Croatia

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Country in central Europe, bounded north by Slovenia and Hungary, west by the Adriatic Sea, and east by Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia and Montenegro.

Government
Croatia is a multiparty parliamentary democracy. Under its 1990 constitution, as amended in 2000, it has a single-chamber legislature, the Sabor, comprising 152 members elected for four-year terms, including 140 elected by proportional representation in multi-member constituencies, 8 minority representatives, and 4 representing Croatians abroad. The president, who serves as head of state, is popularly elected for a five-year term, with a limit of two terms. The president was formerly the dominant executive force in Croatia, but constitutional changes in 2000 reduced the powers of the president and transformed Croatia into a parliamentary democracy. The president now is commander-in-chief of the armed forces, has some influence on foreign policy, and appoints a prime minister who can command a majority in the Sabor.

History
Part of Pannonia in Roman times, the region was settled by Carpathian Croats in the 7th century. Roman Catholicism was adopted in the 10th century and in 925 Tomislav was crowned the first King of Croatia by a decree of the Holy Catholic Church in Rome. 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 in 1699.

Croatia was briefly an Austrian crown land in 1849 and again a Hungarian crown land in 1868. It was included in the kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes formed in 1918 and which was called Yugoslavia from 1929. During World War II a Nazi puppet state, ‘Greater Croatia’, was established in April 1941 under Ante Pavelic (1889–1959) leader of the fascist Ustase movement. It established concentration camps where as many as 100,000 Serbs and 55,000 Jews were massacred by a regime which sought to establish a ‘pure’ Croatian Catholic republic. In November 1945 Croatia 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 spiralling inflation caused a sharp fall in living standards. In an effort to court popularity and concerned at the Serb chauvinism of Slobodan Miloševic, 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 February 1991 the Croatian assembly, along with that of neighbouring 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 in 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. In June 1991 the Croatian government, in concert with Slovenia, issued a unilateral declaration of independence.

Civil war
The Serb-dominated Yugoslavia Army (JNA) sought to prevent Croatia's secession and from July 1991 there was escalating military conflict with Croatian forces, and civil war between different ethnic groups within Croatia.

Independent Serbian ‘governments’ were proclaimed in Krajina and in eastern and western Slavonia. A succession of ceasefires ordered by the Yugoslav federal presidency and the European Community passed unobserved and by September 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 October 1991, that it had formally severed all official relations with Yugoslavia.

Ceasefire agreed
In January 1992 a peace plan was successfully brokered in Sarajevo by United Nations (UN) envoy Cyrus Vance. The agreement provided for an immediate ceasefire, the full withdrawal of the Yugoslav army from Croatia, and the deployment of 10,000 UN troops in contested Krajina and East and West 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 USA early in 1992, and in May 1992 by the UN.

UN peacekeeping force established
During March and April 1992 14,000 UN peacekeeping forces were sent to Croatia and gradually took control of Krajina, although Croatian forces continued to shell Krajina's capital, Knin. Tudjman was directly elected president in August 1992, and the CDU won an overwhelming victory in concurrent assembly elections.

Serb-held areas retaken
In January 1993 Croatia launched a surprise offensive into Serb-held Krajina, violating the 1992 UN peace agreement. A new government was sworn in in April 1993, and in 1994 an accord was signed with Bosnia-Herzegovina's Muslim and ethnic-Croat leaders creating a Muslim-Croat federation, eventually to be linked to Croatia in a loose confederation. After reluctantly renewing the mandate of a much-reduced UN peacekeeping force in March 1995, Tudjman launched a further offensive into Krajina and West Slavonia, to which the Croatian Serbs responded by shelling the capital, Zagreb. In a lightning assault in August 1995 both Krajina and West Slavonia were overrun. The UN Security Council later condemned Croatia for human-rights offences against Serbs in Krajina and more than 150,000 Croatian Serbs fled to Serbia and Serb-held areas in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Tudjman extended the offensive into Bosnia-Herzegovina, repelling a Bosnian-Serb assault on the UN ‘safe area’ of Bihac.

The CDU polled strongly in a snap general election held in October 1995, but fell short of an absolute majority. In November 1995, Croatian Serbs agreed to hand back East Slavonia, the last Serb enclave, to Croatia over a two-year period. This handover was completed in January 1998, with a UN Transitional Administration there from 1996.

Croatia restored its diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia (consisting of Serbia and Montenegro) in August 1996, and in October 1996 entered the Council of Europe.

Political liberalization post Tudjman
In December 1999 President Tudjman died, after a long illness. Tudjman's CDU lost elections held in January 2000 to a centre-left coalition of the Social Democrats, whose leader Ivica Racan became prime minister, and Social Liberals. Stjepan Mesic, a reformer from the centrist Croatian People's Party (Liberal Democrats), who had been the last president of the former Yugoslavia (to 1991), became state president. The new government pledged to be more open and democratic, to seek membership of the EU and NATO, to liberalize and reform the sluggish economy, and to reverse Tudjman's policy of intervention in the affairs of neighbouring Bosnia. It invited 300,000 ethnic Serb refugees to return to Croatia, saying that they were innocent victims of war. It also changed the constitution to reduce presidential powers. NATO invited Croatia to join the alliance's Partnership for Peace programme in May 2000.

The government's economic reforms led to a short-term rise in unemployment, to a peak of 22% in 2002. This was a factor in it losing the December 2003 general election to the right-of-centre CDU, whose leader, Ivo Sanader, became prime minister. From 2003, the pace of economic growth accelerated and unemployment gradually fell, although it was still over 15% in 2006. In October 2005 Croatia opened accession negotiations with the EU, with a view to becoming a member by 2010.

Yellow represents the golden land of South America. Blue stands for the ocean separating the country from Spain. Red symbolizes the blood and courage of the people resisting the tyrants. Effective date: 26 November 1861. >>