Back Guerra d'independencia croata AN حرب الاستقلال الكرواتية Arabic Guerra de Croacia AST Xorvatiya müharibəsi Azerbaijani کوروواسی ساواشی AZB Вайна ў Харватыі Byelorussian Вайна Харватыі за незалежнасьць BE-X-OLD Хърватска война за независимост Bulgarian ক্রোয়েশীয় স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ Bengali/Bangla Rat u Hrvatskoj BS

Croatian War of Independence

Croatian War of Independence
Part of the Yugoslav Wars
Clockwise from top left:
The central street of Dubrovnik, the Stradun, in ruins during the Siege of Dubrovnik; the damaged Vukovar water tower, a symbol of the early conflict, flying the Flag of Croatia; the Vukovar Memorial Cemetery; a Serbian T-55 tank destroyed on the road to Drniš; soldiers of the Croatian Army preparing to destroy a Serb tank; A destroyed Yugoslav People's Army tank
Date1 March 1991 – 12 November 1995[F]
(4 years, 7 months, 1 week and 5 days)
Location
Croatia, with some spillover into Bosnia and Herzegovina[G]
Result

Croatian victory

Territorial
changes		 The Croatian government gains control over the vast majority of territory previously held by rebel Serbs, with the remainder coming under UNTAES control.[H]
Belligerents
1991–94:
1991–92:
1994–95:
1992–95:
Commanders and leaders
Units involved
Strength
  • Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 145,000 (1991)
  • 50,000 (1995)
Casualties and losses

Croatia 15,007 dead or missing (8,685 soldiers and 6,322 civilians)[20]

300,000 displaced[21]

7,134 dead or missing (4,484 soldiers and 2,650 civilians)[22]
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 1,279 soldiers killed[23]

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 7,204 dead or missing (3,486 soldiers, 2,677 civilians and 864 unidentified)[20]

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 7,204–8,413 dead or missing in total

300,000 displaced[24]

The Croatian War of Independence was an armed conflict 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 (SFRY) — and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and local Serb forces, with the JNA ending its combat operations in Croatia by 1992.[I]

A majority of Croats supported Croatia's independence from Yugoslavia, while many ethnic Serbs living in Croatia, supported by Serbia,[28][29] opposed the secession and advocated Serb-claimed lands to be in a common state with Serbia. Most Serbs sought a new Serb state within a Yugoslav federation, including areas of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina with ethnic Serb majorities or significant minorities,[30][31] and attempted to conquer as much of Croatia as possible.[32][33][34] Croatia declared independence on 25 June 1991, but agreed to postpone it with the Brioni Agreement and cut all remaining ties with Yugoslavia on 8 October 1991.

The JNA initially tried to keep Croatia within Yugoslavia by occupying all of Croatia.[35][36] After this failed, Serb forces established the self-proclaimed proto-state Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) within Croatia which began with the Log Revolution. After the ceasefire of January 1992 and international recognition of the Republic of Croatia as a sovereign state,[37][38] the front lines were entrenched, the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was deployed,[39] and combat became largely intermittent in the following three years. During that time, the RSK encompassed 13,913 square kilometers (5,372 sq mi), more than a quarter of Croatia.[40] In 1995, Croatia launched two major offensives known as Operation Flash and Operation Storm;[12][41] these offensives effectively ended 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.[13][17]

The war ended with Croatian victory, as it achieved the goals it had declared at the beginning of the war: independence and preservation of its borders.[12][13] Approximately 21–25% of Croatia's economy was ruined, with an estimated US$37 billion in damaged infrastructure, lost output, and refugee-related costs.[42] Over 20,000 people were killed in the war,[43] and refugees were displaced on both sides. The Serbian and Croatian governments began to progressively cooperate with each other, but tensions remain, in part due to verdicts by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and lawsuits filed by each country against the other.[44][45]

In 2007, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) returned a guilty verdict against Milan Martić, one of the Serb leaders in Croatia, for having colluded with Slobodan Milošević and others to create a "unified Serbian state".[46] Between 2008 and 2012, the ICTY had prosecuted Croatian generals Ante Gotovina, Mladen Markač and Ivan Čermak for alleged involvement in the crimes related to Operation Storm. Čermak was acquitted outright, and the convictions of Gotovina and Markač were later overturned by an ICTY Appeals Panel.[47][48] The International Court of Justice dismissed mutual claims of genocide by Croatia and Serbia in 2015. The Court reaffirmed that, to an extent, crimes against civilians had taken place, but it ruled that specific genocidal intent was not present.[49]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference pellet was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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  5. ^ "Two Republics Transform Selves Into a New, Smaller Yugoslavia". The Los Angeles Times. Associated Press. April 28, 1992. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved January 7, 2011.
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  8. ^ Peter Maass (July 16, 1992). "Serb Artillery Hits Refugees – At Least 8 Die As Shells Hit Packed Stadium". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on November 5, 2013. Retrieved December 23, 2010.
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  20. ^ a b Zebić, Enis (January 15, 2018). "Ljudski gubici u ratu u Hrvatskoj: 22.211 osoba" [Human Casualties in the Croatian War: 22,211 Persons]. Radio Free Europe (in Croatian). Archived from the original on December 17, 2019. Retrieved December 17, 2019.
  21. ^ Phuong 2005, p. 157.
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  27. ^ "Srbija-Hrvatska, temelj stabilnosti" [Serbia-Croatia, foundation of stability] (in Serbian). B92. November 4, 2010. Archived from the original on November 8, 2010. Retrieved December 22, 2010.
  28. ^ Martić verdict, pp. 122–123
    "The Trial Chamber found that the evidence showed that the President of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević, openly supported the preservation of Yugoslavia as a federation of which the SAO Krajina would form a part. However, the evidence established that Milošević covertly intended to create a Serb state. This state was to be created through the establishment of paramilitary forces and the provocation of incidents in order to create a situation where the JNA could intervene. Initially, the JNA would intervene to separate the parties but subsequently the JNA would intervene to secure the territories envisaged to be part of a future Serb state."
  29. ^ "Final report of the United Nations Commission of Experts established pursuant to security council resolution 780 (1992), Annex IV – The policy of ethnic cleansing; Prepared by: M. Cherif Bassiouni". United Nations. December 28, 1994. Archived from the original on May 4, 2012. Retrieved March 19, 2011.
  30. ^ Babić verdict, p. 6
    "In the period of the Indictment, from circa 1 August 1991 to 15 February 1992, Serb forces consisting of JNA units, local Serb TO units, TO units from Serbia and Montenegro, local MUP police units, MUP police units from Serbia, and paramilitary units attacked and took control of towns, villages, and settlements ... These acts were intended to permanently and forcibly remove the majority of the Croat and other non-Serb populations from approximately one-third of Croatia in order to transform that territory into a Serb-dominated state."
  31. ^ Chuck Sudetic (August 5, 1991). "Serbs Refuse to Negotiate in Croatia". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 11, 2012. Retrieved January 24, 2011.
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  34. ^ Brown & Karim (1995), p. 120
  35. ^ Kadijević (1993), pp. 134–135
  36. ^ Bjelajac et al. 2009, p. 241.
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  46. ^ "Milan Martić sentenced to 35 years for crimes against humanity and war crimes". International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. June 12, 2007. Archived from the original on August 4, 2012. Retrieved August 24, 2010.
  47. ^ "Judgement Summary for Gotovina et al" (PDF). The Hague: International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. April 15, 2011. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 4, 2012. Retrieved April 15, 2011.
  48. ^ "Hague war court acquits Croat Generals Gotovina and Markac". BBC News. November 16, 2012. Archived from the original on November 16, 2012. Retrieved November 16, 2012.
  49. ^ ICJ & 3 February 2015


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