Persecution of Croats in Serbia during the Yugoslav Wars

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(Redirected from
Expulsion of Croats from Vojvodina
)
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Affected places on the map of Serbia

During the

Serbia Proper, including Belgrade.[13]

The U.N.-backed

crime against humanity
, making it the only conviction of the Tribunal in relation to Yugoslav Wars on the territory of Vojvodina.

Description

Vojvodina is a province of Serbia. 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]

Hrtkovci incident

Following the

Cyrillic 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 a hate 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 Serbian

Srem, 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 planned population 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 445 Yugoslavs (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

Bosnia. 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]

Rest of Serbia

In its 1993 report, published during its 49th session, the

Hungarians 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 its autonomy. 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 from Kukujevci and Novi Slankamen, as a result of threats and the bombing of their houses. The villages of Beška and Golubinci
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 attributed to individuals."[3] On 23 February 1993, the Commission adopted a resolution expressing its "grave concern" at the "violations of human rights occurring in Sandžak 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 of Nikinci.[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 Serbian

Croatian Serb forces in Croatia.[30]

According to different sources, between 20,000

Serbia Proper, including Belgrade.[13]

Legal prosecution

In 2003,

forcible transfer) as crimes 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 of Radoslav Brđanin, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda case of Jean-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 of coercion, harassment, and intimidation... 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 to discrimination 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 and Bosnia and Herzegovina.[37]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "The Prosecutor against Vojislav Seselj - Third Amended Indictment" (PDF). ICTY. December 2007. Retrieved January 19, 2011.
  2. ^ a b c d e Marcus Tanner (August 1992). "'Cleansing' row prompts crisis in Vojvodina". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-05-25. Retrieved January 19, 2011.
  3. ^ a b c "Situation of Human Rights in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia" (PDF). United Nations Commission on Human Rights. 10 February 1993. p. 40—41. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  4. ^ a b c Final report of the United Nations Commission of Experts, established pursuant to UN Security Council resolution 780 (1992), Annex III.A — M. Cherif Bassiouni; S/1994/674/Add.2 (Vol. IV), 27 May 1994, Special Forces Archived 2011-04-30 at the Wayback Machine, (paragraph 1091). Accessdate January 20, 2011
  5. ^ a b c Chuck Sudetic (July 26, 1992). "Serbs Force An Exodus From Plain". New York Times. Retrieved January 19, 2011.
  6. ^ "Podsećanje na slučaj Hrtkovci". B92. May 4, 2005. Retrieved January 19, 2011.
  7. ^ a b Naegele, Jolyon (February 21, 2003). "Serbia: Witnesses Recall Ethnic Cleansing As Seselj Prepares For Hague Surrender". Radio Free Europe. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
  8. ^
    ISBN 9780801885570
    .
  9. ^ "The Economist". Vol. 336, no. 7926–7929. Economist Newspaper Limited. 1995. p. 42. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  10. ^ "Two Decades Since Expulsion of Vojvodina Croats". Balkan Insight. 8 May 2012.
  11. ^ "Anniversary of SRS rally in Vojvodina town". Archived from the original on 2010-05-10. Retrieved 2011-05-01.
  12. ^ (in Serbian) Sedamnaest godina od proterivanja Hrvata iz Hrtkovaca, Zoran Glavonjić
  13. ^ a b c d e "Položaj manjina u Vojvodini" (PDF). Zrenjanin: Center for Development of Civil Society. 1998. p. 13, 14, 15. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 May 2018. Retrieved 3 May 2018.
  14. ISBN 9781351758758
    .
  15. ISBN 9780230271227
    .
  16. OSCE
    . February 2008. p. 12.
  17. ^ "Slučaj Šešelj - Vojislav Šešelj - Izjave" (in Serbian). Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. Retrieved 2011-09-02.
  18. ^ "Warning that couldn't be ignored". Sense Agency. 2010-02-16. Retrieved 2011-09-02.
  19. ^
    doi:10.1163/15718123-bja10002
    .
  20. ^ "Drastic Changes in Ethnic Composition of Population". Sense Agency. 21 October 2008. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
  21. ^ "D. Šešelj's crimes in Hrtkovci" (PDF). The Hague: International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. 5 February 2012. pp. 149–150.
  22. ^ Roger Cohen (August 31, 1992). "A Farm Village in Serbia Distills War Into Hatred". New York Times. Retrieved January 19, 2011.
  23. ^ "The charges against Vojislav Seselj". BBC News. 2003-02-24. Retrieved 30 August 2010.
  24. ^ "Anniversary of SRS rally in Vojvodina town". B92. Archived from the original on 2010-05-10. Retrieved 2011-05-01.
  25. ^ "Kandić: Šešelja za Hrtkovce optužuju i Srbi". Vesti online. May 6, 2010. Retrieved January 19, 2011.
  26. ^ "Situation of Human Rights in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia—49th session". United Nations Commission on Human Rights. 23 February 1993. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  27. ^ "Chronology for Croats in Yugoslavia". Minorities at Risk Project. 2004. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  28. ^ "Dossier Documents Serbian State Involvement in Driving Out Croats". 31 January 2019.
  29. ^ "Complaint Filed About Croat Family's Wartime Murder in Serbia".
  30. ^ "Complaint Filed About Croat Family's Wartime Murder in Serbia".
  31. ^ "The Economist". Vol. 336, no. 7926–7929. Economist Newspaper Limited. 1995. p. 42. Retrieved 28 April 2018.
  32. ^ "Anniversary of SRS rally in Vojvodina town". Archived from the original on 2010-05-10. Retrieved 2011-05-01.
  33. ^ (in Serbian) Sedamnaest godina od proterivanja Hrvata iz Hrtkovaca, Zoran Glavonjić
  34. ^ "APPEALS CHAMBER REVERSES ŠEŠELJ'S ACQUITTAL, IN PART, AND CONVICTS HIM OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY". United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals. 11 April 2018. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
  35. ^ "UN court sentences ultranationalist Serb leader to 10 years". TRT World. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
  36. ^ "Serbia: Conviction of war criminal delivers long overdue justice to victims". Amnesty International. 11 April 2018. Retrieved 11 April 2018.
  37. ^ "Prosecutor v. Vojislav Šešelj - Judgement" (PDF). The Hague: International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. 11 April 2018. p. 66.

External links

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