Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
an Krajina
(
krajina
means “border”). This new “country” (hardly recognized by any other
nations) minted its own money and raised its own army, much to the consternation of Croa-
tia—which was now worried about the safety of Croats living in Krajina.
As the Serbs advanced, hundreds of thousands of Croats fled to the coast and lived as
refugeesinresorthotels.TheSerbsbeganacampaignofethniccleansing,systematicallyre-
moving Croats from contested territory—often by murdering them. The bloodiest siege was
at the town of
Vukovar,
which the Yugoslav People's Army surrounded and shelled relent-
lessly for three months. By the end of the siege, thousands of Croat soldiers and civilians
haddisappeared. Manywerelater discovered inmass graves; hundredsremain missing, and
bodies are still being found.Inasurprise move, Yugoslav forces also attacked the tourist re-
1992, both Croatia and the Republic of Serbian Krajina had established their borders, and a
tense ceasefire fell over the region.
The standoff lasted until 1995, when the now well-equipped Croatian army retook the
Serb-occupied areas in a series of two offensives—
“Lightning”
(Blijesak),
in the northern
part of the country, and
“Storm”
(Oluja),
farther south. Some Croats retaliated for earli-
er ethnic cleansing by doing much of the same to Serbs—torturing and murdering them,
and dynamiting their homes. Croatia quickly established the borders that exist today, and
the Erdut Agreement brought peace to the region. But most of the 600,000 Serbs who had
once lived in Croatia/Krajina were forced into Serbia or were killed. While Serbs have long
since been legally invited back to their ancestral Croatian homes, relatively few have re-
turned—afraid of the “welcome” they might receive from the Croat neighbors who killed
their relatives or blew up their houses just two decades ago.
As violence erupted in Croatia and Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina was suspiciously quiet.
Evenoptimistsknewitcouldn'tlast.AtthecrossroadsofBalkanculture,Bosnia-Herzegov-
ina was even more diverse than Croatia; it was populated predominantly by Muslim Bos-
niaks (43 percent of the population), but also by large numbers of Serbs (31 percent) and
Croats (17 percent). Bosniaks tended to live in the cities, while Serbs and Croats were more
often farmers.
