Pakrac clash

Pakrac clash
Part of the Croatian War of Independence
Pakrac Location of Pakrac in Croatia
Date 1–2 March 1991 Location Pakrac, Croatia Result Croatian victory Croatian special police retake the town of Pakrac from Serb rebels Status quo ante bellum restored by agreement
Belligerents
Croatia	Rebel Serb insurgents Yugoslav People's Army
Commanders and leaders
Marko Lukić Mladen Markač Stjepan Kupsjak	Jovo Vezmar Milan Čeleketić
Units involved
Lučko Anti-Terrorist Unit, Omega special police company	Armoured battalion of the 265th Mechanised Brigade, Pakrac police
Strength
200 special police troops	Unknown
Casualties and losses
None	180 rebels captured

Croatian victory

The Pakrac clash, known in Croatia as the Battle of Pakrac (Croatian: Bitka za 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 reasserted its control over the town. After a standoff with the JNA, an agreement to pull out the special police and the JNA was reached, restoring the town to conditions before the Serb attempt to seize control of the police there.

In 1990, following the electoral defeat of the government of the Socialist Republic of Croatia by the Croatian Democratic Union (Croatian: Hrvatska demokratska zajednica, HDZ), ethnic tensions between Croats and Serbs 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. The Croatian Serbs established the Serbian National Council in July 1990 to coordinate opposition to Croatian President Franjo Tuđman's policy of pursuing independence. Milan Babić, a dentist from the southern town of Knin, was elected president and 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.

...
Wikipedia