| Persecution of Croats in Serbia during the Yugoslav Wars | |
|---|---|
| Part of TheYugoslav Wars | |
| Location | Hrtkovci,Šid,Nikinci,Ruma,Slankamen,Vojvodina,FR Yugoslavia |
| Date | 1991-1999 |
| Target | Croats |
Attack type | Deportations,Mass Murder |
| Deaths | 17 |
| Victims | 20,000-50,000 Croats deported |
| Perpetrators | Serbian Radical Party |
| Convicted | Vojislav Šešelj |
During theYugoslav Wars, members of theSerbian Radical Party conducted a campaign of intimidation andpersecution against theCroats of Serbia throughhate speech.[1][2][3][4] These acts forced a part of the local Croat population to leave the area in 1992. Most of them were resettled inCroatia.[1][2][5][6] The affected locations includedHrtkovci,Nikinci,Novi Slankamen,Ruma,Šid, and other places bordering Croatia.[1] According to some estimates, around 10,000 Croats left Vojvodina under political pressure in three months of 1992,[7] and a total of 20,000 fled by the end of the year.[8] Between 20,000[7][8] and 25,000[9] to 30,000 according to Human Rights NGOs[10] to 50,000[11][12] Croats fled Vojvodina in the 1990s in total. Another 6,000 leftKosovo and 5,000Serbia Proper, includingBelgrade.[13]
The U.N.-backedInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) later indictedVojislav Šešelj for the specific case of the departure of Croats fromHrtkovci. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison forpersecution on political, racial or religious grounds,deportation andforced transfer as acrime against humanity, making it the only conviction of the Tribunal in relation to Yugoslav Wars on the territory of Vojvodina.
Vojvodina is a province ofSerbia. According to the 1991 census, its population was 2,012,517.Serbs comprised 57.2%,Hungarians 16.9% of its population, or 1,151,353 and 430,946 members, respectively.Croats numbered 74,226 members or 3.7% of Vojvodina's population (down from 109,203 from the 1981 census),[14][15] and 105,406 members in Serbia as a whole.[16]
Following theDissolution of Yugoslavia andYugoslav Wars, the Serb-Croat relations deteriorated. In 1991,Hrtkovci was an ethnically mixed village withCroatian plurality (40.2%),[13] located roughly 40 miles west ofBelgrade.Vojislav Šešelj, the leader of theSerbian Radical Party, made numerous public threats to Croats in Hrtkovci in May 1992.[17][18] On 1 and 7 April 1992, Šešelj called for the expulsion of Croats from Serbia at theSerbian Parliament.[19] Radicals replaced allLatin signs withCyrillic ones and even renamed Hrtkovci to "Srbislavci" – 'place of Serbs' – though only for a short amount of time.[2] Šešelj personally visited Hrtkovci on 6 May 1992 and gave ahate speech in front of a rally of Serb nationalists by publicly reading out a list of 17 Croat "traitors" who must leave the village.[2][20][4] In the speech, Šešelj said:
In this village, too, in Hrtkovci, in this place in SerbianSrem, there is no room for Croats... Including those from here, from Hrtkovci, who locked up their houses and left, reckoning, I suppose, that they would come back one day, but our message to them is: no, you have nowhere to return to. Serbian refugees will move into their houses...I firmly believe that you, Serbs from Hrtkovci and other villages around here, will also know how to preserve your harmony and unity, that you will promptly get rid of the remaining Croats in your village and the surrounding villages.[21]
Following the threats, one part of local Croats rushed to Croatia to see the houses which were offered to them in the plannedpopulation transfer. Incoming Serb refugees labeled Croats as "fascists".[5] One Croat was even murdered by the radicals.[22] Šešelj's party even crafted a slogan for their campaign: "All Croats out of Hrtkovci".[4] In 1991, Hrtkovci had 2,684 residents, including 1,080 Croats (40.2%), 555 Serbs and Montenegrins (20.7%), 515 Hungarians (19.2%), and 445Yugoslavs (16.6%).[13] By the end of 1992, 75% of its residents were Serbs.[5]
The number of Croats who left from the village of Hrtkovci was between 722[23] and 1,200.[24] Their empty homes were settled by Serb refugees from Croatia andBosnia. Likewise, some Serbs tried to protect their Croatian neighbors.[25] After the events, Yugoslav authorities arrested five radicals who were responsible for harassment of Croats.[2]
In its 1993 report, published during its 49th session, theUnited Nations Commission on Human Rights wrote thatHungarians and Croats in Vojvodina were subjected to "verbal and physical threats and other acts of intimidation, including setting houses on fire and destroying cultural and religious monuments", and thus left their homes in large numbers after Vojvodina lost itsautonomy. Another reason for their departure was that many were refusing to be drafted in the Yugoslav army, fearing they might be sent to the battle front.[3] Besides Hrtkovci, the report documented an exodus of Croats fromKukujevci andNovi Slankamen, as a result of threats and the bombing of their houses. The villages ofBeška andGolubinci were said to have lost their entire respective Croat population. Other means of intimidation included threatening telephone calls and letters. The report alleged that "the police have acquiesced in some of the incidents which have been attributedto individuals."[3] On 23 February 1993, the Commission adopted a resolution expressing its "grave concern" at the "violations of human rights occurring inSandžak and Vojvodina, particularly acts of physical harassment, abductions, the burning of homes, warrantless searches, confiscation of property and other practices intended to change the ethnic structure in favour of the Serbian population."[26]
On 29 August 1992, the BBC reported bombings of Croatian homes in the village ofNikinci.[27] In Golubinci, twenty cases were recorded where bombs were planted inside Croat houses. A 28-year old Croat woman was killed in her home on 7 February 1994.[13]The SerbianHumanitarian Law Centre, based inBelgrade, has documented at least 17 instances of killings or disappearances of Croats fromVojvodina from 1991-1995.[28] In many instances, entire Croat families were abducted and murdered. On the 20 April 1992, the Matijević family, consisting of Ana and Jozo Matijević and their underage son, Franjo, were kidnapped by unknown Serb militiamen from the village ofKukujevci. From there, they were taken toMohovo, then occupied byCroatian Serb forces, where the family was then murdered and buried in the village cemetery.[29] In July 1993, another Croat family fromKukujevci, consisting of Nikola and Agica Oksomić and 87-year-old Marija Tomić, Agica's mother, were murdered by two local Serb volunteers fighting forCroatian Serb forces inCroatia.[30]
According to different sources, between 20,000[8] and 25,000[31] Croats left Vojvodina in the 1990s. Some sources even place the number at up to 50,000.[32][33] Another 6,000 leftKosovo and 5,000Serbia Proper, includingBelgrade.[13]
In 2003,Vojislav Šešelj was indicted by the U.N. establishedInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). On 11 April 2018, the Appeals Chamber of the follow-upInternational Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) sentenced him to 10 years in prison under Counts 1, 10, and 11 of the indictment for instigatingdeportation,persecution on political, racial or religious ground (forcible displacement), and other inhumane acts (forcible transfer) ascrimes against humanity due to his speech in Hrtkovci on 6 May 1992, in which he called for the expulsion of Croats from Vojvodina.[34][35][36] The verdict was compared with similar hate speech propaganda judgements, such as the ICTY case ofRadoslav Brđanin, and theInternational Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda case ofJean-Paul Akayesu, where it was ruled that instigation is punishable when the speech is followed by subsequent criminal conduct.[19] The Appeals Chamber concluded the following:
...many non-Serbian civilians left Hrtkovci by way of housing exchanges with Serbian refugees in the context ofcoercion,harassment, andintimidation... In addition, given that the acts of violence and intimidation were aimed at non-Serbian civilians, particularly Croatians, the only reasonable inference is that the acts of forcible displacement amounted todiscrimination in fact, were carried out with discriminatory intent on ethnic grounds, and constituted part of a widespread or systematic attack against the non-Serbian civilian population, encompassing also areas in Croatia andBosnia and Herzegovina.[37]
| History |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Organizations | ||
| Media | ||
| Political parties | ||
| Symbols | ||
