The Republic of Croatia

The Croatian people declared themselves to be free and independent on June 25, 1991. One year later, virtually the entire world had recognized Croatia within the borders designated in 1945. The overwhelming majority of Croatia's twelve hundred mile border is based upon ancient boundaries that Croatia brought with her into Yugoslavia in 1918. In those areas where the borders were changed, Serbia gained and Croatia lost. Despite this fundamental reality, the Republic of Croatia made no territorial claims against any other nation. Since 1813, Serbia and Serbia alone has constantly expanded in its quest of a "Greater Serbia" stretching from Bulgaria to the Adriatic Sea. It is a quest that has cost the lives of millions over the past century and one-half and caused the most brutal war in Europe since World War II. As in the previous wars of Serbian aggression, Serbia was rewarded for its brutality as one-half of Bosnia was given to Greater Serbia in 1995 through the Dayton partition.

Serbia's Unquenchable Thirst

Even with this prize, Serbia's unquenchable thirst for the lands of others was not satiated. After the Dayton partition was signed and sealed, "Yugoslavia" as "Greater Serbia" still called itself, laid claim to the tiny isthmus or prevlaka of Ogtra, a spit of land only 170 meters wide at the entry to the harbor of Boka, Montenegro. All of the harbor and the land around it was Croatian for centuries, but the harbor itself was given to Montenegro after World War II, and its Croatian population (a majority in 1945) was driven out. In 1996, just as in 1918, the so-called "Great Powers" could not comprehend why Croatia would want to keep its lands out of Serbian hands and urged "negotiations" to mediate the "dispute." Prevlaka was a part of the Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) from the fifteenth century until 1808 and a part of Dalmatia since. In all of history, it was never a part of Montenegro or Serbia. But having stolen the Bay of Kotor in 1949 and driven out its majority Croatian population in the years following, the small peninsula was seen as a threat to the security of the natural harbor that is home to the "Yugoslav" Navy.

The reality is that neither in the twentieth century nor in the past, has Serbia lost one square kilometer, on a map or on the ground, to Bosnia or Croatia. Serbia's dream of a "Greater Serbia" became a nightmare for the fourth time in the twentieth century. It is time for such myths about Croatian and Bosnian borders attempting to justify that nightmare to be put to rest.

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