Armed incident near the Plitvice Lakes
 
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Location of Plitvice Lakes on the map of Croatia |
The armed incident near Plitvice Lakes occurred on March 31, 1991 between special forces of the Croatian police and Serb insurgents in the Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia . Two people were killed, one on each side. The confrontation is also known as the “Bloody Easter at the Plitvice Lakes” ( Croatian “Krvavi Uskrs na Plitvicama” or “Plitvički krvavi Uskrs” ) because it occurred on Easter Sunday .
The escalation contributed significantly to the increase in ethnic tensions between Krajina Serbs and Croats , which ultimately led to the outbreak of the Croatian War.
backgrounds
In May 1990 the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) under the leadership of Franjo Tuđman won the first free and democratic elections in the Yugoslav republic of Croatia. The movement vigorously campaigned for Croatia's independence. A large part of Croatia's Serbian population opposed these efforts and viewed them as anti-Serbs. The Serbian population strived for a unified Yugoslavia. However, this slowly started to disintegrate due to the economic problems.
After Tuđman's electoral success, Serbian nationalists triggered a revolt in the so-called “ Krajina ” (bordering Bosnia and Herzegovina ), which is the main settlement area of the Croatian Serbs, which was directed against Croatia's tendencies towards independence. Croatian government officials were forcibly evicted from the area. They were denied access to much of the Krajina area. State ownership in the entire region came under the control of the local Serbian associations, or the newly established “Serbian National Council” under the leadership of Milan Babić (which would later represent the government of the breakaway “ Republic of Serbian Krajina ”). The processes did not happen overnight, but over a fairly long period of time, which lasted more than a year.
The Plitvice Lakes are an extremely scenic area and were already placed under the protection of a national park in the former Yugoslavia. The Plitvice Lakes are located approx. 150 km south of the Croatian capital Zagreb . Numerous Serbs have settled in the area around the Plitvice Lakes since the Turkish Wars. The ethnic population structure in the area has been very heterogeneous since then. In 1991 the national park was on the border with Serbian-controlled areas in the south of the lakes. At that time, mainly Croatians, who were loyal to the government in Zagreb, watched over the national park.
The Plitvice conflict
On March 29, 1991, the leadership of the national park was driven out by armed Krajina Serbs, allegedly they were supported by paramilitary volunteers from Serbia under the command of Vojislav Šešelj . The area itself is relatively sparsely populated and at that time there was no particular threat potential for the local Serbs. Instead, the control of the important north-south traffic artery, which runs through the middle of the park, is named as a possible motivation for taking over the national park. This route connects the Serbian communities in the Lika region in the south with those from the Banovina in the north. The loss of control over the national park meant a serious setback for Croatian national pride and the strategic position of the Croatian government within the Lika. Tuđman's government therefore decided to retake the national park by force.
On March 31, 1991, special forces of the Croatian police under the orders of the Interior Ministry entered the national park to drive away the Serb forces. Here, a bus carrying Croatian police forces on the main road ran north of Korenica in an ambush of Serb paramilitaries. The exchange of fire between the two parties to the dispute lasted all day. Two people died in the fighting, a Croatian and a Serbian police officer. Twenty other people were injured. 29 Serbian militants and police officers were arrested by Croatian police forces. Goran Hadžić , who later became president of the “ Serbian Republic of Krajina ”, was among those arrested .
Echo and reactions
The violent clashes raised alarms in the collective presidency of Yugoslavia. On the evening of March 31, there was a meeting on the situation at the Plitvice Lakes. At the urging of the Serbian representative of the presidency, Borisav Jović , but against the interests of Slovenia and Croatia , the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) was assigned to create a buffer zone between the two sides and defuse the conflict. The units of the JNA, which were commanded by a Croatian colonel, intervened the following day. The Serbian parliament also met for an urgent session. The disputes were dubbed a practical casus belli . Likewise, the Krajina Serbs were given "all necessary support" in the conflict with Zagreb.
On April 2, the Yugoslav People's Army ordered the Croatian special police forces to leave the national park, which they did. General Andrija Rešeta , who had general command, told the media that his men would prefer “neither side” and that they were only here to avoid “ethnic confrontations” as long as possible. However, the Croatian leadership reacted very upset about the JNA's actions. Tuđman’s main adviser Mario Nobilo announced that “the JNA has told us quite literally that it would liquidate our police force if we did not leave the Plitvice Lakes”. Tuđman himself said on Croatian radio that "if the army continued its activities, it would be considered an enemy occupation army".
Although the intervention of the JNA successfully brought the fighting to a close, the front lines in the area hardened. It also prevented further Croatian operations against the rebelling Serbs. A few months later, the open outbreak of war came into the hands of the Krajina Serbs. This time, however, it did so with the full and open support of the Yugoslav People's Army. Only after the military operation Oluja in August 1995 did the Plitvice Lakes come under the control of the Croatian state again.
consequences
The event near the Plitvice Lakes had significant consequences for both parties to the dispute, Krajina Serbs and Croats. The dead were among the first in the Serbian-Croatian conflict, which led to radicalization on both sides. Nationalist hardliners and extremists used the example of the clashes to emphasize the need for radical measures, while moderate politicians who advocated negotiations and non-violent solutions fell more and more behind.
The dead on both sides were treated as martyrs by their respective people . Josip Jović , the Croatian policeman who was killed in the clashes near the Plitvice Lakes, has often been portrayed by the Croatian media as the “first victim of the war”. The Serbian counterpart Rajko Vukadinović was similarly treated by the Croatian Serbs and the Serbian media as a hero who died "to defend the Serbian land from the Croatian Ustaše ".
In Eastern Slavonia , these rebellions led to a series of events that culminated a month later in the Borovo Selo skirmish .
Web links
- Indictment against Vojislav Šešelj, Plitvice reference in Annex 1, point 9
- ICTY indictment against Slobodan Milošević, point 98, Additional Facts
Individual evidence
- ↑ International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, The Prosecutor against Vojislav Šešelj: Indictment , January 15, 2003
- ↑ a b c d Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia , pp. 175–76, 244. (Yale University Press, 2001)
- ^ Ivo Goldstein, Croatia: A History , p. 220. (C. Hurst & Co, 2000)
- ↑ Mihailo Crnobrnja, The Yugoslav Drama , p. 157. (McGill-Queens University Press, 1996)
- ↑ Christopher Bennett, Yugoslavia's Bloody Collapse , p. 150. (C. Hurst & Co, 1995)
- ↑ Viktor Meier, Yugoslavia: A History of Its Demise , p. 171. (Routledge, 1999)
- ↑ Hannes Grandits & Carolin Leutloff, "Discourses, actors, violence: the organization of war-escalation in the Krajina region of Croatia 1990-91", p. 36, in Jan Koehler, Potentials of Disorder: Explaining Conflict and Stability in the Caucasus and in the Former Yugoslavia . (Manchester University Press, 2003)