A Balkan republic; formerly part of Yugoslavia.
(Serbo-Croatian Hrvatska) Country in central Europe, bounded N by Slovenia and Hungary, W by the Adriatic Sea, and E by Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Yugoslavian republic of Serbia.
government
Under the 1990 constitution, there is a two-chamber parliament, consisting of a chamber of representatives, with between 100 and 160 seats, and a chamber of municipalities. Each serves a four-year term. The president is popularly elected for a five-year term. Election contests are majoritarian, and there is a second-round runoff race if no candidate secures a majority of the vote in the first round.
history
Part of Pannonia in Roman times, the region was settled by Carpathian Croats in the 7th century. Roman Catholicism was adopted 1054. For most of the 800 years from 1102 Croatia was an autonomous kingdom under the Hungarian crown, but often a battleground between Hungary, Byzantium, and Venice. After 1524, most of the country came under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, returning to the Hungarian crown only after the Peace of Karlovitz 1699.
Croatia was briefly an Austrian crownland 1849 and again a Hungarian crownland 1868. It was included in the kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes formed 1918 (called Yugoslavia from 1929). During World War II a Nazi puppet state, “Greater Croatia”, was established April 1941 under Ante Pavelic (1889–1959). As many as 100,000 Serbs and 55,000 Jews were massacred by this Croatian regime, which sought to establish a “pure” Croatian Catholic republic. In Nov 1945 it became a constituent republic within the Yugoslav Socialist Federal Republic, whose dominant figure was Marshal Tito.
Serb–Croat separatism
From the 1970s, resentful of perceived Serb dominance of the Yugoslav Federation, a violent separatist movement began to gain ground. Nationalist agitation continued through the 1980s and there was mounting industrial unrest from 1987 as spiraling inflation caused a sharp fall in living standards. In an effort to court popularity and concerned at the Serb chauvinism of Slobodan Milosevic, the Croatia League of Socialists (communists), later renamed the Party of Democratic Renewal (PDR), adopted an increasingly anti-Serb line from the mid-1980s. Following Slovenia's lead, it allowed the formation of rival political parties from 1989. In the multiparty republic elections of April–May 1990, the PDR was comprehensively defeated by the right-wing nationalist Croatian Democratic Union (CDU). Led by Franjo Tudjman, who had been imprisoned in 1972 for his nationalist activities, the CDU secured almost a two-thirds assembly majority. Tudjman became president.
secession from Yugoslavia
In Feb 1991 the Croatian assembly, along with that of neighboring Catholic Slovenia, issued a proclamation calling for secession from Yugoslavia and the establishment of a new confederation that excluded Serbia and Montenegro. It also ordered the creation of an independent Croatian army. Concerned at possible maltreatment in a future independent Croatia, Serb militants announced March 1991 the secession from Croatia of the self-proclaimed “Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina”, containing 250,000 Serbs. In a May 1991 referendum there was 90% support in Krajina for its remaining with Serbia and Montenegro within a residual Yugoslavia. A week later, Croatia’s electors voted overwhelmingly (93%) for independence within a loose confederation of Yugoslav sovereign states. On 26 June 1991 the Croatian government, in concert with Slovenia, issued a unilateral declaration of independence.
civil war
From July 1991 there was escalating conflict with the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army and civil war within Croatia. Independent Serbian “governments” were proclaimed in Krajina and in eastern and western Slavonia. A succession of cease-fires ordered by the Yugoslav federal presidency and the European Community passed unobserved and by Sept 1991 at least a third of Croatia had fallen under Serb control, with intense fighting taking place around the towns of Osijek and Vukovar. Croatia’s ports were besieged and at least 500,000 people were made refugees. Rich in oil, Croatia retaliated with an oil-supply blockade on Serbia and announced, in Oct 1991, that it had formally severed all official relations with Yugoslavia.
cease-fire agreed
In early Jan 1992 a peace plan was successfully brokered in Sarajevo by United Nations (UN) envoy Cyrus Vance. The agreement provided for an immediate cease-fire, the full withdrawal of the Yugoslav army from Croatia, and the deployment of 10,000 UN troops in contested Krajina and E and W Slavonia until a political settlement was worked out. This accord was disregarded by the breakaway Serb leader in Krajina, Milan Babic, but recognized by the main Croatian and Serbian forces. Under German pressure, Croatia's and Slovenia's independence was recognized by the EC and the US early 1992, and in May by the UN.
UN peacekeeping force established
During March and April 1992 14,000 UN peacekeeping forces were drafted into Croatia and gradually took control of Krajina, although Croatian forces continued to shell Krajina's capital, Knin. Tudjman was directly elected president in Aug, and the CDU won an overwhelming victory in concurrent assembly elections. In Jan 1993 Croatia launched a surprise offensive into Serbian-held territory in the disputed enclave of Krajina, violating the 1992 UN peace agreement, and the UN voted unanimously to extend its peacekeeping mandate in Croatia. A new government was sworn in April 1993. + prikaži više