Battle of Borovo Selo - Misplaced Pages

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Borovo Selo massacre (Croatian:Pokolj u Borovom Selu) or Borovo Selo raid (Serbian: Напад на Борово Село) refers to the armed confrontation between Croatian police and ethnic Serb paramilitaries in the village of Borovo Selo near Vukovar around May 1 1991 . The incident which resulted in the killings of a number of Croatian policemen was the bloodiest event preceding the break-up of Yugoslavia, which began two months later.

The incident was indirectly caused by increasing tensions regarding the early stages of the break-up of Yugoslavia. As sections of Serb minority in Croatia were opposed to the prospect of an independent Croatia, which could undermine their minority rights. . Borovo Selo soon became a focus of rebellion, modelled after the Republic of Serbian Krajina. Armed resistance was aided and encouraged from Serbia, especially by the members of the Serbian Radical Party . As a consequence, parts of Croatian territory surrounding Vukovar, effectively became an exclave dominated and governed by local Serb resistance groups..

In Spring 1991, shortly after Plitvice Bloody Easter, a group of Croatian high ranking officials, including the future defence minister Gojko Šušak, visited Eastern Slavonia to assess the situation. The result was an order to dismantle roadblocks near Borovo Selo erected by the Serbian rebels. The task was subsequently carried out successfully.

The first victim of inter-ethnic tensions fell on May 1st 1991 when Stevan Inić (born 1928), a Serb, was shot in head in the village of Brsadin near Vukovar from the gun fired by Croat Djuro Gelenčir, member of the Croatian Democratic Union's party militia.

However, it was not until May 2 that the local Croatian authorities decided to bring Borovo back under Croatian control. Their decision was prompted by the killing of two Croatian policemen on routine patrol the day before by Serbian paramilitaries . The Croatian government then decided to send a convoy of special police to Borovo Selo to disarm the rebel groups and restore order. The convoy was ambushed as it entered the village; 12 policemen were killed and 21 were wounded. After the retreat of police, Serbian paramilitaries went on to mutilate the dead bodies of Croatian policemen which further aggravated the situation .

The fighting was halted with the arrival of the Yugoslav People's Army forces, which initially acted as a buffer between the two sides. The Federal Primer Minister, the Croatian Ante Marković, visited Borovo Selo in attempt to negotiate the release of the captured Croatian policemen.

Croatia's government, in turn, agreed to the increased presence of the Yugoslav National Army in the area, which would later have important consequences during the war in Croatia.

The whole incident strengthened the nationalist fervour among Serbs in Croatia and other parts of the former Yugoslavia who called on Serbia's leadership to take firm action against the breakaway leaderships of Croatia and Slovenia. Croatians were, on the other hand, furnished with another piece of evidence that the break-up of Yugoslavia was inevitable and imminent.

Borovo Selo massacre was quickly overshadowed by the start of war in Slovenia. Some argue that the incident prevented Croatia from buying more time to properly prepare for eventual defence against a full-scale Yugoslav Army assault.

Others argue that Croatian special police units were nothing more than inexperienced local policemen who were no match for heavily armed Serbian rebels . Lack of Croatian military competence at Borovo Selo was later addressed by Osijek mayor Zlatko Kramarić in one of the more controversial sections of his memoirs..

References

Category:

Homeland war (Croatia)