Yearbook 2007
Croatia. According to
CountryAAH, the opposition leader and former Prime Minister Ivica Rac̆an passed away in April. He resigned from the post
of leader of the Social Democrats a few weeks before he
died, when cancer of the brain was detected. Rac̆an was
prime minister in 2000–03 and was considered by many to have
led the country out of international isolation after the
1990s war. During his reign, democratization was carried out
and K. embarked on the road to EU membership.
Independent MP Branimir Glavas was arrested in April
after a Croatian court indicted him and six others for
ordering murders of Croatian civilians in the city of Osijek
in 1991.
In June, Croatian-Serb ex-separatist leader Milan Martiç
was sentenced to 35 years in prison by the UN Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Martiç was
convicted of a number of crimes committed in connection with
attempts to ethnically cleanse the Republic of Krajina in
the early 1990s.
Later that month, Serbia's President Boris Tadiç
apologized to all Croatian victims of the war between K. and
the then Yugoslavia in 1991–95. Tadiç was the first Serbian
leader to apologize for Serbia's role in the war, which is
estimated to have claimed 20,000 lives.
In September, the UN tribunal also sentenced two Serbs to
a massacre in the city of Vukovar in 1991. The two former
Yugoslav army officers were sentenced to 20 and 5 years in
prison respectively. A third defendant, Miroslav Radic, was
released when the Hague Court did not consider it proven
that he knew of the massacre of close to 200 people who were
removed from a hospital. The acquittal caused great anger in
Croatia, and in November Radic was again prosecuted, now by the
Osijek court. An arrest warrant was issued for Radic, who
returned to Serbia after the release in The Hague.
In November, parliamentary elections were held. The
Conservative government party HDZ lost some mandates while
the Social Democratic SDP went ahead. However, HDZ remained
the biggest. Both parties initiated talks with potential
coalition partners.
Civil War
On June 25, 1991, both Croatia and Slovenia declared
themselves independent states. Based on the Serbian
population of Krajina, the Serbs then began extensive
attacks with the assistance of the Yugoslav army. The
Yugoslav and Serbian authorities were less interested in
accepting Croatia's detachment than Slovenia, because of the
Serbian population in Croatia.
The civil war began in July, and in August several
Serbian territories were declared independent, including
Western Slavonia. The following month, the UN adopted a
trade blockade that included weapons and other military
equipment against the rest of Yugoslavia. By November, the
Yugoslav army, with the support of Serbian paramilitaries,
had occupied about a third of Croatia. Croatia's army was
initially inferior, but eventually the Croatians organized
effective resistance. Both sides blamed each other for
atrocities. In the fall of 1991, the city of Vukovar in
Slavonia was bombed for three months, and Serbian
paramilitaries moved in and killed on foot. Thousands of
people were killed during the fighting in Croatia in
1991-1992, and a quarter of a million were displaced.
Peace Negotiations
The UN was drawn into the conflict towards the end of
1991, after the EC failed in ceasefire negotiations. In
January 1992, a peace plan was adopted on the deployment of
a UNPROFOR peacekeeping force in the Serbian-controlled
areas of Krajina and Slavonia. The UN deployed 14,000 men;
the plan was to demilitarize the Serbian territories and to
ensure that the Yugoslav army withdrew. In anticipation of a
political solution in Croatia, the UN should also monitor
the Croatian-Serbian forces in Krajina.
Despite the peace plan, small clashes between the parties
continued. The UN only partially achieved the goal of
demilitarizing the Serbian territories, and in June Croatia
launched an offensive in the territories. The UN adopted a
resolution on the withdrawal of the Croatian forces, and the
relationship between Croatia and the UN was thus strained.
At the beginning of September 1992, the Yugoslav Prime
Minister stated that Yugoslavia was willing to recognize
Croatia with the borders from before the outbreak of the
civil war. The condition was that the Serbian areas should
be guaranteed a special status. At the end of the month,
Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and the Yugoslav President
agreed to work towards a normalization of relations between
the countries.
The situation became very tense when the Croatian army
attacked Krajina in January 1993. The Croatian Serbs broke
into the UN weapons stockpile and took back the equipment
they had supplied. Yugoslavia threatened to invade unless UN
forces intervened. In mid-January 1994, the Croatian
government suggested that Croatia might consider invading
Bosnia-Herzegovina, to support Bosnian Croats. But in late
February, President Tudjman accepted a US proposal to divide
Bosnia-Herzegovina, which opened the way for the so-called
Herceg-Bosna area to be incorporated in Croatia in the long
run.
In mid-March 1994, Croatia - after major international
pressure - approved a revised peace plan. The plan was for
the UNPROFOR forces to be replaced by a new force known as
UNCRO (UN Confidence Restoration Operation). Among
other things, the force was deployed at the border with
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Yugoslavia, effectively preventing
weapons supplies to the Serbian-controlled areas in Croatia.
Lightning war and recapture
In May 1995, Croatia recaptured the UN-protected area of
West Slavonia. The Serbs responded by bombing Zagreb. The
international community then intensified its efforts to
bring peace to Croatia. In early August of that year, the
Croats captured the rest of the Serbian-controlled Krajina
through a lightning war. Serbian houses were burned down and
over 150,000 Serbs fled. The Croatian offensive continued
into Bosnia and Herzegovina. With the exception of Eastern
Slavonia, Croatia had now regained control of the
territories corresponding to the situation in the
declaration of independence in 1991. The reconquest led to
the escape of hundreds of thousands of Serbs; About 600,000
settled in eastern Slavonia, which was still a UN zone under
Serbian control.
In October 1995, new clashes between Croatian and Serbian
forces in eastern Slavonia occurred. President Tudjman and
HDZ had opted for the area to be incorporated in Croatia.
Croatian authorities and Serbian local leaders have now
started peace talks in the city of Erdut, where US
Ambassador and UN Peace Broker Thorvald Stoltenberg also
participated. An agreement was reached that the UN should
establish a temporary government in eastern Slavonia,
demilitarize the area, establish a police force with the
participation of both Serbs and Croats, and in addition,
secure refugees return. In November, the parties also agreed
that Eastern Slavonia should be reintegrated into Croatia.
After Croatia gained full sovereignty over eastern Slavonia
in 1998, tens of thousands of Serbs have left the area.
The UN established a transitional regime in East
Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmium (UNTAES) in
mid-January 1996. Troops were also deployed to replace UNCRO
and an Obsacre Observer Force on Prevlaka (UNMOP) to oversee
the demilitarization of the peninsula south of Dubrovnik.
The observers left the peninsula in 2002. In the spring of
1996, regional political institutions were established in
eastern Slavonia, and one year later regional elections were
held. The United Nations closed down the transitional regime
in January 1998.
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