1991: Open hostilities begin First armed incidents , widely perceived in Croatia as the first Croatian victim of the war, who died during the
Plitvice Lakes incident Ethnic hatred grew as various incidents fueled the
propaganda machines on both sides. During his testimony before the ICTY, one of the top Krajina leaders, Milan Martić, stated that the Serb side started using force first. The conflict escalated into armed incidents in the majority-Serb populated areas. The Serbs
attacked Croatian police units in Pakrac in early March, while one
Josip Jović 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 March and April 1991, Serbs in 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
SAO Krajina was declared, which consisted of any Croatian territory with a substantial Serb population. The Croatian government viewed this move as a rebellion. From the beginning of the Log Revolution and the end of April 1991, nearly 200 incidents involving the use of explosive devices and 89 attacks on the Croatian police were recorded. Significant clashes from this period included the
siege of Kijevo, where over a thousand people were besieged in the inner Dalmatian village of Kijevo, and the
Borovo Selo killings, where Croatian policemen engaged Serb paramilitaries in the eastern Slavonian village of Borovo and suffered twelve casualties. Violence gripped eastern Slavonian villages: in
Tovarnik, a Croat policeman was killed by Serb paramilitaries on May 2, while in
Sotin, a Serb civilian was killed on May 5 when he was caught in a crossfire between Serb and Croat paramilitaries. 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 Mesić was elected president — the first non-communist to become Yugoslav head of state in decades. Throughout this period, the federal army, the JNA, and the local
Territorial Defense Forces continued to be led by federal authorities controlled by Milošević.
Helsinki Watch reported that Serb Krajina authorities executed Serbs who were willing to reach an accommodation with Croat officials. Serb local authorities issued calls for a
boycott, which were largely followed by Croatian Serbs. The referendum passed with 94% in favor. The newly constituted Croatian military units held a military parade and review at
Stadion Kranjčevićeva in Zagreb on May 28, 1991. The parliament of Croatia declared Croatia's independence and dissolved its association with Yugoslavia on June 25, 1991. The Croatian parliament's decision was partially boycotted by left-wing parliament deputies. The
European Community and the
Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe urged Croatian authorities to place a three-month
moratorium on the decision. The government of Yugoslavia responded to the declarations of independence of Croatia and Slovenia with Yugoslav Prime Minister
Ante Marković declaring the secessions to be illegal and contrary to the Constitution of Yugoslavia, and supported the JNA taking action to secure the integral unity of Yugoslavia. In June and July 1991, the
short armed conflict in Slovenia came to a speedy end, partly because of the ethnic homogeneity of the population of Slovenia. Croatia agreed to the
Brioni Agreement that involved freezing its independence declaration for three months, which eased tensions a little.
Escalation of the conflict In July, in an attempt to salvage what remained of Yugoslavia, 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.
Albanians and
Macedonians 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 JNA military strategy partly consisted of extensive
shelling, 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
Battle of Vukovar began. Eastern Slavonia was gravely impacted throughout this period, starting with the
Dalj massacre, and 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. Vukovar was almost completely devastated; 15,000 houses were destroyed. A further 22,000 were exiled from Vukovar immediately after the town was captured. 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. breakthrough in eastern
Slavonia, September 1991–-January 1992 On October 3, the
Yugoslav Navy renewed its blockade of the main ports of Croatia. This move followed months of standoff for JNA 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 JNA 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 the 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 Independence Day in Croatia. 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. On October 15 after the capture of
Cavtat by the JNA, local Serbs led by
Aco Apolonio proclaimed the
Dubrovnik Republic. The international media focused on 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.
Peak of the war In response to the 5th JNA Corps advance across the
Sava River 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 of territory in this operation. the survivors were transported to
prison camps such as
Ovčara and
Velepromet, with the majority ending up in
Sremska Mitrovica prison camp. The sustained siege of Vukovar 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 At the same time, the
Škabrnja massacre occurred in the Dalmatian hinterland. 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. In the course of Orkan '91, the Croatian army recaptured approximately of territory. 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 Oblasts 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. However, on December 21, 1991, for the first time in the war
Istria was under attack. The Serbian Forces attacked the airport near the city of
Vrsar, situated in the south-western of the peninsula between the city of
Poreč and
Rovinj, with two
MiG-21 and two
Galeb G-2. Afterwards, Yugoslav airplanes
carpet bombed Vrsar's Crljenka airport, resulting in two deaths. 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. tank in Karlovac, 1992 The
Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on 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 favour of 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.
1992: Ceasefire A new UN-sponsored
ceasefire, the fifteenth in just six months, was agreed on January 2, 1992, and came into force the next day. The area size did not encompass another 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. 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 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. , June 21, 1992 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 the
Yugoslav Army 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.
1993: Croatian military advances 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 to the east. They advanced towards the
Peruća Hydroelectric Dam and captured it by January 28, 1993, shortly after Serb 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 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 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, from September 9–17. The offensive was undertaken by the Croatian army to stop Serbian artillery in the 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 for war crimes. 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. 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. In September 1992, Croatia had accepted 335,985 refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina, most of whom were
Bosniak civilians (excluding men of drafting age). 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.
1994: Erosion of support for Krajina In 1992, the
Croat-Bosniak conflict erupted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, just as each was fighting with the Bosnian Serbs. The war was originally fought between the
Croatian Defence Council and Croatian volunteer troops on one side and the
Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) 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 the
Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and an alliance between Bosnian and Croatian armies against the Serb forces. 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 in Bosnia from November 1–3, in
Operation Cincar near
Kupres, and from 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 RSK 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 RSK. Western military analysts said that among the array of Serbian
surface-to-air missile systems that surrounded the Bihać pocket on Croatian territory, there was a modern
SAM-2 system probably brought there 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 RSK, 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. 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.
1995: End of the war Tensions were renewed at the beginning of 1995 as Croatia sought to put increasing pressure on the RSK. In a five-page letter on January 12,
Franjo Tuđman formally told the UN Secretary General
Boutros Boutros-Ghali that Croatia was ending the agreement permitting the stationing of UNPROFOR in Croatia, effective March 31. The move was purportedly motivated by actions by Serbia and the Serb-dominated Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to provide assistance to the Serb occupation of Croatia and allegedly integrate the occupied areas into Yugoslav territory. The situation was 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 word
Croatia be added to the force's 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 200 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, 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 Agreement 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 August 4, 1995, ordering the evacuation of civilians from its territory From July 25 to 30, the Croatian Army and Croatian Defence Council (HVO) troops attacked Serb-held territory north of Mount
Dinara, 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 4, 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. The Croatian human rights organization
Hrvatski helsinški odbor, counted 677 Serb civilians killed by Croatian forces after Operation Storm, mostly old people who remained, while other Serb civilians fled. An additional 837 Serb civilians are listed as missing following Operation Storm. Other sources indicate 181 more victims were killed by Croatian forces and buried in a mass grave in Mrkonjić Grad, following a continuation of the Operation Storm offensive into Bosnia. 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. Sekulić, and Vrcelj) say that the evacuation of Serbs was organized and planned beforehand. According to
Amnesty International, "some 200,000 Croatian Serbs, including the entire Croatian Serb Army, fled to the neighbouring Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina under Bosnian Serb control. In the aftermath of the operations members of the Croatian Army and police murdered, tortured, and forcibly expelled Croatian Serb civilians who had remained in the area as well as members of the withdrawing Croatian Serb armed forces". The ICTY, on the other hand, concluded that only about 20,000 people were deported. 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 the estimates of the
U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. 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 Tuđman after 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.
Reintegration of Eastern Slavonia Further combat was averted on November 12 when the
Erdut Agreement 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 new UN transitional administration 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 also guarantees the right of establishment of a
Joint Council of Municipalities for the 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, the Prevlaka peninsula, previously under UNCRO control, was put under the 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. ==Notable defections==