Pakrac clash

The Pakrac clash (known in Croatian as Bitka za Pakrac which translates as the "Battle of Pakrac") was a bloodless skirmish that took place in the Croatian town of Pakrac in March 1991. The clash was a result of deteriorating ethnic tensions in Croatia during the breakup of Yugoslavia. It was one of the first serious outbreaks of violence in what became the Croatian War of Independence.

The clash began after rebel Serbs seized the town's police station and municipal building and harassed Croatian government officials. The Croatian government carried out a counterstrike against the rebels, sending Interior Ministry special police to re-establish control. Fighting broke out between the two sides. Despite an attempted intervention by the Yugoslav National Army (Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija – JNA), the Croatian government successfully reasserted its control over the town. After a standoff with the JNA, an agreement was reached to pull out the special police as well as the JNA, restoring the town to conditions before the Serb attempt to seize complete control of the police in Pakrac.

Background
In 1990, following the electoral defeat of the government of the Socialist Republic of Croatia, ethnic tensions worsened. The Yugoslav People's Army (Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija – JNA) confiscated Croatia's Territorial Defence (Teritorijalna obrana - TO) weapons to minimize resistance. On 17 August, the tensions escalated into an open revolt of the Croatian Serbs, centred on the predominantly Serb-populated areas of the Dalmatian hinterland around Knin, parts of the Lika, Kordun, Banovina and eastern Croatia. They established a Serbian National Council in July 1990 to coordinate opposition to Croatian President Franjo Tuđman's policy of pursuing independence of Croatia. Milan Babić, a dentist from the southern town of Knin, was elected president. Knin's police chief, Milan Martić, established paramilitary militias. The two men eventually became the political and military leaders of the Republic of Serb Krajina (RSK), a self-declared state incorporating the Serb-inhabited areas of Croatia.

In the beginning of 1991, Croatia had no regular army. In an effort to bolster its defence, Croatia doubled police personnel to about 20,000. The most effective part of the force was 3,000-strong special police deployed in twelve battalions adopting military organisation. In addition there were 9,000–10,000 regionally organised reserve police. The reserve police was set up in 16 battalions and 10 companies, but they lacked weapons. According to the Croatian 1991 census, Serbs were the largest ethnic group in the municipality of Pakrac (46.4%), followed by Croats (35.8%). Serb Democratic Party politician Veljko Džakula, became political leader of Croatian Serbs in western Slavonia. He held a view that Serbs should secede from Croatia.

On 22 February, the municipal council, controlled by Džakula, voted to join the Serbian Autonomous Oblast of Krajina (later renamed the RSK) and subordinate the Pakrac police station to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Krajina. The vote was annulled by the Constitutional Court of Croatia on 28 February.

Timeline
In February 1991, Babić and Martić directed Serb paramilitaries to take over the town's police station and municipal buildings. On 1 March, the paramilitaries disarmed the town's sixteen Croatian policemen and subjected local Croatian officials to a campaign of vilification and intimidation. At the time, the police in Pakrac was commanded by Jovo Vezmar, who sided with Babić and Martić.

In response, President Tuđman ordered the Croatian Interior Ministry to restore the government's authority over the town. At 04:30 on 2 March 1991, the first part of a 200-strong Croatian police force entered Pakrac. A company of the "Omega" special police unit, dispatched from Bjelovar, approached via village of Badljevina where a number of Croatian civilians followed the force towards the town. A barricade located outside Pakrac was cleared with no resistance before securing the town's police station unopposed. Only several hours later, small arms shots were fired at the police station by a force commanded by Vezmar from a nearby hill. Soon afterwards the second Croatian special police unit, Lučko Anti-Terrorist Unit, arrived from Zagreb, while Vezmar retreated east towards villages of Šeovica and Bučje on the Psunj Mountain. The special police arrested 180 ethnic-Serb rebels, including 32 ethnic-Serb policemen, without either side sustaining deaths or injuries. The special police was commanded by Marko Lukić and Mladen Markač. At the same time, Vezmar was replaced by Stjepan Kupsjak as the Pakrac police chief.

The Croatian action prompted an intervention from the federal Yugoslav government. Borisav Jović, the Serbian representative on the collective Presidency of Yugoslavia, supported a request by Yugoslav Defence Minister Veljko Kadijević to send the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) to the scene. The first ten JNA tanks arrived in Pakrac late in the evening of 1 March and took positions in various parts of the town, although most of them were situated near the town hospital. The next day, in the late afternoon, an additional JNA unit, led by Colonel Milan Čeleketić, arrived in Pakrac, taking positions close to the Croatian special police. Čeleketić was acting on orders of Major General Jevrem Cokić, commander of the 32nd (Varaždin) Corps. Cokić authorised deployment of three companies, of the armoured battalion of the 265th Mechanised Brigade based in Bjelovar.

The arrival of JNA tanks in Pakrac came too late to stop the Croatian special police from retaking the town. However, it prompted remaining Serb rebels to begin shooting at the town from the surrounding hills. Shots were fired at a police vehicle on patrol. The policemen shot back at men retreating towards a JNA position, and the JNA shot at the police vehicle in return. The shooting ended when talks between Croatian member of the federal presidency Stjepan Mesić and JNA Colonel Aleksandar Vasiljević produced an agreement that the Croatian police would be allowed to retain control of the town. The JNA planned to retake control of Pakrac from the special police by force. The attack, codenamed Pakrac-91, was cancelled when the Croatian authorities agreed to pull out the special police out of the town by the evening of 3 March. The JNA pulled out of Pakrac following a decision of the Yugoslav Presidency, abandoning the northern approaches to the town on 12 March, and pulling out completely seven days later.

Aftermath
The agreement to pull out the special police and the JNA largely restored status quo ante bellum. Seventeen out of 32 arrested policemen returned to service by 5 March, and ultimately charges were filed against five, including Vezmar. The incident had a lasting significance in that it was the first serious skirmish in what would become a full-scale war between Croatia and its rebel Serb population. It was used by the Serbian government to bolster nationalist propaganda claims that Croatia was committing "genocide" against its Serb population. Up to 40 deaths from the clash were reported by Serbian and Montenegrin media outlets. In an indication of the confused and highly inaccurate nature of the reporting, the Belgrade daily Večernje novosti reported on its front page that the town's Orthodox priest had been killed, on its second page that he had been wounded, and on its third page printed a statement from him. The Yugoslav presidency finally issued a statement that nobody had been killed in Pakrac.

In Serbia, the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), led by Slobodan Milošević, condemned the Croatian police action as a "brutal attack by the Croatian government on the population of Pakrac [using] violent and fascist methods" – a claim that was carried prominently by the state-controlled Radio Television Belgrade. The SPS urged Serbs to attend "protest meetings against the violent behaviour of the Croatian HDZ government." Milošević used the event to demand that the JNA be authorized to forcibly disarm Croatia. The request was made through Kadijević at a Presidency session of 11–15 May, specifically demanding the wartime powers be given to the JNA and a state of emergency introduced. The refusal led Milošević to declare that he no longer recognised the authority of the federal presidency.

The police intervention prompted Serb political leaders in Okučani to urge local population to erect barricades around the town in order to preempt another intervention&mdash;claiming police forces were moving in from directions of Kutina and Novska. The barricades were guarded by armed civilians. In Pakrac, approximately 500 Serb protesters gathered in front of the municipal council building to the demand removal of the flag of Croatia.