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The original Krajina was carved out of parts of the crownlands of Croatia and Slavonia by Austria in 1553/ 1578 in order to form the Military Frontier with the Ottoman Empire. Many Serbs immigrated in the region and participated in the fight against the Ottomans. The Austrians controlled the Frontier from military headquarters in Vienna and did not make it a crown land, though it had some special rights in order to encourage settlement in an otherwise deserted, war-ravaged territory. The abolition of the military rule took place between 1869 and 1871Events January January 18 The member-states of the North German Confederation unite into a single nation-state known as the German Empire. The King of Prussia is declared the first German Emperor as Wilhelm I of Germany. January 28 France surrenders to en. After that, the areas were returned to their previous crownlands.
Following World War IWorld War I (also known as the First World War , the Great War the War of the Nations and the "War to End All Wars") was a world conflict occurring from 1914 to 1918. No previous conflict had mobilized so many soldiers, or involved so many in the field of, it became part of YugoslaviaYugoslavia Jugoslavija in all south Slavic languages) is a term used for three separate political entities that existed during most of the 20th century. Translated, the name means Land of the South Slavs jug in Jugoslavija means south). The first was a ki where it was in the PosavskaSava also Save ( German Save Hungarian Szava is a river in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, a right side tributary of Danube at Belgrade. It is 940 km long and drains 95,720 km2 of surface area. In Roman times the river was named Savu banovina with most of old Croatia-Slavonia. Following World War IIWorld War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the world's nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. The war was fough, the PartisanThe Yugoslav partisans were the main anti-fascist resistance movement which fought against the occupation of Yugoslavia by Axis forces during World War II. The uniting force of the anti-fascist partisans on the territory was People's Liberation Army and P leaders made it part of the SFRY's Socialist Republic of Croatia. The political self-organization along national lines existed since the early 20th century, and the Serbs of Croatian Krajina as well as Bosnian Krajina and other territories west of Serbia had a notable political party in the Independent Democratic Party under Svetozar Pribicevic between the two world wars.
Sources vary about the population numbers, and it was difficult to determine the exact population due to the war situation; many Serb refugees from elsewhere in Croatia and Bosnia settled in the Krajina and a steady stream of people left the region to escape its pervasive poverty. According to a local census by the RSK authorities from 1993, there were 480,000 people: 91% Serbs (433,595), 7% Croats and 2% others. In 1994, the RSK's government estimated the population at 430,000 people [1]. The apparent fall in the population may have been due to the RSK authorities' efforts to drive out the non-Serb minorities as well as the ongoing exodus of Serbs.
Krajina Dinar, 5 million dinar note The partial implementation of the Vance Plan drove a wedge between the governments of the RSK and Serbia, the RSK's principal backer and supplier of fuel, arms and money. Milan Babic strongly opposed the Vance Plan but was overruled by the RSK's assembly. On February 26, 1992 he was deposed and replaced as President of the RSK by Goran Hadžic , a Miloševic loyalist. Babic remained involved in RSK politics but as a considerably weaker figure.
The position of the RSK eroded steadily over the following three years. On the surface, the RSK had all the trappings of a state: an army, a parliament and president, a government with its own ministries and even its own currency and stamps. Its economy was, however, wholly dependent on support from the rump Yugoslavia, which had the effect of importing that country's hyperinflation. The RSK issued its own currency, the Krajina Reformed Dinar (HRKR), in parallel with the Yugoslav Reformed Dinar in July 1992. This issue was followed by the October Dinar (HRKO), first issued on October 1, 1993 and equal to 1,000,000 Reformed Dinar, and the 1994 Dinar, first issued on January 1, 1994 and equal to 1,000,000,000 October Dinar.
The economic situation in the Krajina soon became disastrous. By 1994, only 36,000 of its citizens were employed out of a population of 430,000 (an unemployment rate of over 92%). The war severed its trade links with the rest of Croatia, with its few industries left idle. It had few natural resources on which to rely and had to import most of its resources, goods and fuel. Its agriculture was devastated, operating at little more than a subsistence level. [2] Professionals went abroad to Serbia or elsewhere to escape the Republic's grinding poverty. To make matters worse still, the RSK's government was grossly corrupt and the region became a haven for black market and other criminal activity. It was clear by the mid-1990s that the RSK was economically unviable without a peace deal and reintegration into Croatia. This was especially clear in Belgrade, where the RSK had become an unwanted economic and political burden for Miloševic. His government sought to push the Krajina Serbs into settling the conflict but was rebuffed, much to its frustration.
The republic's weakness also affected its armed forces, the Vojska Srpske Krajine (VSK). Since the 1992 ceasefire had been agreed, Croatia had spent large sums of money importing weapons and training its armed forces with the aid of American contractors. At the same time, the VSK had grown steadily weaker, with its soldiers poorly motivated, trained and equipped. The VSK had only about 55,000 soldiers available to cover a front of some 600km in Croatia plus 100km along the border with the Bihac pocket in Bosnia; 16,000 of these were stationed in eastern Slavonia, leaving only some 39,000 to defend the main part of the RSK. In reality, only 30,000 of the theoretical 55,000 were capable of being fully mobilised. The VSK had little mobility and faced a far stronger Croatian army. It was also politically divided between supporters of Hadžic and Babic. On occasion, this rivalry broke out into clashes between rival units, which left several people wounded.
An early demonstration of the new Croatian capabilities came in January 1993 when the revitalised Croatian army launched an attack on Serbian positions around Maslenica in southern Croatia (which prevented them from utilizing sea access via Novigradsko more). In a second offensive in September 1993, the revitalised Croatian army overran the Medak pocket in the southern Krajina. The Croatian action was halted by the successful intervention of Canadian UN peacekeepers. Although the Krajina Serbs were able to bring up reinforcements fairly quickly, the strength of the Croatian forces proved a shock. Hadžic sent an urgent request to Belgrade to send reinforcements, arms and equipment. In response, around 4,000 paramilitaries under the command of Vojislav Šešelj and the notorious " Arkan" arrived to bolster the VSK. They found that the RSK's government and military was in a chaotic state.
The RSK's end came in 1995, when Croatian forces retook western Slavonia in Operation Flash (May) and overran the rest in Operation Storm (August). As a consequence, almost the entire Serbian population fled in what was in part an evacuation ordered by the Krajina Serb authorities and (allegedly) in part "a large-scale deportation and/or displacement" conducted by Croatian forces under the command of Colonel General Ante Gotovina (for which the latter has been indicted by the ICTY) [3]. Serbia did not intervene, having earlier indicated in the state-controlled media that it was finally washing its hands of the Krajina Serbs.
Around 150,000–200,000 Serbs left the RSK in 1995, most of whom fled to Serbia (and are mostly still there). Of the Serb inhabitants that lived in the main part of the RSK (i.e. excluding eastern Slavonia), only 4,000 were left after the offensive. Some Serbs and most of the expelled Croats have since returned, but the Krajina Serb population is still only a fraction of its pre-1995 numbers. The autonomous regions planned by the government in 1992 were disbanded on February 7, 1997 and the areas were integrated into civic counties. At the time, the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from the Krajina was quietly accepted by Western governments as a means of ending the conflict quickly (rather like the expulsion of the Germans from eastern Europe after World War II). Since then, however, it has come under close scrutiny from war crimes investigators. Prosecutors have indicated that, had he not died, President Tudman probably would have faced indictment for his actions in the expulsion of the Krajina Serbs.
The parts of Krajina in eastern Croatia (along the Danube) remained in place as the Republic of Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and western Srem (previously the Srpska Autonomna Oblast Slavonija, Baranja i zapadni Srem, or sometimes called Sremsko-Baranjska Oblast). The national and local authorities signed the Erdut Agreement in 1995, sponsored by the United Nations, that set up a transitional period during which the UNTAES peacekeepers would oversee a peaceful reintegration of this territory into Croatia. This process was completed in 1998.