BREAKING THE LOGJAM: REFUGEE RETURNS TO CROATIA (ICG Balkans Report N°49)
BREAKING THE LOGJAM: REFUGEE RETURNS TO CROATIA (ICG Balkans Report N°49)

Author(s): Author Not Specified
Subject(s): Inter-Ethnic Relations, Peace and Conflict Studies, Wars in Jugoslavia
Published by: ICG International Crisis Group
Keywords: Serbian refugees from Croatia;
Summary/Abstract: The position Croatia's Serbs has long been contentious. Croat nationalists have often seen the Croatian Serbs as a Trojan Horse that has been used to undermine Croatia, with the aim of carving out pieces of Croatian territory and joining them to a Greater Serbian state. In communist times there was widespread Croat resentment at perceived advantages afforded to Serbs in Croatian party bodies and institutions. Serbs for their part derived many advantages from Croatia's inclusion in Yugoslavia, which placed them in a wider union bringing together Serb communities throughout Yugoslavia. The nationalist euphoria with which most Croats greeted the assertion of Croatian sovereignty and independence in 1990- 91 caused anxiety and insecurity among Serbs which, manipulated by the Serbian leadership in Belgrade, led to an armed rebellion in regions in which Serbs formed a significant proportion of the population, and the expulsion of most Croats from those regions. Croatia's reconquest of most of those regions in 1995 met with international disapproval, due to the mass Serb exodus which it prompted and widespread atrocities against the few who remained.

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