storm - Hrvatski memorijalno-dokumentacijski centar Domovinskog ...

46
THE SERBIAN REBELLION IN CROATIA
August 1995 marked the fi ft h anniversary of the start of the Serbian rebellion in
Croatia (Knin, 17 August 1990). In late 1991 the rebellion led to the creation of
the Republic of Serbian Krajina (Republika Srpska Krajina, RSK). Th e anniversary
of the rebellion in Knin could not be celebrated because the RSK had ceased to exist in
the western parts of the Croatia a dozen days before. It disappeared in the action of the
Croatian armed forces and police, code-named Storm. Although it did not mark the end
of the war, Operation Storm announced the imminent end of hostilities and became the
symbol of Croatian victory in the Homeland War.
Th e way in which the RSK came into being along with the irrational behaviour of
its leadership made liberation by an operation such as Storm inevitable. Th e Serbian
rebellion in Croatia started in the summer of 1990 aft er the fi rst democratic elections
in Croatia. Th e elections were won by the Croatian Democratic Union on a political
platform of national reconciliation. In Serbia and among a signifi cant part of the Serbs
in Croatia its victory was accepted as a confi rmation of the return of the ustashi to the
political scene. In spite of the oft en tough political rhetoric of the HDZ, and in spite of the
fact that research on the activity of that party is yet to come, it would be diffi cult to deny
the claim that there was no reason for the Serbs to rise up in arms. Th e view according
to which a part of the Serbs in Croatia was not prepared to accept any Croatian state also
appears to be acceptable. 29
Th e Serbian rebellion in Croatia also marked the fi nal stage of the crisis and collapse
of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). Th e disintegration of the SFRY
started aft er the death of Josip Broz Tito. At the same time, the communist system in
Europe also fell apart quickly, and rather unexpectedly, in the late nineteen-eighties. All
that led to the breakdown of the SFRY because the Serbian political, scientifi c, religious
and other elite circles tried to impose their vision of the Yugoslav system upon the
others. 30 Th ey attempt failed. Th e aggressive Serbian policy was tolerated in the other
republics until the overthrow of the political leaderships in SAP Vojvodina and SAP
Kosovo, and the abrogation of the autonomy of the provinces of Vojvodina and Kosovo.
29 Boško Todorović/Dušan Vilić, Izdaja i odbrana Jugoslavije» (Th e Betrayal and the Defence of Yugoslavia);
Privredapublik, Belgrade, 1990, 163-166, 169-170; Dejan Jović, «Jugoslavija: država koja je odumrla»
(Yugoslavia: Th e State that Withered Away), Prometej, Zagreb, 2003, 483; Nikica Barić, “Srpska pobuna
u Hrvatskoj 1990-1995” (Serbian Rebellion in Croatia 1990-1995), Golden marketing - Tehnička knjiga,
Zagreb, 2005, 58-59.
30 Dušan Bilandžić, «Hrvatska moderna povijest» (Modern Croatian History), Golden marketing, Zagreb,
2005, 750-764.