Croatian War of Independence

Nationalistic sentiment, which would bring an end to the Yugoslav federation, had been widespread among various ethnicities for some years. Albanian demands in 1981 for Kosovo to be removed from Serbia and transformed to a constituent republic within Yugoslavia led to riots,[43] and similar attitudes surfaced among other nations with the Serbian SANU Memorandum in 1986; Croatia and Slovenia also responded negatively in 1989 after Serbia's leader Slobodan Milošević organized coups in Vojvodina, Kosovo and Montenegro to install authorities who would be loyal to his cause.

Croatia declared independence from socialist Yugoslavia in 1991. War broke out in 1991 with Yugoslav National Army open attacks on Croatia. At the end of 1991 there was full-scale war in Croatia. The war was between the Serbs, in what had been the Republic of Serbia in the former Yugoslavia, and Croats in the newly independent Croatia. The reasons for the war are very complex. Very simply, while Croatia and Slovenia wanted to separate from Yugoslavia, Serbs were largely unwilling to allow this to happen, probably largely for economic reasons.[44]

Under the influence of Slobodan Milošević's propaganda, the importance of who won the first Croatian multi-party elections in 50 years was diminished. Allegedly, Serbs had influenced both Croatian nationalist leader Franjo Tuđman and communist leader Ivica Račan.[45] The electoral win of Franjo Tuđman further inflamed the situation. Croatian Serbs left the Croatian parliament and created the Association of the Municipalities of Northern Dalmatia and Lika in Knin. This was later to become the Republika Srpska Krajina. On the events of 1990–92, Milan Babić, Serbian leader and president of Republika Srpska Krajina, was later to declare that he had been "strongly influenced and misled by Serbian propaganda".[46]

These events culminated in the full scale Croatian War of Independence between 1991 and 1995. The war ended with Croatian victory with Operation Storm (known in Croatian as Oluja) in the summer of 1995. The events of August 1995 remain the subject of several cases before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, regarding the conduct of the victorious Croatian Army and the exodus of ethnic Serbs.[47]

Croatia was internationally recognized on 15 January 1992 by the European Union and the United Nations. During that time, Croatia controlled less than two thirds of its legal territory. The first country to recognize Croatia was Iceland on 19 December 1991

share accommodation
marijuana merchant services