Introduction
The war in Croatia 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.
The Croatian War of Independence was
fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the Government of
Croatia – which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia – and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People´s Army (JNA) and local
Serb forces. In Croatia, the war is primarily referred to as the “Homeland War”
and also as the “Greater-Serbian Aggression”. In Serbian sources, “War in
Croatia” and “War in Krajina” are used. A majority of Croats wanted to Croatia
to leave Yugoslavia and become a sovereign country, while many ethnic Serbs
living in Croatia, supported by Serbia, opposed the secession and wanted
Serb-claimed lands to be in a common state with Serbia.
Political changes in Yugoslavia
The former Yugoslavia was a Socialist state created after German occupation in World War II and a bitter civil war. A federation of six republics, it brought together Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, Slovenes and others under a comparatively relaxed communist regime. Yugoslavia was a mix of ethnic groups and religions, with Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism and Islam being the main religions. Tensions between these groups were successfully suppressed under the leadership of President Tito.
After Tito's death in 1980, relations between the six republics
of the federation deteriorated. Slovenia, Croatia and Kosovo desired greater autonomy within the
Yugoslav confederation, while Serbia sought to strengthen federal
authority. SR Serbia, headed by Slobodan Milosevic, adhered to centralism and
single-party rule, and in turn effectively ended the autonomy of the autonomous
provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina by
March 1989, taking command of their votes in the Yugoslav federal presidency. The nationalist
ideas started to grow within the ranks of the still-ruling League of
Communists, while Slobodan Milošević's speeches, notably the 1989 Gazimestan speech in which he talked of
"battles of quarrels", favored continuation of a unified Yugoslav
state—one in which all power would be centralized in Belgrade.
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As it became clear that there was no solution which
was agreeable to all parties, Slovenia and Croatia moved towards secession. In the midst of economic hardship, Yugoslavia was
facing rising nationalism among its various ethnic groups. By the early 1990s,
there was no effective authority at the federal level. The Federal Presidency
consisted of the representatives of the six republics, two provinces and the
Yugoslav People's Army, and the communist leadership was divided along national
lines.
In 1989, political parties were
allowed and a number of them had been founded, including the Croatian Democratic Union (Croatian
language: Hrvatska demokratska zajednica ) (HDZ), led by Franjo Tudman, who later became the first
president of Croatia.
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The survey of Yugoslav citizens which was conducted
in 1990 showed that ethnic animosity existed on a small scale. Compared to the
results from 25 years before, there was significant increase of ethnic distance
among Serbs and Montenegrins toward Croats and Slovenes and vice versa.
At the 14th Extraordinary Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in January 1990, the Serbian-dominated assembly agreed to abolish the
single-party system. However, Slobodan Milošević, the head of the Serbian Party
branch used his influence to block and vote-down all
other proposals from the Croatian and Slovene party delegates. In January 1990, the League of
Communists broke up on the lines of the individual republics.
The first free elections in Croatia and
Slovenia were scheduled for a few months later. 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 Milošević
towards a Greater Serbia". It topped the poll in the elections and was set
to form a new Croatian Government. Franjo Tudman became the first President of Croatia. He
promoted nationalist policies and had a primary goal of the establishment of
an independent Croatia. The new government proposed constitutional changes, reinstated the traditional Croatian flag and coat of arms, and
removed the term "Socialist" from the title of the republic.
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 sent 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".
1991: Open hostilities begin
Croatia
aimed to leave Yugoslavia as a sovereign country, while the Serbs, supported
by Serbia, opposed the
secession and wanted Croatia to remain a part of Yugoslavia. The Serbs
effectively sought a new Serb state with 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".
Declaration of independence
On 19 May
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
on the same day as Slovenia. But while Slovenia’s withdrawal from the Yugoslav
Federation was comparatively bloodless, Croatia’s was not to be. The sizeable ethnic
Serb minority in Croatia openly rejected the authority of the newly
proclaimed Croatian state citing the right to remain within Yugoslavia. With
the help of the JNA and Serbia, Croatian Serbs rebelled, declaring nearly a
third of Croatia’s territory under their control to be an independent Serb
state.
Upon Croatia and Slovenia's declarations of
independence in 1991, the Yugoslav federal government attempted to forcibly
halt the impending breakup of the country, with Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Markovic declaring that the
secessions of Slovenia and Croatia were both illegal and contrary to the
constitution of Yugoslavia, and he also expressed his support for the Yugoslav
People's Army in order to secure the integral unity of Yugoslavia.
With the escalation of the Yugoslav
crisis, JNA became heavily dominated by Serbs. According to
former commander of the fifth army in Zagreb Martin Spegelj, 50% of the command positions were
held by Croats, whilst a few years later at the beginning of the war all key
positions were held by Serbs.
Escalation of the conflict
Ethnic tensions rose, fueled by propaganda in both Croatia and Serbia. On 2 May 1991, one of the first armed clashes between Serb paramilitaries and Croatian police occurred in the Battle of Borovo Selo.
The armed incidents of early
1991 escalated into an all-out war during the summer, with fronts being formed
around the self-proclaimed proto-state Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK)
within Croatia. The JNA was ostensibly ideologically unitarian, but its officer
corps was predominantly staffed by Serbs or Montenegrins (70 percent).
As a result, the JNA opposed
Croatian independence and sided with the Croatian Serb rebels.
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.
By mid-July 1991, the JNA
moved an estimated 70,000 troops to Croatia. The fighting rapidly escalated,
eventually spanning hundreds of square kilometers from western Slavonia
through Banija to Dalmatia.
Battle of Vukovar
Croatia's Stalingrad
Border regions faced direct attacks from forces within Serbia and Montenegro. In September, Serbian troops completely surrounded the city of Vukovar. Croatian troops entrenched themselves within the city and held their ground against elite armored and mechanized brigades of the JNA, as well as Serb paramilitary units. The town was surrounded by 40,000 JNA soldiers and Serbian paramilitaries and, for 87 days, defended by just 2,000 fighters with the Croat national guard. By the end of October, the town was almost completely devastated as a result of land shelling and air bombardment.
Vukovar’s total destruction
during what would be the first phase of the wars in Yugoslavia invited
comparisons to Stalingrad during World War II. Even when the Serbs finally took
the town, it was a pyrrhic victory. At the time,
it was the fiercest and most protracted battle seen in Europe since 1945, and
Vukovar was the first major European town to be entirely destroyed since the
Second World War.
Vukovar was almost completely devastated;
15,000 houses were destroyed. Some ethnic Croatian civilians had taken
shelter inside the city. Other members of the civilian population fled the
area. 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.
When it was finally returned
to Croatia in 1998, the city was rebuilt and became a symbol of Croatianindependence and resistance, as it remains today. Each year, tens of
thousands gather in the city to commemorate its fall on November 18.
The Vukovar massacre
The Vukovar massacre, also known as Vukovar hospital massacre or as Ovčara massacre, was a war crime that took place between November 20 and 21, 1991 at Ovčara, a location near the city of Vukovar. A mostly Croatian group of 263 men and 1 woman, of whom 194 have been identified, were murdered by members of the Serb militias following the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) withdrawal from Ovčara after it brought those patients there from the Vukovar hospital. They were then taken in groups of between 10 and 12 to another site where they were shot and buried in a mass grave.
For their roles in orchestrating the massacre, the
Yugoslav military leaders Veselin Sljivancin and Mile Mrksic were convicted by
the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in
2007, 2009 and 2010. The original indictment included a number of 264
non-Serb men killed. The names include one woman, a 77-year old man as the
oldest and a 16-year old boy as the youngest victim of the massacre.
The Siege of Dubrovnik
The 1991 siege of the
Croatian coastal city of Dubrovnik, which lasted nine months and had
devastating consequences for the city and the entire region, at the time
re-focused the world’s attention on the war in the former Yugoslavia. The
events surrounding the earlier destruction of Vukovar by the Yugoslav People’s
Army (JNA) and various Serbian paramilitary groups, coupled with the
long-lasting and seemingly absurd attack on Dubrovnik, helped redefine the
perception of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
The siege
resulted in the deaths of 194 Croatian military personnel, as well as 82–88
Croatian civilians.
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.
The Battle
of the Dalmatian Channels
On 14 November,
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, sank, or
captured a number of Yugoslav navy vessels. 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 Okran 91. In the
course of Orkan '91, the Croatian army recaptured approximately 1,440 square
kilometers (560 sq mi) of territory. The end of the operation
marked the 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 19 December, as the intensity of the fighting
increased, Croatia won its first diplomatic recognition by a western
nation—Iceland—while the Serbian Autonomous Oblasts in
Krajina and western Slavonia officially declared themselves the Republic of
Serbian Krajina. Four days later, Germany recognized Croatian independence.
1992: Ceasefire
In January 1992, the Vance Plan established UN
controlled (UNPA) zones for Serbs in
the territory which was claimed by the Serbian rebels as the
self-proclaimed proto-state Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) and brought an end to major military operations, but sporadic artillery
attacks on Croatian cities and occasional intrusions into UNPA zones by
Croatian forces continued until 1995.
After the ceasefire of
January 1992 and international recognition of the Republic of Croatia as a
sovereign state, the front lines were entrenched, the United Nations Protection
Force (UNPROFOR9 was deployed, and combat became largely intermittent in the
following three years.
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
During that time, the RSK
encompassed 13, 913 square kilometers, more than a quarter of Croatia.
1995: End of the war
Despite the UN-monitored
ceasefire which came into force in early 1992, Croatian authorities were
determined to assert authority over their territory, and used its resources to
develop and equip its armed forces.
The fighting in Croatia ended in mid-1995, after Croatia launched two major offensives known as Operation Flash and Operation Storm; these offensives effectively ended the war in its favour. At the end of these operations, Croatia had reclaimed all of its territory except the UNPA Sector East portion of Slavonia, bordering Serbia.
Most of the Serb population in the reclaimed areas became refugees. The areas of "Sector East", unaffected by the Croatian military operations, came under UN administration, and were reintegrated to Croatia in 1998 under the terms of the Erdut Agreement.
The war ended with a total
Croatian victory, as it achieved the goals it had declared at the beginning
of the war: independence and preservation of its borders.
Casualties and Refugees
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 exchanges; 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 total number of deaths on
both sides was around 20,000, and there were refugees displaced on
both sides. While Croatia and Serbia progressively cooperated more with each
other on all levels, some tension still remains because of verdicts by the ICTY
and lawsuits filed against each other.
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.
Material damage
The war led to mass economic destruction. A quarter of the economy was destroyed. In 1999, the Croatian Parliament passed a bill estimating war damages of the country at 37 billion. The government alleges that between 1991 and April 1993 an estimated total of 210,000 buildings in Croatia (including schools, hospitals and refugee camps) were either damaged or destroyed from shelling by the Republic of Serbian Krajina and the JNA forces. Cities affected by the shelling were Karlovac, Gospic,Ogulin, Zadar, Biograd and others.
The Croatian government also
acknowledged that 7,489 buildings belonging to Croatian Serbs were damaged or
destroyed by explosives, arson or other deliberate means by the end of 1992.
From January to March 1993 another 220 buildings were also damaged or
destroyed. Criminal charges were brought against 126 Croats for such acts.
Some estimates include 220,000 Croats and 300,000
Serbs internally displaced for
the duration of the war in Croatia. 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.
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