With 15,000-18,000 thousand Serb soldiers remaining in the officially “demilitarized” zones, the goal of the Croatian Army was to drive them out. From the outset, however, the peacekeeping force encountered machine gun and mortar fire and was occasionally threatened by ambushes and booby-traps. Here, the Canadians were to guarantee the truce and oversee the safe return of refugees to their pre-war homes. Two companies of Canadian soldiers were assigned to the dangerous rural areas, and then to the Medak Pocket – a strategic salient, or bulge, along the frontline between Serb and Croat forces. ![]() There they encountered renewed aggression, as Croat and Serb forces engaged in ethnic-cleansing campaigns aimed at removing or killing any residents of the opposing side. In March 1993, the Canadian battle group – 875 troops including regulars from 2 PPCLI and a large component of reservists – arrived for its first six-month tour in Croatia. The reality on the ground was that there was little “peace” to keep. The difficulty was that the truce in Croatia was extremely fragile, with centuries-old animosities between the Croat and Serb inhabitants being inflamed by powerful nationalist sentiments. The Canadian mission fell under Chapter Six of the UN Charter: settlement of disputes using the minimum of force, except in self-defence. During this conflict, some 2 million people lost their homes and 200,000 died.Ī Canadian soldier, on United Nations peacekeeping duty in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Serbia’s president Slobodan Milosevic tried to restore the federal state under his own leadership, but the resulting Yugoslav wars of 1991-1995 were soon characterized by murderous violence and ethnic cleansing. Slovenia declared independence in 1991, followed soon after by Croatia and Bosnia. ![]() After 1992, tens of thousands of Canadians served as soldiers, negotiators, and aid workers in the former Yugoslavia.įollowing the death of Yugoslav leader Marshal Tito in 1980, and the end of the Cold War in 1989, Yugoslavia’s six republics were divided by the rise of nationalist-separatist groups. In the 1990s, UN peacekeeping missions were Canada's primary overseas commitment, with personnel stationed in more than a dozen countries. ![]() Canadian Peacekeeping in Former Yugoslavia A Canadian armoured carrier, in United Nations markings, patrols a road in the former Yugoslavia during peacekeeping operations there in the early 1990s.
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