Pakrac clash

Pakrac clash
Part of the Croatian War of Independence
Pakrac
Pakrac (Croatia)
Date March 1–3, 1991
Location town of Pakrac, central northern Croatia
Result Croatian victory
Croatian special police retook the town of Pakrac from rebel Serbs
Belligerents
 Croatia
Croatian special police		 Rebel Serb insurgents
Yugoslav People's Army
Commanders and leaders
Stjepan Kupsjak Jovo Vezmar
Casualties and losses
180 insurgents captured

The Pakrac clash (known in Croatian as the "Battle of Pakrac", Bitka za Pakrac) was a bloodless skirmish that took place in the eastern Croatian town of Pakrac in March 1991. It was one of the first serious outbreaks of violence in what became the Croatian War of Independence.[1][2]

The clash began after rebel Serbs seized the town's police station and municipal building and harassed Croatian government officials. The Croatian government carried out a counterstrike against the insurgents, sending Interior Ministry special police to retake control. Fighting broke out between the two sides. Despite an attempted intervention by the Yugoslav National Army, the Croatian government successfully reasserted its control over the town.

Contents

Background

During 1990 and early 1991, many Croatian Serbs became increasingly vocal in opposition to the government of Croatian President Franjo Tuđman. They established a Serbian National Council in July 1990 to coordinate opposition to Tuđman's policy of pursuing independence for Croatia. Milan Babić, a dentist from the southern town of Knin, was elected president. Knin's police chief, Milan Martić, established paramilitary militias. The two men eventually became the political and military leaders of the Republic of Serb Krajina (RSK), a self-declared state incorporating the Serb-inhabited areas of Croatia.

Conflict in Pakrac

Pakrac lay just outside the western edge of the northern part of what became the RSK, in the region of Slavonia. In February 1991, Babić and Martić directed Serb paramilitaries to take over the town's police station and municipal buildings. The paramilitaries disarmed the town's Croatian policemen and subjected local Croatian officials to a campaign of vilification and intimidation.[3]

In response, President Tuđman ordered the Croatian Interior Ministry to restore the government's authority in the town. At 04:30 on March 2, 1991, a 200-strong Croatian anti-terrorist police unit entered Pakrac. They arrested 180 of the Serb insurgents without either side sustaining deaths or injuries.[3]

The Croatian action prompted an intervention from the federal Yugoslav government. Borisav Jović, the Serbian representative on the collective Presidency of Yugoslavia, supported a request by Yugoslav Defence Minister Veljko Kadijević to send the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) to the scene. The arrival of JNA tanks in Pakrac came too late to stop the Croatian special police from retaking the town. However, it prompted remaining Serbian insurgents to begin shooting at the town from the surrounding hills. It ended when talks produced an agreement that the Croatian police would be allowed to retain control of the town.[3]

Consequences

The incident had a lasting significance in that it was the first serious skirmish in what would become a full-scale war between Croatia and its rebel Serb population.[3] It was used by the Serbian government to bolster nationalist propaganda claims that Croatia was committing "genocide" against its Serb population. Up to 40 deaths from the clash were reported by Serbian and Montenegrin media outlets. In an indication of the confused and highly inaccurate nature of the reporting, the Belgrade daily Večernje novosti reported on its front page that the town's Orthodox priest had been killed, on its second page that he had been wounded, and on its third page printed a statement from him. The Yugoslav presidency finally issued a statement that nobody had been killed in Pakrac.[4]

The ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), led by Serbian President Slobodan Milošević, condemned the Croatian police action as a "brutal attack by the Croatian government on the population of Pakrac [using] violent and fascist methods" – a claim that was carried prominently by the state-controlled Radio Television of Serbia. The SPS urged Serbs to attend "protest meetings against the violent behaviour of the Croatian HDZ government."[5] Milošević used the event to demand that the JNA be authorized to forcibly disarm Croatia but was rebuffed, leading him to declare that he no longer recognised the authority of the federal presidency.[6]

References

  1. ^ Stephen Engelberg (March 3, 1991). "Belgrade Sends Troops to Croatia Town". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/03/world/belgrade-sends-troops-to-croatia-town.html?ref=croatia. Retrieved December 11, 2010. 
  2. ^ Stephen Engelberg (March 4, 1991). "Serb-Croat Showdown in One Village Square". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/03/04/world/serb-croat-showdown-in-one-village-square.html?ref=croatia. Retrieved December 11, 2010. 
  3. ^ a b c d Ramet, Sabrina P. (2006). The three Yugoslavias: state-building and legitimation, 1918–2005. Indiana University Press. p. 385. ISBN 978-0-253-34656-8. 
  4. ^ Kurspahić, Kemal (2003). Prime time crime: Balkan media in war and peace. US Institute of Peace Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-1-929223-38-1. 
  5. ^ Gordy, Eric D. (1999). The culture of power in Serbia: nationalism and the destruction of alternative. Penn State Press. p. 38 fn. 37. ISBN 978-0-271-01958-1. 
  6. ^ Kaufman, Stuart J. (2001). Modern hatreds: the symbolic politics of ethnic war. Cornell University Press. pp. 189–190. ISBN 978-0-8014-8736-1. 

External links