A peace plan that scared Moscow

Today’s Croatian government considers it an important direction of its foreign policy to hand over to Ukraine the experience of successful peaceful reintegration of the occupied territories. On November 18, the government of Croatia, in session at the city of Vukovar, resolved to set up an ad hoc group that should render all the necessary consultative assistance in this matter to the Ukrainian side. Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said on November 21 during his visit to Kyiv that his country plans to share its experience of peaceful de-occupation.

This intention has triggered a stormy reaction of the Russian government – the Foreign Ministry of Russia made public a diffuse and emotional statement of its serious concern over the announced Croatian-Ukrainian cooperation.

Why?

To answer this question, we will have to recall briefly the entire so-called Croatian scenario of regaining the occupied territories.

This process can be divided into four stages.

The first stage of the “Croatian scenario” was a period of retreat, when the central Yugoslav government’s troops managed to establish control over a considerable part of Croatia’s territory – areas on the borders with Serbia, Bosnia, and Montenegro.

The invasion began with the seizure of Croatian Podunavlje with the center in Vukovar by the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) and Serbian volunteers on November 20, 1991.

At the same time, the JNA unsuccessfully continued to storm the Croatian city of Dubrovnik on the Adriatic coast. The footage of the shelling of a center of European cultural heritage swept over all the continents and caused world governments to drop the policy of forcing Croatia to get back to a united Yugoslavia. A crucial point came – the world began to recognize the country’s independence, but about 30 percent of the Croatian territory had already been occupied and a quasi-state, Serbian Krajina, was established in this area.

This signaled the beginning of the second stage of the “Croatian scenario” – a period of state and army formation, local military victories, and peace plans that remained on paper only.

In 1992-95 the war in Bosnia gathered momentum. International sanctions were imposed against Yugoslavia. Meanwhile, in spite of losing control over almost a third of its territory, Croatia was getting stronger, accumulating forces and resources.

President Franjo Tudjman, who had struggled for the right of Croats to have an independent state in socialist Yugoslavia and even served a prison term for his views, was disposed to victory only. Debates on the appropriateness of regaining the occupied territories were not popular either among Croatian politicians or in society.

Both before and after the Domovinski Rat (Patriotic War), Tudjman was criticized for an inclination to authoritarianism and nationalist views. But today, Croatian society mostly tends to believe that one of the crucial factors of the victory was Franjo Tudjman and his resolute stand on protecting the interests of Croatia and Croats.

In the mid-1990s the country successfully carried out general mobilization and formed professional special-purpose forces. The newly-formed Croatian army received patriotic and energetic commanders.

In spite of an international embargo (!), the Croats were actively and sometimes illegally purchasing weapons abroad. Although the country was in a deplorable economic situation, it managed to organize the production of military items at its own facilities.

At the same time, the international community was stubbornly trying to implement all kinds of peace plans in Croatia, despite the fact that the frontline ceasefire was being broken with regular skirmishes.

Great hopes were pinned on the peace plan Zagreb 4 (Z4). The draft agreement, proposed by the US, Germany as the EU representative, Russia, and the UN, envisaged broad autonomy for ethnic Serbs, up to the federalization of Croatia. But the leaders of Serbian Krajina were doing their best to thwart Z4. They wanted to join “Greater Serbia,” whereas the peace accords kept them as part of Croatia, albeit with a special status.

“We were very lucky that separatists rejected the peace agreements,” a former Croatian high-ranking official confessed. “This gave us carte blanche to liquidate the separatist enclaves.”

Early in the morning on August 4, 1995, Croatia launched Operation Storm, the third stage of the “Croatian scenario.”

Croatia did not coordinate the plan of hostilities officially with the international community. But, according to participants in those events, it was unofficially considered that this operation would not cause a stir in the world if it was rapid and if there were neither considerable losses among civilians nor the footage of the shelling of populated areas, which could shock the Western man in the street.

The attack on Serbian Krajina began on Friday, at the end of a workweek, and the operation was practically finished on Monday. Almost a fifth of the Croatian territory was liberated in four days. But Belgrade still controlled from November 1991 the lands on the Danube’s bank, on the border with Serbia. The de-occupation of this region – Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium with the center in Vukovar – became the goal of the fourth stage of the “Croatian scenario.”

The agreement on the peaceful reintegration of Croatian Podunavlje was signed on November 12 in the village of Erdut, Croatia, by the prime minister of Croatia and a representative of Serbian Krajina, who had coordinated his actions with Belgrade. The treaty was signed in the presence of the US ambassador to Croatia and a United Nations representative.

After the Erdut Agreement was signed, the UN Security Council passed a resolution on January 15, 1996, on establishing the United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES).

Reintegration began with demilitarization – all (!) military and paramilitary units, hardware, and weapons were withdrawn from the region. The guarantor of security was the so-called transitional police that consisted of Croats, local Serbs, and UN representatives. They were armed with pistols only.

Refugees and the administrative bodies formed outside the region, in exile, on the unoccupied territory of Croatia began to return en masse to the demilitarized area. The residents who lived there during the occupation and still remained Yugoslav citizens were issued – at will – Croatian passports.

Reintegration also included many other steps, such as introduction of the kuna, Croatian national currency, verification of some documents issued by the occupational administration, and amnesty. Under the latter, the members of military and paramilitary formations, who had committed no war crimes provable in court, were to be absolved of responsibility.

The formation of local government bodies was the crucial stage of reintegration. All the local residents who had passports of Croatia citizens, including the displaced persons who had not yet come back home from other regions of the country, were eligible to vote.

The mandate of the UN Transitional Administration expired on January 15, 1998. Since then, Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium have been legitimate parts of a reunited Croatia.

Peaceful reintegration of Croatian Podunavlje is one of the United Nations’ most successful missions.

Today, Croatia wants to hand over its experience to Ukraine. The head of the Croatian government, Andrej Plenkovic, said on November 21 during a visit to Kyiv: “I am convinced that Ukraine will follow the peaceful path of reintegration… The experience Croatia gained as part of cooperation with the UN mission may be interesting to the Ukrainian government.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has made a scathing and unfavorable comment on these plans. “We are convinced that the advice of foreign consultants, which can make the Kyiv government cherish a dangerous illusion of the possibility of a use-of-force scenario in the Donbas, will in no way promote security in south-eastern Ukraine,” the ministry’s statement says.

What triggered this reaction of Russia, when the Croatian government wants to tell Kyiv about only the peaceful way of de-occupation?

It can be presumed that the Russian government harbors a suspicion that, instead of instructing how to carry out peaceful reintegration, Croatia will teach Ukraine the ruses of Operation Storm. The Russian Foreign Ministry’s statement puts emphasis on the way Croatia conducted its military operations in 1995, even resorting to accusations of ethnic cleansings (although the Hague Tribunal threw out these accusations long ago). But the impression is that what really disturbed the Kremlin is the plan of a peaceful return of Croatian Poduvavlje – to be more exact, its two key points:

1. Local elections should be held only after demilitarization and the return of refugees. Any vote will be meaningless without the withdrawal of troops, disarmament, and guarantees of security, one of the UNTAES mission’s leaders said.

2. Following a transitional period, the region fully returns under the country’s jurisdiction, under the central government’s control. The UN plan for peaceful reintegration of Croatian Podunavlje did not call for any special statuses for the region.

It is not at all the plan the Kremlin wants to be implemented in Ukraine.

To prevent the transfer of the “secret techniques” of successful reintegration, Russia’s government is now making all its agents work like mad. Markiian LUBKIVSKYI, former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, has said that Russian diplomats received an instruction to gather all information about the open and confidential parts of Andrej Plenkovic’s visit to Kyiv. Besides, according to the diplomat, the Kremlin has issued an instruction to activate pro-Russian politicians and public activists in order to hinder the Ukraine-Croatia rapprochement.

Clearly, in this situation Ukraine is simply obliged to meticulously study the experience of Croatia and liven up bilateral relations.