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BACKGROUND

As elsewhere in the territory of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRJ), Croatia’s transition to democracy and independence at the turn of the decade was fomented by nationalism. The country’s majority population overwhelmingly voted in the first openly contested elections for the nationalist Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and its leader, Franjo Tudjman, for president. Many saw the collapse of the SFRJ as an opportunity to attain autonomy from Belgrade and what they viewed as Serb hegemony. Serbs occupied a disproportionate number of state posts throughout the SFRJ, including in Croatia, and dominated the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA).By contrast, Croatia’s Serb minority viewed the nationalism that accompanied the Croatian independence movement with alarm, recalling Croatia’s prior incarnation as a fascist puppet state during the second world war, and the thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma who had died in the Jasenovac concentration camp.

Croatian Serbs began to assert the desire for autonomy within a still-Yugoslav Croatia in 1990. In September 1990, Croatian Serbs proclaimed the Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina (Srpska Autonoma Oblast Krajina). In March 1991, the region’s National Council declared Krajina’s independence from Croatia. The assertion of Croatian Serb autonomy grew during the spring, as Serbs in Western Slavonia declared loyalty to the Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina. Provocations by Croat nationalists in the area of Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (hereafter Eastern Slavonia) led to clashes between Serb rebels and Croatian police, including a Serb ambush that left a dozen police dead, shifting Croatian public opinion strongly against the Serbs.

Croatia’s declaration of independence in June 1991 saw the beginning of a major military offensive by rebel Serb forces; with the support of the JNA, they gained control over parts of Western Slavonia and Eastern Slavonia and eventually declared the unified territory to be a single state, the “Republika Srpska Krajina.” Heavy fighting in Eastern Slavonia in the last quarter of 1991 reduced Vukovar to rubble and led to the expulsion of over 80,000 ethnic Croats from the region. Vukovar was also the scene of grave violations of humanitarian law against Croat civilians, including the removal and murder of more than 200 patients from the town’s hospital. By 1992, a peace plan had been agreed upon under the auspices of the United Nations, the JNA had withdrawn, and U.N. peacekeepers deployed in the areas under Serb control (the U.N. Protection Force or UNPROFOR) were charged both with the protection of Serb civilians and with facilitating the return of displaced Croats. The areas under U.N. protection were divided into four sectors, East (Eastern Slavonia), West (parts of Western Slavonia around the town of Pakrac), and sectors North and South, a contiguous area encompassing parts of the Banija-Kordun and Krajina regions, including Knin.

In early 1995, the Croatian government indicated that it was unwilling to permit further extensions to UNPROFOR’s mandate in Croatia. A compromise mission with a more limited mandate and reduced troop strength was authorized in February by the Security Council and accepted by Croatia. Its deployment was effectively ended in May when the Croatian army launched an offensive against Serb-held territory in Western Slavonia (“Operation Flash”) recapturing the territory. A similar action in sectors North and South (“Operation Storm”) in August recaptured the remaining areas outside Eastern Slavonia. The two operations led to the flight of more than 200,000 Serbs into Eastern Slavonia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the single largest population displacement during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. In the case of Operation Storm, the exodus was accompanied by the killings of Serb civilians and widespread arson and dynamiting of Serb housing.1

The threat of further conflict in Eastern Slavonia was averted by an agreement between the Croatian government and the Serb leadership in the region, brokered by the U.N. and the U.S. Under the November 1995 Basic Agreement on the Region of Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and Sirmium (known as the Erdut agreement after the border town in which it was signed), the region would be demilitarized and placed under United Nations temporary administration pending its return to Croatian government control by January 1997, with the possibility of an extension for one year should either party demand it. The agreement allowed for the return of displaced persons, the right of the displaced to remain, respect for human rights, the creation of a transitional police force, and the holding of elections under the United Nations Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia (UNTAES).The mandate was later renewed until January 1998 at the request of the Serb leadership in the region. In June 1997, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) decided to extend the mandate of its Croatia mission (deployed since mid-1996) to include facilitating the return of refugees and displaced persons, and minority rights protection, and to deploy a substantial field presence throughout the former U.N. sectors. An additional accord, the Operational Agreement on Return(generally referred to as the “Joint Working Group Agreement”), designed to facilitate the return of displaced Serbs in the region to their former homes elsewhere in Croatia, was concluded in April 1997.2 After the expiration of the UNTAES mandate in January 1998, all Croatian territory was brought under government control. A small U.N. police monitoring mission remained in Eastern Slavonia until October 1998, when it was replaced by police monitors from the OSCE mission, which retains a substantial presence in the country.

Croatia is party to a full range of human rights obligations through its constitution and its membership in the Council of Europe, notably through ratification of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights), and its Additional Protocols 1, 2, 4, 7 and 11.3 Croatia has also ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention Against Torture.

1 See Human Rights Watch/Helsinki, “Croatia: Impunity for Abuses Committed During Operation Storm and the Denial of the Right of Refugees to Return to the Krajina,” A Human Rights Watch Short Report, Vol. 8, No. 13 (D), August 1996. 2 The Joint Working Group, which concluded the agreement, consisted of representatives from the government of Croatia, UNTAES and UNHCR. 3 In connection to its membership in the Council of Europe, Croatia has also ratified the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the European Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, and the European Charter for Regional or National Minority Languages, and has signed Additional Protocol 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

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