Josip Jurcevic
professor; Counsellor-Comision for War and Post-War Victims
Remetinecka 119
10000 Zagreb-CROATIA

REMARK
The Serbian armed aggression on Croatia in 1991 signified the first in a series of events (the process of the break-up of Yugoslavia, the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina...) which have brought into question the controlled course of European history since the Second World War. Despite the fact that the crisis, even after five years duration, has not yet been quietened, it is important to note the general circumstances which caused it, as well as to present in chronological order the course of the Serbian aggression. For this task it is important to bear in mind the requirements of the book itself, as well as the lack of documents and previous scholarly works which deal with actual events in south-eastern Europe.

HISTORIC HERITAGE AND CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE 1980’S
It is understandable that the Serbian aggression on Croatia, and the events which followed, have their complex causes which may analytically be divided into two basic levels of observation: time and space. The time level implies historic analysis which should begin in the nineteenth century at the latest and continue to the end of the 1980’s, and the space level should include local (south-eastern Europe) and global (Europe and the world) dimensions of observations.

For a deeper understanding of the events which emerged in 1990, one must be familiar with and take into consideration the significance of the impact of several decisive historic facts and processes whose heritage is in the very foundations of all that has been happening these last few years on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. These above all are: the end of the First World War, when the political entity known as Yugoslavia was formed for the first time and the end of the Second World War when communist Yugoslavia was formed.

Scholarly literature confirms and accepts the fact that the creation of both Yugoslavias was predominantly the result of the interests and agreements (compromise solutions) of world powers, the victors of both world wars. This global interest was, on a local level, formed in co-operation with Serbian state and national interests, which in turn were based on the Greater Serbian ideology.

In this way, after the First World War, a multi-national state was formed - Yugoslavia, whose main features, according to world and Yugoslav (post-Second World War) scholarly literature were: the marked domination of Serbs in government structures, in the economy and in social life; national inequality; social oppression; unsolved basic agrarian and ownership problems; corruption on all levels of state organisation; police violence; murder and persecution of politicians and intellectuals who were not inclined to the Greater Serbian regime, etc. These features are listed as the main reasons which brought about the lightening break-up of the regime and Yugoslavia itself at the very beginning of the Second World War.

Neither the global level of events, nor the methodology of relations and behaviour changed in the second world armed conflict. The controversial course and conclusion of the Second World War - in particular after the agreements of the Allies in Teheran in 1943 and in Yalta in 1945 - ended in a series of compromise solutions which had, throughout the world, serious repercussions on a local level for small nations.

Particularly complex interests and events occurred on European soil and crucial global interests of world blocs - western powers and the Soviet Union - were always present behind the scenes of allied war activities and political decisions.

The problem of south-east Europe, a border area for centuries, a land of civilisational, cultural, political and military connections and conflicts between East and West, was "solved" at the end of the Second World War through compromise, i.e. the formation of communist Yugoslavia. All the interior weaknesses which broke the Kingdom of Yugoslavia continued their destructive development in communist Yugoslavia and the ideology of Greater Serbia was realised through the primitive one-party police-military model state, i.e. the creation of state - political, economic and social - structures in which the Serbs were a privileged nation.

In the 1980’s, however, in the world and in Europe in particular, different social processes were underway which led to the cessation of hostilities between two military, political and ideological systems (blocs), whose conflict - in various forms - was a decisive base of world events even after the Second World War. These general, world circumstances determined, for decades, the foreign and domestic political-economic fate and position of Yugoslavia.

The above-mentioned global interests and political processes of the 1980’s led to the lifting of the "Iron curtain" which had for four decades stretched from the Baltic to the Adriatic so that Yugoslavia lost its previous global, geostrategic "tampon" role and significance. In concrete international relations, this simultaneously meant the end of substantial western loans which had kept post-war Yugoslavia alive. Apart from this, Yugoslavia had to start returning its international debt which amounted to several tens of billions of US dollars.

In such circumstances, the tough foundations of communist Yugoslavia started to be eaten away ever deeply from the inside by economic and social crisis. The 1980’s saw a large increase in the number of strikes, as well as the failure of "self-managed" companies and the circle of privileged members of the ruling structures had to be drastically reduced since the national economy (despite the partial reprogramming of the national debt) was not capable, even slightly, of settling the megalomaniac needs of the state. The state bodies and the Yugoslav League of Communists attempted - by proclaiming numerous reforms and irrelevant economic decisions - to save the sinking state, however, daily inflation became crushing and the re-balancing of the state budget only postponed the agony for a short time.

The frequency and intensity of social unrest caused the gradual destruction of the bureaucratic and repressive system of totalitarian Yugoslavia. The monolithic state apparatus attempted to postpone its own end, thus reducing its efficiency in stopping the pressure of decades of accumulated problems. The first signs of democracy appeared on the horizon enabling more freedom of speech in some parts of Yugoslavia.

In Yugoslavia, the Albanians in Kosovo for years had borne the brutal terror of the Serbian regime and it is understandable that they - at the beginning of the 1980’s - were the first to attempt an organised political protest. The peaceful demonstrations of the Albanians, requesting generally accepted national and human rights were, however, subdued by military and police force. The number of those killed were measured in the hundreds and mass trials put thousands of Albanians into the already crowded Yugoslav prisons.

Serbian scholarly, political and military structures were aware that only a radical and violent intervention within Yugoslavia would enable them to remain in power and hold on to their domination and privileges. The infamous 8th session of Serbia’s Central Committee and the arrival of Slobodan Milosevic at the head of Serbia represents the beginning of the realisation of the plan ("Memorandum") which was drafted in the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences and which worked out the strategy by which the Serbian power-holders would hold on to their control of the south Slav peoples or states.¹

The theoretic starting point and direction of the psychological propaganda activities of the Greater Serbian aggressive nationalism are reduced to the lowest level of simplicity: wherever Serbs live, they are in jeopardy and therefore it is the holy duty of their country and their nation to join forces with them and to mercilessly confront those who are putting them in jeopardy - and then to include all Serbs and all the territories they live on into one country "Serbia".² On the basis of the events which followed, it is obvious that these "messages of evil" found fertile soil in the economic situation and the cultural and socio-psychological frame of mind of those to whom they were intended.

The events proceeded according to the foreseen order and speed. In Serbia, all components of a social and political life were cleansed and the methods used were not important. A monolithic hierarchy of power was formed. Absolute control over the media was established, which was to become significant for the control over the masses at home and confuse the world public. Armed violence was used to neutralise Kosovo, and raids by street mobs (under the slogan "anti-bureaucratic revolution") subdued the multi-national Voivodina. Both provinces soon had their formal autonomy status annulled - but Belgrade kept their seats in federal bodies (which these provinces had precisely because of their autonomy, by their participation and by the constitutionalism of the Federation). In Montenegro, pro-Serbian politicians were placed in power through violent meetings. On the basis of all this, the predominance of Serbia was all the more strengthened in federal bodies of power, which verified all Serbia’s unconstitutional moves. After the realisation of absolute power in Serbia - with Voivodina and Kosovo - and in Montenegro, the second part of the plan was put into action : the creation of Greater Serbia.

1990 PREPARATION AND BEGINNING OF AGGRESSION
The crisis in Yugoslavia and of the communist system had, however, a different course in the other states of the Yugoslav federation. The Republic League of Communists of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia were pressed between the unsolvable socio-economic difficulties in their own states and the advancing danger of the Greater Serbian plan, in which there was no place for their own portion of power and their own personal safety was becoming more of an issue. Therefore, they finally decided on, for them, a more pleasant solution: democratic and multi-party elections.

At the end of the 1980’s, opposition parties were formed in Croatia which, despite certain difficulties, started their pre-election campaigns. In the spring of 1990, however, just prior to the first multi-party elections in Croatia, the situation in Yugoslavia became critical because the Yugoslav People’s Army (the JNA) started to become publicly more and more involved in political life wishing to influence the outcome of the Yugoslav crisis. The direction this influence was taking may be seen by the fact that more than 70% of officer cadre was of Serbian or Montenegrin nationality, and what is more, this percentage was even higher among high ranking officers.

All unconstitutional actions carried out by Serbia with S. Milosevic at its head were silently approved of by the General Staff and the Federal Secretariat of the National Defence (SSNO), and the Army leadership proclaimed their threats quite openly at the very announcement of the realisation of democracy in Croatia and Slovenia. Not only this, but at Serbia’s request, the Army occupied Kosovo and although the Albanians were merely demonstrating peacefully a bloody conflict ensued. Fifteen days before the elections in Croatia, General Veljko Kadijevic, who was touring the Fifth Military District (Croatia and Slovenia), stating how the Army would "decisively oppose the forces which were undermining the foundations of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia".³

It was clear even then that the practice of the primitive politics of Greater Serbian nationalism - symbolised by S. Milosevic - would not have been carried out so quickly and efficiently if the participation of the majority of Yugoslav Army officers had not been assured previously.

The Serbian propaganda machine systematically convinced (and to a great degree was successful) the Serbs in Croatia that they were in serious danger from the Croats and in particular from the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), which at the time was the most prominent party in Croatia and which during its pre-election campaign meetings suffered a series of physical threats and attacks (in Berk, Vukovar, Benkovac and elsewhere).

In July 1990, the actual events surrounding the elections passed peaceably enough (taking into consideration the lack of tradition in political democracy) despite the irregularities which were on the very edge of tolerability. After the elections, Croatia saw the start of the establishment of a democratic, multi-party system of government which meant the elimination from public life of all previously applied Yugoslav communist totalitarianism.

The Greater Serbian structure in Yugoslavia prepared various methods in order to prevent the process of general democracy in Croatia, which it started to apply. Immediately after the elections and before the newly elected democratic government was constituted in Croatia, the Yugoslav Army illegally dispossessed the Territorial Defence Forces (TO) in Croatia of their weapons, stating that the arms depots were "badly guarded". Founding SDS assemblies were held repeatedly during which primitive threats and transparent provocation were directed to the democratically elected government ("We’ll kill Tudjman", "This is Serbia"). In the Croatian Parliament - in which the majority were members of the HDZ - members of the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS) proclaimed a "suspension" of all relations with the Parliament.⁴ In homogenised" Serbia, the Information Department of the Provincial Committee of the League of Communists of the Working People of Voivodina publicly announced its conclusion that "in Croatia there was a more serious case of counter revolution at work than in Kosovo".⁵

In the second half of June, in Belgrade, the "Serbian Chetnik Movement" with V. Seselj at its head was formed and a week later the "Association of Serbs from Croatia in Belgrade" was established which as its aim emphasised the battle for the formation of the autonomy of Serbs in Croatia. At the beginning of July, at the Serbian celebrations of Vidovdan in the village of Kosovo near Knin, the formation of the "Serbian Autonomous Krajina" was proclaimed with M. Babic as president, who four days later was to invite the "representatives" of 17 "Serbian districts" from Croatia to bring the decision to establish Krajina. Two weeks later "Serbian Radio Knin" started its broadcasts. In Srb, on 25 July, a Serbian meeting was held at which the "Declaration on Autonomy" was proclaimed and the Serbian National Council was established, with government status, which was to carry out a referendum and other planned illegal Serbian actions and decisions.

Meanwhile, the Party of Reformed Communists (SKH-SDP) which was the strongest opposition party in the Croatian parliament, was undergoing a deep crisis and stratification along national lines: most members of Serbian nationality, as well as some municipal party organisations, joined the SDS accusing the SKH-SDP of betraying the interests of the Serbian people". Some members of partisan organisations also sent clear signals, for instance, Milan Sola of the Osijek SUBNOR (Organisation of Partisans of the National Liberation War) stated that it was necessary to "liquidate those who publicly announced that they do not respect partisans and the Army; and force the party in power to co-operate with us and not vice versa".⁶

The entire territory of Croatia was constantly bombarded with propaganda and organisational activities of Greater Serbian structures, which directed provocative and aggressive messages to the Croatian authorities and the Croatian people aiming to contribute to the general estrangement between nationalities, which was an important part in the realisation of the plan of Greater Serbia.

All the steps taken by the legal and democratically elected bodies of the Croatian authorities concerning the modifications to communist laws and state symbols and the democratisation of activities of executive authorities - were met with provocation and revolt by a part of the Serbian minority in Croatia, with the organisational and material support of the Serbian state and the JNA. The propaganda activities of pro-Serbian media and actions of the SDS managed to bring a part of the Serbs in Croatia to a state of irreconcilability towards the legally elected authorities. Various forms of mass protests were constantly being incited and the moment of their transformation into an open revolt was being prepared. This finally occurred on 17 August, 1990 in Knin and the surrounding area: all approaches to the area were blocked by armed civilians and the Knin SDS proclaimed a state of war.

Units of the Croatian Police attempted to prevent the armed violence of Serbian terrorists but all action was prevented by the JNA. This showed who the true organiser of the terror in Croatia was. All further events in Croatia - whether Serbian attacks on police stations or "peace" negotiations - led to a more intensive revolt and the spreading of the war-affected territory. Meanwhile, in Serbia, the war atmosphere was being warmed up via the media and mass "gatherings of support to the jeopardised Serbs in Croatia". Croatian authorities attempted to lead negotiating activities, but in vain; the circle of revolt and war continued to spread.

The scenario, prepared and practically supported by the JNA and Serbia, was a simple one: groups of armed Serbian civilians would attack several Croatian police stations in a particular area, steal the weapons, erect barricades and proclaim the annexation of the area to "krajina". Every attempt by the Croatian police to prevent this terrorism was stopped by the threat of the huge military force. The Serbs immediately formed illegal parallel "authorities" on the rebel territories which terrorised the inhabitants, in particular the Croats - who were therefore forced to save their lives and flee their homes for the safe parts of Croatia.

After the initial disorders, the general insecurity and terror in the Knin area, a similar process of "crawling war" at the beginning of autumn 1990 affected Banovina and western Srijem (the Pakrac area). At that time, eastern Slavonia was not affected by open revolt but rather the terrain was being prepared for the armed occupation of this Croatian land with Serbian propaganda and unarmed activities.

1991 - AGGRESSION USING ALL AVAILABLE MEANS AND THE DEFENCE OF CROATIA
In the period of the autumn, winter and spring of 1990/91, processes were definitively formed which were to transform Croatia into a zone of total war and brutal Serbian armed aggression. It became clear then that the Serbian ruling military and bureaucratic structures of communist Yugoslavia would not accept a single democratic variation of the solution to the Yugoslav crisis. How the events which ensued were predictable may be testified to by the evaluation which was publicly submitted in the autumn of 1990 by the very well-informed and expert US state intelligence agency - the CIA - which announced the imminent break up of Yugoslavia accompanied by a bloody war, with the originator named as S. Milosevic, although he was "de facto" merely a political symbol of the multi-institutionally based project of Greater Serbia.

The creation and maintaining of the Serbian "Krajina" was possible only with the protection of the JNA. Meanwhile, unannounced military manoeuvres were held more frequently in the areas of Croatia which were unaffected by the rebellion. While terrifying columns of army tanks passed menacingly through Croatian cities, Croatian soldiers were being transferred to barracks outside the borders of Croatia and the military court of the JNA - in the winter of 1990/91 - began the staged trials against the Minister of Defence of the Republic of Croatia - for alleged organised conspiracy and illegal purchase of weapons. The pro-Serbian media systematically sharpened the level of war mongering activities, and the more and more frequent meetings of the SDS prepared the terrain for the broadening of the war against Croatia.

By the middle of February, the Pakrac district brought the illegal decision to annex five villages and 32 hamlets from the neighbouring district. Several days later, in ten villages of the Vinkovci area, populated by a Serb majority, unknown persons announced a "referendum" on the annexation of these villages to the Vukovar district - although no natural or economic reasons, nor legal basis for this existed.

At the beginning of March 1991, Serbian terrorists attacked the Pakrac police station and stole the weapons. JNA tanks prevented the Croatian police from catching the perpetrators. Meanwhile, in the whole area of Slavonia, in villages with a Serbian majority, armed civilians erected barricades and set up sentries.

On the level of the whole of Yugoslavia - in the spring of 1990 - various acute controversies started to multiply. The communist regime of S. Milosevic in Serbia, pressed by the catastrophic state of the economy and the dissatisfaction of the forcefully oppressed opposition, was stimulated to transfer the tensions within Serbia to outside its borders, which was - apart from the plans for the Greater Serbia - an added reason to quicken the conquest of Croatia. This became particularly obvious after 9 March when the army and police used tanks to crush the opposition demonstrations in Belgrade and the whole of Serbia.

Since the federal budget received less and less money from Slovenia and Croatia, the JNA submitted to the President of Yugoslavia in mid-March, a draft of a law "in regard to the difficulties in financing the JNA". The Serbian parliament illegally removed the representative of Kosovo in the Yugoslav presidency and in his stead appointed one of their men. Milosevic announced on 16 March that he would not respect the decisions of the Yugoslav presidency and ordered the mobilisation of the reserve police units, and several days later, he announced at the Belgrade University: "We will arm the Serbs in Croatia legally!" At the same time, the "Executive Council of Krajina" brought the decision to secede from Croatia. These are just some of the facts which pointed to the setting in motion of the Serbian war machine.

During the Easter holidays on the Plitvice Lakes, a large armed conflict occurred between the Croatian police and Serbian terrorists: a Croatian policeman Josip Jovic was killed - the first direct victim of the Serbian aggression against Croatia. At the same time, there was an increase in the number of Serbian barricades, JNA tanks on the roads and politicians from Serbia calling for rebellion against Croatian authorities at meetings throughout the remaining crisis regions in Croatia. In this way, for instance, the village of Kijevo was blocked by militia units of "SAO Krajina" (Serbian Autonomous District of Krajina), twenty JNA armoured vehicles occupied Vrpolje, tanks took to the streets of Osijek, terrorists attacked the police station in Dalj. In Knin, the Executive Council brought the "decision to unite SAO Krajina and the Republic of Serbia"; the Serbs of Glina and Hrvatska Kostajnica brought the "decision" to annex SAO Krajina, and the Serbian parliament publicly demanded armed JNA involvement in Croatia. Those days, at the beginning of April, three EU ministers spent several days in Belgrade and gave their support to an "undivided Yugoslavia".⁷

Since Croatia had less and less negotiating space and the rebel terrorism had begun to affect new territories, during the first half of April, Croatian authorities brought the decision to form a National Protection - ("the unarmed defence of the citizens of Croatia") and, at the first session of the Supreme State Council, the decision was brought to create the National Guard (ZNG).

During April, in the villages of the Vukovar district which had a Serbian majority, the final preparations for armed war were being carried out: the JNA publicly distributed arms to the Serbs and trained them; groups of armed chetniks from Serbia started to arrive; Serbian women and children started to leave for Voivodina, etc. Borovo Selo, a village in eastern Slavonia, stood out the most as far as the quantity of arms and the number of chetniks to arrive from Serbia, so it is hardly surprising that the bloody Serbian aggression on Vukovar and the entire eastern part of Slavonia started in exactly that village. Namely, on 2 May, 1991, Serbian terrorists in Borovo Selo killed and then massacred 12 Croatian police men and wounded 23.

The Croatian state was then almost completely unarmed in relation to the enormous arms potential of the JNA, so that the basic strategy of the Croatian authorities was to avoid armed conflicts of larger proportions, which the JNA persistently attempted to provoke. All negotiating activities of the Croatian government remained in vain since the Greater Serbian politics had escalated to such a degree in the preparation of the armed occupation of Croatia that negotiations served only as a tactical means in their psychological-propaganda war.

By mid-May, on the basis of earlier brought and applied statutes, it was the turn of a Croatian representative to head the federal presidency of Yugoslavia. The Serbian leadership, however, prevented this through unconstitutional means.

Several days later, on 19 May, Croatia held a referendum in which 94.17% of the voters voted in favour of an independent Croatian state and the right to democratic development (82.97% of all Croatian citizens of voting ages took part in the referendum).

The entire territory of Croatia was affected by this severe war crisis so that in mid-June the Croatian parliament decided to start permanent sessions. At the end of June, after the proclamation of the independence of Slovenia, the JNA decided to use all available means to attack this one-time part of Yugoslavia and the inhabitants of the north-western part of Croatia attempted to stop the JNA tanks who were departing army barracks in Croatia. The war between the JNA and Slovenia ended in agreement several days later, namely, it was agreed that the JNA withdraw from Slovenia. Since the JNA had operated with military aeroplanes and heavy weapons in Slovenia, completely disclosing its role in the Greater Serbian strategy, it was to be supposed that Croatia would also soon be exposed to air and heavy artillery attacks; this is in fact what took place in July.

At the very beginning of July, a paradoxical process of negotiations and agreements began under the auspices of various international societies and organisations (this process still continues). One notices, observing this five-year process, that the main characteristics are that events in general unfolded contrary to the way they were agreed and signed. Namely, at the very beginning of July, five members of the EU Observer Mission arrived in Belgrade and several days later the Declaration on the Peaceful Solution to the Yugoslav Crisis was signed on the Brijuni Islands - with the support and presence of the EU ministers. Soon after that, tanks from Serbia entered Baranja, the JNA shelled Vukovar, Osijek and Erdut all the more fervently and the Serbian military airforce attacked the Vukovar villages. At the end of July, the intensity of the Serbian aggression on eastern Slavonia, Baranja, as well as northern and southern Dalmatia continued to grow and the Serbian Army, with the massacre of ten Croatian police men in Kozibrod and seventeen civilians in Struga and Kuljani, began the bloody terror in Banovina with the aim of scaring and forcing the Croats to leave this region. With the same aim in mind, chetniks completely burned down the eastern Slavonian village of Celije which was inhabited by Croats; a part of the inhabitants were killed and the remaining were expelled. In this way Croatia had, at the beginning of August, approximately 30,000 displaced persons.

The range and intensity of the armed aggression on Croatia during August reached such proportions that not even Croatian daily papers managed to keep up with all the battles, the destruction and the massacre of civilians which were carried out by the Serbian Army. During this month, the direction of attacks of the Serbian Army were stabilised and Serbian units from Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina became all the more involved in all military activities.

These circumstances determined the corresponding organisation of Croatian defence so that eight global battle-fields, i.e. areas, were formed where the aggressor was confronted. Since the Croatian state had not managed to fully constitute itself before the Serbian aggression, since it did not have an established army or armaments and since within the ranks of the inherited Territorial Defence and police units there were many cases of betrayal, defence on all fronts was organised in general by self-initiative - on the part of the attacked inhabitants. During the war, the Croatian Army was gradually formed and strengthened so that defence became co-ordinated and complete.

The battle-fields were as follows: eastern Slavonia - which included the area of the former districts of Vukovar, Vinkovci and Osijek, although the Vukovar battle should be viewed separately; the Posavina battle-field - includes the area of Slavonski Brod and Zupanja and the region of the eight Posavina districts in B-H (Bosanski Brod, Orasje, Derventa, Modrica, Gradacac, Odzak, Brcko and Bosanski Samac); the western Slavonia battle-field - including the areas of the districts of Novska, Nova Gradiska, Pakrac, Grubisno Polje and Daruvar, and partially the areas of the districts of Virovitica, Podravska Slatina, Orahovica and Pozega; the Banovina battle-field - including the area of the districts of Dvor na Uni, Glina, Petrinja, Kostajnica and Sisak; the Kordun battle-field - including the districts of Slunj, Ogulin, Vrginmost, Vojnic, Duga Resa and Karlovac; the Lika front - embracing the districts of Gracac, Korenica, Donji Lapac (occupied in 1990), Gospic and Otocac; the northern Dalmatian front including the Zadar, Sibenik and Split areas with the islands and hinterlands; the southern Dalmatian front with districts Ploce, Metkovic and Dubrovnik and the Herzegovinian districts of Neum and Trebinje.

On all fronts the Serbian aggression unfolded according to the same scenario - the towns were heavily shelled from the land or air and infantry and armoured vehicles would enter the villages, Catholic churches were destroyed and the non-Serbian inhabitants were killed or expelled. In this way the Serbian Army had by the end of August - through massacres or expulsions - ethnically cleansed and occupied almost all the villages in Banovina. The same fate was experienced in Baranja which was completely occupied by the end of August.⁸

At the same time, on the border with Croatia, Serbia amassed an enormous military force (several hundred tanks and several tens of thousands of soldiers) who crossed over into Croatia at the end of August with the aim of annexing eastern Slavonia and uniting with Serbian forces which had started to section off Croatia towards the north in the western Slavonian front.

During the final days of August (24), the majority of villages of the Vukovar district were occupied and a general - air, tank and infantry - attack on besieged Vukovar began. The usual military estimates - knowing that the aggressor had several hundred tanks, a mighty artillery, tens of thousands of excellently armed soldiers, an air force and open supply routes, whereas the defender had approximately 1,800 mostly untrained volunteers with only light infantry arms, mortars and a limited quantity of anti-tank devices and ammunition and were totally encircled - spoke of a defence lasting approximately two days. However, the battle had a completely unexpected course and became fateful one for the Croatian state. The defenders managed to hold the town for more than eighty days (until 18 November) when their ammunition ran out. The Serbs completely destroyed the town with their artillery and the tragedy of the inhabitants in the cellars and the defenders was for months the centre of world attention. There are still incomplete data on the defence of Vukovar but we do know that that approximately 1,700 people were killed in the town (1,100 civilians), more than 4,000 were wounded, some 5,000 were taken prisoner and taken to camps in Serbia with more than 2,000 still missing (it is probable they were liquidated by the Serbs after their occupation of the town and this is confirmed by international organisations which have located many mass graves with hundreds of bodies in Vukovar and the surrounds, although no excavations have been allowed by the Serbian occupying forces), 30,000 people were displaced.

The immense military achievement of the defenders of Vukovar is completely outside all previous war experience: approximately 500 Serbian armoured vehicles were destroyed (including 200 tanks and 100 armoured transporters), between 25 and 39 military aeroplanes were shot down, the number of killed Serbian soldiers is estimated to be somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 with 25,000 to 30,000 wounded.

The battle for Vukovar and the number of destroyed weapons and soldiers considerably weakened the potential Serbian conquering army in a material, political and military sense, and not only this, but for three months Serbia’s enormous military reserves were tied down to the narrow area of Vukovar giving precious time to the creation and organisation of the Croatian Army and state. Therefore, Vukovar - apart from the decisive merits in the defence of the Croatian state - became the symbol of the Croatian resistance to the Serbian war aggression and of the system of values of the Croatian state.

During the course of September, the Serbian Army used all the heavy weapons it had at its disposal on all fronts; it gained rural areas for whose defence the Croatian state did not have the means; it massacred and expelled civilians of non-Serbian nationality, and targeted Croatian towns with artillery shells and air-to-surface rockets, aiming primarily at hospitals, sacral objects, schools and cultural monuments. Croatian authorities still opted for negotiations and in September several "cease fire agreements" were signed but were taken by the Serbian Army to be merely signs for even more brutal attacks. Further massacres of Croats were carried out by the Serbian Army in Banovina in the villages of Kraljevcani, Grabostani, Stubalj and Majur, and in the Drava River valley villages of Balinci, Cetekovci and Coljug. Then, during just one shell attack on Osijek at the beginning of September, 18 civilians were killed. The EU appointed Lord Carrington to be co-ordinator of the "Peace Conference on Yugoslavia" which had been set up. The Serbian Army continued to demolish Croatian towns in series. In the heaviest offensive of the Serbian Army on Vukovar - from 14 to 20 September - the defenders managed to destroy 130 tanks and armoured transporters and the road to Trpinja got the name "tank cemetery". The Serbian Army occupied Hrvatska Kostajnica and Petrinja at that time, the first general alerts sounded in Zagreb, Varazdin and Cakovec.

The survival of the Croatian state hung by a thread. The situation on all fronts was exceptionally difficult for the defenders, mostly because of a lack of arms and ammunition. It was, therefore, no longer possible to wait and various Croatian defence units and civilians - in mid September 1991 - finally decided to take over JNA barracks, warehouses and other military facilities, namely, ever since the attack of the JNA on Slovenia, Croatian civilians had spontaneously opposed JNA military facilities (peace movements, calls to surrender, blockades, obstruction of deliveries, occasional shooting, etc.). In September, this process developed into a real war for the barracks in which Croatia succeeded - by the end of September - to take a large number of barracks (about seventy), among them being the most important arms depots and barracks containing large quantities of weapons. In order to understand Croatia’s previous lack of arms and the importance of the acquisition of weapons at that time, it is enough to say that the weapons were taken in facilities covered by the Varazdin Corps (74 tanks, 48 armoured tracked vehicles, 10 bazookas, 6 canon, 16 155 mm howitzers, 250 various vehicles, great quantities of infantry guns and ammunition) representing an amount seven times greater than the entire arms potential the entire Croatian state had possessed until then.

These weapons were - in relation to the Serbian military potential - only a bare minimum which did not change the ratio of strength but which did gradually arrive on all Croatian fronts and enabled the greatly motivated Croatian defenders to stop further occupation of Croatian territory. Only the defenders of Vukovar, for reasons that still remain unconfirmed (one of the reasons most frequently mentioned is the wrong evaluation of high ranking JNA officers who crossed over to the Croatian side and who believed that it was impossible to defend Vukovar anyway and that it therefore should no longer be aided; another reason is war profiteering, i.e. the sale of weapons to the highest bidder - regardless of who he is) were not given the crucial support in arms and ammunition.

Of the increasing danger Croatia was exposed to is testified to by the fact that in mid September - the US consulate in Zagreb called all US citizens to leave Croatia for reasons of their own safety. At the end of September, the UN Security Council accepted the resolution on the embargo against the delivery of arms to the territory of Yugoslavia, which was a direct assistance to the aggressor who had weapons for a ten-year war, whereas the victim’s defence possibilities were considerably reduced.

At the very end of September, the Serbian Army began a maritime blockade of the Croatian coast and islands and several days later started an artillery, air and sea attack on Dubrovnik, including the old part of the town within the city walls. Serbian aeroplanes rocketed Banske dvore (the President’s residence) in Zagreb on 7 October in which the Croatian president was at the time. The following day, on 8 October, was a historic one in the formation of the Croatian state; the Croatian parliament at its session - which for security reasons was held in the INA building - brought its decision to break all state ties with Yugoslavia. A general mobilisation was immediately carried out in Croatia.

By mid October, the Serbian Army occupied Cavtat and soon found itself at the approaches to the besieged city of Dubrovnik from which various appeals for help were sent out to the world. In Vukovar, on 16 October, the legendary defender - Blago Zadro was killed. Despite the presence and mediation of international observers, the Serbian Army on 17 October, expelled about 5,000 inhabitants of Ilok which they then proceeded to loot. The war on all fronts was being led at an unreduced tempo and Croatian towns were continuously shelled by Serbian artillery.

At the beginning of November 1991, there were approximately 300,000 displaced persons in the free parts of Croatia. On the day of the Serbian occupation of Vukovar on 18 November, the Serbian Army in Skabrnja massacred 74 elderly Croats and several days later they razed the Maslenica bridge completely cutting off the southern part of Croatia. In Geneva, on 23 November, an agreement was signed on the unblocking of JNA barracks and most of the arms in Croatia.⁹

Since the Serbian Army had, during its aggression, committed a series of crimes and completely violated several dozens agreed cease-fires, the Ministerial Council of the EU finally introduced sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro on 2 December. But the Serbian war machine could not be stopped through legal or economic means.

After the fall of Vukovar, decisive battles were led in western Slavonia where the Serbian Army intended cutting off the rest of Croatia. But the Croatian Army stopped the Serbian offensive and succeeded by 22 December, when the cease fire was signed, to free Papuk, Bilogora and a large part of Psunj. In this way, it was here that the front was established and it was here that UNPROFOR was to be subsequently deployed (Sector West).

FROM 1992 TO 1995 - GRADUAL LIBERATION OF OCCUPIED TERRITORY
As time went on - through the gradual arming and organisation of the Croatian Army, as well as through the development of the situation on the terrain - it became more clear that the Serbian Army had lost its chance to break the Croatian state and so, during December 1991, international activity aiming at ending the armed conflicts was increased. Experience in similar circumstances and the development of the situation on the territory of the former Yugoslavia showed that this international activity had only one firm principle - to maintain the "status quo", regardless of legal and moral factors. It is important to emphasise this as it is only by taking this fact into account that it is possible to see the continuity of the logic and the consistency of the relations of international factors towards events in the "territory of the former Yugoslavia". Serbian strategists were very familiar with this principle so that even now - after four years of "intensive" international community engagement - they have not given up on the application of all forms of force in the realisation of their plans for a Greater Serbia.

In this way, during December 1991, the UN Security Council adopted what was know as the Vance Plan on UNPROFOR and the UNPA; Resolution 724 was brought - on the new observer mission which was a military one to a certain degree; the Ministerial Council of the EU brought the "general framework for the recognition of the new states"; Germany and Austria announced their recognition of Croatia and Slovenia for 15 January, 1992. The Serbian Army therefore, in December 1991 undertook its strongest offensive on all fronts, in order to enter international negotiations with as much Croatian territory as possible. The failure, however, of the Serbian offensive in western Slavonia signified the end of further Serbian territorial advancement in Croatia, so that the "freezing" of the status quo - with the presence of international guarantees (UNPROFOR) - was in the strategic interests of Serbia as it gave the Serbs a free hand to move on to the aggression against Bosnia-Herzegovina with full force.

The day after the 1992 New Year, in Sarajevo and in the presence of Cyrus Vance, an agreement was signed on the cessation of hostilities between Croatia and the JNA. Although the Serbs did not have the strength to take more Croatian territory, this did not stop them from frequent artillery attacks on Croatian towns which were within the range of their guns. The main aim of this was probably to prevent the Croatian state from undertaking any liberation operations.

Military aeroplanes of the Serbian Army shot down, on 7 January 1992, an Observer Mission helicopter and five mission members were killed. From the middle of January, Croatia was recognised as an independent state by a whole series of countries and two weeks later Croatia received observer status in the C.S.C.E.

In the second half of February, the UN Security Council brought Resolution 743 on the deployment of peace forces in Croatia and UNPROFOR’s initial mandate was determined for a period of one year.

The plans for Greater Serbia, and even more their military, political and psychological preparations were no secret, so it was clear to the world that what was to follow would be the Serbian aggression against Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is probably for this reason that on 24 February, 1992 in Lisbon, the EU offered a proposal to the solution to the B-H crisis - the forming of three constitutive (national) units on the basis of the last three population censuses. Since that time, world attention (official and unofficial) has been focused on B-H on which an aggression was carried out by Serbia with the aid of the B-H Serbs themselves with the same bloody and destructive methods and consequences which had already been seen in the attacks on Croatia.

Serbian artillery from Serbia, Montenegro, B-H and Serbian occupied parts of Croatia continued to attack Croatian towns and put the finishing touches to the expulsion and killing of the remaining Croats in the occupied territories. The political activities of Croatia during 1992 were focused on affirming and including Croatia in the complicated structures of international organisations and protecting the Croatian people in B-H from the Serbian aggression. At the end of March, Croatia was accepted into the C.S.C.E.

In April, when Serbia began its conquest of B-H from different directions, a bitter war ensued in the Posavina region which till then had been spared heavier Serbian attacks. The reason for this is that the narrow Posavina corridor - in war-torn B-H - served as the umbilical cord for the Serbian Army in western Bosnia and the (western) parts of occupied Croatia. Without the taking and control of the Posavina corridor, the creation of Greater Serbia would not be possible, therefore, (Croatian and Bosnia-Herzegovinian) Serbia took great effort in attacking Posavina. It was then that the most civilians in Slavonski Brod lost their lives from the Serbian long range artillery shells.

The Serbian aggression on B-H also brought a very heavy financial burden to the already damaged Croatian economic potential - at the end of April, more than 200,000 refugees from B-H had found shelter in Croatia and this number increased daily.

The attacks on Herzegovina grew stronger jeopardising the survival of Dubrovnik and the surrounding area which was, to a great degree, already occupied and the Croatian Army in May and June 1992 undertook a large action in the southern front and liberated twenty-seven villages from Osalj to Plat and the Herzegovinian hinterland.

At the beginning of May 1992, Croatia received guest status in the Council of Europe and on 22 May was received as a full member of the UN. In this month, the EU withdrew its ambassadors from Belgrade and Serbia was thrown out of the C.S.C.E. UN Resolution 757 dated 30 May, introduced sanctions to Serbia and Montenegro.

By the middle of May, UNPROFOR took over responsibility in Sector East and gradually the same occurred in the other three sectors, i.e. the occupied parts of Croatia. The UN soldiers in the occupied parts of Croatia did not get in the way of the Serbian Army as far as expelling non-Serbs or artillery attacks on Croatian towns was concerned. It became clear that UNPROFOR had absolutely no authority or strength for any efficient action, least of all in reintegrating occupied Croatian territory into the Croatian state system. This, therefore, had to be done - in accordance with the unbearable Serbian terror and international circumstances - by the Croatian armed forces themselves.

During 1992, in the free parts of Croatia, the inhabitants of Dalmatia were in the most difficult situation since they not only had to bear Serbian artillery attacks but also the problems arising from their isolation. In order to save the Dalmatian towns from close range artillery attacks, in June 1992, the Croatian Army, in a lightening attack, freed the Miljevac Heights: seven villages and 180 square kilometres of territory, confiscating large amounts of arms and ammunition. At the end of January 1993, the Croatian Army freed 13 villages in the Zadar hinterland in the Maslenica action. This enabled the building of the Maslenica Bridge which had been destroyed by the Serbs in 1991.

At the beginning of October 1992 - under still unsolved circumstances - the Serbian Army entered Bosanski Brod and in this way took control over the Posavina corridor which extended the survival of most of the occupied areas in Croatia and western Bosnia. In the second half of October, the Serbian Army, on the basis of an agreement between Tudjman and Cosic, withdrew from Konavle and 30 villages between Cavtat and Vitaljina were returned to Croatian authority. Since Serbian artillery attacks continued, the Croatian Army was forced to liberate the Konavle hills in another military action. In the first half of September 1993, the Croatian Army freed the Medak pocket (Divoselo, Citluk and Pocitelj) from where the Serbian Army had constantly shelled Gospic. After this point, a full twenty months passed in political and diplomatic activity of the international community and groups of states which through extensions of the UNPROFOR mandate, numerous resolutions, decisions and advice promised the "peaceful reintegration" of occupied Croatian territory, but the actual situation showed only the strengthening of the status quo. Apart from this, the unbelievably long restraint of the Croatian state from any military action against the Serbian occupation conditioned the ever increasing dramatic and complex development of events in B-H. The long Croatian wait had one exceptionally favourable circumstance - in the meantime, the Croatian Army had become considerably stronger in its organisation and armaments.

The threshold of Croatian endurance finally broke at the beginning of May 1995 when in a lightening action called "Flash" which lasted several days freed the occupied parts of western Slavonia. After that Croatian towns (including Zagreb) which were within range of Serbian artillery were exposed to severe shelling.

Three months after "Flash", the Croatian Army carried out another action called "Storm" which liberated the entire occupied territory apart from eastern Slavonia.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE SERBIAN AGGRESSION ON CROATIA
Every study which chronologically presents a certain series of events must contain a certain level of interpretation, which in this presentation of the Serbian aggression on Croatia I attempted to reduce to the lowest possible level. This interpretation, which includes the value relation of the author towards events, could not be avoided nor was there any attempt to hide it. Therefore, because of the fact that world media in their reports on the Serbian aggression included and still include completely opposed explanations or cover-ups of political interest, it is interesting to quote some collective facts which speak for themselves as to the aim and type of the aggression carried out by Serbia in the final part of this study.

And five years after the beginning of the Serbian aggression on Croatia, and four years after the stopping of the Serbian advancement onto Croatian territory, one notices a certain lack of scholarly studies which process this complicated theme according to its causes, course and consequence. The deepest traces it left on individuals and on Croatia as a community were the consequences of war. And those consequences which are reflected in measurable units are not even completely evidenced so that the statistics I am about to submit should not be taken as final.

According to official statistics, 10,668 citizens of the Republic of Croatia were killed through direct military activity. Among them more than one third are civilians and of this number 300 are children. 37,180 people were wounded (more than a third are civilians and 1,000 are children). Officially there are 7,827 missing, forcefully abducted or imprisoned persons (of this number 2,642 are from Vukovar). Anthropological findings, witness testimonies or documents testify that more than 1,000 Croatian citizens were massacred. Only in UNPA Sectors East and South - after the arrival of UNPROFOR - more than 600 civilians were killed and 7,000 were expelled. Once more it is necessary to emphasise that these tragic numbers are not final as they include only those casualties which, by the end of 1995, passed official procedures of verification (for instance, those killed are considered to be those for whom medical or autopsy reports were made). An added problem is that in the making of these statistics, the occupied Croatian territories were not accessible although they formed 25% of Croatian state territory and were the scene of the majority of casualties.

According to reports of the Government Office for Displaced Persons and Refugees, the number of registered displaced persons in Croatia comes to 356,627. This figure does not include the persons (refugees from Croatia) who at the time of the most severe war in 1991 found refuge abroad. This figure comes to some 250,000 people but is reduced in 1994 to approximately 60,000 refugees. The numbers referring to refugees from B-H are as follows: at the end of 1992 in Croatia there were some 402,000 refugees and a further 700,000 travelled through Croatia to go to third countries. Some 100,000 refugees and displaced persons are accommodated in 501 accommodation units specifically built or adapted for this purpose and the remaining are in private accommodation.

In order to understand the severity of these statistics it is necessary to underline that the number of Croatian inhabitants on unoccupied Croatian territory is just over four million and that the financial means for providing for such a huge number of displaced persons and refugees are as follows: 70% from the state budget and 30% from donations.

According to statistics processed so far, direct material damage sustained by Croatia comes to approximately 28 billion US dollars. 30% of the economic facilities have been destroyed, 160,000 housing units and some 600 villages or towns have been destroyed, 1,067 villages or towns and 25% agricultural land were occupied. The number of destroyed or targeted hospitals, health centres and schools is measured in the hundreds.

The Institute for the Protection of Monuments submitted incomplete data as follows: among the destroyed villages, 322 are of historic significance (including 10 archaeological sites); more than 600 individual buildings or objects registered as cultural monuments have been destroyed or damaged - of this number 126 are of world or national significance; 46 museums, 9 archival buildings, 22 libraries have been damaged or destroyed; the fate of sacral and private collections is unknown, as well as the fate of the entire fund of five museums which was stolen and subsequently exhibited as "Serbian heritage" elsewhere. The historic centres of Vukovar, Vinkovci, Lipik, Pakrac, Hrvatska Kostajnica and Petrinja have been completely or partially destroyed; significant damage has been incurred to the historic cores of Osijek, Karlovac, Gospic and Otocac; the historic centres of Dubrovnik, Sibenik, Zadar, Split and many other smaller Croatian towns have been damaged. The historic centres of Dubrovnik and Split are on UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

The Serbian Army targeted 502 churches and monasteries; 94 are completely destroyed, 98 heavily damaged and 59 lightly damaged, with the extent of damages to 103 sacral objects not yet determined.

Apart from the series of destroyed natural surroundings, also damaged are the national parks of Plitvice Lakes, Kopacki rit and Krka. Another serious and long term consequence of the Serbian aggression will be approximately two million mines which the Serbian Army laid in Croatia - mostly without mapping them. To this must also be added the unexploded shells whose percentage comes to 20% of the number of shells actually fired. It is enough to mention that in the period of only five months after "Storm" more than 400 civilians were killed when they returned on their own initiative to see their homes after four years of exile.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

Doris Pack: Cowardly Actions of the West