- check the news and the wiki. That is the official number.
- Not proof of ethnic cleansing. Exodus =/= ethnic cleansing. Unless you have actual proof of the CA actively forcing people out of their homes using force or executing them, on a large scale and in organized and planned fashion?
This is the same BS justification Puting is using. "I'm only protecting my people/interestest".
Some context:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_War_of_Independence
Immediately after the Slovenian parliamentary election, 1990 and the Croatian parliamentary election, 1990 in April and May 1990, the JNA announced that the Josip Broz Tito-era doctrine of "general people's defense", in which each republic maintained a Territorial defense force (Croatian: Teritorijalna obrana) (TO), would henceforth be replaced by a centrally directed system of defense. The republics would lose their role in defense matters and their TOs would be disarmed and subordinated to JNA headquarters in Belgrade, but the new Slovenian government acted quickly to retain control over the TO.[70]On May 14, 1990, the weapons of the TO of Croatia, in regions with Croatian majorities, were taken away by the Army,[71] preventing the possibility of Croatia having its own weapons like it was done in Slovenia.[72] .[73]Borisav Jović, Serbia's representative on the Federal Presidency and a close ally of Slobodan Milošević, claimed that this action came at the behest of Serbia.[74]
On 22 December 1990, the Parliament of Croatia ratified the new constitution[84] which was read as taking away some of the rights that Serbs had been granted by the previous Socialist constitution, and fueled extremism among the Serbs of Croatia.[85] However, the constitution did define Croatia as "the national state of the Croatian nation and a state of members of other nations and minorities who are its citizens: Serbs ... who are guaranteed equality with citizens of Croatian nationality ..."[76]
Even though the two people combined comprised 38.8% of the population of Yugoslavia, 70% of all JNA officers and non-commissioned officers were either Serbs or Montenegrins.[99] In 1991, the JNA was instructed by Slobodan Milošević and Borisav Jović, through the federal defense secretary Kadijević, to "completely eliminate Croats and Slovenes from the army."[100]
Among other incidents, local Serbs from the southern hinterlands of Croatia, mostly around the city of Knin, blocked roads to tourist destinations in Dalmatia. This incident is known as the "Log revolution".[78][79] Years later, during Martić's trial, Babić would claim that he was tricked by Martić into agreeing to the Log Revolution, and that it and the entire war in Croatia was Martić's responsibility, and had been orchestrated by Belgrade.[80] The statement was corroborated by Martić in an interview published in 1991.[81] Babić confirmed that by July 1991 Milošević had taken over control of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA).[82] The Croatian government responded to the blockade of roads by sending special police teams in helicopters to the scene, but they were intercepted by SFR Yugoslav Air Force fighter jets and forced to turn back to Zagreb. The Serbs felled pine trees or used bulldozers to block roads to seal off towns like Knin and Benkovac near the Adriatic coast. On 18 August 1990, the Serbian newspaper Večernje novosti said that almost "two million Serbs were ready to go to Croatia to fight".[78]
Throughout this period, the federal army, the JNA, and the local Territorial Defense Forces continued to be led by Federal authorities controlled by Milošević. Helsinki Watch reported that Serb Krajina authorities executed Serbs who were willing to reach an accommodation with Croat officials.[24]
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Croatia declared independence and dissolved its association with Yugoslavia on 25 June 1991
In July, in an attempt to salvage what remained of Yugoslavia, the JNA forces were involved in operations against predominantly Croat areas. In July the Serb-led Territorial Defence Forces started their advance on Dalmatian coastal areas in Operation Coast-91.[127] By early August, large areas of Banovina were overrun by Serb forces.[128]
One month after Croatia declared its independence, the Yugoslav army and other Serb forces held something less than one-third of the Croatian territory,[128] mostly in areas with a predominantly ethnic Serb population.[131][132] The JNA military strategy partly consisted of extensive shelling, at times irrespective of the presence of civilians.[133] As the war progressed, the cities of Dubrovnik, Gospić, Šibenik, Zadar, Karlovac, Sisak, Slavonski Brod, Osijek, Vinkovci, and Vukovar all came under attack by Yugoslav forces.[134][135][136][137] The United Nations (UN) imposed a weapons embargo; this did not affect JNA-backed Serb forces significantly, as they had the JNA arsenal at their disposal, but it caused serious trouble for the newly formed Croatian army. The Croatian government started smuggling weapons over its borders.[138][139]
In September, Serbian troops completely surrounded the city of Vukovar. Croatian troops, including the 204th Vukovar Brigade, entrenched themselves within the city and held their ground against elite armored and mechanized brigades of the JNA, as well as Serb paramilitary units.[147][148] Vukovar was almost completely devastated; 15,000 houses were destroyed.[149] Some ethnic Croatian civilians had taken shelter inside the city. Other members of the civilian population fled the area en masse. Death toll estimates for Vukovar as a result of the siege range from 1,798 to 5,000.[95] A further 22,000 were exiled from Vukovar immediately after the town was captured.[149][150]
On 5 October, President Tuđman made a speech in which he called upon the whole population to mobilize and defend against "Greater Serbian imperialism" pursued by the Serb-led JNA, Serbian paramilitary formations, and rebel Serb forces.[104] On October 7 the Yugoslav air force attacked the main government building in Zagreb, an incident referred to as the bombing of Banski dvori.[153][154]
The Vukovar massacre took place in November;[163][164] the survivors were transported to prison camps such as Ovčara and Velepromet, with the majority ending up in Sremska Mitrovica prison camp.[165] The sustained siege of Vukovar attracted heavy international media attention. Many international journalists were in or near Vukovar, as was UN peace mediator Cyrus Vance, who had been Secretary of State to former US President Carter.[166]
Also in eastern Slavonia, the Lovas massacre occurred in October[94][167] and the Erdut massacre in November 1991, before and after the fall of Vukovar.[168] At the same time, the Škabrnja massacre occurred in the northern Dalmatian hinterland; it was largely overshadowed by the events at Vukovar.[169]
On 14 November, the Navy blockade of Dalmatian ports was challenged by civilian ships. The confrontation culminated in the Battle of the Dalmatian channels, when Croatian coastal and island based artillery damaged, sank, or captured a number of Yugoslav navy vessels, including Mukos PČ 176, later rechristened PB 62 Šolta.[170] After the battle, the Yugoslav naval operations were effectively limited to the southern Adriatic.[171]
The Siege of Dubrovnik (Croatian: Opsada Dubrovnika, Serbian: Blokada Dubrovnika) was a military engagement fought between the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) and Croatian forces defending the city of Dubrovnik and its surroundings during the Croatian War of Independence. The JNA started its advance on 1 October 1991 and by late October had captured virtually all of the territory between the Pelješac and Prevlaka peninsulas on the coast of the Adriatic Sea—except for Dubrovnik itself. The JNA attacks and bombardment of Dubrovnik, including the Old Town—a UNESCO World Heritage Site—culminated on 6 December 1991. The bombardment provoked a strong international condemnation of the JNA and became a public relations disaster for Serbia and Montenegro, contributing to their diplomatic and economic isolation and the international recognition of the independence of Croatia. In May 1992, the JNA pulled back from Dubrovnik to Bosnia and Herzegovina, less than 1 kilometre (0.62 miles) from the coast in some places, and east of the city to hand over its equipment to the newly formed Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS). During this time, the Croatian Army (HV) attacked from the west and pushed back the JNA/VRS from the areas west of Dubrovnik, both in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and by the end of May linked up with the HV unit defending the city. Fighting between the HV and the Yugoslav troops east of Dubrovnik gradually died down.
Combat near Dubrovnik was followed by the withdrawal of JNA from Konavle, between 30 September and 20 October 1992.
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So yeah.. the glorious Serbian army was doing a great job of protecting it's people by shelling the living s**** out of cities