become the government of the breakaway Republic of Serbian Krajina
(RSK).
In August 1990, an unrecognized mono-ethnic referendum was held in regions with a substantial Serb population which would later become known as the RSK (bordering western Bosnia and Herzegovina
) on the question of Serb "sovereignty and autonomy" in Croatia. This was an attempt to counter the changes in the constitution. The Croatian government tried to block the referendum by sending police forces to police stations in Serb-populated areas to seize their weapons. Among other incidents, local Serbs from the southern hinterlands of Croatia, mostly around the city of Knin, blocked roads to tourist destinations in Dalmatia. This incident is known as the "Log revolution
". Years later, during Milan Martić's trial, Milan Babić would claim that he was tricked by Martić into agreeing to the Log Revolution, and that it and the entire war in Croatia was Martić's responsibility, and had been orchestrated by Belgrade. The statement was corroborated by Martić in an interview published in 1991. Babić confirmed that by July 1991 Milošević had taken over control of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). The Croatian government responded to the blockade of roads by sending special police teams in helicopters to the scene, but they were intercepted by SFR Yugoslav Air Force
fighter jets and forced to turn back to Zagreb
. The Serbs felled pine trees or used bulldozers to block roads to seal off towns like Knin and Benkovac
near the Adriatic coast. On August 18, 1990, the Serbian newspaper Večernje novosti
said almost "two million Serbs were ready to go to Croatia to fight".
Immediately after the Slovenian referendum on independence
and the new Croat constitution, the JNA announced that a new defense doctrine would apply across the country. The Josip Broz Tito
-era doctrine of "general people's defense", in which each republic maintained a Territorial defense force
(TO), would henceforth be replaced by a centrally-directed system of defense. The republics would lose their role in defense matters and their TOs would be disarmed and subordinated to JNA headquarters in Belgrade. In the case of the Croatian TO force, this meant little, as the JNA had already confiscated Croatian TO weapons in May 1990, in the wake of the Croatian parliamentary elections. An ultimatum was issued requesting disarming and disbanding of military forces considered illegal by the Yugoslav authorities. Since the original ultimatum did not specify which forces were considered illegal, the central Yugoslav authorities soon clarified that the request was actually aimed at official Croatian armed forces. Croatian authorities refused to comply, and the Yugoslav army withdrew the ultimatum six days after it was issued.
The JNA was initially formed during World War II to carry out guerrilla warfare
against occupying Axis forces
. The success of the Partisan movement
led to the JNA basing much of its operational strategy on guerrilla warfare, as its plans normally entailed defending against NATO or Warsaw Pact
attacks, where other types of warfare would put the JNA in a comparatively poor position. That approach led to maintenance of a Territorial Defense system.
On paper, the JNA seemed a powerful force, with 2,000 tank
s and 300 jet aircraft
(all either Soviet
or locally produced). However, by 1991, the majority of this equipment was 30 years old, as the force consisted primarily of T-54/55 tanks and MiG-21 aircraft. Still, the JNA operated around 300 M-84
tanks (a Yugoslav version of the Soviet T-72
) and a sizable fleet of ground-attack aircraft, such as the Soko G-4 Super Galeb and the Soko J-22 Orao
, whose armament included AGM-65 Maverick
guided missiles. By contrast, more modern cheap anti-tank missiles (like the AT-5) and anti-aircraft missiles (like the SA-14) were abundant and were designed to destroy much more advanced weaponry. Before the war the JNA had 169,000 regular troops, including 70,000 professional officer
s. The fighting in Slovenia brought about a great number of desertions, and the army responded by mobilizing Serbian reserve troops. Approximately 100,000 evaded the draft
, and the new conscripts proved an ineffective fighting force. The JNA resorted to reliance on irregular militias
. Paramilitary units like White Eagles
, Serbian Guard, Dušan Silni, and Serb Volunteer Guard
, which committed a number of massacres against Croat and other non-Serbs civilians, were increasingly used by the Yugoslav and Serb forces. In addition, there were foreign fighters supporting the RSK, most of them from Russia. With the retreat of the JNA forces in 1992, JNA units were reorganized as the Army of Serb Krajina, which was a direct heir to the JNA organization, with little improvement.
By 1991, the JNA officer corps was dominated by Serbs and Montenegrins; they were overrepresented in Yugoslav federal institutions, especially the army. 57.1 percent of JNA officers were Serbs, while only 36.3 percent of population of Yugoslavia were Serbs. A similar structure was observed as early as 1981. Even though the two peoples combined comprised 38.8 percent of population of Yugoslavia, 70 percent of all JNA officers and non-commissioned officer
s were either Serbs or Montenegrins. In 1991 the JNA was instructed by Slobodan Milošević and Borisav Jović
, through the federal defense secretary Kadijević, to "completely eliminate Croats and Slovenes from the army."
was in a much worse state than that of the Serbs. In the early stages of the war, lack of military units meant that the Croatian Police force would take the brunt of the fighting. The Croatian National Guard
, the new Croatian military, was formed on April 11, 1991, and gradually developed into the Croatian Army by 1993. Weaponry was in short supply, and many units were formed either unarmed or with obsolete World War II-era rifles. The Croatian Army had only a handful of tanks, including World War II-surplus vehicles such as the T-34
, and its air force was in an even worse state, consisting of only a few Antonov An-2 biplane
crop-dusters
that had been converted to drop makeshift bombs. However, since the soldiers were defending their homeland and their families, the army was very motivated. They were formed into fighting units that operated in their local areas, and they proved quite effective.
In August 1991, the Croatian Army had fewer than 20 brigade
s. After general mobilization
was instituted in October, the size of the army grew to 60 brigades and 37 independent battalions by the end of the year. In 1991 and 1992, Croatia was also supported by 456 foreign fighters, most of them British (139), French (69), and German (55). The seizure of the JNA's barracks
between September and December helped to alleviate the Croatians' equipment shortage and allowed them to recapture most of the weaponry that the JNA had confiscated from Croatian Territorial Defense Forces
depots in 1990. A significant number of heavy weapons were captured, along with the 32nd JNA Corps' entire armory. By 1995, the balance of power had shifted significantly. Serb forces in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were capable of fielding an estimated 130,000 troops; the Croatian Army, Croatian Defence Council
(HVO), and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
could field a combined force of 250,000 soldiers and 570 tanks.
Ethnic hatred
grew as various incidents fueled the propaganda machines on both sides. During his dissident testimony at the ICTY, one of the top-Krajina leaders Milan Babić stated that the Serb side started using force first.
The conflict escalated into armed incidents in the majority-Serb populated areas. Serbs began a series of attacks on Croatian police units in Pakrac, more than 20 people were killed by the end of April. In the same period, nearly 200 incidents involving use of explosive devices and 89 attacks on the Croatian police were recorded. Josip Jović from Aržano
is widely reported as the first police officer killed by Serb forces as part of the war, during the Plitvice Lakes incident
in late March 1991.
In April 1991, the Serbs within Croatia began to make moves to secede from that territory. It is a matter of debate to what extent this move was locally motivated and to what degree the Milošević-led Serbian government was involved. In any event, the Republic of Serbian Krajina was declared, which consisted of any Croatian territory with a substantial Serb population. The Croatian government viewed this move as a rebellion.
The Croatian Ministry of the Interior
started arming an increasing number of special police
forces, and this led to the building of a real army. On April 9, 1991, Croatian President Tuđman ordered the special police forces to be renamed Zbor Narodne Garde ("National Guard"); this marks the creation of a separate military of Croatia. The newly-constituted military units were publicly displayed in a military parade and review held at Stadion Kranjčevićeva in Zagreb on May 28, 1991.
On May 15, Stjepan Mesić
, a Croat, was scheduled to be the chairman of the rotating presidency of Yugoslavia. Serbia, aided by Kosovo, Montenegro, and Vojvodina, whose presidency votes were at that time under Serbian control, blocked the appointment, which was otherwise seen as largely ceremonial. This maneuver technically left Yugoslavia without a head of state
and without a commander-in-chief
. Two days later, a repeated attempt to vote on the issue failed. Ante Marković
, prime minister of Yugoslavia at the time, proposed appointing a panel which would wield presidential powers. It was not immediately clear who the panel members would be, apart from defense minister Veljko Kadijević
, nor who would fill position of JNA commander-in-chief. The move was quickly rejected by Croatia as unconstitutional. The crisis was resolved after a six-week stalemate, and Stipe Mesić was elected president—the first non-communist to become Yugoslav head of state in decades. Meanwhile, the federal army, the JNA, and the local Territorial Defense Forces
continued to be led by Federal authorities controlled by Milošević. On occasion, the JNA sided with the local Croatian Serb forces. Helsinki Watch
reported that Serb Krajina authorities executed Serbs who were willing to reach an accommodation with Croat officials.
On May 19, 1991, the Croatian authorities held a referendum on independence
with the option of remaining in Yugoslavia as a looser union. Serb local authorities issued calls for a boycott
, which were largely followed by Croatian Serbs. The referendum passed with 94% in favor. Croatia declared independence and dissolved its association with Yugoslavia on June 25, 1991. The European Community and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe urged Croatian authorities to place a three-month moratorium
on the decision. Croatia agreed to freeze its independence declaration for three months
, which eased tensions a little.
In June and July 1991, the short armed conflict in Slovenia
came to a speedy and fairly peaceful conclusion, partly because of the ethnic homogeneity of the population of Slovenia. It was later revealed that a military strike against Slovenia, followed by a planned withdrawal, was conceived by Slobodan Milošević and Borisav Jović
, then president of the SFR Yugoslavia presidency. Jović published his diary containing the information and repeated it in his testimony at the Milošević trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
(ICTY). During the war in Slovenia, large numbers of Croatian and Slovenian soldiers refused to fight and deserted from the JNA.
In July, in an attempt to salvage what remained of Yugoslavia, the JNA forces were involved in operations against predominantly Croat areas. In July the Serb-led Territorial Defence Forces started their advance on Dalmatian coastal areas in Operation Coast-91. By early August, large areas of Banovina were overrun by Serb forces.
With the start of military operations in Croatia, Croats and a number of Serbian conscripts started to desert the JNA en masse, similar to what had happened in Slovenia. Albanians
and Macedonian
s started to search for a way to legally leave the JNA or serve their conscription term in Macedonia
; these moves further homogenized the ethnic composition of JNA troops in or near Croatia.
One month after Croatia declared its independence, the Yugoslav army and other Serb forces held something less than one-third of the Croatian territory, mostly in areas with a predominantly ethnic Serb population. The Yugoslav and Serbian forces had superiority in weaponry and equipment. Their military strategy partly consisted of extensive shell
ing, at times irrespective of the presence of civilians. As the war progressed, the cities of Dubrovnik
, Gospić
, Šibenik
, Zadar
, Karlovac
, Sisak
, Slavonski Brod
, Osijek
, Vinkovci
, and Vukovar
all came under attack by Yugoslav forces. The United Nations
(UN) imposed a weapons embargo
; this did not affect JNA-backed Serb forces significantly, as they had the JNA arsenal at their disposal, but it caused serious trouble for the newly-formed Croatian army. The Croatian government started smuggling weapons over its borders.
In August 1991, the border city of Vukovar came under attack and the Battle of Vukovar
began.
Eastern Slavonia was gravely impacted throughout this period, starting with the Dalj massacre
of August 1991; fronts developed around Osijek
and Vinkovci
in parallel to the encirclement of Vukovar.
In September, Serbian troops completely surrounded the city of Vukovar. Croatian troops, including the 204th Vukovar Brigade
, entrenched themselves within the city and held their ground against elite armored and mechanized brigades of the JNA, as well as Serb paramilitary units. Some ethnic Croatian civilians had taken shelter inside the city. Other members of the civilian population fled the area en masse. Death toll
estimates for Vukovar as a result of the siege range from 1,798 to 5,000. A further 22,000 were exiled from Vukovar immediately after the town was captured.
There is evidence that the population suffered extreme hardship. Some estimates include 220,000 Croats and 300,000 Serbs internally displaced
for the duration of the war in Croatia. The 1991 census data and the 1993 RSK population data for the territory of Krajina differ by some 102,000 Serbs and 135,000 Croats. In many areas, large numbers of civilians were forced out by the military. It was at this time that the term ethnic cleansing
—the meaning of which ranged from eviction to murder—first entered the English lexicon.
On October 3 the Yugoslav Navy
renewed its blockade of the main ports of Croatia. This move followed months of standoff for Yugoslav People's Army positions in Dalmatia and elsewhere now known as the Battle of the barracks
. It also coincided with the end of Operation Coast-91, in which the Yugoslav Army failed to occupy the coastline in an attempt to cut off Dalmatia's access to the rest of Croatia.
On October 5 President Tuđman made a speech in which he called upon the whole population to mobilize and defend against "Greater Serbian imperialism" pursued by the Serb-led JNA, Serbian paramilitary formations, and rebel Serb forces. On October 7 the Yugoslav air force attacked the main government building in Zagreb, an incident referred to as the bombing of Banski dvori
. The next day, as a previously agreed three-month moratorium on implementation of the declaration of independence expired, the Croatian Parliament severed all remaining ties with Yugoslavia. October 8 is now celebrated as Croatia's Independence Day. The bombing of the government offices and the Siege of Dubrovnik
that started in October were contributing factors that led to European Union
(EU) sanctions
against Serbia. The international media focused on—and exaggerated—the damage to Dubrovnik's cultural heritage
; concerns about civilian casualties and pivotal battles such as the one in Vukovar were pushed out of public view. Nonetheless, artillery attacks on Dubrovnik damaged 56% of its buildings to some degree, as the historic walled city, a UNESCO
World Heritage Site
, sustained 650 hits by artillery rounds.
towards Pakrac
and further north into western Slavonia, the Croatian army began a successful counterattack
in early November 1991, its first major offensive operation of the war. Operation Otkos 10
(October 31 to November 4) resulted in Croatia recapturing an area between the Bilogora
and Papuk
mountains. The Croatian army recaptured approximately 270 square kilometres (104.2 sq mi) of territory in this operation.
In October and early November, the situation for Croats in Vukovar became ever more desperate as the JNA escalated the war. On November 18, 1991, Vukovar fell to the Serbs after a three-month siege, and the Vukovar massacre
took place; the survivors were transported to prison camps
such as Ovčara and Velepromet
, with the majority ending up in Sremska Mitrovica prison camp. The city of Vukovar was almost completely destroyed; 15,000 houses were destroyed. During the 87-day battle, the city was struck by 8,000 to 9,000 artillery shells every day, for a total of more than one million rounds. The sustained siege attracted heavy international media attention. Many international journalists were in or near Vukovar, as was UN peace mediator Cyrus Vance
, who had been Secretary of State
to former US President Carter
.
Also in eastern Slavonia, the Lovas massacre
occurred in October and the Erdut massacre
in November 1991, before and after the fall of Vukovar.
At the same time, the Škabrnja massacre
occurred in the northern Dalmatian hinterland; it was largely overshadowed by the events at Vukovar.
On November 14, the Navy blockade of Dalmatian ports was challenged by civilian ships. The confrontation culminated in the Battle of the Dalmatian channels
, when Croatian coastal and island based artillery
damaged, sunk, or captured a number of Yugoslav navy vessels, including Mukos PČ 176, later rechristened PB 62 Šolta. After the battle, the Yugoslav naval operations were effectively limited to the southern Adriatic
.
Croatian forces made further advances in the second half of December, including Operation Orkan 91
, but at that point a lasting ceasefire
was about to be signed (in January 1992). In the course of Orkan 91, Croatian army recaptured approximately 1440 square kilometres (556 sq mi) of territory. The end of the operation marked end of a six-month-long phase of intense fighting; 10,000 people had died, hundreds of thousands had fled, and tens of thousands of homes had been destroyed.
On December 19, as the intensity of the fighting increased, Croatia won its first diplomatic recognition
by a western nation—Iceland
—while the Serbian Autonomous Regions in Krajina and western Slavonia officially declared themselves the Republic of Serbian Krajina. Four days later, Germany
recognized Croatian independence. On December 26, 1991, the Serb-dominated federal presidency announced plans for a smaller Yugoslavia that could include the territory captured from Croatia during the war.
In the second half of 1991, all the Croatian democratic parties gathered together to form a unified national government to confront the JNA and Serbian paramilitaries, with Franjo Gregurić
as prime minister. Opposition parties filled 16 out of 27 government posts. Mediated by foreign diplomats, ceasefires were frequently signed and frequently broken. Croatia lost much territory, but expanded the Croatian Army from the seven brigades it had at the time of the first ceasefire to 60 brigades and 37 independent battalions by December 31, 1991.
The Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on the former Yugoslavia
, also referred to as Badinter Arbitration Committee, was set up by the Council of Ministers
of the European Economic Community
(EEC) on August 27, 1991, to provide the Conference on Yugoslavia with legal advice. The five-member Commission consisted of presidents of Constitutional Courts in the EEC. Starting in late November 1991, the committee rendered ten opinions. The Commission stated, among other things, that SFR Yugoslavia was in the process of dissolution and that the internal boundaries of Yugoslav republics may not be altered unless freely agreed upon. Factors in Croatia's preservation of its pre-war borders were the Yugoslav Federal Constitution Amendments of 1971, and the Yugoslav Federal Constitution of 1974. The 1971 amendments introduced a concept that sovereign rights were exercised by the federal units, and that the federation had only the authority specifically transferred to it by the constitution. The 1974 constitution confirmed and strengthened the principles introduced in 1971. The borders had been defined by demarcation commissions in 1947, pursuant to decisions of AVNOJ
in 1943 and 1945 regarding the federal organization of Yugoslavia.
shot down a European Community helicopter in Croatia, killing five truce observers. Croatia was officially recognized by the European Community on January 15, 1992. Even though the JNA began to withdraw from Croatia, including Krajina, the RSK clearly retained the upper hand in the occupied territories due to support from Serbia. By that time, the RSK encompassed 13913 square kilometres (5,371.8 sq mi) of territory. The area size did not encompass another 680 square kilometres (262.5 sq mi) of occupied territory near Dubrovnik, as that area was not considered part of the RSK.
Ending the series of unsuccessful ceasefires, the UN deployed a protection force in Serbian-held Croatia—the United Nations Protection Force
(UNPROFOR)—to supervise and maintain the agreement. The UNPROFOR was officially created by UN Security Council Resolution 743
on February 21, 1992.
The warring parties mostly moved to entrenched positions, and the JNA soon retreated from Croatia into Bosnia and Herzegovina, where a new conflict was anticipated. Croatia became a member of the UN on May 22, 1992, which was conditional upon Croatia amending its constitution to protect the human rights of minority groups and dissidents.
Expulsions of the non-Serb civilian population remaining in the occupied territories continued despite the presence of the UNPROFOR peacekeeping troops, and in some cases, with UN troops being virtually enlisted as accomplices.
The Yugoslav People's Army took thousands of prisoners during the war in Croatia, and interned them in camps in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. The Croatian forces also captured some Serbian prisoners, and the two sides agreed to several prisoner exchange
s; most prisoners were freed by the end of 1992. Some infamous prisons included the Sremska Mitrovica camp
, the Stajićevo camp
, and the Begejci camp
in Serbia, and the Morinj camp
in Montenegro. The Croatian Army also established detention camps, such as the Lora prison camp
in Split.
Armed conflict in Croatia continued intermittently on a smaller scale. There were several smaller operations undertaken by Croatian forces to relieve the siege of Dubrovnik, and other Croatian cities (Šibenik, Zadar and Gospić) from Krajina forces. Battles included the Miljevci plateau incident (between Krka
and Drniš
), on June 21–22, 1992, Operation Jaguar at Križ Hill near Bibinje
and Zadar, on May 22, 1992, and a series of military actions in the Dubrovnik hinterland: Operation Tigar, on July 1–13, 1992, in Konavle
, on September 20–24, 1992, and at Vlaštica, on September 22–25, 1992. Combat near Dubrovnik was followed by the withdrawal of JNA from Konavle, between September 30 and October 20, 1992, The Prevlaka
peninsula guarding entrance to the Bay of Kotor
was demilitarized and turned over to the UNPROFOR, while the remainder of Konavle was restored to the Croatian authorities.
Fighting was renewed at the beginning of 1993, as the Croatian army launched Operation Maslenica
, an offensive operation in the Zadar area on January 22. The objective of the attack was to improve the strategic situation in that area, as it targeted the city airport and the Maslenica Bridge
, the last entirely overland link between Zagreb and the city of Zadar until the bridge area was captured in September 1991. The attack proved successful as it met its declared objectives, but at a high cost, as 114 Croat and 490 Serb soldiers were killed in a relatively limited theater of operations.
While Operation Maslenica was in progress, Croatian forces attacked Serb positions 130 kilometres (80.8 mi) to the east. They advanced towards the Peruća Hydroelectric Dam
and captured it by January 28, 1993, shortly after Serbian militiamen chased away the UN peacekeepers protecting the dam. UN forces had been present at the site since the summer of 1992. They discovered that the Serbs had planted 35 to 37 tons of explosives spread over seven different sites on the dam in a way that prevented the explosives' removal; the charges were left in place. Retreating Serb forces detonated three of explosive charges totaling 5 tons within the 65 metres (213.3 ft) high dam in an attempt to cause it to fail and flood the area downstream. The disaster was prevented by Mark Nicholas Gray
, a colonel in the British Royal Marines
, a lieutenant at the time, who was a UN military observer at the site. He risked being disciplined for acting beyond his authority by lowering the reservoir level, which held 0.54 cubic kilometre (0.129552889646315 cu mi) of water, before the dam was blown up. His action saved the lives of 20,000 people who would otherwise have drowned or become homeless.
Operation Medak Pocket
took place in a salient
south of Gospić, on September 9–17. The offensive was undertaken by the Croatian army to stop Serbian artillery in an area from shelling nearby Gospić. The operation met its stated objective of removing the artillery threat, as Croatian troops overran the salient, but it was marred by war crimes. The ICTY later indicted Croatian officers Janko Bobetko
, Rahim Ademi
, Mirko Norac
, and others for war crimes committed during this operation. Norac was later found guilty by the Croatian court. The operation was halted amid international pressure, and an agreement was reached that the Croatian troops were to withdraw to positions held prior to September 9, while UN troops were to occupy the salient alone. The events that followed remain controversial, as Canadian authorities reported that the Croatian army intermittently fought against the advancing Canadian Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
before finally retreating after sustaining 27 fatalities. The Croatian ministry of defense and UN officer's testimonies given during the Ademi-Norac trial deny that the battle occurred.
On February 18, 1993, Croatian authorities signed the Daruvar Agreement with local Serb leaders in Western Slavonia. The aim of the secret agreement was normalizing life for local populations near the frontline. However, authorities in Knin learned of this and arrested the Serb leaders responsible. In June 1993, Serbs began voting in a referendum on merging Krajina territory with Republika Srpska
. Milan Martić, acting as the RSK interior minister, advocated a merger of the "two Serbian states as the first stage in the establishment of a state of all Serbs" in his April 3 letter to the Assembly of the Republika Srpska. On January 21, 1994, Martić stated that he would "speed up the process of unification and pass on the baton to all Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević" if elected president of the RSK." These intentions were countered by the United Nations Security Council
(UNSC) Resolution 871
in October 1993, when the UNSC affirmed for the first time that the United Nations Protected Areas, i.e. the RSK held areas, were an integral part of the Republic of Croatia.
During 1992 and 1993, an estimated 225,000 Croats, as well as refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, settled in Croatia. Croatian volunteers and some conscripted soldiers participated in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croatia accepted 280,000 Bosniak refugees from the Bosnian War; Croatia was the initial destination for most of the Bosniak refugees. The large number of refugees significantly strained the Croatian economy and infrastructure
. The American
Ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, tried to put the number of Muslim refugees in Croatia into a proper perspective in an interview on November 8, 1993. He said the situation would be the equivalent of the United States taking in 30,000,000 refugees.
In 1992, Croats and Bosniaks started the Croat-Bosniak conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, just as each was fighting with the Bosnian Serbs. The war was originally fought between Croatian Defence Council
and Croatian volunteer troops on one side and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
on the other, but by 1994, the Croatian Army had an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 troops involved in the fighting. Under pressure from the United States, the belligerents agreed on a truce in late February, followed by a meeting of Croatian, Bosnian, and Bosnian Croat representatives with US Secretary of State Warren Christopher
in Washington, D.C.
on February 26, 1994. On March 4, Franjo Tuđman endorsed the agreement providing for the creation of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
and an alliance between Bosnian government forces and Bosnian Croat forces. The agreement provided for the creation of a loose confederation between Croatia and the new federation, which permitted Croatia to send troops into Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This led to the dismantling of Herzeg-Bosnia and reduced the number of warring factions in Bosnia and Herzegovina from three to two.
In late 1994, the Croatian Army intervened several times in Bosnia: on November 1–3, in the operation Cincar near Kupres
, and on November 29 – December 24 in the Winter '94
operation near Dinara
and Livno
. These operations were undertaken to detract from the siege of the Bihać region and to approach the RSK capital of Knin from the north, isolating it on three sides.
During this time, unsuccessful negotiations mediated by the UN were under way between the Croatian and RSK governments. The matters under discussion included opening the Serb-occupied part of the Zagreb–Slavonski Brod motorway
near Okučani
to transit traffic, as well as the putative status of Serbian-majority areas within Croatia. The motorway initially reopened at the end of 1994, but it was soon closed again due to security issues. Repeated failures to resolve the two disputes would serve as triggers for major Croatian offensives in 1995.
At the same time, the Krajina army continued the Siege of Bihać
, together with the Army of Republika Srpska
from Bosnia. Michael Williams, an official of the UN peacekeeping force, said that when the village of Vedro Polje west of Bihać had fallen to a Croatian Serb unit in late November 1994, the siege entered the final stage. He added that heavy tank and artillery fire against the town of Velika Kladuša
in the north of the Bihać enclave was coming from the Croatian Serbs. Western military analysts said that among the array of Serbian surface-to-air missile
systems that surround the Bihać pocket on Croatian territory, there was a modern SAM-2 system with a degree of sophistication that suggested it had probably been brought there recently from Belgrade. In response to the situation, the Security Council passed Resolution 958
, which allowed NATO aircraft deployed as a part of the Operation Deny Flight
to operate in Croatia. On November 21, NATO attacked the Udbina
airfield controlled by the Croatian Serbs, temporarily disabling runways. Following the Udbina strike, NATO continued to launch strikes in the area, and on November 23, after a NATO reconnaissance plane was illuminated by the radar of a surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, NATO planes attacked a SAM site near Dvor
with AGM-88 HARM
anti-radiation missiles.
By 1995 the Croatian Army would develop into an effective fighting force centered on eight elite Guard Brigades, used as maneuver units with professional personnel, and on comparably less effective Home Defense Regiments and regular brigades (most of which were reorganized into regiments in 1992). Some of the 37 independent battalions also consisted of career soldiers. This organization meant that in later campaigns, the Croatian army would pursue a variant of blitzkrieg
tactics, with the Guard brigades punching through the enemy lines while the other units simply held the lines at other points and completed an encirclement of the enemy units. In a further attempt to bolster its armed forces, Croatia hired Military Professional Resources Inc.
(MPRI) in September 1994 to train some of its officers and NCOs. Begun in January 1995, MPRI's assignment involved fifteen advisors who taught basic officer leadership skills and training management. MPRI activities were reviewed in advance by the US State Department to ensure they did not involve tactical training or violate the UN arms embargo still in place.
that Croatia was ending the agreement permitting the stationing of UNPROFOR in Croatia, effective March 31. The move was motivated by the continued efforts of Serbia and the Serb-dominated Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to provide assistance to the Serb occupation of Croatia and to possibly integrate the occupied areas into Yugoslav territory. The situation was also noted and addressed by the UN General Assembly
.
International peacemaking efforts continued, and a new peace plan called the Z-4 plan
was presented to Croatian and Krajina authorities. There was no initial Croatian response, and the Serbs flatly refused the proposal. As the deadline for UNPROFOR to pull out neared, a new UN peacekeeping mission was proposed with an increased mandate to patrol Croatia's internationally-recognized borders. Initially the Serbs opposed the move, and tanks were moved from Serbia into eastern Croatia. A settlement was finally reached, and the new UN peacekeeping mission was approved by United Nations Security Council Resolution 981
on March 31. The name of the mission was the subject of a last-minute dispute, as Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granić
insisted that the term Croatia must be added to the force name. The name United Nations Confidence Restoration Operation in Croatia
(UNCRO) was approved.
Violence erupted again in early May 1995. The RSK lost support from the Serbian government in Belgrade, partly as a result of international pressure. At the same time, the Croatian Operation Flash
reclaimed all of the previously occupied territory in Western Slavonia. In retaliation, Serb forces attacked Zagreb
with rockets, killing 7 and wounding over 175 civilians. The Yugoslav army responded to the offensive with a show of force, moving tanks towards the Croatian border, in an apparent effort to stave off a possible attack on the occupied area in Eastern Slavonia.
During the following months, international efforts mainly concerned the largely unsuccessful United Nations Safe Areas
set up in Bosnia and Herzegovina and trying to set up a more lasting ceasefire in Croatia. The two issues virtually merged by July 1995 when a number of the safe areas in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina were overrun
and one in Bihać
was threatened. In 1994 Croatia had already signaled that it would not allow Bihać to be captured, and a new confidence in the Croatian military's ability to recapture occupied areas brought about a demand from Croatian authorities that no further ceasefires were to be negotiated; the occupied territories would be re-integrated into Croatia. These developments and the Washington Agreement
, a ceasefire signed in the Bosnian theater, led to another meeting of presidents of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina on July 22, when the Split declaration was adopted. In it, Bosnia and Herzegovina invited Croatia to provide military and other assistance, particularly in the Bihać area. Croatia accepted, committing itself to an armed intervention.
On July 25–30, the Croatian Army and Croatian Defence Council (HVO) troops attacked Serb-held territory north of Dinara
Mountain, capturing Bosansko Grahovo
and Glamoč
during Operation Summer '95
. That offensive paved the way for the military recapture of occupied territory around Knin, as it severed the last efficient resupply route between Banja Luka and Knin. On August 5 Croatia started Operation Storm
, with the aim of recapturing almost all of the occupied territory in Croatia, except for a comparatively small strip of land, located along the Danube
, at a considerable distance from the bulk of the contested land. The offensive, involving 100,000 Croatian soldiers, was the largest single land battle fought in Europe since World War II. Operation Storm achieved its goals and was declared completed on August 8.
Many of the civilian population of the occupied areas fled during the offensive or immediately after its completion, in what was later described in various terms ranging from expulsion to planned evacuation. Krajina Serb sources (Documents of HQ of Civilian Protection of RSK, Supreme Council of Defense published by Kovačević, Sekulić, and Vrcelj) confirm that the evacuation of Serbs was organized and planned beforehand. According to Amnesty International
, the operation led to the ethnic cleansing of up to 200,000 Croatian Serbs, the murder and torture of Serbs—both soldiers and civilians—as well as the plunder of Serb civilian property. The ICTY, on the other hand, concluded that only 20.000 people were deported. The BBC
noted 200,000 Serb refugees at one point. Croatian refugees exiled in 1991 were finally allowed to return to their homes. In 1996 alone, about 85,000 displaced Croats returned to the former Krajina and western Slavonia, according to estimates of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants
.
was signed by the RSK acting defense minister Milan Milanović, on instructions received from Slobodan Milošević and Federal Republic of Yugoslavia officials. The agreement stated that the remaining occupied area was to be returned to Croatia, with a two-year transitional period. The agreement required the removal of the UNCRO mission and called for a new UN peacekeeping mission to be set up to implement the agreement. The new UN mission was established as the United Nations Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1037
of January 15, 1996. The agreement guarantees also right of establishment of Joint Council of Municipalities
for local Serbian community. The transitional period was subsequently extended by a year. On January 15, 1998, the UNTAES mandate ended and Croatia regained full control of the area. As the UNTAES replaced the UNCRO mission, Prevlaka peninsula, previously under UNCRO control, was put under control of United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka
(UNMOP). The UNMOP was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1038
of January 15, 1996, and terminated on December 15, 2002.
The same English language term is used in translations of text originally written in Croatian. Different translations of the Croatian name for the war are also sometimes used, such as Patriotic War, although such use by native speakers of English is rare. The official term used in the Croatian language is the most widespread name used in Croatia to refer to the war, but other terms are also used. One example is Greater-Serbian Aggression . The term was widely used by the media during the war, and is still sometimes used by the media and others. That particular term is not exclusive to the Croatian language, as there are examples of its use translated in English.
Two conflicting views exist as to whether the war was a civil
or an international war. The prevailing view in Serbia is that there were two civil wars in the area: one between Croats and Serbs living in Croatia, and another between SFR Yugoslavia and Croatia, a part of the federation. The prevailing view in Croatia and of most international law experts, including the ICTY, is that the war was an international conflict, a war of aggression
waged by the rump Yugoslavia and Serbia against Croatia, supported by Serbs in Croatia. Neither Croatia nor Yugoslavia formally declared war
on each other. Unlike the Serbian position that the conflict need not be declared as it was a civil war, the Croatian motivation for not declaring war was that Tuđman believed that Croatia could not confront the JNA directly and did everything to avoid an all-out war.
and cardiovascular disease
, as well as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In most cases, disability resulted not from a wound or injury sustained but from deteriorated health or PTSD. In 2010, the number of war-related PTSD-diagnosed persons was 32,000.
In total, the war caused 500,000 refugees and displaced persons. Around 196,000 to 221,000 to 247.000 (in 1993) Croats and other non-Serbs were displaced during the war from or around the Krajina region. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
(OSCE) said in 2006 that 221,000 were displaced, of which 218,000 had returned. The majority were displaced during the initial fighting and during the JNA offensives of 1991 and 1992. Some 150,000 Croats from Republika Srpska and Serbia have obtained Croatian citizenship since 1991, many due to incidents like the expulsions in Hrtkovci
.
The Belgrade-based non-government organization Veritas lists 6,780 killed and missing from the Republic of Serbian Krajina, including 4,324 combatants and 2,344 civilians. Most of them were killed or missing in 1991 (2,442) and 1995 (2,394). The most deaths occurred in Northern Dalmatia (1,632). The JNA officially acknowledged 1,279 killed in action during the war. The actual number was probably considerably greater, since casualties were consistently underreported. In one example, official reports spoke of two lightly wounded after an engagement; according to the unit's intelligence officer the actual number was 50 killed and 150 wounded.
According to Serbian sources, some 120,000 Serbs were displaced in 1991–1993 and 250,000 were displaced after Operation Storm. The number of displaced Serbs was 254,000 in 1993, dropping to 97,000 in the early 1995 and then increasing again to 200,000 by the end of the year. Most international sources place the total number of Serbs displaced at around 300,000. According to Amnesty International 300,000 were displaced from 1991–1995, of which 117,000 were officially registered as having returned as of 2005. According to the OSCE, 300,000 were displaced during the war, of which 120,000 were officially registered as having returned as of 2006. However, it is believed the number does not accurately reflect the number of returnees, because many returned to Serbia, Montenegro, or Bosnia and Herzegovina after officially registering in Croatia. According to the UNHCR in 2008, 125,000 were registered as having returned to Croatia, of whom 55,000 remained permanently.
The Croatian Association of Prisoners in Serbian Concentration Camps
was founded to help victims of prison abuse. The Croatian war veterans in general are organized into numerous non-governmental organizations, the most prominent of which is the Croatian Disabled Homeland War Veterans Association
.
, and refugee-related costs, while GDP dropped 21% in the period. 15 percent of housing units and 2,423 cultural heritage structures, including 495 sacral structures, were destroyed or damaged. The war imposed an additional economic burden of very high military expenditures. By 1994, as Croatia rapidly developed into a de facto war economy, the military consumed as much as 60 percent of total government spending.
Yugoslav and Serbian expenditures during the war were even more disproportionate. The federal budget proposal for 1992 earmarked 81 percent of funds to be diverted into the Serbian war effort. Since a substantial part of the federal budgets prior to 1992 was provided by Slovenia and Croatia, the most developed republics of Yugoslavia, a lack of federal income quickly led to desperate printing of money to finance government operations. That in turn produced the worst episode of hyperinflation
in history: Between October 1993 and January 1995, Yugoslavia, which then consisted of Serbia and Montenegro, suffered through a hyperinflation of five quadrillion percent.
Many Croatian cities were attacked by artillery, missiles, and aircraft bombs by RSK or JNA forces from RSK or Serb-controlled areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Montenegro and Serbia. The most shelled cities were Vukovar, Slavonski Brod (from the mountain of Vučjak), and Županja
(for more than 1,000 days), Vinkovci, Osijek, Nova Gradiška
, Novska
, Daruvar
, Pakrac
, Šibenik, Sisak
, Dubrovnik, Zadar, Gospić, Karlovac, Biograd na moru
, Slavonski Šamac
, Ogulin
, Duga Resa
, Otočac
, Ilok
, Beli Manastir
, Lučko
, Zagreb, and others. The artillery attacks on Vukovar were particularly severe, as the city sustained more than a million artillery strikes during the Battle of Vukovar, but other cities also suffered considerable attacks. Slavonski Brod was never directly attacked by tanks or infantry, but the city and its surrounding villages were hit by more than 11,600 artillery shells and 130 aircraft bombs in 1991 and 1992.
Approximately 2 million mines were laid in various areas of Croatia during the war. Most of the minefields
were laid with no pattern or any type of record being made of the position of the mines. A decade after the war, in 2005, there were still about 250,000 mines buried along the former front lines, along some segments of the international borders, especially near Bihać, and around some former JNA facilities. As of 2007, the area still containing or suspected of containing mines encompassed approximately 1000 square kilometres (386.1 sq mi). More than 1,900 people were killed or injured by land mines in Croatia since the beginning of the war, including more than 500 killed or injured by mines after the end of the war. Between 1998 and 2005, Croatia spent €214 million on various mine action programs. As of 2009, all remaining minefields and areas suspected of containing mines or unexploded munitions are clearly marked, but mine clearing progress is slow; it is estimated that it will take another 50 years to clear the minefields.
(ICTY) was established by UN Security Council Resolution 827
, which was passed on May 25, 1993. The court has power to prosecute persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law
, breaches of the Geneva Conventions
, violating the laws or customs of war
, committing genocide
, and crimes against humanity
committed in the territory of the former SFR Yugoslavia since January 1, 1991. The indictees by ICTY ranged from common soldiers to Prime Ministers and Presidents. Some high-level indictees included Slobodan Milošević (President of Socialist Republic of Serbia
and Republic of Serbia), Milan Babić (president of the RSK), Ratko Mladić
(general of the JNA), and Ante Gotovina
(general of the Croatian Army). Franjo Tuđman (President of Croatia) died in 1999 as prosecutors at The Hague planned to indict him. According to Marko Attila Hoare
, a former employee at the ICTY, an investigative team worked on indictments of senior members of the ‘joint criminal enterprise’, including not only Milošević but also Veljko Kadijević
, Blagoje Adžić
, Borisav Jović
, Branko Kostić
, Momir Bulatović
and others. However, upon Carla del Ponte
’s intervention, these drafts were rejected, and the indictment limited to Milosevic alone, as a result of which most of these individuals were never indicted.
As of 2011, the ICTY convicted seven officials from the Serb/Montenegrin side and two from the Croatian side. Milan Martić
received the largest sentence: 35 years in prison. Babić received 13 years. He expressed remorse for his role in the war, asking his "brother Croats to forgive him". A significant number of Croat civilians in hospitals and shelters
marked with a red cross were targeted by Serb forces. In 2007, two former Yugoslav army officers were sentenced for the Vukovar massacre at the ICTY in The Hague
. Veselin Šljivančanin
was sentenced to 10 years and Mile Mrkšić
to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors say that after the capture of Vukovar, the JNA handed over several hundred Croats to Serbian forces. Of these, at least 264 (including injured soldiers, women, children, and the elderly) were murdered and buried in mass graves in the neighborhood of Ovčara on the outskirts of Vukovar. The city's mayor, Slavko Dokmanović
, was brought to trial at the ICTY, but committed suicide in 1998 in captivity before proceedings began.
Generals Pavle Strugar
and Miodrag Jokić
were sentenced by the ICTY to 8 and 7 years for shelling Dubrovnik. Chief of General Staff of the Yugoslav Army, Momčilo Perišić
, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for his decisions to staff, arm and finance armies of Krajina and Republika Srpska, which in turn perpetrated crimes in Sarajevo
, Zagreb
and Srebrenica
.
Apart from the atrocities committed after capture of Vukovar, there were numerous well-documented war crimes against civilians and prisoners of war
perpetrated by Serb and Yugoslav forces in Croatia. Most of them were processed by the ICTY or national judiciaries
. They include the Borovo Selo killings
, Dalj killings, the Lovas massacre
, the Široka Kula massacre
, the Baćin massacre
, the Saborsko massacre
, the Škabrnja massacre
, the Voćin massacre
, the Bruška massacre
, and the Zagreb rocket attacks.
There were a number of prison camps where Croatian POWs and civilians were detained, including the Sremska Mitrovica camp, the Stajićevo camp, and the Begejci camp in Serbia, and the Morinj camp in Montenegro. The Croatian Association of Prisoners in Serbian Concentration Camps
was later founded in order to help the victims of prison abuse. The Croatian Army also established detention camps, like Lora prison camp in Split.
Croatian forces also committed a number of war crimes, such as the Gospić massacre
, the killings in Sisak in 1991 and 1992, and others, which were likewise prosecuted by Croatian courts or the ICTY. Another infamous instance of war crimes, in what would later become known as the "Pakračka poljana" case, committed by a reserve police unit commanded by Tomislav Merčep
, involved the killing of prisoners, mostly ethnic Serbs, near Pakrac in late 1991 and early 1992. The events were initially investigated by the ICTY, but the case was eventually transferred to the Croatian judiciary. More than a decade later, five members of this unit, although not its commander, were indicted on several criminal charges related to these events, and were convicted. Merčep was arrested for these crimes in December 2010. In 2009, Branimir Glavaš
, a Croatian incumbent MP
at the time, was convicted of war crimes committed in Osijek in 1991 and sentenced to jail by a Croatian court.
The ICTY indicted Croatian officers Janko Bobetko, Rahim Ademi, Mirko Norac, and others for crimes committed during Operation Medak Pocket, but that case was also transferred to Croatian courts. Norac was found guilty and jailed, Ademi acquitted, while Bobetko was declared unfit to stand trial due to poor health. The ICTY's indictment against General Ante Gotovina cited at least 150 Serb civilians killed in the aftermath of Operation Storm. The Croatian Helsinki Committee
registered 677 Serb civilians who were killed in the operation. Louise Arbour
, prosecutor of the ICTY, made it clear that the legality and legitimacy of the Operation itself is not the issue, but it is required to investigate whether crimes were committed during the campaign. The Trial Chamber reiterated that the legality of Operation Storm is "irrelevant" for the case at hand, since the ICTY is only interested in processing war crimes. In 2011, Gotovina was sentenced to 24 and Markač to 18 years in prison. Čermak was acquitted of all charges.
Amnesty International published a detailed analysis in late 2010 of the difficulties in getting convictions for war crimes in the Balkans in the 1990s, and the lessons to be learned.
Milošević's trial at the ICTY revealed numerous declassified documents of Belgrade's involvement in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. Evidence introduced at trial showed exactly how Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia financed the war, that they provided weapons and material support to Bosnian and Croatian Serbs, and demonstrated the administrative and personnel structures set up to support the Bosnian Serb and Croatian Serb armies. It was established that Belgrade, through the federal government, financed more than 90 percent of the Krajina budget in 1993; that the Supreme Defense Council decided to hide aid to Republika Srpska and Krajina from the public; that the National Bank of Krajina operated as a branch office of the National Bank of Yugoslavia; and that by March 1994 FR Yugoslavia, Krajina, and Republika Srpska used a single currency. Numerous documents demonstrated that branches of the Krajina Public Accountancy Service were incorporated into Serbia's accountancy system in May 1991, and that the financing of Krajina and Republika Srpska caused hyperinflation in FR Yugoslavia. The trial revealed that the JNA, the Serbian Ministry of Interior
, and other entities (including Serb civilian groups and police) armed Serb civilians and local territorial defense groups in the RSK before the conflict escalated. In 1993, the US State Department reported that right after the Maslenica and Medak pocket operations, authorities in Serbia dispatched substantial numbers of "volunteers" to Serb-held territories in Croatia to fight. A former secretary of Arkan testified at the Haague, confirming that the paramilitary leader took his orders, and his money, directly from the secret police
run by Slobodan Milosevic.
This degree of control was reflected in negotiations held at various times between Croatian authorities and the RSK, as the Serbian leadership under Milošević was regularly consulted and frequently made decisions on behalf of the RSK. The Erdut Agreement that ended the war was signed by a RSK minister on instructions from Milošević. The degree of control Serbia held over SFR Yugoslavia and later the RSK was evidenced through testimonies during the Milošević trial at the ICTY.
The Serbian state-run media were used to incite the conflict and further inflame the situation. For that end, the media knowingly falsified information about events that never actually happened or distorted information on actual events to justify JNA or RSK actions. Examples include reporting patently false information on Serbs being killed by Croatian police in the Pakrac clash, even though by that time no war fatalities occurred in Croatia, and dismissing independent media reports of fires burning in Dubrovnik as a consequence of JNA artillery bombardment as being a ruse by Croats burning tires in the city.
After the successful implementation of the Erdut Agreement which ended armed conflict in 1995, the relations between Croatia and Serbia gradually improved. Croatia and Serbia established diplomatic relations in 1996. In a case before the International Court of Justice
, Croatia filed a suit against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on July 2, 1999, citing Article IX of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
. With the transformation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia into Serbia and Montenegro
and the dissolution of that country in 2006, Serbia is considered its legal successor. The application was filed for Croatia by the American lawyer David B. Rivkin
. Serbia reciprocated with the genocide lawsuit against the Republic of Croatia on January 4, 2010. The Serbian application covers missing people, killed people, refugees, expelled people, and all military actions and concentration camps with a historical account of World War II persecution of Serbs
committed by the Independent State of Croatia
during World War II.
By 2010, Croatia and Serbia further improved their relations through an agreement to resolve the remaining refugee issues, and visits of Croatian President Ivo Josipović
to Belgrade, and of the Serbian President Boris Tadić
to Zagreb and Vukovar. During their meeting in Vukovar, President Tadić gave a statement expressing his "apology and regret", while President Josipović said "that no crimes committed at the time would go unpunished." The statements were made during a joint visit to the Ovčara memorial center, site of the Vukovar massacre.
, and the Gulf War
in 1991, along with a sharp rise in oil prices and a slowdown in the growth of the world economy. Thereafter it was if the rising influence of nationalist and separatist ideologies found their counterpart in Western and Russian policies of laissez-faire. This was not unique to the Balkans
, with the West later refusing to intervene for example in Rwanda
in 1994.
In 1989, the international community tended to support the authority of the Yugoslav government. The UN imposed a weapons trade embargo for all former Yugoslav republics, deprieving seceding republics from weaponry (which was mostly controlled by the Serb forces).
By the end of 1991, official recognition of the new states of Slovenia and Croatia and of the status of the SFR Yugoslavia had become a difficult issue for foreign governments.
By mid-December 1991, other newly formed states such as Lithuania
, Latvia
, and Ukraine
, recognized Croatia's and Slovenia's independence. Meanwhile Croatia and Slovenia recognized each other (the Vatican
also recognised Catholic Croatia - with recognition then coming from the second Western state, Iceland
on December 19.
Then, between December 19 and December 23, several other European countries, including Germany
, Sweden
and Italy
announced their recognition of Croatia's (and Slovenia's) independence. The European Union
as a whole recognized the independence of the two breakaway republics on January 15th, 1992.
Each of the major foreign governments acted somewhat differently:
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
(SFR Yugoslavia)—and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army
Yugoslav People's Army
The Yugoslav People's Army , also referred to as the Yugoslav National Army , was the military of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.-Origins:The origins of the JNA can...
(JNA) and local Serb
Serbs of Croatia
Višeslav of Serbia, a contemporary of Charlemagne , ruled the Županias of Neretva, Tara, Piva, Lim, his ancestral lands. According to the Royal Frankish Annals , Duke of Pannonia Ljudevit Posavski fled, during the Frankish invasion, from his seat in Sisak to the Serbs in western Bosnia, who...
forces, with the JNA ending its combat operations in Croatia by 1992. In Croatia, the war is primarily referred to as the Homeland War (Domovinski rat) and also as the Greater-Serbian aggression (Velikosrpska agresija). In Serbian sources, War in Croatia (Rat u Hrvatskoj) is the most commonly used term.
Initially, the war was waged between Croatian police forces and Serbs living in the Republic of Croatia. As the JNA came under increasing Serbian influence in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
, many of its units began assisting the Serbs fighting in Croatia. The Croatian side aimed to establish a sovereign country independent of Yugoslavia, and the Serbs, supported by Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, opposed the secession and wanted Croatia to remain a part of Yugoslavia. The Serbs effectively sought new boundaries in areas of Croatia with a Serb majority or significant minority, and attempted to conquer as much of Croatia as possible. The goal was primarily to remain in the same state with the rest of the Serbian nation, which was seen as an attempt to form a "Greater Serbia
Greater Serbia
The term Greater Serbia or Great Serbia applies to the Serbian nationalist and irredentist ideology directed towards the creation of a Serbian land which would incorporate all regions of traditional significance to the Serbian nation...
" by Croats (and Bosniaks
Bosniaks
The Bosniaks or Bosniacs are a South Slavic ethnic group, living mainly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a smaller minority also present in other lands of the Balkan Peninsula especially in Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia...
). In 2007, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...
(ICTY) returned a guilty verdict against Milan Martić
Milan Martic
Milan Martić is a Serbian politician, former president of the Republic of Serbian Krajina...
, one of Serb leaders in Croatia, stating that he colluded with Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
and others to create a "unified Serbian state". In 2011 the ICTY ruled that Croatian generals Ante Gotovina
Ante Gotovina
Ante Gotovina is a former Senior Corporal of the French Foreign Legion and former Lieutenant General of the Croatian Army who served in the Croatian War for Independence...
and Mladen Markač
Mladen Markac
Mladen Markač , is a former Croatian military officer. He was a Commander of Croatian Special Police during Operation Storm during the Croatian War of Independence , and afterwords held the rank of Colonel General...
were a part of a joint criminal enterprise of the military and political leadership of Croatia whose goal was to drive Krajina Serbs out of Croatia in August 1995 and repopulate the area with Croatian refugees.
At the beginning of the war, the JNA tried to forcefully keep Croatia in Yugoslavia by occupying the whole of Croatia. After they failed to do this, Serbian forces established the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Krajina
Republic of Serbian Krajina
The Republic of Serbian Krajina was a self-proclaimed Serb entity within Croatia. Established in 1991, it was not recognized internationally. It formally existed from 1991 to 1995, having been initiated a year earlier via smaller separatist regions. The name Krajina means "frontier"...
(RSK) within Croatia. By the end of 1991, most of Croatia was gravely affected by war, with numerous cities and villages heavily damaged in combat operations, and the rest supporting hundreds of thousands of refugees. After the ceasefire of January 1992 and international recognition of the Republic of Croatia as a sovereign state, the front lines were entrenched, United Nations Protection Force
United Nations Protection Force
The United Nations Protection Force ', was the first United Nations peacekeeping force in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav wars. It existed between the beginning of UN involvement in February 1992, and its restructuring into other forces in March 1995...
(UNPROFOR) was deployed, and combat became largely intermittent in the following three years. During that time, the RSK encompassed 13913 square kilometres (5,371.8 sq mi), more than a quarter of Croatia. In 1995, Croatia launched two major offensives known as Operation Flash
Operation Flash
The Serbs in western Slavonia took part in the organized rebellion against the government of the Republic of Croatia that had just proclaimed independence in June 1991, by proclaiming the Serbian Autonomous Oblast of Western Slavonia in August 1991...
and Operation Storm
Operation Storm
Operation Storm is the code name given to a large-scale military operation carried out by Croatian Armed Forces, in conjunction with the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to gain back control of parts of Croatia which had been claimed by separatist ethnic Serbs, since early...
, which would effectively end the war in its favor. The remaining United Nations Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) zone was peacefully reintegrated into Croatia by 1998.
The war ended with a total Croatian victory, as Croatia achieved the goals it had declared at the beginning of the war: independence and preservation of its borders. However, much of Croatia was devastated, with estimates ranging from 21–25% of its economy destroyed and an estimated USD $37 billion in damaged infrastructure
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...
, lost output
Output (economics)
Output in economics is the "quantity of goods or services produced in a given time period, by a firm, industry, or country," whether consumed or used for further production.The concept of national output is absolutely essential in the field of macroeconomics...
, and refugee-related costs. The total number of deaths on both sides was around 20,000, and there were refugees displaced on both sides at some point: Croats mostly at the beginning of the war, and Serbs mostly at the end. While many people returned, and Croatia and Serbia progressively cooperated more with each other on all levels, some ill will remains because of verdicts by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and lawsuits filed against each other.
Rise of nationalism in Yugoslavia
The war in CroatiaCroatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
resulted from the rise of nationalism in the 1980s which slowly led to the dissolution of Yugoslavia
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
. A crisis emerged in Yugoslavia with the weakening of the Communist states in Eastern Europe
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
towards the end of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, as symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...
in 1989. In Yugoslavia, the national communist party, officially called the League of Communists of Yugoslavia
League of Communists of Yugoslavia
League of Communists of Yugoslavia , before 1952 the Communist Party of Yugoslavia League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian: Savez komunista Jugoslavije/Савез комуниста Југославије, Slovene: Zveza komunistov Jugoslavije, Macedonian: Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na...
, had lost its ideological potency.
In the 1980s, Albanian
Albanians
Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...
secessionist movements in the Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo
Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo
Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo was one of the two socialist autonomous areas of the Socialist Republic of Serbia incorporated into the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1974 until 1990...
, Socialist Republic of Serbia
Socialist Republic of Serbia
Socialist Republic of Serbia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It is a predecessor of modern day Serbia, which served as the biggest republic in the Yugoslav federation and held the largest population of all the Yugoslav...
, led to the repression of the Albanian majority in Serbia's southern province. The more prosperous republics of SR Slovenia
Socialist Republic of Slovenia
The Socialist Republic of Slovenia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1943 until 1990...
and SR Croatia
Socialist Republic of Croatia
Socialist Republic of Croatia was a sovereign constituent country of the second Yugoslavia. It came to existence during World War II, becoming a socialist state after the war, and was also renamed four times in its existence . It was the second largest republic in Yugoslavia by territory and...
wanted to move towards decentralization and democracy. Serbia, headed by Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
, adhered to centralism and single-party rule through the Yugoslav Communist Party. Milošević effectively ended the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina
Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina
Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina , also known shortly as SAP Vojvodina , was one of the two socialist autonomous provinces of the Socialist Republic of Serbia from 1963 to 1990 and one of the federal units of the Socialist Federal...
autonomous provinces.
As Slovenia and Croatia began to seek greater autonomy within the federation, including confederate
Confederation
A confederation in modern political terms is a permanent union of political units for common action in relation to other units. Usually created by treaty but often later adopting a common constitution, confederations tend to be established for dealing with critical issues such as defense, foreign...
status and even full independence, the nationalist ideas started to grow within the ranks of the still-ruling League of Communists. As Milošević rose to power in Serbia, his speeches favored continuation of a unified Yugoslav state—one in which all power would be centralized in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
. In the Gazimestan speech
Gazimestan speech
The Gazimestan speech was a speech given on 28 June 1989 by Slobodan Milošević, then President of Serbia. It was the centrepiece of a day-long event to mark the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, which spelled the defeat of the medieval Serbian kingdom at the hands of the Ottoman Empire, as...
, delivered on June 28, 1989, he remarked on the current "battles and quarrels", saying that even though there were currently no armed battles, the possibility could not be excluded yet. The general political situation grew more tense when future Serbian Radical Party
Serbian Radical Party
The Serbian Radical Party is a far-right Serbian nationalist political party in Serbia, founded in 1991. Currently the second-largest party in the Serbian National Assembly, it has branches in three of the nations that currently border Serbia – all former federal republics of Yugoslavia...
president Vojislav Šešelj
Vojislav Šešelj
Vojislav Šešelj, JD is a Serbian politician, writer and lawyer. He is the founder and president of the Serbian Radical Party and was vice-president of Serbia between 1998 and 2000...
visited the United States in 1989, and was later awarded the honorary title of "Vojvoda" (duke
Duke
A duke or duchess is a member of the nobility, historically of highest rank below the monarch, and historically controlling a duchy...
) by Momčilo Đujić, a World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Chetnik
Chetniks
Chetniks, or the Chetnik movement , were Serbian nationalist and royalist paramilitary organizations from the first half of the 20th century. The Chetniks were formed as a Serbian resistance against the Ottoman Empire in 1904, and participated in the Balkan Wars, World War I, and World War II...
leader, during a commemoration of the Battle of Kosovo
Battle of Kosovo
The Battle of Kosovo took place on St. Vitus' Day, June 15, 1389, between the army led by Serbian Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović, and the invading army of the Ottoman Empire under the leadership of Sultan Murad I...
. Years later, Croatian Serb
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
leader Milan Babić
Milan Babic
Milan Babić was from 1991 to 1995 the first President of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, a Croatian region at the time of the war largely populated by a Serbs of Croatia that wished to break away from Croatia.He was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former...
testified that Momčilo Đujić had financially supported the Serbs in Croatia in the 1990s.
In March 1989, the crisis in Yugoslavia deepened after the adoption of amendments to the Serbian constitution that allowed the Serbian republic's government to re-assert effective power over the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. Up until that time, a number of political decisions were legislated from within these provinces, and they had a vote on the Yugoslav federal presidency level (six members from the republics and two members from the autonomous provinces). Serbia, under President Slobodan Milošević, gained control over three out of eight votes in the Yugoslav presidency, and this was used on May 16, 1991, when the Serbian parliament exchanged Riza Sapunxhiu
Riza Sapunxhiu
Riza Sapunxhiu was a Kosovo Albanian communist politician and economist of the former Yugoslavia. He was born in Peć, at the time in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes...
and Nenad Bućin, representatives of Kosovo and Vojvodina, for Jugoslav Kostić and Sejdo Bajramović
Sejdo Bajramovic
Sejdo Bajramović was a Yugoslav soldier and politician of the former Yugoslavia, who was the acting head of state of Yugoslavia for a brief time in 1991....
. The fourth vote was provided by Montenegro
Socialist Republic of Montenegro
Socialist Republic of Montenegro or SR Montenegro in shortened form, was a socialist state that was a constituent country in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It is a predecessor of the modern day Montenegro...
, whose government survived a coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
in October 1988, but not a second one in January 1989. Once Serbia secured four out of eight federal presidency votes, it was able to heavily influence decision-making at the federal level, because unfavorable decisions could be blocked; this rendered the governing body ineffective. This situation led to objections from other republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia
Socialist Republic of Macedonia
The Socialist Republic of Macedonia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia...
) and calls for reform of the Yugoslav Federation.
Electoral and constitutional moves
The weakening of the communist regime allowed nationalism to spread its political presence, even within the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. In 1989, political parties were allowed and a number of them had been founded, including the Croatian Democratic UnionCroatian Democratic Union
The Croatian Democratic Union is the main center-right political party in Croatia. It is the biggest and strongest individual Croatian party since independence of Croatia. The Christian democratic HDZ governed Croatia from 1990 to 2000 and, in partial coalition, from 2003...
(HDZ), led by Franjo Tuđman, who later became the first president of Croatia
President of Croatia
The President of Croatia , officially styled the President of the Republic represents the Republic of Croatia in the country and abroad as the head of state, maintains the regular and coordinated operation and stability of the national government system, and safeguards the independence and...
. Tuđman made international visits during the late 1980s to garner support from the Croatian diaspora
Croatian diaspora
Croatian diaspora refers to the Croatian communities that have formed outside Croatia.Estimates on its size are only approximate because of incomplete statistical records and naturalization, but estimates suggest that the Croatian diaspora numbers between a third and a half of the total number of...
for the Croatian national cause.
In January 1990, the League of Communists broke up on the lines of the individual republics. At the 14th Extraordinary Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, on January 20, 1990, the delegations of the republics could not agree on the main issues in the Yugoslav federation. The Croatian and Slovenian delegations demanded a looser federation, while the Serbian delegation, headed by Milošević, opposed this. As a result, the Slovenian and Croatian delegates left the Congress.
In February 1990, Jovan Rašković
Jovan Raškovic
Jovan Rašković was an ethnic Serbian psychiatrist and politician from Croatia....
founded the Serb Democratic Party
Serb Democratic Party (Croatia)
The Serb Democratic Party was a political party in Croatia whose primary constituency were the Serbs of Croatia. It led the Republic of Serbian Krajina. It existed between 1990 and 1995.The SDS was founded in the Socialist Republic of Croatia on February 17, 1990...
(SDS) in Knin
Knin
Knin is a historical town in the Šibenik-Knin county of Croatia, located near the source of the river Krka at , in the Dalmatian hinterland, on the railroad Zagreb–Split. Knin rose to prominence twice in history, as a one-time capital of both the Kingdom of Croatia and briefly of the...
. Its program stated that the "regional division of Croatia is outdated" and that it "does not correspond with the interest of Serb people". The party program endorsed redrawing regional and municipal lines to reflect the ethnic composition of the areas, and asserted the right of territories with a "special ethnic composition" to become autonomous. This echoed Milošević position that internal Yugoslav borders should be redrawn to permit all Serbs to live in a single country. Prominent members of the SDS were Milan Babić
Milan Babic
Milan Babić was from 1991 to 1995 the first President of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, a Croatian region at the time of the war largely populated by a Serbs of Croatia that wished to break away from Croatia.He was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former...
and Milan Martić
Milan Martic
Milan Martić is a Serbian politician, former president of the Republic of Serbian Krajina...
, both of whom later became high-ranking Republic of Serbian Krajina
Republic of Serbian Krajina
The Republic of Serbian Krajina was a self-proclaimed Serb entity within Croatia. Established in 1991, it was not recognized internationally. It formally existed from 1991 to 1995, having been initiated a year earlier via smaller separatist regions. The name Krajina means "frontier"...
(RSK) officials. During his later trial, Babić would testify that there was a media campaign directed from Belgrade that portrayed the Serbs in Croatia as being threatened with genocide by the Croat majority and that he fell prey to the propaganda. On March 4, 1990, a meeting of 50,000 Serbs was held at Petrova Gora
Petrova Gora
Petrova Gora is a mountain range in central Croatia. The mountain used to be named Gvozd , but was renamed after 1097 to honour Petar Svačić, the last native king of Croatia who died on the mountain in a battle against Coloman of Hungary.During World War II, Petrova Gora was the location of the...
. People at the rally shouted negative remarks aimed at Tuđman and other Croatians, chanted "This is Serbia", and expressed support for Milošević.
The first free elections in Croatia
Croatian parliamentary election, 1990
Parliamentary elections were held in Croatia on 22 April 1990, with a second round of voting on 6 May. The first free elections since multi-party politics were introduced, they resulted in a victory for the Croatian Democratic Union, which won 55 of the 80 seats...
and Slovenia were scheduled for a few months later. The first round of elections in Croatia were held on April 22, and the second round on May 6. The HDZ based its campaign on an aspiration for greater sovereignty for Croatia and on a platform opposed to Yugoslav unitarist ideology, fueling a sentiment among Croats that "only the HDZ could protect Croatia from the aspirations of Serbian elements led by Slobodan Milošević towards a Greater Serbia
Greater Serbia
The term Greater Serbia or Great Serbia applies to the Serbian nationalist and irredentist ideology directed towards the creation of a Serbian land which would incorporate all regions of traditional significance to the Serbian nation...
". It topped the poll in the elections (followed by Ivica Račan
Ivica Racan
Ivica Račan was a Croatian career politician, leader of the League of Communists of Croatia and later Social Democratic Party from 1989 to 2007...
's reformed communists, Social Democratic Party of Croatia
Social Democratic Party of Croatia
Social Democratic Party of Croatia , commonly referred to in Croatia as simply Social Democratic Party , is the largest centre-left political party in Croatia...
) and was set to form a new Croatian Government.
A tense atmosphere prevailed in 1990, and especially so during the period immediately before the elections. On May 13, 1990, a football game was held in Zagreb
Dinamo Zagreb-Red Star Belgrade riot
The Dinamo Zagreb–Red Star Belgrade riot was a football riot that took place on May 13, 1990 at Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb, Croatia between the Bad Blue Boys and the Delije...
between Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
's Dinamo
Dinamo Zagreb
GNK Dinamo Zagreb, commonly referred to as Dinamo Zagreb , or by their nickname Modri are a Croatian football club based in Zagreb. They play their home matches at Stadion Maksimir. They are the most successful club in Croatian football, having won thirteen Croatian championship titles, ten...
team and Belgrade's Crvena Zvezda
Red Star Belgrade
Red Star Belgrade is a football club from Belgrade, Serbia. The club is a part of the Red Star Sports Society.Red Star Belgrade is the most successful Serbian club, with a record of 25 national championships and 23 national cups in both Serbian and ex-Yugoslav competitions...
team. The game erupted into violence between football fans and police.
On May 30, 1990, the new Croatian Parliament held its first session. President Tuđman announced his manifesto for a new Constitution (ratified at the end of the year) and a multitude of political, economic, and social changes, notably to what extent minority rights (mainly for Serbs) would be guaranteed. Local Serb politicians opposed the new constitution on the grounds that the local Serb population would be threatened. Their prime concern was that a new constitution would not henceforth designate Croatia a "national state of the Croatian people
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
, a state of the Serbian people, and any other people living in it" but a "national state of the Croatian people and any people living in it". In 1991, Serbs represented 12.2 percent of the total population of Croatia, but they held a disproportionate number of official posts: 17.7 percent of appointed officials in Croatia, including police, were Serbs. An even greater proportion of those posts had been held by Serbs in Croatia earlier on, which created a perception that the Serbs were guardians of the communist regime. After HDZ came to power, some of the Serbs employed in public administration, especially the police, lost their jobs and were replaced by Croats.
According to the 1991 census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
, the percentage of those declaring themselves as Serb was 12%; 78% of the population declared itself as Croat. On December 22, 1990, the Parliament of Croatia ratified the new constitution, which changed the status of Serbs in Croatia from a "constituent nation" to a "national minority". This was read as taking away some of the rights that Serbs had been granted by the previous Socialist constitution, and fueled extremism among the Serbs of Croatia. However, the constitution defined Croatia as "the national state of the Croatian nation and a state of members of other nations and minorities who are its citizens: Serbs... who are guaranteed equality
Social equality
Social equality is a social state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect. At the very least, social equality includes equal rights under the law, such as security, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, and the...
with citizens of Croatian nationality...."
Civil unrest and demands for autonomy
The Serbs within Croatia did not initially seek independence before 1990. On July 25, 1990, a Serbian Assembly was established in SrbSrb
Srb is a village located in the southeastern part of Lika, in Croatia, administratively divided into Donji Srb and Gornji Srb . Srb lies in the Una River valley, on the road from Donji Lapac to Knin, and is east of Gračac. It is currently part of the Gračac municipality.In the census of 1991, when...
, north of Knin, as the political representation of the Serbian people in Croatia. The Serbian Assembly declared "sovereignty and
autonomy of the Serb people in Croatia". On December 21, 1990, the SAO Krajina
SAO Krajina
Serbian Autonomous Oblast of Krajina or SAO Krajina was a self proclaimed Serbian autonomous region within modern-day Croatia . It existed between 1990 and 1991 and was subsequently included into Republic of Serbian Krajina...
was proclaimed by the municipalities of the regions of Northern Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
and Lika
Lika
Lika is a mountainous region in central Croatia, roughly bound by the Velebit mountain from the southwest and the Plješevica mountain from the northeast. On the north-west end Lika is bounded by Ogulin-Plaški basin, and on the south-east by the Malovan pass...
, in south-western Croatia. Article 1 of the Statute of the SAO Krajina defined the SAO Krajina as "a form of territorial autonomy within the Republic of Croatia" in which the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, state laws, and the Statute of the SAO Krajina were applied.
Following Tuđman's election and the perceived threat from the new constitution, Serb nationalists in the Kninska Krajina
Kninska Krajina
Kninska Krajina is a geographical region in Croatia. It is located around the town of Knin in northern Dalmatia.-Geography:Kninska Krajina is situated between Bukovica in the southwest, Lika in the northwest, Drniška krajina in the south, Cetinska krajina in the southwest, and Bosnia and...
region began taking armed action against Croatian government officials. Many were forcibly expelled or excluded from the SAO Krajina. Croatian government property throughout the region was increasingly controlled by local Serb municipalities or the newly established "Serbian National Council". This would later become the government of the breakaway Republic of Serbian Krajina
Republic of Serbian Krajina
The Republic of Serbian Krajina was a self-proclaimed Serb entity within Croatia. Established in 1991, it was not recognized internationally. It formally existed from 1991 to 1995, having been initiated a year earlier via smaller separatist regions. The name Krajina means "frontier"...
(RSK).
In August 1990, an unrecognized mono-ethnic referendum was held in regions with a substantial Serb population which would later become known as the RSK (bordering western Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
) on the question of Serb "sovereignty and autonomy" in Croatia. This was an attempt to counter the changes in the constitution. The Croatian government tried to block the referendum by sending police forces to police stations in Serb-populated areas to seize their weapons. Among other incidents, local Serbs from the southern hinterlands of Croatia, mostly around the city of Knin, blocked roads to tourist destinations in Dalmatia. This incident is known as the "Log revolution
Log Revolution
The Log Revolution was an insurrection which started on August 17, 1990 in areas of the Republic of Croatia which were populated significantly by ethnic Serbs....
". Years later, during Milan Martić's trial, Milan Babić would claim that he was tricked by Martić into agreeing to the Log Revolution, and that it and the entire war in Croatia was Martić's responsibility, and had been orchestrated by Belgrade. The statement was corroborated by Martić in an interview published in 1991. Babić confirmed that by July 1991 Milošević had taken over control of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). The Croatian government responded to the blockade of roads by sending special police teams in helicopters to the scene, but they were intercepted by SFR Yugoslav Air Force
SFR Yugoslav Air Force
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Yugoslav Air Force , was the air force of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . Formed in 1945, it was preceded by the Yugoslav Royal Air Force which was disbanded in 1941, following the German occupation of Yugoslavia...
fighter jets and forced to turn back to Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
. The Serbs felled pine trees or used bulldozers to block roads to seal off towns like Knin and Benkovac
Benkovac
Benkovac is a town and municipality in the interior of Zadar County, Croatia.- Geography :Benkovac is located where the plain of Ravni Kotari and the karstic plateau of Bukovica meet, 20 km from the town of Biograd na Moru and 30 km from Zadar. The Zagreb-Split motorway and Zadar-Knin...
near the Adriatic coast. On August 18, 1990, the Serbian newspaper Večernje novosti
Vecernje novosti
Večernje novosti is a Belgrade-based daily newspaper. Founded in 1953, it quickly grew into a high-circulation daily.It first appeared on stands on October 16, 1953 edited by Slobodan Glumac who set the newspaper's tone for years to come...
said almost "two million Serbs were ready to go to Croatia to fight".
Immediately after the Slovenian referendum on independence
Slovenian independence referendum, 1990
The Slovenian independence referendum about the Slovenian independence from Yugoslavia was held on December 23, 1990. It was summoned by the Government of the Republic of Slovenia, then a federal unit of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia...
and the new Croat constitution, the JNA announced that a new defense doctrine would apply across the country. The Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
-era doctrine of "general people's defense", in which each republic maintained a Territorial defense force
Territorial Defense Forces (Yugoslavia)
The Territorial Defense Forces were a separate part of the armed forces of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The forces acted as a Home Guard which roughly corresponded to a military reserve force or an official governmental paramilitary...
(TO), would henceforth be replaced by a centrally-directed system of defense. The republics would lose their role in defense matters and their TOs would be disarmed and subordinated to JNA headquarters in Belgrade. In the case of the Croatian TO force, this meant little, as the JNA had already confiscated Croatian TO weapons in May 1990, in the wake of the Croatian parliamentary elections. An ultimatum was issued requesting disarming and disbanding of military forces considered illegal by the Yugoslav authorities. Since the original ultimatum did not specify which forces were considered illegal, the central Yugoslav authorities soon clarified that the request was actually aimed at official Croatian armed forces. Croatian authorities refused to comply, and the Yugoslav army withdrew the ultimatum six days after it was issued.
Serbian forces
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
against occupying Axis forces
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
. The success of the Partisan movement
Partisans (Yugoslavia)
The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...
led to the JNA basing much of its operational strategy on guerrilla warfare, as its plans normally entailed defending against NATO or Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
attacks, where other types of warfare would put the JNA in a comparatively poor position. That approach led to maintenance of a Territorial Defense system.
On paper, the JNA seemed a powerful force, with 2,000 tank
Tank
A tank is a tracked, armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat which combines operational mobility, tactical offensive, and defensive capabilities...
s and 300 jet aircraft
Jet aircraft
A jet aircraft is an aircraft propelled by jet engines. Jet aircraft generally fly much faster than propeller-powered aircraft and at higher altitudes – as high as . At these altitudes, jet engines achieve maximum efficiency over long distances. The engines in propeller-powered aircraft...
(all either Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
or locally produced). However, by 1991, the majority of this equipment was 30 years old, as the force consisted primarily of T-54/55 tanks and MiG-21 aircraft. Still, the JNA operated around 300 M-84
M-84
The M-84 is a Yugoslav 2nd generation main battle tank. The M-84 is in service in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kuwait, Slovenia and Serbia.-Development and production:...
tanks (a Yugoslav version of the Soviet T-72
T-72
The T-72 is a Soviet-designed main battle tank that entered production in 1970. It is developed directly from Obyekt-172, and shares parallel features with the T-64A...
) and a sizable fleet of ground-attack aircraft, such as the Soko G-4 Super Galeb and the Soko J-22 Orao
Soko J-22 Orao
The Soko J-22 Orao is a twin-engined, subsonic, close support, ground-attack and tactical reconnaissance aircraft, with secondary capability as a low level interceptor. It was designed as a single-seat main attack version or as a combat capable two-seat version for advanced flying and weapon...
, whose armament included AGM-65 Maverick
AGM-65 Maverick
The AGM-65 Maverick is an air-to-ground tactical missile designed for close-air support. It is effective against a wide range of tactical targets, including armor, air defenses, ships, ground transportation and fuel storage facilities....
guided missiles. By contrast, more modern cheap anti-tank missiles (like the AT-5) and anti-aircraft missiles (like the SA-14) were abundant and were designed to destroy much more advanced weaponry. Before the war the JNA had 169,000 regular troops, including 70,000 professional officer
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
s. The fighting in Slovenia brought about a great number of desertions, and the army responded by mobilizing Serbian reserve troops. Approximately 100,000 evaded the draft
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
, and the new conscripts proved an ineffective fighting force. The JNA resorted to reliance on irregular militias
Paramilitary
A paramilitary is a force whose function and organization are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not considered part of a state's formal armed forces....
. Paramilitary units like White Eagles
White Eagles (paramilitary)
The White Eagles , also known as the Avengers , were a Serbian paramilitary group associated with the Serbian National Renewal and the Serbian Radical Party...
, Serbian Guard, Dušan Silni, and Serb Volunteer Guard
Serb Volunteer Guard
The Serb Volunteer Guard also known as Arkan's Tigers was a Serbian volunteer paramilitary unit, founded and led by Željko Ražnatović, that fought in Croatia ; Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the Kosovo War ....
, which committed a number of massacres against Croat and other non-Serbs civilians, were increasingly used by the Yugoslav and Serb forces. In addition, there were foreign fighters supporting the RSK, most of them from Russia. With the retreat of the JNA forces in 1992, JNA units were reorganized as the Army of Serb Krajina, which was a direct heir to the JNA organization, with little improvement.
By 1991, the JNA officer corps was dominated by Serbs and Montenegrins; they were overrepresented in Yugoslav federal institutions, especially the army. 57.1 percent of JNA officers were Serbs, while only 36.3 percent of population of Yugoslavia were Serbs. A similar structure was observed as early as 1981. Even though the two peoples combined comprised 38.8 percent of population of Yugoslavia, 70 percent of all JNA officers and non-commissioned officer
Non-commissioned officer
A non-commissioned officer , called a sub-officer in some countries, is a military officer who has not been given a commission...
s were either Serbs or Montenegrins. In 1991 the JNA was instructed by Slobodan Milošević and Borisav Jović
Borisav Jovic
Borisav Jović is a former Serbian communist politician, who served as the Serbian member of the collective presidency of Yugoslavia during the late 1980s and early 1990s...
, through the federal defense secretary Kadijević, to "completely eliminate Croats and Slovenes from the army."
Croatian forces
The Croatian militaryMilitary of Croatia
Croatian military is officially called Armed Forces of the Republic of Croatia and it consists of three branches:* Croatian Army * Croatian Navy...
was in a much worse state than that of the Serbs. In the early stages of the war, lack of military units meant that the Croatian Police force would take the brunt of the fighting. The Croatian National Guard
Croatian National Guard
The Croatian National Guard was the name of the first modern Croatian military force. Croatian president Franjo Tuđman signed to law the Decree of Formation of the Croatian National Guard on April 20, 1991 which became the first professional armed forces with defence and training duties.These...
, the new Croatian military, was formed on April 11, 1991, and gradually developed into the Croatian Army by 1993. Weaponry was in short supply, and many units were formed either unarmed or with obsolete World War II-era rifles. The Croatian Army had only a handful of tanks, including World War II-surplus vehicles such as the T-34
T-34
The T-34 was a Soviet medium tank produced from 1940 to 1958. Although its armour and armament were surpassed by later tanks of the era, it has been often credited as the most effective, efficient and influential design of World War II...
, and its air force was in an even worse state, consisting of only a few Antonov An-2 biplane
Biplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two superimposed main wings. The Wright brothers' Wright Flyer used a biplane design, as did most aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage, it produces more drag than a similar monoplane wing...
crop-dusters
Agricultural aircraft
An agricultural aircraft is an aircraft that has been built or converted for agricultural use - usually aerial application of pesticides or fertilizer ; in these roles they are referred to as "crop dusters" or "top dressers"...
that had been converted to drop makeshift bombs. However, since the soldiers were defending their homeland and their families, the army was very motivated. They were formed into fighting units that operated in their local areas, and they proved quite effective.
In August 1991, the Croatian Army had fewer than 20 brigade
Brigade
A brigade is a major tactical military formation that is typically composed of two to five battalions, plus supporting elements depending on the era and nationality of a given army and could be perceived as an enlarged/reinforced regiment...
s. After general mobilization
Mobilization
Mobilization is the act of assembling and making both troops and supplies ready for war. The word mobilization was first used, in a military context, in order to describe the preparation of the Prussian army during the 1850s and 1860s. Mobilization theories and techniques have continuously changed...
was instituted in October, the size of the army grew to 60 brigades and 37 independent battalions by the end of the year. In 1991 and 1992, Croatia was also supported by 456 foreign fighters, most of them British (139), French (69), and German (55). The seizure of the JNA's barracks
Battle of the Barracks
Battle of the barracks - sometimes also called War for the barracks - is a term given to a series of engagements that took place throughout Croatia as part of the Croatian War of Independence during 1991, with the most important fighting in September...
between September and December helped to alleviate the Croatians' equipment shortage and allowed them to recapture most of the weaponry that the JNA had confiscated from Croatian Territorial Defense Forces
Territorial Defense Forces (Yugoslavia)
The Territorial Defense Forces were a separate part of the armed forces of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The forces acted as a Home Guard which roughly corresponded to a military reserve force or an official governmental paramilitary...
depots in 1990. A significant number of heavy weapons were captured, along with the 32nd JNA Corps' entire armory. By 1995, the balance of power had shifted significantly. Serb forces in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were capable of fielding an estimated 130,000 troops; the Croatian Army, Croatian Defence Council
Croatian Defence Council
The Croatian Defence Council was a military formation of the self-proclaimed Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia during the Bosnian War.-History:...
(HVO), and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was the military force of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina established by the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992 following the outbreak of the Bosnian War...
could field a combined force of 250,000 soldiers and 570 tanks.
First armed incidents
Ethnic hatred
Ethnic hatred, inter-ethnic hatred, racial hatred, or ethnic tension refers to feelings and acts of prejudice and hostility towards an ethnic group in various degrees. See list of anti-ethnic and anti-national terms for specific cases....
grew as various incidents fueled the propaganda machines on both sides. During his dissident testimony at the ICTY, one of the top-Krajina leaders Milan Babić stated that the Serb side started using force first.
The conflict escalated into armed incidents in the majority-Serb populated areas. Serbs began a series of attacks on Croatian police units in Pakrac, more than 20 people were killed by the end of April. In the same period, nearly 200 incidents involving use of explosive devices and 89 attacks on the Croatian police were recorded. Josip Jović from Aržano
Aržano
Aržano is a small village in Dalmatinska Zagora, Croatia, situated near the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina at an altitude of 650 meters. The estimated population within a seven kilometer radius of the area is 754. The population has been dwindling in recent years...
is widely reported as the first police officer killed by Serb forces as part of the war, during the Plitvice Lakes incident
Plitvice Lakes incident
The Plitvice Lakes incident of late March/early April 1991 was an incident at the beginning of the Croatian War of Independence...
in late March 1991.
In April 1991, the Serbs within Croatia began to make moves to secede from that territory. It is a matter of debate to what extent this move was locally motivated and to what degree the Milošević-led Serbian government was involved. In any event, the Republic of Serbian Krajina was declared, which consisted of any Croatian territory with a substantial Serb population. The Croatian government viewed this move as a rebellion.
The Croatian Ministry of the Interior
Ministry of the Interior (Croatia)
The Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia is the ministry in the Government of Croatia which is in charge of state security among other roles...
started arming an increasing number of special police
Special police
Special Police does not have a consistent international meaning. In many cases it will describe a police force or a unit within a police force whose duties and responsibilities are significantly different from other forces in the same country or significantly different from other police in the same...
forces, and this led to the building of a real army. On April 9, 1991, Croatian President Tuđman ordered the special police forces to be renamed Zbor Narodne Garde ("National Guard"); this marks the creation of a separate military of Croatia. The newly-constituted military units were publicly displayed in a military parade and review held at Stadion Kranjčevićeva in Zagreb on May 28, 1991.
On May 15, Stjepan Mesić
Stjepan Mesić
Stjepan "Stipe" Mesić is a Croatian politician and former President of Croatia. Before his ten-year presidential term between 2000 and 2010 he held the posts of Speaker of the Croatian Parliament , Prime Minister of Croatia , the last President of the Presidency of Yugoslavia , Secretary General...
, a Croat, was scheduled to be the chairman of the rotating presidency of Yugoslavia. Serbia, aided by Kosovo, Montenegro, and Vojvodina, whose presidency votes were at that time under Serbian control, blocked the appointment, which was otherwise seen as largely ceremonial. This maneuver technically left Yugoslavia without a head of state
Head of State
A head of state is the individual that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state. His or her role generally includes legitimizing the state and exercising the political powers, functions, and duties granted to the head of...
and without a commander-in-chief
Commander-in-Chief
A commander-in-chief is the commander of a nation's military forces or significant element of those forces. In the latter case, the force element may be defined as those forces within a particular region or those forces which are associated by function. As a practical term it refers to the military...
. Two days later, a repeated attempt to vote on the issue failed. Ante Marković
Ante Markovic
Ante Marković was a statesman of the former Yugoslavia. He was the last prime minister of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.- Early life :...
, prime minister of Yugoslavia at the time, proposed appointing a panel which would wield presidential powers. It was not immediately clear who the panel members would be, apart from defense minister Veljko Kadijević
Veljko Kadijevic
Veljko Kadijević is a former General of the Yugoslav People's Army . He was the Minister of Defence in the Yugoslav government from 1988 until his resignation in 1992, which made him de facto commander of JNA during the Ten-Day War in Slovenia and the initial stages of the War in...
, nor who would fill position of JNA commander-in-chief. The move was quickly rejected by Croatia as unconstitutional. The crisis was resolved after a six-week stalemate, and Stipe Mesić was elected president—the first non-communist to become Yugoslav head of state in decades. Meanwhile, the federal army, the JNA, and the local Territorial Defense Forces
Territorial Defense Forces (Yugoslavia)
The Territorial Defense Forces were a separate part of the armed forces of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The forces acted as a Home Guard which roughly corresponded to a military reserve force or an official governmental paramilitary...
continued to be led by Federal authorities controlled by Milošević. On occasion, the JNA sided with the local Croatian Serb forces. Helsinki Watch
Helsinki Watch
Helsinki Watch was a private American NGO devoted to monitoring Helsinki implementation throughout the Soviet bloc. It was created in 1978 to monitor compliance to the Helsinki Final Act...
reported that Serb Krajina authorities executed Serbs who were willing to reach an accommodation with Croat officials.
Declaration of independence
| |
|
On May 19, 1991, the Croatian authorities held a referendum on independence
Croatian independence referendum, 1991
An independence referendum was held in Croatia on 19 May 1991. The result was 95.7% in favour, with a turnout of 83.6%.-Background:The Croatian parliament made the decision to hold the referendum on 2 May.-Results:-Aftermath:...
with the option of remaining in Yugoslavia as a looser union. Serb local authorities issued calls for a boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
, which were largely followed by Croatian Serbs. The referendum passed with 94% in favor. Croatia declared independence and dissolved its association with Yugoslavia on June 25, 1991. The European Community and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe urged Croatian authorities to place a three-month moratorium
Moratorium (law)
A moratorium is a delay or suspension of an activity or a law. In a legal context, it may refer to the temporary suspension of a law to allow a legal challenge to be carried out....
on the decision. Croatia agreed to freeze its independence declaration for three months
Brioni Agreement
The Brijuni Agreement is a document signed on the Brijuni islands near Pula, Croatia, on 7 July 1991 by representatives of the Republic of Slovenia, Republic of Croatia and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under the political sponsorship of the European Community...
, which eased tensions a little.
In June and July 1991, the short armed conflict in Slovenia
Ten-Day War
The Ten-Day War or the Slovenian Independence War was a military conflict between the Slovenian Territorial Defence and the Yugoslav People's Army in 1991 following Slovenia's declaration of independence.-Background:...
came to a speedy and fairly peaceful conclusion, partly because of the ethnic homogeneity of the population of Slovenia. It was later revealed that a military strike against Slovenia, followed by a planned withdrawal, was conceived by Slobodan Milošević and Borisav Jović
Borisav Jovic
Borisav Jović is a former Serbian communist politician, who served as the Serbian member of the collective presidency of Yugoslavia during the late 1980s and early 1990s...
, then president of the SFR Yugoslavia presidency. Jović published his diary containing the information and repeated it in his testimony at the Milošević trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...
(ICTY). During the war in Slovenia, large numbers of Croatian and Slovenian soldiers refused to fight and deserted from the JNA.
Escalation of the conflict
With the start of military operations in Croatia, Croats and a number of Serbian conscripts started to desert the JNA en masse, similar to what had happened in Slovenia. Albanians
Albanians
Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...
and Macedonian
Macedonians (ethnic group)
The Macedonians also referred to as Macedonian Slavs: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness...
s started to search for a way to legally leave the JNA or serve their conscription term in Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...
; these moves further homogenized the ethnic composition of JNA troops in or near Croatia.
One month after Croatia declared its independence, the Yugoslav army and other Serb forces held something less than one-third of the Croatian territory, mostly in areas with a predominantly ethnic Serb population. The Yugoslav and Serbian forces had superiority in weaponry and equipment. Their military strategy partly consisted of extensive shell
Shell (projectile)
A shell is a payload-carrying projectile, which, as opposed to shot, contains an explosive or other filling, though modern usage sometimes includes large solid projectiles properly termed shot . Solid shot may contain a pyrotechnic compound if a tracer or spotting charge is used...
ing, at times irrespective of the presence of civilians. As the war progressed, the cities of Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik
Dubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
, Gospić
Gospic
Gospić is a town in the mountainous and sparsely populated region of Lika, Croatia. It is the administrative centre of Lika-Senj county. Gospić is located near the Lika River in the middle of a karst field....
, Šibenik
Šibenik
Šibenik is a historic town in Croatia, with population of 51,553 . It is located in central Dalmatia where the river Krka flows into the Adriatic Sea...
, Zadar
Zadar
Zadar is a city in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea. It is the centre of Zadar county and the wider northern Dalmatian region. Population of the city is 75,082 citizens...
, Karlovac
Karlovac
Karlovac is a city and municipality in central Croatia. The city proper has a population of 49,082, while the municipality has a population of 59,395 inhabitants .Karlovac is the administrative centre of Karlovac County...
, Sisak
Sisak
Sisak is a city in central Croatia. The city's population in 2011 was 33,049, with a total of 49,699 in the administrative region and it is also the administrative centre of the Sisak-Moslavina county...
, Slavonski Brod
Slavonski Brod
Slavonski Brod is a city in Croatia, with a population of 59,507 in 2011. The city was known as Marsonia in the Roman Empire, and as Brod na Savi 1244–1934. It is the sixth largest city in Croatia, after Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, Osijek and Zadar. Located in the region of Slavonia, it is the...
, Osijek
Osijek
Osijek is the fourth largest city in Croatia with a population of 83,496 in 2011. It is the largest city and the economic and cultural centre of the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, as well as the administrative centre of Osijek-Baranja county...
, Vinkovci
Vinkovci
Vinkovci is a city in Croatia, in the Vukovar-Syrmia County. In the 2011 census, the total population of the city was 35,375, making it the largest town of the county...
, and Vukovar
Vukovar
Vukovar is a city in eastern Croatia, and the biggest river port in Croatia located at the confluence of the Vuka river and the Danube. Vukovar is the center of the Vukovar-Syrmia County...
all came under attack by Yugoslav forces. The United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
(UN) imposed a weapons embargo
Embargo
An embargo is the partial or complete prohibition of commerce and trade with a particular country, in order to isolate it. Embargoes are considered strong diplomatic measures imposed in an effort, by the imposing country, to elicit a given national-interest result from the country on which it is...
; this did not affect JNA-backed Serb forces significantly, as they had the JNA arsenal at their disposal, but it caused serious trouble for the newly-formed Croatian army. The Croatian government started smuggling weapons over its borders.
In August 1991, the border city of Vukovar came under attack and the Battle of Vukovar
Battle of Vukovar
The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege of Vukovar in eastern Croatia by the Yugoslav People's Army , supported by various paramilitary forces from Serbia, between August and November 1991. Before the Croatian War of Independence the Baroque town was a prosperous, mixed community of Croats,...
began.
Eastern Slavonia was gravely impacted throughout this period, starting with the Dalj massacre
Dalj massacre
Dalj killings and Dalj massacre refer to the events beginning on 1 August 1991 which resulted in the murder of 11 Croatian civilians and 28 Croatian policemen in the village of Dalj, eastern Slavonia at the hand of Serbian paramilitaries, during the Croatian War of Independence.-August killings:At...
of August 1991; fronts developed around Osijek
Osijek
Osijek is the fourth largest city in Croatia with a population of 83,496 in 2011. It is the largest city and the economic and cultural centre of the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, as well as the administrative centre of Osijek-Baranja county...
and Vinkovci
Vinkovci
Vinkovci is a city in Croatia, in the Vukovar-Syrmia County. In the 2011 census, the total population of the city was 35,375, making it the largest town of the county...
in parallel to the encirclement of Vukovar.
In September, Serbian troops completely surrounded the city of Vukovar. Croatian troops, including the 204th Vukovar Brigade
204th Vukovar Brigade
The 204th Vukovar Brigade of the Croatian Army was a military unit of the Republic of Croatia that led the defence of the city of Vukovar during the 1991 Battle of Vukovar, in the Croatian War of Independence....
, entrenched themselves within the city and held their ground against elite armored and mechanized brigades of the JNA, as well as Serb paramilitary units. Some ethnic Croatian civilians had taken shelter inside the city. Other members of the civilian population fled the area en masse. Death toll
Death Toll
Death Toll is a 2008 action film starring DMX, Lou Diamond Phillips, Leila Arcieri and Keshia Knight Pulliam, written and produced by Daniel Garcia of the rap group Kane & Abel and directed by Phenomenon...
estimates for Vukovar as a result of the siege range from 1,798 to 5,000. A further 22,000 were exiled from Vukovar immediately after the town was captured.
There is evidence that the population suffered extreme hardship. Some estimates include 220,000 Croats and 300,000 Serbs internally displaced
Internally displaced person
An internally displaced person is someone who is forced to flee his or her home but who remains within his or her country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the current legal definition of a refugee. At the end of 2006 it was estimated there were...
for the duration of the war in Croatia. The 1991 census data and the 1993 RSK population data for the territory of Krajina differ by some 102,000 Serbs and 135,000 Croats. In many areas, large numbers of civilians were forced out by the military. It was at this time that the term ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
—the meaning of which ranged from eviction to murder—first entered the English lexicon.
On October 3 the Yugoslav Navy
Yugoslav Navy
The Yugoslav Navy was the navy of Yugoslavia. It was essentially a coastal defense force with the mission of preventing enemy landings along the Yugoslavia's rugged 4,000- kilometer shoreline or coastal islands, and contesting an enemy blockade or control of the strategic Strait of Otranto...
renewed its blockade of the main ports of Croatia. This move followed months of standoff for Yugoslav People's Army positions in Dalmatia and elsewhere now known as the Battle of the barracks
Battle of the Barracks
Battle of the barracks - sometimes also called War for the barracks - is a term given to a series of engagements that took place throughout Croatia as part of the Croatian War of Independence during 1991, with the most important fighting in September...
. It also coincided with the end of Operation Coast-91, in which the Yugoslav Army failed to occupy the coastline in an attempt to cut off Dalmatia's access to the rest of Croatia.
On October 5 President Tuđman made a speech in which he called upon the whole population to mobilize and defend against "Greater Serbian imperialism" pursued by the Serb-led JNA, Serbian paramilitary formations, and rebel Serb forces. On October 7 the Yugoslav air force attacked the main government building in Zagreb, an incident referred to as the bombing of Banski dvori
Bombing of Banski dvori
The Bombing of Banski dvori was a Yugoslav People's Army air strike on Banski dvori, the official residence of the Government of Croatia in Zagreb, on 7 October 1991, during the Croatian War of Independence....
. The next day, as a previously agreed three-month moratorium on implementation of the declaration of independence expired, the Croatian Parliament severed all remaining ties with Yugoslavia. October 8 is now celebrated as Croatia's Independence Day. The bombing of the government offices and the Siege of Dubrovnik
Siege of Dubrovnik
The Siege of Dubrovnik is a term marking the battle and siege of the city of Dubrovnik and the surrounding area in Croatia as part of the Croatian War of Independence. Yugoslav People's Army invaded the Dubrovnik area in October 1991 from Montenegro, Bosnia and even parts of Croatia, surrounding...
that started in October were contributing factors that led to European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
(EU) sanctions
International sanctions
International sanctions are actions taken by countries against others for political reasons, either unilaterally or multilaterally.There are several types of sanctions....
against Serbia. The international media focused on—and exaggerated—the damage to Dubrovnik's cultural heritage
Cultural heritage
Cultural heritage is the legacy of physical artifacts and intangible attributes of a group or society that are inherited from past generations, maintained in the present and bestowed for the benefit of future generations...
; concerns about civilian casualties and pivotal battles such as the one in Vukovar were pushed out of public view. Nonetheless, artillery attacks on Dubrovnik damaged 56% of its buildings to some degree, as the historic walled city, a UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
World Heritage Site
World Heritage Site
A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the UNESCO as of special cultural or physical significance...
, sustained 650 hits by artillery rounds.
Peak of the war
In response to the 5th JNA Corps advance across the Sava RiverSava River
The Sava is a river in Southeast Europe, a right side tributary of the Danube river at Belgrade. Counting from Zelenci, the source of Sava Dolinka, it is long and drains of surface area. It flows through Slovenia, Croatia, along the northern border of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and through Serbia....
towards Pakrac
Pakrac
Pakrac is a town in western Slavonia, Croatia, population 4,852, total municipality population 8,482 . Pakrac is located on the road and railroad connecting the regions of Posavina and Podravina.-Name:...
and further north into western Slavonia, the Croatian army began a successful counterattack
Counterattack
A counterattack is a tactic used in response against an attack. The term originates in military strategy. The general objective is to negate or thwart the advantage gained by the enemy in attack and the specific objectives are usually to regain lost ground or to destroy attacking enemy units.It is...
in early November 1991, its first major offensive operation of the war. Operation Otkos 10
Operation Otkos 10
Operation Otkos 10 was a military offensive undertaken by the Croatian army against the Yugoslav People's Army in SAO Western Slavonia...
(October 31 to November 4) resulted in Croatia recapturing an area between the Bilogora
Bilogora
Bilogora is a low mountainous range in central Croatia. It consists of a series of hills and small plains some 80 kilometres in length stretching in the direction northwest-southeast, along the southwest part of the Podravina region...
and Papuk
Papuk
Papuk is the largest mountain in the Slavonia region in eastern Croatia, near the city of Požega. It extends between Bilogora to the northwest, Krndija to the east, and Ravna gora and Psunj to the southwest....
mountains. The Croatian army recaptured approximately 270 square kilometres (104.2 sq mi) of territory in this operation.
In October and early November, the situation for Croats in Vukovar became ever more desperate as the JNA escalated the war. On November 18, 1991, Vukovar fell to the Serbs after a three-month siege, and the Vukovar massacre
Vukovar massacre
The Vukovar massacre, also known as Vukovar hospital massacre or simply Ovčara, was a war crime that took place between November 20 and November 21, 1991 near the city of Vukovar, a mixed Croat/Serb community in northeastern Croatia...
took place; the survivors were transported to prison camps
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
such as Ovčara and Velepromet
Velepromet concentration camp
Velepromet camp was a short-lived concentration camp set up during the Battle of Vukovar by the Yugoslav People's Army and Serbian paramilitary forces in 1991 on the outskirts of the Croatian city of Vukovar....
, with the majority ending up in Sremska Mitrovica prison camp. The city of Vukovar was almost completely destroyed; 15,000 houses were destroyed. During the 87-day battle, the city was struck by 8,000 to 9,000 artillery shells every day, for a total of more than one million rounds. The sustained siege attracted heavy international media attention. Many international journalists were in or near Vukovar, as was UN peace mediator Cyrus Vance
Cyrus Vance
Cyrus Roberts Vance was an American lawyer and United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980...
, who had been Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
to former US President Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
.
Also in eastern Slavonia, the Lovas massacre
Lovas massacre
Lovas massacre were the killings of Croat detainees in the villages of Lovas and neighbouring Opatovac in eastern Slavonia, Croatia. The civilians were killed by Croatian Serb paramilitary forces during the Croatian War of Independence in the period from October 10, 1991 to the end of that...
occurred in October and the Erdut massacre
Erdut massacre
After the town of Erdut was forcefully taken over by the rebel Serb forces and JNA and annexed to the puppet state of Republic of Serbian Krajina during Croatian War of Independence, Croats and other non-Serbs were either expelled or killed, with Serbs repopulating empty villages in the area.From...
in November 1991, before and after the fall of Vukovar.
At the same time, the Škabrnja massacre
Škabrnja massacre
Škabrnja massacre was a war crime committed by Serb Army forces during the Croatian War of Independence. On November 18, 1991, Serb paramilitaries, supported by the JNA, captured the village of Škabrnja and killed 25 Prisoners of war and 61 civilians over the next several days.-Before the...
occurred in the northern Dalmatian hinterland; it was largely overshadowed by the events at Vukovar.
On November 14, the Navy blockade of Dalmatian ports was challenged by civilian ships. The confrontation culminated in the Battle of the Dalmatian channels
Battle of the Dalmatian channels
The Battle of the Dalmatian channels was a three-day long confrontation between two task forces of the Yugoslav War Navy and coastal defenses of the Croatian Navy along Šolta island, the port of Split, and the islands of Brač, Hvar and Korčula, which took place from 14 to 16 November 1991...
, when Croatian coastal and island based artillery
Coastal artillery
Coastal artillery is the branch of armed forces concerned with operating anti-ship artillery or fixed gun batteries in coastal fortifications....
damaged, sunk, or captured a number of Yugoslav navy vessels, including Mukos PČ 176, later rechristened PB 62 Šolta. After the battle, the Yugoslav naval operations were effectively limited to the southern Adriatic
Adriatic Sea
The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...
.
Croatian forces made further advances in the second half of December, including Operation Orkan 91
Operation Orkan 91
Operation Orkan 91 was a military operation during the Croatian War of Independence. After successful completion of Operation Otkos 10, the first offensive operation of such scale by Croatian army in the homeland war, Croatian troops were in position to retake further territory and neutralize a...
, but at that point a lasting ceasefire
Ceasefire
A ceasefire is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be declared as part of a formal treaty, but they have also been called as part of an informal understanding between opposing forces...
was about to be signed (in January 1992). In the course of Orkan 91, Croatian army recaptured approximately 1440 square kilometres (556 sq mi) of territory. The end of the operation marked end of a six-month-long phase of intense fighting; 10,000 people had died, hundreds of thousands had fled, and tens of thousands of homes had been destroyed.
On December 19, as the intensity of the fighting increased, Croatia won its first diplomatic recognition
Diplomatic recognition
Diplomatic recognition in international law is a unilateral political act with domestic and international legal consequences, whereby a state acknowledges an act or status of another state or government in control of a state...
by a western nation—Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
—while the Serbian Autonomous Regions in Krajina and western Slavonia officially declared themselves the Republic of Serbian Krajina. Four days later, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
recognized Croatian independence. On December 26, 1991, the Serb-dominated federal presidency announced plans for a smaller Yugoslavia that could include the territory captured from Croatia during the war.
In the second half of 1991, all the Croatian democratic parties gathered together to form a unified national government to confront the JNA and Serbian paramilitaries, with Franjo Gregurić
Franjo Greguric
Franjo Gregurić is a Croatian politician who served as prime minister of Croatia from July 1991 to September 1992.Gregurić was born in the Zagorje village of Lobor. He attended the Technical highschool in Zagreb, and then the Technical Faculty of the University of Zagreb...
as prime minister. Opposition parties filled 16 out of 27 government posts. Mediated by foreign diplomats, ceasefires were frequently signed and frequently broken. Croatia lost much territory, but expanded the Croatian Army from the seven brigades it had at the time of the first ceasefire to 60 brigades and 37 independent battalions by December 31, 1991.
The Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on the former Yugoslavia
Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on the former Yugoslavia
The Arbitration Commission of the Conference on Yugoslavia was a commission set up by the Council of Ministers of the European Economic Community on 27 August 1991 to provide the Conference on Yugoslavia with legal advice...
, also referred to as Badinter Arbitration Committee, was set up by the Council of Ministers
Council of the European Union
The Council of the European Union is the institution in the legislature of the European Union representing the executives of member states, the other legislative body being the European Parliament. The Council is composed of twenty-seven national ministers...
of the European Economic Community
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...
(EEC) on August 27, 1991, to provide the Conference on Yugoslavia with legal advice. The five-member Commission consisted of presidents of Constitutional Courts in the EEC. Starting in late November 1991, the committee rendered ten opinions. The Commission stated, among other things, that SFR Yugoslavia was in the process of dissolution and that the internal boundaries of Yugoslav republics may not be altered unless freely agreed upon. Factors in Croatia's preservation of its pre-war borders were the Yugoslav Federal Constitution Amendments of 1971, and the Yugoslav Federal Constitution of 1974. The 1971 amendments introduced a concept that sovereign rights were exercised by the federal units, and that the federation had only the authority specifically transferred to it by the constitution. The 1974 constitution confirmed and strengthened the principles introduced in 1971. The borders had been defined by demarcation commissions in 1947, pursuant to decisions of AVNOJ
AVNOJ
The Anti-Fascist Council of the People's Liberation of Yugoslavia, known more commonly by its Yugoslav abbreviation AVNOJ, was the political umbrella organization for the national liberation councils of the Yugoslav resistance against the World War II Axis occupation, eventually becoming the...
in 1943 and 1945 regarding the federal organization of Yugoslavia.
1992: Ceasefire
A new UN-sponsored ceasefire, the fifteenth one in just six months, was agreed on January 2, 1992, and came into force the next day. On January 7, 1992, JNA pilot Emir ŠišićEmir Šišic
Emir Šišić is a former pilot of the Air Force of the SFR Yugoslavia and later FR Yugoslavia who was involved in a controversial air encounter that resulted in five deaths, for which he served prison time.- Military career :...
shot down a European Community helicopter in Croatia, killing five truce observers. Croatia was officially recognized by the European Community on January 15, 1992. Even though the JNA began to withdraw from Croatia, including Krajina, the RSK clearly retained the upper hand in the occupied territories due to support from Serbia. By that time, the RSK encompassed 13913 square kilometres (5,371.8 sq mi) of territory. The area size did not encompass another 680 square kilometres (262.5 sq mi) of occupied territory near Dubrovnik, as that area was not considered part of the RSK.
Ending the series of unsuccessful ceasefires, the UN deployed a protection force in Serbian-held Croatia—the United Nations Protection Force
United Nations Protection Force
The United Nations Protection Force ', was the first United Nations peacekeeping force in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav wars. It existed between the beginning of UN involvement in February 1992, and its restructuring into other forces in March 1995...
(UNPROFOR)—to supervise and maintain the agreement. The UNPROFOR was officially created by UN Security Council Resolution 743
United Nations Security Council Resolution 743
United Nations Security Council Resolution 743, adopted unanimously on February 21, 1992, after reaffirming resolutions 713 , 721 , 724 , 727 and 740 , and considering that the situation in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia constitutes a threat to international peace and stability, the...
on February 21, 1992.
The warring parties mostly moved to entrenched positions, and the JNA soon retreated from Croatia into Bosnia and Herzegovina, where a new conflict was anticipated. Croatia became a member of the UN on May 22, 1992, which was conditional upon Croatia amending its constitution to protect the human rights of minority groups and dissidents.
Expulsions of the non-Serb civilian population remaining in the occupied territories continued despite the presence of the UNPROFOR peacekeeping troops, and in some cases, with UN troops being virtually enlisted as accomplices.
The Yugoslav People's Army took thousands of prisoners during the war in Croatia, and interned them in camps in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. The Croatian forces also captured some Serbian prisoners, and the two sides agreed to several prisoner exchange
Prisoner exchange
A prisoner exchange or prisoner swap is a deal between opposing sides in a conflict to release prisoners. These may be prisoners of war, spies, hostages, etc...
s; most prisoners were freed by the end of 1992. Some infamous prisons included the Sremska Mitrovica camp
Sremska Mitrovica camp
Sremska Mitrovica prison is the biggest prison in Serbia, consisting of two facilities. It is situated in Sremska Mitrovica, Vojvodina province....
, the Stajićevo camp
Stajicevo camp
The Stajićevo camp was an agricultural farm in Stajićevo near Zrenjanin, Serbia where Croatian prisoners of war and civilians were kept by Serbian authorities. The camp also acted as a transit facility where prisoners were taken before being moved to the Sremska Mitrovica camp...
, and the Begejci camp
Begejci camp
The Begejci camp was a detention camp established in September-October 1991 in Begejci near Zrenjanin, Serbia where Croatian prisoners of war and civilians were kept by Serbian authorities during the Croatian War of Independence. The detainees were mostly brought from Vukovar and some were later...
in Serbia, and the Morinj camp
Morinj camp
The Morinj camp was a detention facility near Kotor, Montenegro where Croatian prisoners of war and civilians were kept by Montenegrin authorities in the Yugoslav People's Army during the Civil war in Croatia. The age of the incarcerated ranged from 15 to 82...
in Montenegro. The Croatian Army also established detention camps, such as the Lora prison camp
Lora prison camp
Lora prison camp was a prison camp in Split, Croatia. It was active from 1992 to 1997 with mainly Serbian residents of Split and prisoners of war being imprisoned...
in Split.
Armed conflict in Croatia continued intermittently on a smaller scale. There were several smaller operations undertaken by Croatian forces to relieve the siege of Dubrovnik, and other Croatian cities (Šibenik, Zadar and Gospić) from Krajina forces. Battles included the Miljevci plateau incident (between Krka
Krka (Croatia)
Krka is a river in Croatia's Dalmatia region, famous for its numerous waterfalls. It is long and its basin covers an area of .Possibly the river called Catarbates by the ancient Greeks, it was known to the ancient Romans as Titius, Corcoras, or Korkoras.The river has its source near the border...
and Drniš
Drniš
Drniš is a town in Croatia, located in inland Dalmatia at halfway between Šibenik and Knin. Its municipality population is 8,595 , with 3,332 in the town itself and the rest in two dozen surrounding villages...
), on June 21–22, 1992, Operation Jaguar at Križ Hill near Bibinje
Bibinje
Bibinje is a village in southern Croatia, situated southeast from Zadar, between the Adriatic tourist road and the sea, having a four kilometer coastline with beaches and pathways. It has 3,923 residents , 97% which are Croats....
and Zadar, on May 22, 1992, and a series of military actions in the Dubrovnik hinterland: Operation Tigar, on July 1–13, 1992, in Konavle
Konavle
Konavle is a small region and municipality located southeast of Dubrovnik, Croatia.It is administratively part of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County and forms a municipality with its center at Gruda with a total population of 8,250 people split in 32 villages, in which 96.5% are Croats...
, on September 20–24, 1992, and at Vlaštica, on September 22–25, 1992. Combat near Dubrovnik was followed by the withdrawal of JNA from Konavle, between September 30 and October 20, 1992, The Prevlaka
Prevlaka
Prevlaka is a small peninsula in southern Croatia, at the entrance to the Bay of Kotor in the eastern Adriatic. The word prevlaka means portage. The cape Oštro, located at the tip of the peninsula, is the southernmost point of mainland in Croatia....
peninsula guarding entrance to the Bay of Kotor
Bay of Kotor
The Bay of Kotor in south-western Montenegro is a winding bay on the Adriatic Sea. The bay, sometimes called Europe's southernmost fjord, is in fact a submerged river canyon of the disintegrated Bokelj River which used to run from the high mountain plateaus of Mount Orjen...
was demilitarized and turned over to the UNPROFOR, while the remainder of Konavle was restored to the Croatian authorities.
1993: Croatian military advances
Operation Maslenica
In early September, 1991, during the opening stages of the Croatian War of Independence, Serb-dominated units of the Knin Corps of the Yugoslav People's Army , under the command of Colonel Ratko Mladić and supported by the ethnic Serb Krajina militia, conducted offensive operations against areas...
, an offensive operation in the Zadar area on January 22. The objective of the attack was to improve the strategic situation in that area, as it targeted the city airport and the Maslenica Bridge
Maslenica Bridge (D8)
The Maslenica Bridge is a deck arch bridge carrying the D8 state road approximately to the west of the settlement of Maslenica, Croatia and south of the D54 and D8 state roads junction.- Structure :...
, the last entirely overland link between Zagreb and the city of Zadar until the bridge area was captured in September 1991. The attack proved successful as it met its declared objectives, but at a high cost, as 114 Croat and 490 Serb soldiers were killed in a relatively limited theater of operations.
While Operation Maslenica was in progress, Croatian forces attacked Serb positions 130 kilometres (80.8 mi) to the east. They advanced towards the Peruća Hydroelectric Dam
Peruca Lake
Lake Peruća or Peruča is the second artificial lake in Croatia after Lake Dubrava. It is located in the Split-Dalmatia county.-Location:...
and captured it by January 28, 1993, shortly after Serbian militiamen chased away the UN peacekeepers protecting the dam. UN forces had been present at the site since the summer of 1992. They discovered that the Serbs had planted 35 to 37 tons of explosives spread over seven different sites on the dam in a way that prevented the explosives' removal; the charges were left in place. Retreating Serb forces detonated three of explosive charges totaling 5 tons within the 65 metres (213.3 ft) high dam in an attempt to cause it to fail and flood the area downstream. The disaster was prevented by Mark Nicholas Gray
Mark Nicholas Gray
Mark Nicholas Gray MBE is a Colonel in the British Royal Marines who stopped a disaster at the hydroelectric Peruća Dam during the Croatian offensive of 27–28 January 1993 when he raised the spillway channel and reduced the level of water in the lake...
, a colonel in the British Royal Marines
Royal Marines
The Corps of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, commonly just referred to as the Royal Marines , are the marine corps and amphibious infantry of the United Kingdom and, along with the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary, form the Naval Service...
, a lieutenant at the time, who was a UN military observer at the site. He risked being disciplined for acting beyond his authority by lowering the reservoir level, which held 0.54 cubic kilometre (0.129552889646315 cu mi) of water, before the dam was blown up. His action saved the lives of 20,000 people who would otherwise have drowned or become homeless.
Operation Medak Pocket
Operation Medak Pocket
Operation Medak Pocket: Mid-September 1993 United Nations Protection Force and the 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry advanced into the Medak Pocket, named after the village of Medak, in Southern Croatia, with orders to implement a ceasefire between the Croatian Army Troops...
took place in a salient
Salients, re-entrants and pockets
A salient is a battlefield feature that projects into enemy territory. The salient is surrounded by the enemy on three sides, making the troops occupying the salient vulnerable. The enemy's line facing a salient is referred to as a re-entrant...
south of Gospić, on September 9–17. The offensive was undertaken by the Croatian army to stop Serbian artillery in an area from shelling nearby Gospić. The operation met its stated objective of removing the artillery threat, as Croatian troops overran the salient, but it was marred by war crimes. The ICTY later indicted Croatian officers Janko Bobetko
Janko Bobetko
Janko Bobetko was a Croatian Army general and Chief of the General Staff during the Croatian War of Independence from 1992 until his retirement in 1995. Bobetko had been charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia but died before he could be tried...
, Rahim Ademi
Rahim Ademi
Rahim Ademi is a Croatian Army general of Kosovo-Albanian origin.Born and raised in the village of Karač, Vučitrn, SFR Yugoslavia, now found in Kosovo. Ademi finished the Yugoslav military academy in Belgrade in 1976...
, Mirko Norac
Mirko Norac
Mirko Norac is a former general of the Croatian Army. In 2003 he became the first Croatian Army general to be found guilty of war crimes by a Croatian court after he was transferred from The Hague...
, and others for war crimes committed during this operation. Norac was later found guilty by the Croatian court. The operation was halted amid international pressure, and an agreement was reached that the Croatian troops were to withdraw to positions held prior to September 9, while UN troops were to occupy the salient alone. The events that followed remain controversial, as Canadian authorities reported that the Croatian army intermittently fought against the advancing Canadian Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry
Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry is one of the three regular force infantry regiments of the Canadian Army. The regiment is composed of four battalions including a primary reserve battalion, for a total of 2,000 soldiers...
before finally retreating after sustaining 27 fatalities. The Croatian ministry of defense and UN officer's testimonies given during the Ademi-Norac trial deny that the battle occurred.
On February 18, 1993, Croatian authorities signed the Daruvar Agreement with local Serb leaders in Western Slavonia. The aim of the secret agreement was normalizing life for local populations near the frontline. However, authorities in Knin learned of this and arrested the Serb leaders responsible. In June 1993, Serbs began voting in a referendum on merging Krajina territory with Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska
Republika Srpska is one of two main political entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina...
. Milan Martić, acting as the RSK interior minister, advocated a merger of the "two Serbian states as the first stage in the establishment of a state of all Serbs" in his April 3 letter to the Assembly of the Republika Srpska. On January 21, 1994, Martić stated that he would "speed up the process of unification and pass on the baton to all Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević" if elected president of the RSK." These intentions were countered by the United Nations Security Council
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
(UNSC) Resolution 871
United Nations Security Council Resolution 871
United Nations Security Council Resolution 871, adopted unanimously on October 4, 1993, after reaffirming resolutions Resolution 713 and Resolution 743 and subsequent resolutions relating to the situation in the former Yugoslavia and United Nations Protection Force , the Council expressed concern...
in October 1993, when the UNSC affirmed for the first time that the United Nations Protected Areas, i.e. the RSK held areas, were an integral part of the Republic of Croatia.
During 1992 and 1993, an estimated 225,000 Croats, as well as refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, settled in Croatia. Croatian volunteers and some conscripted soldiers participated in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Croatia accepted 280,000 Bosniak refugees from the Bosnian War; Croatia was the initial destination for most of the Bosniak refugees. The large number of refugees significantly strained the Croatian economy and infrastructure
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function...
. The American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith, tried to put the number of Muslim refugees in Croatia into a proper perspective in an interview on November 8, 1993. He said the situation would be the equivalent of the United States taking in 30,000,000 refugees.
1994: Erosion of support for Krajina
Croatian Defence Council
The Croatian Defence Council was a military formation of the self-proclaimed Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia during the Bosnian War.-History:...
and Croatian volunteer troops on one side and the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was the military force of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina established by the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992 following the outbreak of the Bosnian War...
on the other, but by 1994, the Croatian Army had an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 troops involved in the fighting. Under pressure from the United States, the belligerents agreed on a truce in late February, followed by a meeting of Croatian, Bosnian, and Bosnian Croat representatives with US Secretary of State Warren Christopher
Warren Christopher
Warren Minor Christopher was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician. During Bill Clinton's first term as President, Christopher served as the 63rd Secretary of State. He also served as Deputy Attorney General in the Lyndon Johnson administration, and as Deputy Secretary of State in the Jimmy...
in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
on February 26, 1994. On March 4, Franjo Tuđman endorsed the agreement providing for the creation of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the two political entities that compose the sovereign country of Bosnia and Herzegovina . The two entities are delineated by the Inter-Entity Boundary Line...
and an alliance between Bosnian government forces and Bosnian Croat forces. The agreement provided for the creation of a loose confederation between Croatia and the new federation, which permitted Croatia to send troops into Bosnia and Herzegovina.
This led to the dismantling of Herzeg-Bosnia and reduced the number of warring factions in Bosnia and Herzegovina from three to two.
In late 1994, the Croatian Army intervened several times in Bosnia: on November 1–3, in the operation Cincar near Kupres
Kupres (town)
Kupres is a town and municipality in Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The town is located in the Canton 10, also known as the Hercegbosanski Kanton or Hercegbosanska županija and is the north-western most town in Hercegovina.- Position :Kupres is 43 km distanced from...
, and on November 29 – December 24 in the Winter '94
Operation Winter '94
Operation Winter '94 was a joint military offensive of Croatian Army and Croatian Defense Council launched in Western Bosnia and Herzegovina on November 29 and continuing up until December 24 of 1994 during the Croatian War of Independence and the Bosnian War...
operation near Dinara
Dinara
Dinara is a mountain located on the border of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of its summits, also called Dinara, is the highest point in Croatia at 1,831 m and a prominence of 728 m.-Etymology:...
and Livno
Livno
Livno is a town in western Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Canton 10 of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, located between Tomislavgrad, Glamoč, Bosansko Grahovo, Kupres and the Croatian border.- Position :...
. These operations were undertaken to detract from the siege of the Bihać region and to approach the RSK capital of Knin from the north, isolating it on three sides.
During this time, unsuccessful negotiations mediated by the UN were under way between the Croatian and RSK governments. The matters under discussion included opening the Serb-occupied part of the Zagreb–Slavonski Brod motorway
A3 (Croatia)
The A3 motorway is a major motorway in Croatia spanning . The motorway connects Zagreb, the nation's capital, to the Slavonia region and a number of cities along the Sava River. It represents a major east–west transportation corridor in Croatia and a significant part of the Pan-European Corridor...
near Okučani
Okucani
Okučani is a village in western Slavonia, Croatia. It is located at the contact point between the Posavina plain and the southern slopes of Psunj; 19 km southeast of Novska and 17 km west of Nova Gradiška; elevation 119 m. Chief occupations are farming, livestock breeding, fishing and...
to transit traffic, as well as the putative status of Serbian-majority areas within Croatia. The motorway initially reopened at the end of 1994, but it was soon closed again due to security issues. Repeated failures to resolve the two disputes would serve as triggers for major Croatian offensives in 1995.
At the same time, the Krajina army continued the Siege of Bihać
Siege of Bihać
The Bihać area was the scene of fierce fighting during the Bosnian War. It involved the Bosnian government army in Bihać on one side and Serb forces on the other side, who surrounded the area in a double siege – from the Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina on the north-west to the Army of...
, together with the Army of Republika Srpska
Army of Republika Srpska
The Army of Republika Srpska ; Serbian, Bosnian, Croatian Vojska Republike Srpske ) also referred to as the Bosnian Serb Army, was the military of today's Republika Srpska which was then the "Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina", a self-proclaimed state within the internationally recognized...
from Bosnia. Michael Williams, an official of the UN peacekeeping force, said that when the village of Vedro Polje west of Bihać had fallen to a Croatian Serb unit in late November 1994, the siege entered the final stage. He added that heavy tank and artillery fire against the town of Velika Kladuša
Velika Kladuša
Velika Kladuša is a city and municipality in the far northwest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, located near the border with Croatia. The closest city is Cazin, and a bit farther, the cities of Bihać and Bosanski Novi. Across the border, it is not far from Cetingrad...
in the north of the Bihać enclave was coming from the Croatian Serbs. Western military analysts said that among the array of Serbian surface-to-air missile
Surface-to-air missile
A surface-to-air missile or ground-to-air missile is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles...
systems that surround the Bihać pocket on Croatian territory, there was a modern SAM-2 system with a degree of sophistication that suggested it had probably been brought there recently from Belgrade. In response to the situation, the Security Council passed Resolution 958
United Nations Security Council Resolution 958
United Nations Security Council Resolution 958, adopted unanimously on November 19, 1994, after recalling all resolutions on the situation in the former Yugoslavia including Resolution 836 , the Council, acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, determined that the situation in the...
, which allowed NATO aircraft deployed as a part of the Operation Deny Flight
Operation Deny Flight
Operation Deny Flight was a North Atlantic Treaty Organization operation that began on April 12, 1993 as the enforcement of a United Nations no-fly zone over Bosnia and Herzegovina...
to operate in Croatia. On November 21, NATO attacked the Udbina
Udbina
Udbina is a village and a municipality in the Lika region of Croatia. It is an administratively part of in the Lika-Senj county.-Geography:The village is located in the large karst field called Krbava...
airfield controlled by the Croatian Serbs, temporarily disabling runways. Following the Udbina strike, NATO continued to launch strikes in the area, and on November 23, after a NATO reconnaissance plane was illuminated by the radar of a surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, NATO planes attacked a SAM site near Dvor
Dvor
Dvor is a town and a municipality in the Banovina region in central Croatia. Administratively it belongs to the Sisak-Moslavina County and is located across the Una River from Novi Grad in Bosnia and Herzegovina....
with AGM-88 HARM
AGM-88 HARM
The AGM-88 High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile is a tactical, air-to-surface missile designed to home in on electronic transmissions coming from surface-to-air radar systems. It was originally developed by Texas Instruments as a replacement for the AGM-45 Shrike and AGM-78 Standard ARM system...
anti-radiation missiles.
By 1995 the Croatian Army would develop into an effective fighting force centered on eight elite Guard Brigades, used as maneuver units with professional personnel, and on comparably less effective Home Defense Regiments and regular brigades (most of which were reorganized into regiments in 1992). Some of the 37 independent battalions also consisted of career soldiers. This organization meant that in later campaigns, the Croatian army would pursue a variant of blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg
For other uses of the word, see: Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is an anglicized word describing all-motorised force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery, combat engineers and air power, concentrating overwhelming force at high speed to break through enemy lines, and, once the lines are broken,...
tactics, with the Guard brigades punching through the enemy lines while the other units simply held the lines at other points and completed an encirclement of the enemy units. In a further attempt to bolster its armed forces, Croatia hired Military Professional Resources Inc.
Military Professional Resources Inc.
L-3 MPRI, is a global provider of integrated training solutions offering a wide range of professional services to both public and private customers, most notably the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S...
(MPRI) in September 1994 to train some of its officers and NCOs. Begun in January 1995, MPRI's assignment involved fifteen advisors who taught basic officer leadership skills and training management. MPRI activities were reviewed in advance by the US State Department to ensure they did not involve tactical training or violate the UN arms embargo still in place.
1995: End of the war
Tensions were renewed at the beginning of 1995 as Croatia sought to put increasing pressure on the Serb forces that were occupying a large portion of its territory. In a five-page letter on January 12, Franjo Tuđman formally told the UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-GhaliBoutros Boutros-Ghali
Boutros Boutros-Ghali is an Egyptian politician and diplomat who was the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1992 to December 1996...
that Croatia was ending the agreement permitting the stationing of UNPROFOR in Croatia, effective March 31. The move was motivated by the continued efforts of Serbia and the Serb-dominated Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to provide assistance to the Serb occupation of Croatia and to possibly integrate the occupied areas into Yugoslav territory. The situation was also noted and addressed by the UN General Assembly
United Nations General Assembly
For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...
.
Z-4 plan
The Z-4 Plan or Draft agreement on the Krajina, Slavonia, Southern Baranja and Western Sirmium stands for the Zagreb 4 peace proposal to end the Croatian War of Independence. The proposal was made by the Zagreb 4 group and would have reintegrated the Republic of Serbian Krajina into Croatia...
was presented to Croatian and Krajina authorities. There was no initial Croatian response, and the Serbs flatly refused the proposal. As the deadline for UNPROFOR to pull out neared, a new UN peacekeeping mission was proposed with an increased mandate to patrol Croatia's internationally-recognized borders. Initially the Serbs opposed the move, and tanks were moved from Serbia into eastern Croatia. A settlement was finally reached, and the new UN peacekeeping mission was approved by United Nations Security Council Resolution 981
United Nations Security Council Resolution 981
United Nations Security Council Resolution 981, adopted unanimously on March 31, 1995, after reaffirming all resolutions on the situation in the former Yugoslavia, the Council established the United Nations Confidence Restoration Operation in Croatia for a period terminating November 30, 1995.The...
on March 31. The name of the mission was the subject of a last-minute dispute, as Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granić
Mate Granic
Mate Granić is a Croatian diplomat and politician who was part of the Croatian Government in much of the 1990s.Granić was born in Baška Voda in Dalmatia...
insisted that the term Croatia must be added to the force name. The name United Nations Confidence Restoration Operation in Croatia
United Nations Confidence Restoration Operation
The United Nations Confidence Restoration Operation, commonly known as UNCRO is a completed UN Mission. It replaced the United Nations Protection Force in Croatia.- Mission :...
(UNCRO) was approved.
Violence erupted again in early May 1995. The RSK lost support from the Serbian government in Belgrade, partly as a result of international pressure. At the same time, the Croatian Operation Flash
Operation Flash
The Serbs in western Slavonia took part in the organized rebellion against the government of the Republic of Croatia that had just proclaimed independence in June 1991, by proclaiming the Serbian Autonomous Oblast of Western Slavonia in August 1991...
reclaimed all of the previously occupied territory in Western Slavonia. In retaliation, Serb forces attacked Zagreb
Zagreb rocket attack
The Zagreb rocket attacks were a series of two artillery attacks conducted by Serb armed forces that fired ground-to-ground missiles on the Croatian capital of Zagreb during the Croatian War of Independence...
with rockets, killing 7 and wounding over 175 civilians. The Yugoslav army responded to the offensive with a show of force, moving tanks towards the Croatian border, in an apparent effort to stave off a possible attack on the occupied area in Eastern Slavonia.
During the following months, international efforts mainly concerned the largely unsuccessful United Nations Safe Areas
United Nations Safe Areas
United Nations Safe Areas were areas established in 1993 in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War by a resolution of the United Nations Security Council....
set up in Bosnia and Herzegovina and trying to set up a more lasting ceasefire in Croatia. The two issues virtually merged by July 1995 when a number of the safe areas in eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina were overrun
Srebrenica massacre
The Srebrenica massacre, also known as the Srebrenica genocide, refers to the July 1995 killing, during the Bosnian War, of more than 8,000 Bosniaks , mainly men and boys, in and around the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska under the command of...
and one in Bihać
Bihac
Bihać is a city and municipality on the river Una in the north-western part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the Bosanska Krajina region. Bihać is located in the Una-Sana Canton in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.-History:...
was threatened. In 1994 Croatia had already signaled that it would not allow Bihać to be captured, and a new confidence in the Croatian military's ability to recapture occupied areas brought about a demand from Croatian authorities that no further ceasefires were to be negotiated; the occupied territories would be re-integrated into Croatia. These developments and the Washington Agreement
Washington Agreement
The Washington Agreement was a ceasefire agreement between the warring Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, signed in Washington on 18 March 1994 and Vienna. It was signed by Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdžić, Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granić and...
, a ceasefire signed in the Bosnian theater, led to another meeting of presidents of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina on July 22, when the Split declaration was adopted. In it, Bosnia and Herzegovina invited Croatia to provide military and other assistance, particularly in the Bihać area. Croatia accepted, committing itself to an armed intervention.
On July 25–30, the Croatian Army and Croatian Defence Council (HVO) troops attacked Serb-held territory north of Dinara
Dinara
Dinara is a mountain located on the border of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of its summits, also called Dinara, is the highest point in Croatia at 1,831 m and a prominence of 728 m.-Etymology:...
Mountain, capturing Bosansko Grahovo
Bosansko Grahovo
Bosansko Grahovo is a town and municipality in western Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located near the border with Croatia, near the towns of Drvar, Livno and Glamoč...
and Glamoč
Glamoc
Glamoč is a town and municipality of the same name in western Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is in Canton 10, in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina...
during Operation Summer '95
Operation Summer '95
Operation Summer '95 was a joint military offensive of Croatian Army and Croatian Defence Council forces launched in Western Bosnia and Herzegovina in July 1995 during the Croatian War of Independence and the Bosnian War...
. That offensive paved the way for the military recapture of occupied territory around Knin, as it severed the last efficient resupply route between Banja Luka and Knin. On August 5 Croatia started Operation Storm
Operation Storm
Operation Storm is the code name given to a large-scale military operation carried out by Croatian Armed Forces, in conjunction with the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to gain back control of parts of Croatia which had been claimed by separatist ethnic Serbs, since early...
, with the aim of recapturing almost all of the occupied territory in Croatia, except for a comparatively small strip of land, located along the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
, at a considerable distance from the bulk of the contested land. The offensive, involving 100,000 Croatian soldiers, was the largest single land battle fought in Europe since World War II. Operation Storm achieved its goals and was declared completed on August 8.
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
, the operation led to the ethnic cleansing of up to 200,000 Croatian Serbs, the murder and torture of Serbs—both soldiers and civilians—as well as the plunder of Serb civilian property. The ICTY, on the other hand, concluded that only 20.000 people were deported. The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
noted 200,000 Serb refugees at one point. Croatian refugees exiled in 1991 were finally allowed to return to their homes. In 1996 alone, about 85,000 displaced Croats returned to the former Krajina and western Slavonia, according to estimates of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants
The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants is an international advocacy and domestic refugee resettlement organization, headquartered in Washington, DC...
.
Reintegration of Eastern Slavonia
In the months that followed, there were still some intermittent, mainly artillery, attacks from Serb-held areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Dubrovnik area and elsewhere. The remaining Serb-held area in Croatia, in Eastern Slavonia, was faced with the possibility of military confrontation with Croatia. Such a possibility was repeatedly stated by Franjo Tuđman in the weeks after the completion of Operation Storm. The threat was underlined by the movement of troops to the region in mid-October, as well as a repeat of an earlier threat to intervene militarily—specifically saying that the Croatian Army could intervene if no peace agreement was reached by the end of the month. Further combat was averted on November 12, when the Erdut AgreementErdut Agreement
The Erdut Agreement , officially the Basic Agreement on the Region of Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium, was the agreement reached on November 12, 1995 between the authorities of the Republic of Croatia and the local Serb authorities of the Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia...
was signed by the RSK acting defense minister Milan Milanović, on instructions received from Slobodan Milošević and Federal Republic of Yugoslavia officials. The agreement stated that the remaining occupied area was to be returned to Croatia, with a two-year transitional period. The agreement required the removal of the UNCRO mission and called for a new UN peacekeeping mission to be set up to implement the agreement. The new UN mission was established as the United Nations Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1037
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1037
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1037, adopted unanimously on January 15, 1996, after recalling previous resolutions on Croatia including resolutions 1023 and 1025 , the Council established the United Nations Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium for...
of January 15, 1996. The agreement guarantees also right of establishment of Joint Council of Municipalities
Joint Council of Municipalities
Joint Council of Municipalities is a body that aligns the interests of the Serb ethnic community in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia in the Osijek-Baranja and Vukovar-Syrmia County, coordinate the law and provides initiatives and proposals to the institutions of government,...
for local Serbian community. The transitional period was subsequently extended by a year. On January 15, 1998, the UNTAES mandate ended and Croatia regained full control of the area. As the UNTAES replaced the UNCRO mission, Prevlaka peninsula, previously under UNCRO control, was put under control of United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka
United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka
UN Mission of Observers in Prevlaka was established on 15 January 1996 in Security Council Resolution 1038 as a peacekeeping mission to monitor the demilitarization of the disputed Prevlaka peninsula by carrying out daily foot and vehicle patrols on both sides of the border between Croatia and...
(UNMOP). The UNMOP was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1038
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1038
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1038, adopted unanimously on January 15, 1996, after recalling previous resolutions on Croatia including resolutions 779 , 981 and 1025 , the Council authorised the United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka to continue monitoring the...
of January 15, 1996, and terminated on December 15, 2002.
Type and name of the war
Though the standard term applied to the war as directly translated from the Croatian language is Homeland war , the Croatian War of Independence gradually became the standard term that replaced references to a war in Yugoslavia in that part which was related to Croatia. English language sources, as well as sources in other languages, use a substantial number of descriptive or general terms to refer to the war. The terminology changed as the political and military conflict progressed and transformed, and included the War in Croatia, the Serbo-Croatian War, and a number of generalized terms such as the Conflict in Yugoslavia.The same English language term is used in translations of text originally written in Croatian. Different translations of the Croatian name for the war are also sometimes used, such as Patriotic War, although such use by native speakers of English is rare. The official term used in the Croatian language is the most widespread name used in Croatia to refer to the war, but other terms are also used. One example is Greater-Serbian Aggression . The term was widely used by the media during the war, and is still sometimes used by the media and others. That particular term is not exclusive to the Croatian language, as there are examples of its use translated in English.
Two conflicting views exist as to whether the war was a civil
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
or an international war. The prevailing view in Serbia is that there were two civil wars in the area: one between Croats and Serbs living in Croatia, and another between SFR Yugoslavia and Croatia, a part of the federation. The prevailing view in Croatia and of most international law experts, including the ICTY, is that the war was an international conflict, a war of aggression
War of aggression
A war of aggression, sometimes also war of conquest, is a military conflict waged without the justification of self-defense usually for territorial gain and subjugation. The phrase is distinctly modern and diametrically opposed to the prior legal international standard of "might makes right", under...
waged by the rump Yugoslavia and Serbia against Croatia, supported by Serbs in Croatia. Neither Croatia nor Yugoslavia formally declared war
Declaration of war
A declaration of war is a formal act by which one nation goes to war against another. The declaration is a performative speech act by an authorized party of a national government in order to create a state of war between two or more states.The legality of who is competent to declare war varies...
on each other. Unlike the Serbian position that the conflict need not be declared as it was a civil war, the Croatian motivation for not declaring war was that Tuđman believed that Croatia could not confront the JNA directly and did everything to avoid an all-out war.
Casualties and refugees
Most sources place the total number of deaths on both sides at around 20,000. According to the head of the Croatian Commission for Missing Persons, Colonel Ivan Grujić, Croatia suffered 12,000 killed or missing, including 6,788 soldiers and 4,508 civilians. Official figures from Croatia from 1996 list 12,000 killed and 35,000 wounded. Goldstein mentions 13,583 killed or missing. Close to 2,400 persons were reported missing during the war. As of 2010, Croatia still sought 1,997 persons that went missing during the war. As of 2009, there were more than 52,000 persons in Croatia registered as disabled due to their participation in the war. The figure includes not only persons disabled physically due to wounds or injuries sustained but also persons with deteriorated health due to their involvement in the war, including diagnoses of chronic diseases such as diabetesDiabetes mellitus
Diabetes mellitus, often simply referred to as diabetes, is a group of metabolic diseases in which a person has high blood sugar, either because the body does not produce enough insulin, or because cells do not respond to the insulin that is produced...
and cardiovascular disease
Cardiovascular disease
Heart disease or cardiovascular disease are the class of diseases that involve the heart or blood vessels . While the term technically refers to any disease that affects the cardiovascular system , it is usually used to refer to those related to atherosclerosis...
, as well as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In most cases, disability resulted not from a wound or injury sustained but from deteriorated health or PTSD. In 2010, the number of war-related PTSD-diagnosed persons was 32,000.
In total, the war caused 500,000 refugees and displaced persons. Around 196,000 to 221,000 to 247.000 (in 1993) Croats and other non-Serbs were displaced during the war from or around the Krajina region. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe is the world's largest security-oriented intergovernmental organization. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, human rights, freedom of the press and fair elections...
(OSCE) said in 2006 that 221,000 were displaced, of which 218,000 had returned. The majority were displaced during the initial fighting and during the JNA offensives of 1991 and 1992. Some 150,000 Croats from Republika Srpska and Serbia have obtained Croatian citizenship since 1991, many due to incidents like the expulsions in Hrtkovci
Expulsions in Hrtkovci
Following the beginning of the Yugoslav wars, members of Serbian Radical Party and Serbian Chetnik Movement conducted a campaign of intimidation of Croats of Serbia in Vojvodina, Serbia, through hate speech and threats. These acts forced a part of the local Croat population to leave the area in...
.
The Belgrade-based non-government organization Veritas lists 6,780 killed and missing from the Republic of Serbian Krajina, including 4,324 combatants and 2,344 civilians. Most of them were killed or missing in 1991 (2,442) and 1995 (2,394). The most deaths occurred in Northern Dalmatia (1,632). The JNA officially acknowledged 1,279 killed in action during the war. The actual number was probably considerably greater, since casualties were consistently underreported. In one example, official reports spoke of two lightly wounded after an engagement; according to the unit's intelligence officer the actual number was 50 killed and 150 wounded.
According to Serbian sources, some 120,000 Serbs were displaced in 1991–1993 and 250,000 were displaced after Operation Storm. The number of displaced Serbs was 254,000 in 1993, dropping to 97,000 in the early 1995 and then increasing again to 200,000 by the end of the year. Most international sources place the total number of Serbs displaced at around 300,000. According to Amnesty International 300,000 were displaced from 1991–1995, of which 117,000 were officially registered as having returned as of 2005. According to the OSCE, 300,000 were displaced during the war, of which 120,000 were officially registered as having returned as of 2006. However, it is believed the number does not accurately reflect the number of returnees, because many returned to Serbia, Montenegro, or Bosnia and Herzegovina after officially registering in Croatia. According to the UNHCR in 2008, 125,000 were registered as having returned to Croatia, of whom 55,000 remained permanently.
The Croatian Association of Prisoners in Serbian Concentration Camps
Croatian Association of Prisoners in Serbian Concentration Camps
Croatian Association of Prisoners in Serbian Concentration Camps is an association of former prisoners in Serbian jails and prison camps during the Croatian War of Independence. The organization was founded in Zagreb in 1995 and began its work that same year . Its offices are located on Ban...
was founded to help victims of prison abuse. The Croatian war veterans in general are organized into numerous non-governmental organizations, the most prominent of which is the Croatian Disabled Homeland War Veterans Association
Croatian Disabled Homeland War Veterans Association
The Croatian Disabled Homeland War Veterans Association is an association of disabled Croatian war veterans who fought in the Croatian Homeland War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina...
.
Wartime damage and minefields
Official figures on wartime damage published in Croatia in 1996 specify 180,000 destroyed housing units, 25% of the Croatian economy destroyed, and USD $27 billion of material damage. Europe Review 2003/04 estimated the war damage at USD $37 billion in damaged infrastructure, lost economic outputOutput (economics)
Output in economics is the "quantity of goods or services produced in a given time period, by a firm, industry, or country," whether consumed or used for further production.The concept of national output is absolutely essential in the field of macroeconomics...
, and refugee-related costs, while GDP dropped 21% in the period. 15 percent of housing units and 2,423 cultural heritage structures, including 495 sacral structures, were destroyed or damaged. The war imposed an additional economic burden of very high military expenditures. By 1994, as Croatia rapidly developed into a de facto war economy, the military consumed as much as 60 percent of total government spending.
Yugoslav and Serbian expenditures during the war were even more disproportionate. The federal budget proposal for 1992 earmarked 81 percent of funds to be diverted into the Serbian war effort. Since a substantial part of the federal budgets prior to 1992 was provided by Slovenia and Croatia, the most developed republics of Yugoslavia, a lack of federal income quickly led to desperate printing of money to finance government operations. That in turn produced the worst episode of hyperinflation
Hyperinflation
In economics, hyperinflation is inflation that is very high or out of control. While the real values of the specific economic items generally stay the same in terms of relatively stable foreign currencies, in hyperinflationary conditions the general price level within a specific economy increases...
in history: Between October 1993 and January 1995, Yugoslavia, which then consisted of Serbia and Montenegro, suffered through a hyperinflation of five quadrillion percent.
Many Croatian cities were attacked by artillery, missiles, and aircraft bombs by RSK or JNA forces from RSK or Serb-controlled areas in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Montenegro and Serbia. The most shelled cities were Vukovar, Slavonski Brod (from the mountain of Vučjak), and Županja
Županja
Županja is a city in eastern Slavonia, Croatia, located 254 km east of Zagreb. It is administratively part of the Vukovar-Syrmia county. It is inhabited by 12,185 people ....
(for more than 1,000 days), Vinkovci, Osijek, Nova Gradiška
Nova Gradiška
Nova Gradiška is a city located in the Brod-Posavina County of Croatia, population 14,196 . It is located in the historic region of Slavonia, near the border to Bosnia and Herzegovina....
, Novska
Novska
Novska is a town in Croatian Slavonia, located between Kutina and Nova Gradiška, southeast of the capital, Zagreb. It has a total population of 13,573 in the following settlements:* Bair, population 6* Borovac, population 276* Brestača, population 911...
, Daruvar
Daruvar
Daruvar is a town in central Croatia, population 9,815 , total municipality population 13,243 ....
, Pakrac
Pakrac
Pakrac is a town in western Slavonia, Croatia, population 4,852, total municipality population 8,482 . Pakrac is located on the road and railroad connecting the regions of Posavina and Podravina.-Name:...
, Šibenik, Sisak
Sisak
Sisak is a city in central Croatia. The city's population in 2011 was 33,049, with a total of 49,699 in the administrative region and it is also the administrative centre of the Sisak-Moslavina county...
, Dubrovnik, Zadar, Gospić, Karlovac, Biograd na moru
Biograd na Moru
Biograd na Moru is a city and municipality in northern Dalmatia, Croatia and is significant for being the former capital of the medieval Croatian Kingdom. Its population is 6,059 . Biograd is administratively part of the Zadar County...
, Slavonski Šamac
Slavonski Šamac
Slavonski Šamac is a village and a port on the river Sava in Croatia. The town is located in Brod-Posavina county in the region of Slavonia. The population of Slavonski Šamac itself is 1,256 ; the municipality, which includes the village of Kruševica, has a total population of 2,649.On the opposite...
, Ogulin
Ogulin
Ogulin is a town in north-western Croatia, in Karlovac County. It has a population of 8,712 , and a total municipal population of 15,054...
, Duga Resa
Duga Resa
Duga Resa is a town in Karlovac County, Croatia. It is located east of Rijeka.-Name:The earliest reference to Duga Resa is from the year 1380...
, Otočac
Otocac
Otočac is a town in Lika, Croatia. It lies in the northwestern part of Lika, in the Gacka river valley. The population of the town is 4,354 as of 2001, with a total of 10,411 people within the municipality at large, the majority of whom are Croats ....
, Ilok
Ilok
Ilok is the easternmost town and municipality in Croatia. Located in the Syrmia region, it lies on a hill overlooking the Danube river, which forms the border with the Vojvodina region of Serbia. The population of the town of Ilok is 5,036, while the total municipality population is 6,750...
, Beli Manastir
Beli Manastir
Beli Manastir is a town and municipality in eastern Croatia, the principal town of the Croatian part of Baranja, in the Osijek-Baranja county.-Name:...
, Lučko
Lucko
Lučko is a neighborhood in Novi Zagreb - zapad district of Zagreb, Croatia, located south of the Sava and southwest of the city center, near the Lučko interchange that connects the Zagreb-Karlovac motorway, the Zagreb bypass and the old road to Karlovac. The population is 2,841...
, Zagreb, and others. The artillery attacks on Vukovar were particularly severe, as the city sustained more than a million artillery strikes during the Battle of Vukovar, but other cities also suffered considerable attacks. Slavonski Brod was never directly attacked by tanks or infantry, but the city and its surrounding villages were hit by more than 11,600 artillery shells and 130 aircraft bombs in 1991 and 1992.
Approximately 2 million mines were laid in various areas of Croatia during the war. Most of the minefields
Minefields in Croatia
Minefields in Croatia can still be found along the former front lines of the Croatian War of Independence. During the 1991-1995 war, up to two million land mines were laid by both sides in the conflict...
were laid with no pattern or any type of record being made of the position of the mines. A decade after the war, in 2005, there were still about 250,000 mines buried along the former front lines, along some segments of the international borders, especially near Bihać, and around some former JNA facilities. As of 2007, the area still containing or suspected of containing mines encompassed approximately 1000 square kilometres (386.1 sq mi). More than 1,900 people were killed or injured by land mines in Croatia since the beginning of the war, including more than 500 killed or injured by mines after the end of the war. Between 1998 and 2005, Croatia spent €214 million on various mine action programs. As of 2009, all remaining minefields and areas suspected of containing mines or unexploded munitions are clearly marked, but mine clearing progress is slow; it is estimated that it will take another 50 years to clear the minefields.
War crimes and the ICTY
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former YugoslaviaInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...
(ICTY) was established by UN Security Council Resolution 827
United Nations Security Council Resolution 827
United Nations Security Council Resolution 827, adopted unanimously on May 25, 1993, after reaffirming Resolution 713 and all subsequent resolutions on the topic of the former Yugoslavia, approved report S/25704 of Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, with the Statute of the International...
, which was passed on May 25, 1993. The court has power to prosecute persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law
International humanitarian law
International humanitarian law , often referred to as the laws of war, the laws and customs of war or the law of armed conflict, is the legal corpus that comprises "the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Conventions, as well as subsequent treaties, case law, and customary international law." It...
, breaches of the Geneva Conventions
Geneva Conventions
The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war...
, violating the laws or customs of war
Laws of war
The law of war is a body of law concerning acceptable justifications to engage in war and the limits to acceptable wartime conduct...
, committing genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
, and crimes against humanity
Crime against humanity
Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings...
committed in the territory of the former SFR Yugoslavia since January 1, 1991. The indictees by ICTY ranged from common soldiers to Prime Ministers and Presidents. Some high-level indictees included Slobodan Milošević (President of Socialist Republic of Serbia
Socialist Republic of Serbia
Socialist Republic of Serbia was a socialist state that was a constituent country of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It is a predecessor of modern day Serbia, which served as the biggest republic in the Yugoslav federation and held the largest population of all the Yugoslav...
and Republic of Serbia), Milan Babić (president of the RSK), Ratko Mladić
Ratko Mladić
Ratko Mladić is an accused war criminal and a former Bosnian Serb military leader. On May 31, 2011, Mladić was extradited to The Hague, where he was processed at the detention center that holds suspects for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia...
(general of the JNA), and Ante Gotovina
Ante Gotovina
Ante Gotovina is a former Senior Corporal of the French Foreign Legion and former Lieutenant General of the Croatian Army who served in the Croatian War for Independence...
(general of the Croatian Army). Franjo Tuđman (President of Croatia) died in 1999 as prosecutors at The Hague planned to indict him. According to Marko Attila Hoare
Marko Attila Hoare
Marko Attila Hoare is a British historian of the former Yugoslavia who also writes about the current affairs of Southeast Europe, especially the Balkans including Turkey and the Caucasus.-Biography:...
, a former employee at the ICTY, an investigative team worked on indictments of senior members of the ‘joint criminal enterprise’, including not only Milošević but also Veljko Kadijević
Veljko Kadijevic
Veljko Kadijević is a former General of the Yugoslav People's Army . He was the Minister of Defence in the Yugoslav government from 1988 until his resignation in 1992, which made him de facto commander of JNA during the Ten-Day War in Slovenia and the initial stages of the War in...
, Blagoje Adžić
Blagoje Adžic
Blagoje Adžić was the acting minister of defence in the Yugoslav government. He is of Serbian ethnicity. Although his rank was Colonel General, he was in charge of the Yugoslav People's Army after the resignation of general Veljko Kadijević in 1992...
, Borisav Jović
Borisav Jovic
Borisav Jović is a former Serbian communist politician, who served as the Serbian member of the collective presidency of Yugoslavia during the late 1980s and early 1990s...
, Branko Kostić
Branko Kostic
Branko Kostić was a Montenegrin Serb politician. He served as the President of the Presidency of the Socialist Republic of Montenegro from March 1989 to December 1990, and then as the acting Chairman of the Presidency of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1992...
, Momir Bulatović
Momir Bulatovic
Momir Bulatović , formerly served as a Yugoslavian and Montenegrin politician. Bulatović became federal President of Montenegro while Montenegro was part of a Yugoslav federation, and also Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia...
and others. However, upon Carla del Ponte
Carla Del Ponte
Carla Del Ponte is a former Chief Prosecutor of two United Nations international criminal law tribunals. A former Swiss attorney general, she was appointed prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in August...
’s intervention, these drafts were rejected, and the indictment limited to Milosevic alone, as a result of which most of these individuals were never indicted.
As of 2011, the ICTY convicted seven officials from the Serb/Montenegrin side and two from the Croatian side. Milan Martić
Milan Martic
Milan Martić is a Serbian politician, former president of the Republic of Serbian Krajina...
received the largest sentence: 35 years in prison. Babić received 13 years. He expressed remorse for his role in the war, asking his "brother Croats to forgive him". A significant number of Croat civilians in hospitals and shelters
Bomb shelter
A bomb shelter is any kind of a civil defense structure designed to provide protection against the effects of a bomb.-Types of shelter:Different kinds of bomb shelters are configured to protect against different kinds of attack and strengths of hostile explosives. For example, an Air-raid shelter...
marked with a red cross were targeted by Serb forces. In 2007, two former Yugoslav army officers were sentenced for the Vukovar massacre at the ICTY in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
. Veselin Šljivančanin
Veselin Šljivancanin
Veselin Šljivančanin is a former Montenegrin officer in the Yugoslav People's Army who participated in the Battle of Vukovar and was subsequently convicted on a war crimes indictment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for his role in the Vukovar massacre...
was sentenced to 10 years and Mile Mrkšić
Mile Mrkšic
Mile Mrkšić is a former Serb Colonel of the Yugoslav People's Army in charge of the unit involved in the Battle of Vukovar during the Croatian War of Independence in 1991...
to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors say that after the capture of Vukovar, the JNA handed over several hundred Croats to Serbian forces. Of these, at least 264 (including injured soldiers, women, children, and the elderly) were murdered and buried in mass graves in the neighborhood of Ovčara on the outskirts of Vukovar. The city's mayor, Slavko Dokmanović
Slavko Dokmanovic
Slavko Dokmanović was born on 14 December 1949 in Trpinja, SR Croatia, Yugoslavia, and died on 29 June 1998, in The Hague...
, was brought to trial at the ICTY, but committed suicide in 1998 in captivity before proceedings began.
Generals Pavle Strugar
Pavle Strugar
Pavle Strugar is a retired Montenegrin general in the Yugoslav People's Army who was found guilty of war crimes for his role in the siege of Dubrovnik....
and Miodrag Jokić
Miodrag Jokić
Miodrag Jokić is a convicted war criminal who was the Montenegrin general in the Yugoslav People's Army during the 1991 siege of Dubrovnik...
were sentenced by the ICTY to 8 and 7 years for shelling Dubrovnik. Chief of General Staff of the Yugoslav Army, Momčilo Perišić
Momcilo Perišic
Momčilo Perišić was a Serbian general and Chief of the General Staff of the Yugoslav Army until 1998. On 6 September 2011 Perišić was found guilty for war crimes and crimes against humanity and was sentenced to 27 years of imprisonment...
, was sentenced to 27 years in prison for his decisions to staff, arm and finance armies of Krajina and Republika Srpska, which in turn perpetrated crimes in Sarajevo
Sarajevo
Sarajevo |Bosnia]], surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated along the Miljacka River in the heart of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans....
, Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
and Srebrenica
Srebrenica
Srebrenica is a town and municipality in the east of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska. Srebrenica is a small mountain town, its main industry being salt mining and a nearby spa. During the Bosnian War, the town was the site of the July 1995 massacre,...
.
Apart from the atrocities committed after capture of Vukovar, there were numerous well-documented war crimes against civilians and prisoners of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
perpetrated by Serb and Yugoslav forces in Croatia. Most of them were processed by the ICTY or national judiciaries
Judiciary
The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary also provides a mechanism for the resolution of disputes...
. They include the Borovo Selo killings
Borovo Selo killings
The Borovo Selo killings of 2 May 1991 was one of the first military engagements which led to the breakup of Yugoslavia...
, Dalj killings, the Lovas massacre
Lovas massacre
Lovas massacre were the killings of Croat detainees in the villages of Lovas and neighbouring Opatovac in eastern Slavonia, Croatia. The civilians were killed by Croatian Serb paramilitary forces during the Croatian War of Independence in the period from October 10, 1991 to the end of that...
, the Široka Kula massacre
Široka Kula massacre
The Široka Kula massacre was committed by rebel Croatian Serb forces in the Croatian village of Široka Kula during the Croatian War of Independence beginning on 10 October 1991...
, the Baćin massacre
Bacin massacre
The Baćin massacre was a war crime committed by rebel Croatian Serbs' forces on October 21, 1991 on a location near village of Baćin, near Hrvatska Dubica, in central Croatia, during the Croatian War of Independence....
, the Saborsko massacre
Saborsko massacre
The Saborsko massacre was a war crime committed during the Croatian War of Independence in Saborsko and two other Croatian villages in the region of Kordun by the Serb-led JNA and rebel Croatian Serbs' "Militia of Republic of Serb Krajina" in October and November 1991, in which they killed local...
, the Škabrnja massacre
Škabrnja massacre
Škabrnja massacre was a war crime committed by Serb Army forces during the Croatian War of Independence. On November 18, 1991, Serb paramilitaries, supported by the JNA, captured the village of Škabrnja and killed 25 Prisoners of war and 61 civilians over the next several days.-Before the...
, the Voćin massacre
Vocin massacre
Voćin massacre was a massacre committed against Croatian civilians in the village of Voćin by Serb paramilitary units in December 1991, during the Croatian War of Independence....
, the Bruška massacre
Bruška massacre
The Bruška massacre took place on 21 December 1991 in Bruška, a small village near the Croatian town of Benkovac when Serbian paramilitaries executed 10 civilians in the hamlet of Marinovići...
, and the Zagreb rocket attacks.
There were a number of prison camps where Croatian POWs and civilians were detained, including the Sremska Mitrovica camp, the Stajićevo camp, and the Begejci camp in Serbia, and the Morinj camp in Montenegro. The Croatian Association of Prisoners in Serbian Concentration Camps
Croatian Association of Prisoners in Serbian Concentration Camps
Croatian Association of Prisoners in Serbian Concentration Camps is an association of former prisoners in Serbian jails and prison camps during the Croatian War of Independence. The organization was founded in Zagreb in 1995 and began its work that same year . Its offices are located on Ban...
was later founded in order to help the victims of prison abuse. The Croatian Army also established detention camps, like Lora prison camp in Split.
Croatian forces also committed a number of war crimes, such as the Gospić massacre
Gospic massacre
The Gospić massacre took place between 16–18 October 1991 in the town of Gospić, a city in the district of Lika in Croatia. The massacre came three days after the massacre in the village of Široka Kula...
, the killings in Sisak in 1991 and 1992, and others, which were likewise prosecuted by Croatian courts or the ICTY. Another infamous instance of war crimes, in what would later become known as the "Pakračka poljana" case, committed by a reserve police unit commanded by Tomislav Merčep
Tomislav Merčep
Tomislav Merčep is a former Croatian politician and paramilitary during the Croatian War of Independence.A native of Vukovar, Merčep worked as an engineer before joining the Croatian Democratic Union in 1990...
, involved the killing of prisoners, mostly ethnic Serbs, near Pakrac in late 1991 and early 1992. The events were initially investigated by the ICTY, but the case was eventually transferred to the Croatian judiciary. More than a decade later, five members of this unit, although not its commander, were indicted on several criminal charges related to these events, and were convicted. Merčep was arrested for these crimes in December 2010. In 2009, Branimir Glavaš
Branimir Glavaš
Branimir Glavaš is a controversial Croatian right-wing politician and a convicted war criminal.Glavaš came to prominence in his home city of Osijek during the Croatian war of independence, when he led its defense and became a major general in the Croatian Army...
, a Croatian incumbent MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
at the time, was convicted of war crimes committed in Osijek in 1991 and sentenced to jail by a Croatian court.
The ICTY indicted Croatian officers Janko Bobetko, Rahim Ademi, Mirko Norac, and others for crimes committed during Operation Medak Pocket, but that case was also transferred to Croatian courts. Norac was found guilty and jailed, Ademi acquitted, while Bobetko was declared unfit to stand trial due to poor health. The ICTY's indictment against General Ante Gotovina cited at least 150 Serb civilians killed in the aftermath of Operation Storm. The Croatian Helsinki Committee
Croatian Helsinki Committee
Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights is the leading organisation for protection and promotion of human rights in Croatia...
registered 677 Serb civilians who were killed in the operation. Louise Arbour
Louise Arbour
Louise Arbour, is the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and the Court of Appeal for Ontario and a former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda...
, prosecutor of the ICTY, made it clear that the legality and legitimacy of the Operation itself is not the issue, but it is required to investigate whether crimes were committed during the campaign. The Trial Chamber reiterated that the legality of Operation Storm is "irrelevant" for the case at hand, since the ICTY is only interested in processing war crimes. In 2011, Gotovina was sentenced to 24 and Markač to 18 years in prison. Čermak was acquitted of all charges.
Amnesty International published a detailed analysis in late 2010 of the difficulties in getting convictions for war crimes in the Balkans in the 1990s, and the lessons to be learned.
During the war
While Serbia and Croatia never declared war on each other, Serbia was directly and indirectly involved in the war through a number of activities. Its foremost involvement entailed material support of the JNA. Following the independence of various republics from SFR Yugoslavia, Serbia provided the bulk of manpower and funding that was channeled to the war effort through Serbian control of the Yugoslav presidency and the federal defense ministry. Serbia actively supported various paramilitary volunteer units from Serbia that were fighting in Croatia. Even though no actual fighting occurred on Serbian or Montenegrin soil, involvement of the two was evident through the maintenance of prison camps in Serbia and Montenegro, which became places where a number of war crimes were committed.Milošević's trial at the ICTY revealed numerous declassified documents of Belgrade's involvement in the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. Evidence introduced at trial showed exactly how Serbia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia financed the war, that they provided weapons and material support to Bosnian and Croatian Serbs, and demonstrated the administrative and personnel structures set up to support the Bosnian Serb and Croatian Serb armies. It was established that Belgrade, through the federal government, financed more than 90 percent of the Krajina budget in 1993; that the Supreme Defense Council decided to hide aid to Republika Srpska and Krajina from the public; that the National Bank of Krajina operated as a branch office of the National Bank of Yugoslavia; and that by March 1994 FR Yugoslavia, Krajina, and Republika Srpska used a single currency. Numerous documents demonstrated that branches of the Krajina Public Accountancy Service were incorporated into Serbia's accountancy system in May 1991, and that the financing of Krajina and Republika Srpska caused hyperinflation in FR Yugoslavia. The trial revealed that the JNA, the Serbian Ministry of Interior
Ministry of Internal Affairs (Serbia)
The Ministry of Internal Affairs is a governmental agency responsible for local and national law enforcement services in Serbia. It has numerous municipal and district branches throughout the country...
, and other entities (including Serb civilian groups and police) armed Serb civilians and local territorial defense groups in the RSK before the conflict escalated. In 1993, the US State Department reported that right after the Maslenica and Medak pocket operations, authorities in Serbia dispatched substantial numbers of "volunteers" to Serb-held territories in Croatia to fight. A former secretary of Arkan testified at the Haague, confirming that the paramilitary leader took his orders, and his money, directly from the secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
run by Slobodan Milosevic.
This degree of control was reflected in negotiations held at various times between Croatian authorities and the RSK, as the Serbian leadership under Milošević was regularly consulted and frequently made decisions on behalf of the RSK. The Erdut Agreement that ended the war was signed by a RSK minister on instructions from Milošević. The degree of control Serbia held over SFR Yugoslavia and later the RSK was evidenced through testimonies during the Milošević trial at the ICTY.
The Serbian state-run media were used to incite the conflict and further inflame the situation. For that end, the media knowingly falsified information about events that never actually happened or distorted information on actual events to justify JNA or RSK actions. Examples include reporting patently false information on Serbs being killed by Croatian police in the Pakrac clash, even though by that time no war fatalities occurred in Croatia, and dismissing independent media reports of fires burning in Dubrovnik as a consequence of JNA artillery bombardment as being a ruse by Croats burning tires in the city.
After the war
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands...
, Croatia filed a suit against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on July 2, 1999, citing Article IX of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948 as General Assembly Resolution 260. The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951. It defines genocide in legal terms, and is the culmination of...
. With the transformation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia into Serbia and Montenegro
Serbia and Montenegro
Serbia and Montenegro was a country in southeastern Europe, formed from two former republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia : Serbia and Montenegro. Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, it was established in 1992 as a federation called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia...
and the dissolution of that country in 2006, Serbia is considered its legal successor. The application was filed for Croatia by the American lawyer David B. Rivkin
David B. Rivkin
David B. Rivkin Jr., is an American attorney, political writer and media commentator on matters of constitutional and international law, as well as foreign and defense policy...
. Serbia reciprocated with the genocide lawsuit against the Republic of Croatia on January 4, 2010. The Serbian application covers missing people, killed people, refugees, expelled people, and all military actions and concentration camps with a historical account of World War II persecution of Serbs
World War II persecution of Serbs
The Serbian Genocide refers to the attempt in extermination made towards ethnic Serbs in 1939-1945 by predominantly ethnic Croat Fascists and Nazi occupational forces....
committed by the Independent State of Croatia
Independent State of Croatia
The Independent State of Croatia was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany, established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts...
during World War II.
By 2010, Croatia and Serbia further improved their relations through an agreement to resolve the remaining refugee issues, and visits of Croatian President Ivo Josipović
Ivo Josipović
Ivo Josipović is a Croatian politician who has been President of Croatia since 2010. Josipović entered politics as a member of the League of Communists of Croatia , and played a key role in the democratic transformation of this party as the author of the first statute of the SDP that replaced the...
to Belgrade, and of the Serbian President Boris Tadić
Boris Tadic
Boris Tadić is the President of Serbia and leader of the Democratic Party. He was elected to a five-year term on 27 June 2004, and was sworn into office on 11 July. He was re-elected for a de facto second five-year term on 3 February 2008 and was sworn in on 15 February...
to Zagreb and Vukovar. During their meeting in Vukovar, President Tadić gave a statement expressing his "apology and regret", while President Josipović said "that no crimes committed at the time would go unpunished." The statements were made during a joint visit to the Ovčara memorial center, site of the Vukovar massacre.
Role of the international community
The war developed at a time when the attention of the USA and the world was on IraqIraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
, and the Gulf War
Gulf War
The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...
in 1991, along with a sharp rise in oil prices and a slowdown in the growth of the world economy. Thereafter it was if the rising influence of nationalist and separatist ideologies found their counterpart in Western and Russian policies of laissez-faire. This was not unique to the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
, with the West later refusing to intervene for example in Rwanda
Rwanda
Rwanda or , officially the Republic of Rwanda , is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.4 million . Rwanda is located a few degrees south of the Equator, and is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
in 1994.
In 1989, the international community tended to support the authority of the Yugoslav government. The UN imposed a weapons trade embargo for all former Yugoslav republics, deprieving seceding republics from weaponry (which was mostly controlled by the Serb forces).
By the end of 1991, official recognition of the new states of Slovenia and Croatia and of the status of the SFR Yugoslavia had become a difficult issue for foreign governments.
By mid-December 1991, other newly formed states such as Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
, Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
, and Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, recognized Croatia's and Slovenia's independence. Meanwhile Croatia and Slovenia recognized each other (the Vatican
Holy See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
also recognised Catholic Croatia - with recognition then coming from the second Western state, Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
on December 19.
Then, between December 19 and December 23, several other European countries, including Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
announced their recognition of Croatia's (and Slovenia's) independence. The European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
as a whole recognized the independence of the two breakaway republics on January 15th, 1992.
Each of the major foreign governments acted somewhat differently:
United Kingdom - The John MajorJohn MajorSir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
-led government more favoured neutrality.
United States - The United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, like the United Kingdom tended to favour non-intervention at first. The administration was led by George H. W. BushGeorge H. W. BushGeorge Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
as President until end-1992. In contrast to the administration led by Bill ClintonBill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
.thereafterwards.
Germany - Helmut KohlHelmut KohlHelmut Josef Michael Kohl is a German conservative politician and statesman. He was Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union from 1973 to 1998...
's government, given historical ties, was more favourable than the US or the UK to Croatia’s plight, and might have been ready to lead more affirmative action if it had not been so busy with German reunificationGerman reunificationGerman reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...
.
Russia - Russia tended to oppose recognition of Croatia. Russia however was not seen as actively encouraging Serbian efforts towards expansion. If anything, Boris YeltsinBoris YeltsinBoris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...
's government was a moderating influence. The large changes occurring in Russia at the time also supported caution.
Movies and documentaries
- about the siege of Vukovar - covers Operation Storm - covers the collapse of the former Yugoslavia- "War for Peace" (2007), a Montenegrin documentary by Srđa Pavlović about the siege of DubrovnikDubrovnikDubrovnik is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea coast, positioned at the terminal end of the Isthmus of Dubrovnik. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations on the Adriatic, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva county. Its total population is 42,641...
. - covers the relationship of postwar Croatia and the ICTY - covers the siege of Vukovar and the death of Siniša GlavaševićSiniša GlavaševicSiniša Glavašević was a Croatian reporter who was killed in the Battle of Vukovar.-Early life:A native of Vukovar, Glavašević finished primary schooling there and entered the University of Sarajevo, where he graduated with a degree in Comparative Literature...
- about "Red Berets", a Serb paramilitary unit - deals with the prison camps in Serbia - How the War Started on My IslandHow the War Started on My IslandHow the War Started on My Island is a 1996 Croatian black comedy film directed by Vinko Brešan and starring Vlatko Dulić, Ljubomir Kerekeš, Ivan Brkić, Predrag Vušović, Ivica Vidović, Božidar Orešković and Matija Prskalo...
(1996), a black comedy by Vinko BrešanVinko BrešanVinko Brešan is a Croatian film director who emerged into international renown with three critically acclaimed and award-winning films that, each in its own way, broke some of the perceived taboos of Croatian cinema in the 1990s....
- The character of Dr. Luka KovačLuka KovacDr. Luka Kovač is a fictional character on the television series ER portrayed by Goran Visnjic. Visnjic's character was added to the cast at the beginning of Season 6 following the mid-season 5 departure of leading character Dr. Doug Ross, played by George Clooney.Luka Kovač is an emergency room...
, played by Goran VišnjićGoran VišnjicGoran Višnjić is a Croatian actor who has appeared in American and British films and television productions. He is best known for his role as Dr. Luka Kovač in the hit television series ER...
, who first appeared on the series in 1999, lost his wife and children in the war. They were killed when an artillery shell hit their house.
See also
- Timeline of the Croatian War of IndependenceTimeline of the Croatian War of Independence-1991:* 1–3 March 1991* Pakrac clash* 31 March 1991* Plitvice Lakes incident* 1 April 1991* Republic of Serbian Krajina is proclaimed* 2 May 1991* Borovo Selo killings* 25 June 1991* Slovenia and Croatia declare their independence* 1 August 1991...
- Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag lineVirovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag lineThe Karlobag-Ogulin-Karlovac-Virovitica line is a hypothetical boundary often used to describe the western extent of an irredentist nationalist Serbian state. Everything east of this line would form a part of Serbia, while the west of it would be within Slovenia, and all which might remain of Croatia...