Serb Autonomous Regions

The so-called anti-bureaucratic revolution of Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević aimed at strengthening of Yugoslav federal institutions triggered condemnations and separatist response in Slovenia and Croatia.

This in turn provoked security dilemma among at the time numerous Serbs of Croatia community which strongly opposed any move towards Croatian independence if it will separate them from the other parts of Yugoslavia.

[4] While the Croatian legal system at the time formally permitted such a form of municipal organization the move was perceived as highly controversial and led to some of the first clashes.

Some of the highest ranking political and military leaders involved in this process were prosecuted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for their direct or command responsibility for a number of war crimes committed.

In the effort to preserve the peace in the region European Community limited the recognition of post-Yugoslav entities exclusively to previously established Yugoslav federal units (republics) in their administrative borders and explicitly discouraged it in case of any new secessionist region while at the same time it conditioned recognition of republics with credible minority rights guarantees.