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ANNEX 2
CHRONOLOGY OF MAJOR EVENTS
The humanitarian crisis was triggered by the dissolution
of Yugoslavia, comprised since 1918 of six republics and two
self-governing provinces. Key political events in 1991 included
declarations of independence by Croatia and Slovenia
(June 25) and their formal secession (October 8); proclamation
of the Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina within Croatia
(March 16), later expanded and consolidated as the Serbian
Republic of Krajina (December 19); and proclamation of an
Assembly of the Serbian Nation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (October
24). Bosnia-Herzegovina proclaimed independence the
following March.
Political decisions led to military confrontations. From
late 1991 to 1992, the major fighting took place in Croatia
between Serbs and Croats; during 1992 and 1993, the principal
military action pitted Serbs from Bosnia and the Federal
Republic of Serbia against the Bosnian army. Fighting intensified
in the spring of 1993 in eastern Bosnia when, with an eye
to territorial shifts resulting from peace negotiations in Geneva,
each protagonist sought to consolidate its position. Later in the
year, Croatians from Bosnia and Herzegovina and from Croatia
teamed up to fight against the Bosnian army in central Bosnia.
In 1991, the U.N. joined negotiations being pursued by the
European Community through the appointment in October of
a Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Cyrus Vance.
At year's end, Vance negotiated a cease-fire in the war in
Croatia in January and an agreement to set up U.N. Protected
Areas in Serb-occupied Croatia and station troops there. He
later joined with European Community representative David
Owen, who continued an EC initiative begun under Lord
Carrington, to arrange for the deployment of U.N. troops in
Bosnia and propose the creation of ten ethnically diverse
regions within a loose central government framework. Vance
was replaced in May 1993 by Norwegian Foreign Minister
Thorvald Stoltenberg, who with Lord Owen proposed a division
of Bosnia and Herzegovina into three regions, largely
along ethnic lines.
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