Croatian War of Independence: Difference between revisions
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The matter of official recognition that the SFR Yugoslavia had fallen apart was a controversial issue at the time. While the surrounding western European countries were mostly responsive to the plight of the Slovenians and Croatians, the eastern countries like Russia and Greece which were old Serbian allies opposed the recognition. In turn, the more conservative forces in the west, headed by the United Kingdom and in turn the United States, were reluctant as well. Successive [[United States Secretary of State|US Secretaries of State]] [[Lawrence Eagleburger]] and [[Warren Christopher]] strongly criticized the move of Germany and others, which they say escalated the war. |
The matter of official recognition that the SFR Yugoslavia had fallen apart was a controversial issue at the time. While the surrounding western European countries were mostly responsive to the plight of the Slovenians and Croatians, the eastern countries like Russia and Greece which were old Serbian allies opposed the recognition. In turn, the more conservative forces in the west, headed by the United Kingdom and in turn the United States, were reluctant as well. Successive [[United States Secretary of State|US Secretaries of State]] [[Lawrence Eagleburger]] and [[Warren Christopher]] strongly criticized the move of Germany and others, which they say escalated the war. |
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[[Image:Bombardment of Dubrovnik 1991.jpg|thumb|200px|Old city of [[Dubrovnik]] suffered massive damage when it was shelled by the YNA in the summer of 1991]] |
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The role of the international community in the war would become a matter of much controversy. The general UN policy of imposing a weapons trade embargo for all former Yugoslav republics was not neutral, placing the seceding republics in an inferior position because they had no control over the existing Yugoslav weapons, which were by and large controlled by the Serbs. Such a silent encouragement of the pan-Serbian rampage across Yugoslavia was recognized as untenable by the Western nations, but only after it was already too late. |
The role of the international community in the war would become a matter of much controversy. The general UN policy of imposing a weapons trade embargo for all former Yugoslav republics was not neutral, placing the seceding republics in an inferior position because they had no control over the existing Yugoslav weapons, which were by and large controlled by the Serbs. Such a silent encouragement of the pan-Serbian rampage across Yugoslavia was recognized as untenable by the Western nations, but only after it was already too late. |
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Revision as of 05:33, 2 May 2006
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Croatian War of Independence (Croatian: Domovinski rat (Homeland war)), was a war in Croatia from 1991 to 1995, between the democratically elected Croatian goverment and Croatian Serbs, backed up by Serbia-controlled Yugoslav People's Army. The Croatian side aimed to secede entire territory of Croatia from Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, while Serbs wanted to establish new boundaries in parts of Croatia with Serb majority, effectively seceding them from the rest of Croatia.
Prelude
By the end of 1980s, Yugoslavia was seeing weakening of influence of the ruling League of Communists, and parallel rise of nationalism in their constitutive republics. Slobodan Milošević's rise to power in Serbia, and his rhetorics pleading for unity of Serbs, were counter-reacted with movements in other republics, especially Croatia and Slovenia, which sought for greater autonomy within the federation, up to confederative status and full independence. These concerns were present both in still ruling left political wing, and nationalist circles, whose political presence re-emerged with weakening of communist regime. In January 1990, the League of Communists broke up on republical borders, and first free elections were scheduled in Croatia and Slovenia. During the year prior to elections, a number of political parties were founded, among them the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ - Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica), led by Croatian nationalist Franjo Tuđman.
The elections in Croatia were held in 1990, first round on April 22th and the second round on May 6th.
The independence aspirations and the general anti-Yugoslav rhetoric gave the HDZ greatest popularity among the people and allowed them to win the elections, followed by Ivica Račan's reformed communists. The Croatian Democratic Union then formed a new Croatian Government. One of the main reasons HDZ won was the universal feeling of Croats that only HDZ can protect Croatia from Slobodan Milošević and his aspirations towards Greater Serbia.
An important factor for the victory was the financial support by the Croatian diaspora. Many future HDZ politicians, including Tuđman, made several trips abroad in the late 1980s and early 1990s in order to gather support from the emigrants for their cause. However, the contact with the Croatian diaspora, which by the Serbian unitarists were seen as separatist and fascist organisations, and some HDZ members' controversial statements brought mistrust to the new party, especially among Serbs and unitaristic Yugoslav circles in Belgrade.
On May 30, 1990, the new Croatian Parliament held its first session, and President Tuđman announced his plan for a new Constitution and a multitude of political, economic and social changes. The ratification of the new Constitution of Croatia waited until December 22nd. The constitution granted Serbs in Croatia the same status as for other minorities. The percentage of those declaring themselves as Serbs, according to the 1991 census, was 12% (78% of the population declared themselves as Croat). That change would in effect end the previous status of Serbs as a constitutive nation in Croatia. Local Serbian nationalistic politicians, opposed the new Constitution in order to prove that rights of local Serb population were being threatened.
In August 1990, an unrecognised referendum was held in the Krajina on the question of Serb "sovereignty and autonomy" in Croatia as a countermeasure to the change of constitution. Just ahead of the referendum the Croatian government sent police to take weapons from police stations that rebeled and stop the referendum. Rebel Serbs blocked the roads to the tourist destinations in Dalmatia in the event known as the "Log revolution". The Croatian government sent special police forces to intervene, but helicopters carrying them were forced to land by fighter jets of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA).
The Krajina Serbs did not initially seek independence for their area, beacuse Milošević told them to wait for his sign. Instead, on September 30, 1990, the Krajina Serbian National Council declared "the autonomy of the Serbian people on ethnic and historic territories on which they live and which are within the current boundaries of the Republic of Croatia as a federal unit of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia". In April 1991, after Milošević gave them a green light[citation needed], they declared they would secede from Croatia.
Start of armed fighting
Ethnic hatred grew and various incidents fueled the propaganda machines causing even more hatred. The conflict soon escalated into armed incidents in the rebel led areas. The so-called Plitvice Bloody Easter in late March 1991 was one of the more notable incidents at the time.
In late 1991, all Croatian democratic parties gathered together to form a government of national unity and face the Yugoslav Army and Serbian paramilitaries.
The Croatian government became gravely concerned about the rebellion in Krajina. The Ministry of the Interior consequently started arming an increasing amount of special police forces because the Yugoslav federal constitution prevented the republic of Croatia from having a separate military, and the federal army, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), did not help because it tried to forcefully maintain the status quo. On more than one occasion, the JNA appeared to side with the rebel forces, because it intervened against the Croatian police units without advancing against the rebel Serbs.
The war
The new nation would eventually start building a real army in response to having no aid from either the JNA or the local Territorial Defense. On April 9th, 1991, Croatian President Tuđman ordered the special police forces to be renamed Zbor Narodne Garde ("People's Guard"), marking the creation of a separate military of Croatia.
On 19th of May, 1991, Croatian authorities held a referendum about the secession from Yugoslavia. Serbian local authorities in Krajina called for a boycott, and the referendum passed with 94.17% in favor. Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia on June 25th, 1991, but the European Commission urged them to place a three-month moratorium on the decision.
One month after the declaration of independence, Serbian forces held about one third of the country, mostly those with a predominantly ethnic Serbian population. Given their superiority in weaponry and equipment, their military strategy mostly consisted of extensive shelling, including that of civilian targets. As the war progressed, the cities of Dubrovnik, Šibenik, Zadar, Karlovac, Sisak, Slavonski Brod, Osijek, Vinkovci and Vukovar all came under attack by the Serbian forces.
The international community imposed a weapons embargo which caused the Croatians to start smuggling weapons over the border, including huge amounts of weapons due to secret agreements with the Hungarian government.
In August 1991, the border city of Vukovar came under siege — the Battle of Vukovar. Serbian troops eventually completely surrounded the city but the defenders, the 204th Vukovar Brigade, entrenched themselves within Vukovar and held their ground, fearing what might happen to the many ethnic Croatian civilians who had taken shelter inside the city.
The civilian population fled the areas of armed conflict en masse: generally speaking, Croats moved away from the Bosnian and Serbian border, while the Serbs moved towards it. Some estimates include 220,000 Croats and 300,000 Serbs were internally displaced during the war in Croatia, although at the peak of fighting in late 1991, around 550,000 people temporarily became refugees on the Croatian side. The 1991 census data and the 1993 RSK data for the territory of Krajina differ by some 102,000 Serbs and 135,000 Croats. In many places, large amounts of civilians were forced out by the military, in what became known as ethnic cleansing.
President Tuđman made a speech on October 5, 1991 that called upon the whole population to mobilize and defend against what he deemed "Greater-Serbian imperialism" pursued by the JNA and Serbian paramilitary formations. On October 7th, an explosion occurred within the government headquarters in Zagreb while Tuđman, Mesić and Marković were present. The government claimed that it was caused by a JNA air raid, while the JNA denied this and in turn claimed that the explosion was set up by the Croatian government itself. Indicatively, some embassies/consulates in Zagreb had withdrawn their staff for that day - presumably because they had information about a pending attack. The next day, the Croatian Parliament cut off all remaining ties with Yugoslavia. October 8 is now called Independence day in Croatia.
In the meantime, the war was reaching its peak. According to the commanding officers of Vukovar's 204th brigade, they destroyed or damaged 350-400 armored vehicles, destroyed 50 airplanes, killed 14,000 enemy soldiers and wounded another 30,000. The figures from Serbian sources are considerably smaller. If the Croatian numbers could be taken at face value, the Croatian forces had inflicted over 50% of the total casualties and weaponry destruction to the JNA in the whole war during the one hundred days of the battle for Vukovar.
By November, Vukovar was almost completely destroyed and overwhelmed by Serbian forces. The Croats finally surrendered on November 18th, 1991. Allegedly this was done in an attempt to prevent further devastation of Dubrovnik and other cities. In the aftermath of the occupation, the Serbian forces committed atrocities for which their commanders (Mile Mrkšić, Miroslav Radić, Veselin Šljivančanin) and collaborators in the city (Slavko Dokmanović) were and are on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
By mid-December 1991, Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Iceland and the Vatican recognized Croatia's and Slovenia's independence, and Croatia and Slovenia recognized each other. On December 19, 1991, during the heaviest fighting of the war, the Serbian Autonomous Regions in Krajina and western Slavonia officially declared themselves as the Republic of Serbian Krajina. Also, 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.
The matter of official recognition that the SFR Yugoslavia had fallen apart was a controversial issue at the time. While the surrounding western European countries were mostly responsive to the plight of the Slovenians and Croatians, the eastern countries like Russia and Greece which were old Serbian allies opposed the recognition. In turn, the more conservative forces in the west, headed by the United Kingdom and in turn the United States, were reluctant as well. Successive US Secretaries of State Lawrence Eagleburger and Warren Christopher strongly criticized the move of Germany and others, which they say escalated the war.
The role of the international community in the war would become a matter of much controversy. The general UN policy of imposing a weapons trade embargo for all former Yugoslav republics was not neutral, placing the seceding republics in an inferior position because they had no control over the existing Yugoslav weapons, which were by and large controlled by the Serbs. Such a silent encouragement of the pan-Serbian rampage across Yugoslavia was recognized as untenable by the Western nations, but only after it was already too late.
Cease-fire
January 1992 also brought the final UN-sponsored cease-fire, the twentieth one. The cease-fires were rather frequently signed, intermediated by foreign diplomats, but also frequently broken, as it was all part of both parties' tactics. The Croatians lost much territory, but profitted by being able to expand the Croatian Army from the seven brigades it had at the time of the first cease-fire to the 64 brigades it had at the time the last one was signed.
The warring parties mostly moved to entrenched positions as the United Nations Protection Force was deployed to supervise and maintain the agreement. The Yugoslav People's Army soon retreated from Croatia into Bosnia and Herzegovina where war was just about to start. Croatia became a member of the United Nations on May 22, 1992.
Armed conflict in Croatia continued intermittently at a small scale. There were several smaller operations undertaken by the Croatian forces that were intended to relieve the Croatian cities from Serb shelling attacks. A partial list includes:
- Operation Otkos 10, October 31 - November 4, 1991 - 300 km² in areas from mountain Bilogora to mountain Papuk (areas to the west of Slavonia)
- in the Dubrovnik hinterland:
- at the Miljevci plateau (between Krka and Drniš), June 21-22 1992
- at the Križ hill near Bibinje and Zadar
- at the hydroelectric dam Peruča, January 27-28, 1993
- Operation Maslenica, area around Maslenica, near Zadar, January 22 - February 10, 1993
- Operation Medak pocket, area near Gospić, September 9 - September 17, 1993
Most of the above operations were a success. However, the unsuccessful Operation Medak pocket in 1993 damaged the international reputation of Croatia. The Croatian army would undertake no offensive action during the following year. The ICTY later investigated Croatian officers Janko Bobetko, Rahim Ademi, Mirko Norac and others for the alleged crimes committed during this operation.
The UN resolutions that required Croatia to retreat to previous positions and that Croatia must restrain from military operations were mostly seen as pointless bueraucratic texts, given that no such resolutions prevented the Serbian forces from attacking Croatia in the earlier stages of the war. In October 1993, the United Nations Security Council affirmed for the first time that the United Nations Protected Areas were an integral part of the Republic of Croatia.
The UNPROFOR troops mostly preserved peace and order during the 1992-1995 period, but they maintained borders set up by war and failed to provide any refugees with a chance to return to their homes.
During 1992 and 1993, an estimated 225,000 Croats including refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina and immigrants from many countries, like from Serbia settled in Croatia. A notable number of Bosnian Muslims also fled to Croatia (no country in the world accepted more Bosnian Muslim refugees than Croatia). Croatian volunteers and even some conscripted soldiers participated in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some of President Tuđman's closest associates, notably Gojko Šušak and Ivić Pašalić, were from Herzegovina and aimed to help the Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, financially and otherwise.
In 1993, the Croats and Bosniaks also turned against each other during the war with the Bosnian Serbs. Franjo Tuđman participated in the peace talks between the Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Bosniaks, which resulted in the Washington Agreement of 1994 which ended the statelet of Herzeg-Bosnia and reduced the number of warring parties in Bosnia to two.
End of the war
In late 1994, the Croatian Army intervened several times in Bosnia: November 1-3 in the operation "Cincar" near Kupres, and November 29 - December 24 in the operation "Winter 94" near Dinara and Livno. These operations were undertaken in order to detract from the siege of the Bihać region.
In early May 1995, the Croatian army took back a large patch of territory in western Slavonia during Operation Flash. In August of the same year, Croatia started Operation Storm and quickly overran most of RS Krajina, except for a small strip near the Serbian border. In just four days, approximately 150-200,000 Serbs fled, mostly to Serbia and Bosnia according to ICTY. The Croatian sources put the figure to be somewhere between 50,000 and 90,000 while the Serbian go up to 250,000. BBC states 200,000 Serb refugees ([1] and [2]) This operation and its aftermath was also subsequently scrutinized by the ICTY, who indicted Ante Gotovina and other Croatian officers for war crimes.
The Croatian army proceeded to fight Serbs in Bosnia alongside the Bosniaks, but further advances were prevented by a U.S. diplomatic intervention. Had the Croat army occupied the second largest Bosnian town of Banja Luka, the refugee crisis would have become intolerable since tens of thousands of people would likely have tried to flee further east through the narrow Posavina corridor towards eastern Bosnia and Serbia. Overall, the 2001 census showed 380,032 fewer Serbs in Croatia compared to the census of 1991, although this figure is underestimated.
A few months later, the war ended with the negotiation of the Dayton Agreement (in Dayton, Ohio) which would later be signed in Paris in December 1995.
Nomenclatorial note
The 1991 - 1995 war in Croatia is variously called:
- War of Independence – a generic term
- Homeland War – a direct translation of Croatian Domovinski rat
- Patriotic War – a stylistically different translation, reminiscent of the fact that the 1991-95 conflict was as defining for Croatia as 1812 and 1941-45 wars were for Russia and USSR
References
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