Croatia8

Croatia
 Communistic Dictatorship by Duo Elite: Frances Lee and Jesse Silliman, Period 8





 __Timeline__  Themes of War, Ethnic Rivalries  , and Recovery > >
 * **1945** - After World War Two, the Croatian civil- war ends, and Croatia is made part of the Federative Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, along with Slovenia, Bosnia-Hercegovinia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia, under the rule of **Josip Tito**. (POLITICAL)
 * **1971** - When under pressure by Croatian Nationalists for their independence, Tito responds by imprisoning Croatian cultural leaders.(SOCIAL + POLITICAL)
 * **1980** - When **Josip Tito dies**, Yugoslavia begins to be divided by ethnic rivalries into separate states.(SOCIAL)
 * **1990** - **Croatia has its first free elections** in over 50 years. **Franjo Tudjman**, of the Nationalistic Conservative HDZ (Croatian <span style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,0)">Democratic Union) party, wins against the communists in the elections, becoming Croatia's first President. (POLITICAL)

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">When Croatia began a series of wars for independence, and for its ethnic rivalries, its economy plummeted due to the hit to its major industry, tourism. It only recovered slightly after the wars ended, and remained stagnant the rest of the decade, due to problems with corruption and the lack of foreign investment. (ECONOMIC) In these wars, <span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,152,0)">the destruction caused by Serbians against Croatian culture were great, with over 400 Croatian Catholic Churches damaged, and many libraries destroyed. (RELIGIOUS + SOCIAL)

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 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="COLOR: rgb(0,0,0)"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(224,0,0)">**19<span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,152,0)">91 ** - **Croatia declares its independence** from Yugoslavia, under Franjo Tudjman's leadership. Croatian Serbs side with the Yugoslavian Army, and t ake control of over a third of Croatia.(POLITICAL)
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(224,0,0)">**19<span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,152,0)">92 ** - UN Peacekeeping Troops come to Croatia, bringing 14,000 troops to keep Serbs and Croats apart, guarding 4 protected areas of Croatia. A **war against Bosnia-Hercegovina**, with Croatia protecting Bosnian Croats against Bosnian Serbs, begins. (POLITICAL)
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(224,0,0)">**19<span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,152,0)">95 ** - **Croatian troops retake control of 3 the UN protected areas**, forcing Serbian refugees to flee the country to Bosnia and Serbia. The **war against Bosnia-Hercegovinia ends** with the Dayton Peace Accords.(POLITICAL)
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,152,0)">**1997** - **Franjo Tudjman is re-elected** into the second term of his presidency. His government is criticized for oppressing minority groups and controlling the media. (POLITICAL + SOCIAL)
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">**1999 -** **Franjo Tudjman dies**, at the age of 77. (POLITICAL)

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(0,0,255)">Over the next years, Croatia would see significant gains in peace and stability, although corruption remained. Its economy started to finally recover from the wars of the 1990s, helped by trends in privitization, the building of infrastructure, and an increase in tourism. The government, despite economic growth, is not spending enough money on other important things encessary for Croatia's future, such as education and technology. (ECONOMIC)

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 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">**<span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(0,0,255)">2000 -** The HDZ party loses to the Social Democrats and the Social Liberals, in the Croatian Parliament. **Stjepan Mesic wins the presidency** for the Croatian People's Party. He declares his **intention to get Croatia into NATO and the European Union**. (POLITICAL)

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">The Hague Tribunals took place in the city of Hague in the Netherlands. The international war crimes tribunal there indicted and charged many Croatian generals and leaders from the early 1990s for war crimes agains the Serbs and other ethnic minorities.

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 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">**2001**
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">**<span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,152,0)">February -** Nationalists rally support for Croatian General Mirko Norac, allowing him to be judged at home, and not sent to the Hague.(POLITICAL + SOCIAL)
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">**<span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(0,0,255)">July -** The Prime Minister complies with a request to extradite generals Ademi and Gotovina to the Hague. General Ademi voluntarily appears, while General Gotovina goes into hiding. (POLITICAL)
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">**2002 -** Political infighting hurts the economy, and President Mesic wants to start a new government to prevent this.(ECONOMIC)
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">**2003** - Croatia formally applies to enter the European Union.(POLITICAL)
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(0,0,255)">**2005** - President Stjepan Mesic wins the elections, beginning his second term. In March, the European Union delays Croatia's application, due to its failure to bring General Gotovina to the Hague Tribunals. Finally, he is arrested in the Canary Islands, Spain.(POLITICAL)
 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"><span style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: rgb(255,152,0)">**2006** - Even with Gotovina captured, the European Union refuses to accept Croatia, citing Croatia's internal corruption and intolerance towards minorities. (POLITICAL)

<span style="DISPLAY: block; FONT-SIZE: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Trebuchet MS',Helvetica,sans-serif; TEXT-ALIGN: center">__<span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">People __ <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">

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 * <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">Franjo Tudjman **<span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"> was the president of Croatia from 1990~1999 and one of the most significant influence in Croatia's independence movement from Yugoslavia. He was born on May 14, 1922 in Croatia. His mother died when he was 7, and his father was a member of the Croatian Peasant Party, a group who sought land reforms and an end to Serb domination of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. In 1941, he joined the Communist Partisans under Tito when Nazi germany invaded Yugoslavia. With time, he became a devout follower of Tito and his activities. He published //War Against War// in 1955, and later quit the army to study military and political history. By 1972, Tudjman had become very nationalistic in his ideas, broken with Tito, and arrested. In 1989 he helped found the Croatian Democratic Union and he became the president of that group in Feburary 1990. On June 25, 1991, Croatia declared independence and he became the president.

<span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif"> <span style="FONT-FAMILY: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif">Josip Broz, more commonly known as **Marshal Tito**, was the president of Yugoslavia from 1953~1980 and directed the postwar rebuilding of Yugoslavia. He was born on May 25, 1892 in croatia. He worked as a mechanic until he was drafted for World War I, captured by the Russians, and became a prisoner of war. Due to his socialist beliefs, he joined the Red Army (Bolsheviks) after the October Revolutions in Russia. In 1920, he returned to Croatia and joined the Communist party of Yugoslavia. He was persecuted for his communist beliefs until 1937, when the Soviet Union appointed him the secretary general of the Yugoslav party. Duering World War II, Tito ordered a guerrilla attack against all Axis forces. However, a Britished-backed royalist general disagreed with him as civil war erupted. After his death, the disagreements over ethnicity lead to the breakup of Yugoslavia, including the breakoff of croatia in 1991.
 * Ante Gotovina** was charged with the murder of at least 150 Serbs and the flight of more than 150,000 in 1995. He went into hiding, and his disapperance resulted in the European Union's repeated rejection of Croatia's application.