page_title: Serbs of Croatia
section_title: Croatia War of Independence
hierarchical_section_title: Serbs of Croatia / History / Contemporary period / Croatia War of Independence
context_page_description: The Serbs of Croatia or Croatian Serbs constitute the largest national minority in Croatia. The community is predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christian by religion, as opposed to the Croats who are Roman Catholic.
  In some regions of modern-day Croatia, mainly in southern Dalmatia, ethnic Serbs have been present from the Early Middle Ages. Serbs from modern-day Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina started actively migrating to Croatia in several migration waves after 1538 when the Emperor Ferdinand I granted them the right to settle on the territory of the Military Frontier. In exchange for land and exemption from taxation, they had to conduct military service and participate in the protection of the Habsburg Monarchy's border against the Ottoman Empire. They populated the Dalmatian hinterland, Lika, Kordun, Banovina, Slavonia, and Western Syrmia. From the beginning of the 20th century, the Croat-Serb Coalition led by Croat Frano Supilo and Serb Svetozar Pribićević governed the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia until the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918, a few thousand Serbs moved to Croatian territory.
context_section_description: Amid rising of Serbian nationalism and tensions between Yugoslav republics during the breakup of Yugoslavia, on 8 July 1989 Serbs held a rally in Knin during which they exhibited numerous Chetnik symbols and were invoking JNA's military intervention against Croatia. With the introduction of the multiparty system, the first ethnic Serb parties were founded in Croatia, largest being Serb Democratic Party (SDS). Soon afterward, extremist leaders of the Serb movements in Lika, Northern Dalmatia, Kordun, and Podunavlje called for armed rebellion against Croatian government, violence against Croats and refused to recognize legally elected Croatian authorities.
  Tension grew following the Croatian Democratic Union's victory in the 1990 general election since one of its political goals was Croatia's independence from Yugoslavia. Jovan Rašković, leader of SDS, refused to participate in the work of the Croatian Parliament in May 1990. Some prominent Serbian politicians and scientists, such as Simo Rajić and Jovan Bamburać, called for coexistence, de-escalation and peace, while others organized Serb parties in the Croatian government-controlled areas, like Milan Đukić, while others, like Veljko Džakula, unsuccessfully tried to organize the parties in the rebelled areas, but their work was prevented by Serb warmongers. On 17 August 1990, part of the Croatian Serbs, supported by Serbia, rebelled against Croatian government in the so-called Log Revolution during which they were blocking roads with logs and large rocks, blowing up the trails, starting forest fires, committing armed robberies, rapes and murders.
  On 22 December 1990, Croatian Parliament ratified a new constitution in which Serbs were classified as a national minority. The proclamation of the new constitution was considered by Serbian leaders evidence of Croat hostility towards Serbs. Thus, SDS, which rejected the new constitution, began building its own national governmental entity in order to preserve rights that Serbs saw as being stripped away and to enhance the sovereignty of the Croatian Serbs. Under the influence of Greater Serbian propaganda and with the support from Serbia, rebelled Serbs established an unrecognized state called Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) in hopes of achieving independence and complete self-governance from Croatia. As the popularity of the unification of RSK with Serbia into a Greater Serbia increased, the rebellion against Croatia become more intense. The RSK had de facto control over one-third of Croatian territory during its existence between 1991 and 1995 but failed to gain any international recognition. In the area controlled by rebelled Serbs, nearly all non-Serbs were expelled; between 170,000 and 250,000 people.
  In the spring of 1991, an open war broke out. The war ended with a Croatian military success in Operation Storm in 1995 and subsequent peaceful reintegration of the remaining renegade territory in eastern Slavonia in 1998 as a result of the signed Erdut Agreement from 1995. Local Serbs, on the ground that Agreement, established the Serb National Council and gained the right to establish the Joint Council of Municipalities.
  In February 2015, during the Croatia–Serbia genocide case, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) unanimously dismissed the Serbian lawsuit claim that Operation Storm constituted genocide, ruling that Croatia did not have the specific intent to exterminate the country's Serb minority, though it reaffirmed that serious crimes against Serb civilians had taken place. The judgment stated that it is not disputed that a substantial part of the Serb population fled that region as a direct consequence of the military actions. The Croatian authorities were aware that the operation would provoke a mass exodus; they even to some extent predicated their military planning on such an exodus, which they considered not only probable but desirable. Fleeing civilians and people remaining in United Nations protected areas were subject to various forms of harassment, including military assaults and acts by Croatian civilian
caption: Territorial extent of Republic of Serbian Krajina, proclaimed unilaterally in 1991 and disestablished in 1995
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