GREATER-SERBIAN AGGRESSION AGAINST CROATIA IN THE 1990s

international community, especially the UN, the EC and the US, to take real and effective steps in order to vigorously stop the aggression against their countries, to prevent further loss of human life, persecution and expulsion of their citizens, and the destruction of property”. It was accordingly decided that both states “will sustain past successful cooperation and continued coordination of their defence actions in their contiguous zones” and, “if aggression against them is not stopped urgently (…) will take all necessary steps in order to establish broader cooperation in the military sphere and coordinate military operations in order to definitively repel the danger threatening them” (Art. 8).

Since the Serbian aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Croatia continued, on 23 September 1992 the Presidents Franjo Tuđman and Alija Izetbegović signed in New York the “Annex to the Agreement on Friendship and Cooperation between the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Croatia”. Because of protection from aggression, “vigorous action of the international community” (Art. 1) was again called for along with the need “for enhanced effort in the search of a political solution to end the war” (Art. 2). It was also agreed that “in keeping with the right to self-defence and to joint defence from aggression, a joint committee will be set up in order to harmonize defence efforts until the aggression stops completely” (Art. 3), and that “Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia will jointly seek the lifting of the embargo on the import of arms into these states prescribed by Resolution 713 of the UN Security Council” (Art. 4).

On the basis of these agreements Croatian army units drove the Serbian and Montenegrin forces from parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina adjoining the Republic of Croatia, and remained there to defend them from new Serbian and Montenegrin attacks. However, the agreements, exception being made for the contiguous areas, did not provide for a proper, integral military cooperation between Croats and Bosniaks (Muslims). It would only be agreed on 22 July 1995 in Split.

141