KRAJINA and the fate of Serbs in Croatia

Krajina (Pronounced: Krayina)

The following Human Rights Watch report relates the tale of a diminished Serbian minority in a newly-independent state of Croatia:
Human Rights Watch: Croatia 1999

The Status of Serbs in Croatia – Polozaj Srba u Hrvatskoj
AIM, Zagreb, 17.5.1998. 

News: 

• AIM (Alternativna informativna mreza) is a project of independent journalists from former Yugoslavia and the European Civic Forum; 
• Feral Tribune, Croatian independent newspaper 

In August 1995, Croat forces committed the greatest single act of ethnic cleansing in the Yugoslav civil wars that began with the unilateral declarations of secession by Slovenia and Croatia from Yugoslavia in 1991. By eradicating the Serbian population of Krajina, the Croats have erased its very existence. With only a few thousand elderly Serb remaining, Krajina’s emptiness, its burnt homes and numerous graves are today a witness of human tragedy. The Serbs from Eastern Slavonia also departed when UN ceded the administration of this province to the Croatian government in January 1998. They joined the sad refugee destiny of a significant majority of Serbs that for centuries inhabited a region today recognized as a state of Croatia. The newly-elected Croatian government has promised to change the refugee return policy and improve the rights of Serbs in Croatia, and the implementation of their democratic promises will be closely monitored.

Presentation of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (in Serbian):

http://members.tripod.com/~kutla/rsk/

http://www.srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/srbi_rsk.html
http://suc.suc.org/politics/papers/history/krayina.html

http://spc.org.yu/Genocid/Gornjokarlovacka/gornjoe.html
http://spc.org.yu/Genocid/Zagrebacko/zagrebackoe.html
http://spc.org.yu/Genocid/Dalmatinska/dalmatinskae.html
http://spc.org.yu/Genocid/Osijecko/osjeckoe.html
http://spc.org.yu/Genocid/Slavonska/slavonskae.html

ARTICLES AND ANALYSIS

During the escape which the Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, called "voluntary ethnic cleansing" and President Clinton "a new hope for peace" the refugees were shelled both by the Croatian artillery and air force, beaten and stoned by angry Croatian mobs in the presence of UN monitors and Croatian police. At the end of September 1995, over 170,000 refugees arrived to Serbia and another 20,000-30,000 settled the Serb controlled territory in Bosnia. In 1991 Serbs were 15% of population in Croatia. Today they make up 2.5%.
See http://www.cdsp.neu.edu/info/students/zoran/photo.html

Croats burn and kill with a vengeance
By Robert Fisk, © The Independent 09/04/95
Croats burn and kill with a vengeance; Robert Fisk in Kistanje finds ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Krajina Serbs in full swing, with bodies piling up and buildings gutted 
http://www.keepfaith.com/history/ref2.html#indep3
http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/greenside/761/168krajina95.html

Ethnic Cleansing That’s Convenient
By Charles Kreuthammer, © Washington Post, Editorial, 08/15/95
In the face what U.N. observers in Croatia call the largest instance of ethnic cleansing in the entire Balkan wars, where were the moralist who for years have been so loudly decrying the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims. Where were the cries for block the demand for arms, the call to action on behalf of today a pitiful victims. There were the columnists, the senators, the other posturors who excoriate the West for standing by when Bosnian Muslims are victimised and are silent when the victim of the day is Serb? 
http://www.suc.org/politics/myth/articles/aug95.Charles_Krauth.html

U.N. Reports Attacks On Serb Civilians Fleeing Croatia's Krajina Blitz
By John Pomfret and James Rupert, © Washington Post, 08/10/95; Page A01
"ZAGREB, CROATIA, AUG. 9 – U.N. troops in Croatia saw soldiers wearing uniforms with insignia of the Muslim-led Bosnian army kill five elderly Serb civilians in a town on the Bosnian border, the United Nations said today."
Search Washington Post archives: 
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/searches/mainsrch.htm#archives

Refugees Attacked as They Flee Krajina Area; Balkans: Serbs form the largest flight of humanity in four years of warfare. They jam roads for miles
By Tracy Wilkinson and Dean E. Murphy, © Los Angeles Times, 08/09/95
"In the largest flight of humanity in four years of Balkan bloodshed, a river of refugees Tuesday poured from the conquered Krajina region of Croatia – and many of them came under new attack." 
Search the Los Angeles Times Archives ID: 0950074303

Croatians count toll in a ‘clean war'
By Robert Fisk, © The Independent, 09/05/95
"Evidence of atrocities; an average of six corpses p/day, continues to emerge . . . the corpses; some fresh, some decomposed, are mainly of old men. Many have been shot in the back of the head or had throats slit, others have been mutilated. Isolated pockets of elderly civilians report people recently gone missing or detained . . . Endless Croat invitations for Serbs to return, guarantees of citizens' rights and property rights etc, have gushed forth from all levels . . . However, Serbian homes and lands . . . continue to be torched and looted."
http://www.keepfaith.com/history/ref2.html#indep2

As World Watches Bosnia, Croatia Mops Up Krajina; Burning, Looting Of Serb Property Resumes
By Michael Dobbs, © Washington Post, 09/02/95; Page A23
"ZAGREB, CROATIA, SEPT. 1 – With the world’s attention focused on the trial of strength between the West and the Bosnian Serbs, Croatian army and paramilitary units have been busy eradicating traces of a centuries-old Serb presence in Croatia's former breakaway region of Krajina."
Search Washington Post archives: 
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/searches/mainsrch.htm#archives

Serbs In Croatia Say Oppression Forcing Them To Leave Or Assimilate
By James Rupert, © Washington Post, 08/13/95; Page A25
"ZAGREB, CROATIA, AUG. 12 – At St. Sava’s Serbian Orthodox Church last Sunday, the worshipers were few and fearful. In the cool, dim sanctuary, as an elderly choir sang a soaring liturgy, a tall, scowling Serb noticed strangers."
Search Washington Post archives:
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/searches/mainsrch.htm#archives

Zagreb ensures Serbs will never see their homes again
By Robert Fisk, © The Independent 09/07/95
"In 10 years’ time, no doubt, the Croatians will tell the world how they officially encouraged ‘their’ Serbs to return to Krajina while the Serbs preferred to stay in Belgrade. By which time, legislation will have ensured that returning Serbs – even if they believed the false promise of going back to homes the Croatian army have destroyed – would have lost the only legislative protection that would have made their lives worthwhile."
http://www.keepfaith.com/history/ref2.html#indep1

‘Christian culture’ chugs back into Krajina
By Robert Fisk, © The Independent 09/09/95
"The train had been divided at Ogulin, a grubby old diesel tugging us eastwards, into the land that was, until a month ago, the ‘Serb Republic of Krajina.’ On ruined stations stood Croatian policemen with automatic rifles and dark glasses, troops sleeping among the ripped-up sidings, the booking halls and waiting rooms blackened by fire. Even where the stations had been destroyed, at Javornik, west of the Plitvice lakes, for example – the Cyrillic station sign had been replaced by a one in Latin script - an equally new Croatian flag had been draped over the shell of the building. My companions stared from the window, looking, I suppose, for the Serbs who lived in the devastated villages on either side of the track, unable to comprehend that the Serb towns had been so comprehensively looted and torched by the Croatian army of European culture and Christianity of which the brochure boasted, that no Serb would ever return" 
http://www.keepfaith.com/history/ref2.html#indep5

Croats slaughter elderly by the dozen
By Robert Fisk, © The Independent 09/10/95
One shocking UN report - which only became available this weekend - records the massacre of six elderly men and women in the village of Komic two weeks ago, three of them burned alive by armed Croats; a middle-aged man in the same village was shot and his body burned in his house. Yesterday I saw the brains of an 80-year-old woman lying in the driver's seat of her family's car in the village of Babici shortly after relief workers had taken away her body; she had been shot three days earlier - less than a week after UN officers had visited her home to give her food.
http://www.keepfaith.com/history/ref2.html#indep4

Serbs Set to Lose Homes in Zagreb Land Grab
© InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS), 09/19/95
"Those Serbians who fled together with citizens of Serbia and Montenegro who own properties in Croatia have until the end of September to appear before the special commission in Zagreb to try to reclaim their property – an impossible deadline to meet in view of the prevailing circumstances, say human rights activists."
http://www.keepfaith.com/history/ref2.html#loosehomes

More burning and looting
© VOA 09/21/95 
http://www.keepfaith.com/history/ref2.html#CROREF

Arson and death plague Croatia
By Chris Hedges, © New York Times, 09/30/95
"The failure by the Croatian government to stem the violence, despite its assurances that the killings and destruction are being carried out by ‘renegades,’ has led U.N. officials here to conclude that the attacks are part of a systematic campaign to drive the 3,500 remaining Serbs from the Krajina and prevent those who want to return from coming back."
http://www.keepfaith.com/history/ref2.html#arson

Reports Say Croatia Uses Killing, Arson; Monitors Allege Policy Of Terror Against Serbs
By John Pomfret, © Washington Post, 09/30/95; Page A17
"ZAGREB, CROATIA, SEPT. 29 – Croatian army and police units allegedly burned 60 percent of the houses in one large swath of territory they conquered from separatist Serbs last month and executed elderly Serbs who remained in the region, according to reports by the European Union and the United Nations."
Washington Post archives

UN: Violence moves into a new phase
© VOA 10/02/95 
Zagreb: Ever Since The Croatian Army Recaptured Most Serb Held Territory In August, The United Nations Has Reported The Looting And Burning Of Abandoned Serb Homes. 
U-N Spokesman Chris Gunness Says Men In Army Uniforms Are Now Robbing Serbs Who Have Remained In Croatia.
http://www.cdsp.neu.edu/info/students/marko/ref.html#newphase

In small village in Croatia, only elderly Serbs remain
© Copyright 1995 Nando.net, New York Times 
Since the August offensive, more than 150 elderly people have been killed in Krajina, U.N. human rights monitors say. Some have been found in mass graves. Some were killed with a single bullet in the head. Throughout Krajina, Serbian villages have been razed, after the houses were looted. Croats are now taking over Serbs' houses.
http://www.nando.net/newsroom/nt/1212olssrb.html
Also see NY Times archives

Unicef Supplies Relief To Refugees Fleeing From Krajina
UNICEF Press Release, 8/8/95
"UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, is poised to supply desperately needed relief to the fleeing children and women of Krajina. According to the latest reports, between 50,000 to 120,000 people are on the move - the largest number of refugees that the war has seen. Most of them are women and children."
http://www.oneworld.org/unicef/press_august.html

International Community accuses Croats of war crimes
 

When Serbs Are Cleansed, It's Silence; Contrary to media accounts, the Serbs are not the only force of evil in the Bosnian conflict
By Alexander Cockburn, © Los Angeles Times, 09/28/95, Metro Section 
"When Bosnian Muslims are shelled, driven from their homes or murdered, the world weeps. When Serbs are driven from their homes or are discovered with their throats cut, eyes stay dry. When Serbs do the cleansing, it's ‘genocide.’ When Serbs are cleansed, it’s either silence, or an exultant cry that they had it coming to them." 
Search the Los Angeles Times Archives ID: 0950089264

U.N. Reports Mass Graves In Krajina
By John Pomfret, © Washington Post, 08/19/95; A16
"ZAGREB, CROATIA, AUG. 18 – The United Nations said today that it has evidence that people were buried in mass graves and some were killed execution-style during Croatia's massive offensive to recapture the Serb-held territory of Krajina."
Search Washington Post archives

Ethnic Cleansing of Krajina – Analysis
http://www.flamemag.dircon.co.uk/media%20folder/text/news_yugo_krajina.htm

War Crimes Panel Finds Croat Troops ‘Cleansed’ the Serbs
© New York Times, 3/21/99
"Investigators at the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague have concluded that the Croatian Army carried out summary executions, indiscriminate shelling of civilian populations and 'ethnic cleansing' during a 1995 assault that was a turning point in the Balkan wars, according to tribunal documents. The investigators have recommended that three Croatian generals be indicted, and an American official said this week that the indictments could come within a few weeks. […] 
Any indictment of Croatian Army generals could prove politically troublesome for the Clinton Administration, which has a delicate relationship with Croatia, an American ally in preserving the peace in Bosnia with a poor human rights record. The August 1995 Croatian offensive, which drove some 100,000 Serbs from a large swath of Croatia over four days, was carried out with the tacit blessing of the United States by a Croatian Army that had been schooled in part by a group of retired American military officers. Questions still remain about the full extent of United States involvement. In the course of the three-year investigation into the assault, the United States has failed to provide critical evidence requested by the tribunal, according to tribunal documents and officials, adding to suspicion among some there that Washington is uneasy about the investigation. Two senior Canadian military officers, for example, who were in Croatia during the offensive, testified that the assault, in which some 3,000 shells rained down on the city of Knin over 48 hours, was indiscriminate and targeted civilians. [. . .]
A section of the tribunal’s 150-page report is headed: ‘The Indictment. Operation Storm, A Prima Facie Case’: ‘During the course of the military offensive, the Croatian armed forces and special police committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law, including but not limited to, shelling of Knin and other cities," the report says. ‘During, and in the 100 days following the military offensive, at least 150 Serb civilians were summarily executed, and many hundreds disappeared.’ The crimes also included looting and burning, the report says." 

Croatia Accused Of Ethnic Cleansing; U.N. Reports Indiscriminate Shootings Of Refugees
By James Rupert, © Washington Post, 08/09/95; Page A15
"ZAGREB, CROATIA, AUG. 8 – A pattern of attacks by Croatian troops on fleeing Serbs has led some Western diplomats and U.N. officials to suggest Croatia has set in motion what they call the largest instance of "ethnic cleansing" in the Balkans wars."
Search Washington Post archives

European Union report accuses Croats of atrocities
© Copyright The News & Observer Publishing Co, Associated Press, 09/30/95
Continuing "rave breaches of international law" by Croatian authorities has encouraged "the disappearance of a sizable and unwanted minority," the EU report said. In one instance, soldiers pistol-whipped an 81-year-old woman and fired shots around her head after placing her up against a wall, it said.
http://www.cdsp.neu.edu/info/students/marko/ref.html#EUaccuse

U.N. Notes Croatia Atrocities
© Associated Press, 10/03/95
"Yasushi Akashi, the senior U.N. envoy to former Yugoslavia, said U.N. personnel had ‘first-hand evidence’ of the murders, which includes bloodstains, human hair and skin found in the homes of the victims." 
http://www.cdsp.neu.edu/info/students/marko/ref.html#UNatrocities

Atrocities Against Serbs Detailed
© Reuters, Los Angeles Times 10/15/95
"A United Nations general has released a detailed report of Croatian atrocities against Serbs in Croatia's Krajina region and blamed the Croatian government for failing to prevent a ‘scorched-earth campaign.’"
Search the Los Angeles Times Archives ID: 0950094854

Citing 230 Murders, U.N. Declares Serbs Victims Of Croat Atrocities
By John M. Goshko, © Washington Post, 10/23/95; Page A12
"UNITED NATIONS, DEC. 22 – The Security Council said today that Serbs in Croatia's war-torn Krajina region have been the victims of widespread murder and other atrocities, and the council demanded that the Croatian government revoke a measure aimed at preventing displaced Croatian Serbs from returning to their homes."
Search Washington Post archives

Exultant Croatia heads for murderous election By Jon Swain, ©The Sunday Times, 10/22/95
"The murder of helpless elderly Serbian peasant men and women who stayed behind in Krajina has been continuing, however, if at a reduced pace. A recent report by European monitors said that up to six elderly Serbs were being murdered a day. Many people remain unaccounted for."
http://www.cdsp.neu.edu/info/students/marko/ref.html

Croatian leader Tudjman shrugs off atrocities
© Reuters, 10/06/95
"Tudjman said Croatia was the target of a vicious slander campaign aimed at destabilizing democratic rule and weakening it ahead of peace talks on the Bosnian and Croatian wars as well as looming parliamentary elections." 
http://www.cdsp.neu.edu/info/students/marko/ref.html

Six year of ethnic cleansing of Croatia's President Franjo Tujman
© 1999 Le Monde Diplomatique
"…launched its ‘Operation Lightning’ in Western Slavonia (5) and ‘Operation Storm’ in the Krajina of Krin. These two operations resulted in the retaking of the region and the expulsion of 360,000 Serbs (6). Tens of thousands of Serbs were also forced..."
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/1999/05/08francesco (pass required)

U.S. Cautiously Supports Offensive Against Serbs
By Dana Priest, © Washington Post, 08/05/95; Page A14 
"As the United Nations and most European allies condemned the Croatian government’s major offensive against separatist Croatian Serbs, the Clinton administration expressed cautious support."
Search Washington Post archives

Cook presses Croatia on war crimes
By Richard Norton-Taylor, © The Guardian, 03/14/00 
"The foreign secretary, Robin Cook, yesterday urged the new Croatian government to hand over evidence of war crimes to the international tribunal at the Hague. 
Croatia's lack of cooperation with the tribunal poisoned the country's relations with western Europe during the regime of president Franjo Tudjman, who died last December. The tribunal has long insisted that Zagreb hand over documents relating to operations Flash and Storm, in which Serbs were driven out of the Krajina region of Croatia in 1995." 
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3973624,00.html

Three cheers for Lord Carrington; The straight talking elder statesman shames his successors
By Derek Brown, © The Guardian, 08/27/00 
"And, on the hysterical branding of Slobodan Milosevic: ‘I don't think he is any more a war criminal than President Tudjman of Croatia who ethnically cleansed 200,000 Serbs out of Krajina. Nobody kicked up a fuss about that.’
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3896336,00.html

Possibility of Refugee Return and Improved Rights for Serbs in Croatia

The Plight of Serb Returnees
By Boris Raseta, AIM, Zagreb, 05/25/97
"Six families which returned to Kistanje (populated today by Croats from Janjevo in Kosovo) had to seek alternative accommodation, although their houses were vacant. As a rule, Serbs cannot get employment in the places from which they had fled. They live on humanitarian aid, agriculture and family ‘subsidies’. According to Albert Kralj, President of the Homecomings group, ‘at least ten laws are in force in Croatia which prevent return through colonisation. In addition, the age structure of the remaining Serbs will lead to a rapid reduction in their numbers. The Serbs who stayed in Lika during the ‘Storm’ were on average 66 years old. The average age of returnees is 59, while that of the newly settled Croats is 32.’ " 

Croats ready to 'blockade Nato'
By John Phillips, © The Times, 04/09/01 
“The campaign by Croat nationalists to form a breakaway Bosnian Croat mini-state spread to Croatia yesterday when war veterans announced that they would blockade Nato bases on the Dalmatian coast supplying peacekeeping forces in Bosnia. Mirko Condic, leader of Croatia’s largest association of veterans from the Croatian and Bosnian wars of independence in the 1990s, said that protests against ‘foreign occupiers’ would be held from midday today. The demonstrations, at the Divulje base near the Croatian resort of Split and at another Nato facility at the port of Ploce, were seen as acts of retaliation for the closure by Sfor troops, supplied by Nato, of a bank believed to be financing attempts to build a Bosnian Croat mini-state. Relations between the Bosnian Croat community and Bosnia’s United Nations administration, supported by Sfor, deteriorated further last weekend as Thomas Miller, the American Ambassador, accused the militant Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) party of criminal activities. ‘We are embittered by the treatment of the international community, the Government of Bosnia and the current Croatian Government, considering their relations with the Croatian nationality in Bosnia,’ Petar Kacunko and Luka Podrug, two senior members of the Croatian veterans’ association, said. Patrols by French, Italian, German and Spanish peace-keepers were stepped up around Mostar last weekend after UN officials backed by Sfor soldiers seized control of the Hercegovacka Bank, setting off rioting by thousands of Bosnian Croats.” 
http://www.thetimes.co.uk

Croatian Serb Official Challenges Census Results
© RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 6, No. 114, Part II, 06/19/02 
Milorad Pupovac, who is a leader of Croatia's Serbian minority, said in Zagreb on 18 June that the government's new census figures underestimate the size of the Serbian population and must be corrected, RFE/RL's South Slavic and Albanian Languages Service reported (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 18 June 2002). Pupovac said that new figures must be prepared that will include Serbs who have returned to Croatia since the census was taken in 2001, as well as individuals who refused to declare their nationality to census takers. Pupovac argued that many Serbs fear discrimination and do not openly reveal that they are Serbs. If his demands are not met, he said he will file a formal complaint against Croatia with the UN, Council of Europe, European Commission, and OSCE. [PM] 
Center of Documentation and Information on Minorities in Europe - Southeast Europe 
http://www.cedime.net

Comment
By Julia Pascal (playwright), © The Guardian, 07/14/03 
Before our performance, we give a synopsis of The Golem in Croatian for non-English speakers. The translation is scrupulously checked to ensure it contains no Serbian or international vocabulary. Language, as well as people, must be ethnically cleansed. Minorities have got the message. The few remaining Serbs and Bosnians here are fast changing their names and converting to Catholicism.  
[…]
Back in the Solaris Hotel I talk to a Croatian waiter, a former gastarbeiter in Germany. We discuss Berlin. "Sheisse," he spits. "Berlin is sheisse. Too many Turks. Just like the Bosnians. I hate Muslims, I want to go to Iraq and fight Muslims." On the last night of the festival, our driver, who is the son of a theatre secretary, is to return us to Solaris. His drinking mate, a six-foot giant, sandwiches me in. I am crushed between the two drunks who scream with laughter and hardly look at the road. "Calm down," I tell the driver who ignores me. When our Croatian actor/translator intervenes, he yells at her, "Fuck off, you. And your Jews."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,997619,00.html
 
 
 
 
 

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