Borovo Selo killings
Encyclopedia
The Borovo Selo killings of 2 May 1991 (known in Croatia
as the Borovo Selo massacre, and in Serbia
as the Borovo Selo incident) was one of the first military engagements which led to the breakup of Yugoslavia. At least 12 Croatian policemen and 3 Serb militiamen were killed during a gun battle in the largely Serb-populated village of Borovo Selo near Vukovar
in eastern Croatia. The incident set the stage for – and helped to accelerate – the subsequent outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars
.
and Slovenia
– sought to break away from the Yugoslav federation. Following the two republics' declarations of independence, wars broke out between the republics' security forces, the Yugoslav Army
and (in Croatia) Serb militiamen who opposed the Croatian government. (See Ten-Day War
(Slovenia) and Croatian War of Independence
for more on the wider conflicts.)
Much of Croatia's large Serb minority was opposed to Croatian independence. The Serb population was concentrated in three regions within Croatia; along the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina
from Knin to Banovina - the SAO Krajina
; western parts of Slavonia
, to the north of Bosnia - the SAO Western Slavonia
; and eastern parts of Slavonia, along the border with Serbia - the SAO Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia. In these three regions the local Serbs opposed Croatian independence and sought to remain within Yugoslavia.
In 1990, the Croatian Serbs established the aforementioned political and military structures which eventually became the basis of the Republic of Serbian Krajina
. The areas inhabited by a majority of Serbs declared independence from Croatia on 1 April 1991, six weeks before Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia, and were soon joined by the Serb communities of Slavonia. The government of Serbian president Slobodan Milošević
provided the Croatian Serbs with substantial financial and logistical assistance. His purpose in doing this, according to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
(ICTY) prosecutors, was to support a "joint criminal enterprise to create a new Serb-dominated state from which the non-Serb population had been forcibly removed." The Croatian Serb rebellion was also supported by a variety of nationalist groups and political parties in Serbia (in addition to Milošević's own Socialist Party of Serbia
).
The events in Borovo Selo followed the Plitvice Lakes incident
, an earlier clash between Croatian security forces and local Serb rebels in the region of Plitvice.
Borovo Selo was at the time part of the Vukovar municipality, bordering Serbia on the west side of the Danube
river. In the municipality, which included the town of Vukovar and a dozen surrounding villages, the 1991 census recorded 84,189 inhabitants of which 36,910 were Croats (43.8%), 31,445 Serbs (37.4%), 1,375 Hungarians (1.6%), 6,124 Yugoslavs (7.3%), and 8,335 (9.9%) others or undeclared. Vukovar itself had a narrow majority of Croats, with most of the Serb population living in outlying suburbs and villages. Borovo Selo is a mainly Serb-inhabited community just north of Vukovar, dominated by a large industrial plant in Borovo Naselje
in which much of the village's population was employed before 1991.
The growth of political and ethnic tensions produced an increasingly difficult security situation in the area. Local militias were established on both sides and paramilitary groups established a high-profile presence in the region. At the end of April 1991, armed local Serbs assisted by volunteers from the Serbian Radical Party
of Vojislav Šešelj
and other Serbian nationalist groups erected barricades in the village of Borovo Selo, according to the later ICTY indictment against Šešelj. They had the self-declared intention of keeping Croatian militias out of the village, though in reality this also meant the exclusion of Croatian police and civil administrators – in effect, setting up enclaves in which the writ of the Zagreb government no longer ran. According to Šešelj, his intervention had come at the request of Vukašin Šoškočanin, the president of the Borovo commune and commander of the local Territorial Defence militia. In 1994 Šešelj claimed that his volunteers had been equipped by the Serbian police, although he later retracted this statement with the claim that it had been a propaganda ploy to damage the reputation of Milošević during a period when Šešelj's party was in opposition.
Similar events happened elsewhere in eastern Slavonia. In an effort to defuse the situation, the area's moderate police chief, Josip Reihl-Kir, agreed that the Croatian police would not try to enter Serb villages without the explicit permission of the local Serb authorities; in return, the Serbs agreed to dismantle barricades. However, as he later complained, his efforts were seriously undermined by the actions of Croatian nationalists who stoked the tension. One particularly notorious incident occurred at Borovo Selo in April 1991. Several members of Croatia's ruling HDZ party, possibly including Gojko Šušak
, who later became Croatia's defence minister, fired three Armbrust
anti-tank rockets into the village. The attack caused no casualties, but became a cause célèbre
in relations between the two republics. One rocket failed to detonate and was shown on Serbian television to support claims of unprovoked Croatian aggression. This incident further worsened tensions in the Vukovar area and elsewhere in eastern Slavonia.
flying in the village for a Croatian flag
. The incident appears to have been a spontaneous decision made in the wake of festivities to celebrate the national holiday, the International Workers' Day
. Local armed Serbs who associated the šahovnica with the Ustaša regime intercepted the policemen, and in the subsequent gunfight, two of the policemen were wounded and taken prisoner.
On 2 May, Croatian authorities in nearby Osijek
sent around 150 policemen to Borovo Selo to free the captives. The police, traveling in a convoy of buses and police vehicles, reached the village but became embroiled in a firefight with armed Serb militiamen. In the ensuing chaos, twelve Croatian policemen were killed and another twenty injured. A number of Serbs were also killed, though it was unclear how many; figures from three to twenty were reported. It was widely reported that Serbian paramilitaries subsequently mutilated the bodies of the dead Croatian policemen. The Croats, as well as some outside observers, thought of this as a calculated atrocity meant to inflame ethnic hatred
. While the Second World War was at this point long past, the atrocities committed at that time could still be used by nationalist politicians as a talking point
. In fact, this one was deemed a "symbolic re-enactment of [Serbian] Chetnik reprisals against Croats during WWII
".
At least three different – and conflicting – explanations were given of the events at Borovo Selo.
(JNA) to take up positions in the area to act as a buffer between the two sides. The 63rd Paratroop Brigade was among the units deployed. The federal prime minister
Ante Marković
traveled to Borovo Selo to negotiate the release of the captured Croatian policemen.
Croatia's government, in turn, agreed to the increased presence of the JNA in the area, which would have important consequences during the subsequent war. The government faced political difficulties in the aftermath of the incident, which had plainly exposed a serious tactical miscalculation on the part of the Croatian authorities. It was reported that news of the killings and mutilations had caused "panic" among senior Croatian government figures, who were concerned at the likely political consequences for Zagreb. Osijek's mayor, Zlatko Kramarić
, was strongly critical of a lack of Croatian preparedness in his later memoirs. Osijek's police chief Josip Reihl-Kir also complained openly that Croatian extremists had hijacked the local situation and were obstructing efforts to broker peace; two months later he was assassinated by a Croatian police reserve officer with links to the ruling HDZ.
The incident served to radicalise both sides. Croatian nationalists portrayed the killings as part of Milošević's supposedly "Bolshevik" strategy to import Serbian ultra-nationalism and para-militarism into Croatia. One Croatian newspaper described the Serbian paramilitaries as "beasts in human form", "bearded animals on two legs" and "bloodsuckers" and presenters on state-run TV began to refer to the Serb rebels generically as "Chetniks", bringing the Second World War term back into everyday use. The day after the Borovo Selo incident, President Tuđman appeared on Croatian television to warn that "open war" had begun and that "if the need arises" the Croatian people should take up arms to "defend the freedom and sovereignty of the Republic of Croatia". On the same day, anti-Serb riots took place in the southern Croatian cities of Zadar
and Šibenik
, on the other side of Croatia, in which Tuđman's HDZ was accused of complicity. The incident thus produced what some have described as a "sea change" in Croatian views, with the Serbian minority throughout Croatia – not just in the separatist areas – being denounced and in some cases physically attacked for supposedly being "the enemy within."
For their part, Serbian media claimed that the incident had been prompted by a "genocidal" Croatian attempt to repress its Serb minority, drawing explicit parallels with the Croatian genocide of Serbs during World War II. Each side interpreted the incident as a sign that its continued existence was threatened by the other side, and that secession – from Yugoslavia or from Croatia – was therefore the only course if national survival was to be ensured. As one commentator puts it, in the aftermath of the incident "the chances for initiatives to reach some kind of non-violent compromise were enormously diminished." Only a few months later, Borovo Selo found itself on the front lines of the Battle of Vukovar
, the biggest single battle of the Croatian war.
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
as the Borovo Selo massacre, and in Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
as the Borovo Selo incident) was one of the first military engagements which led to the breakup of Yugoslavia. At least 12 Croatian policemen and 3 Serb militiamen were killed during a gun battle in the largely Serb-populated village of Borovo Selo near Vukovar
Vukovar
Vukovar is a city in eastern Croatia, and the biggest river port in Croatia located at the confluence of the Vuka river and the Danube. Vukovar is the center of the Vukovar-Syrmia County...
in eastern Croatia. The incident set the stage for – and helped to accelerate – the subsequent outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars
Yugoslav wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of wars, fought throughout the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. The wars were complex: characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats and Bosniaks on the other; but also...
.
Background
During the first half of 1991, two of Yugoslavia's six constituent republics – CroatiaCroatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
and Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
– sought to break away from the Yugoslav federation. Following the two republics' declarations of independence, wars broke out between the republics' security forces, the Yugoslav Army
Yugoslav People's Army
The Yugoslav People's Army , also referred to as the Yugoslav National Army , was the military of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.-Origins:The origins of the JNA can...
and (in Croatia) Serb militiamen who opposed the Croatian government. (See Ten-Day War
Ten-Day War
The Ten-Day War or the Slovenian Independence War was a military conflict between the Slovenian Territorial Defence and the Yugoslav People's Army in 1991 following Slovenia's declaration of independence.-Background:...
(Slovenia) and Croatian War of Independence
Croatian War of Independence
The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between forces loyal to the government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia —and the Serb-controlled Yugoslav People's Army and local Serb forces, with the JNA ending its combat...
for more on the wider conflicts.)
Much of Croatia's large Serb minority was opposed to Croatian independence. The Serb population was concentrated in three regions within Croatia; along the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...
from Knin to Banovina - the SAO Krajina
SAO Krajina
Serbian Autonomous Oblast of Krajina or SAO Krajina was a self proclaimed Serbian autonomous region within modern-day Croatia . It existed between 1990 and 1991 and was subsequently included into Republic of Serbian Krajina...
; western parts of Slavonia
Slavonia
Slavonia is a geographical and historical region in eastern Croatia...
, to the north of Bosnia - the SAO Western Slavonia
SAO Western Slavonia
SAO Western Slavonia or Serbian Autonomous Oblast of Western Slavonia was a Serbian self-proclaimed autonomous region within Croatia. It was formed on 12 August 1991 and was subsequently included into Republic of Serbian Krajina...
; and eastern parts of Slavonia, along the border with Serbia - the SAO Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia. In these three regions the local Serbs opposed Croatian independence and sought to remain within Yugoslavia.
In 1990, the Croatian Serbs established the aforementioned political and military structures which eventually became the basis of the Republic of Serbian Krajina
Republic of Serbian Krajina
The Republic of Serbian Krajina was a self-proclaimed Serb entity within Croatia. Established in 1991, it was not recognized internationally. It formally existed from 1991 to 1995, having been initiated a year earlier via smaller separatist regions. The name Krajina means "frontier"...
. The areas inhabited by a majority of Serbs declared independence from Croatia on 1 April 1991, six weeks before Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia, and were soon joined by the Serb communities of Slavonia. The government of Serbian president Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević
Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...
provided the Croatian Serbs with substantial financial and logistical assistance. His purpose in doing this, according to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
The International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991, more commonly referred to as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia or ICTY, is a...
(ICTY) prosecutors, was to support a "joint criminal enterprise to create a new Serb-dominated state from which the non-Serb population had been forcibly removed." The Croatian Serb rebellion was also supported by a variety of nationalist groups and political parties in Serbia (in addition to Milošević's own Socialist Party of Serbia
Socialist Party of Serbia
The Socialist Party of Serbia is officially a democratic socialist political party in Serbia. It is also widely recognized as a de facto Serbian nationalist party, though the party itself does not officially acknowledge this...
).
The events in Borovo Selo followed the Plitvice Lakes incident
Plitvice Lakes incident
The Plitvice Lakes incident of late March/early April 1991 was an incident at the beginning of the Croatian War of Independence...
, an earlier clash between Croatian security forces and local Serb rebels in the region of Plitvice.
The situation at Borovo Selo
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
river. In the municipality, which included the town of Vukovar and a dozen surrounding villages, the 1991 census recorded 84,189 inhabitants of which 36,910 were Croats (43.8%), 31,445 Serbs (37.4%), 1,375 Hungarians (1.6%), 6,124 Yugoslavs (7.3%), and 8,335 (9.9%) others or undeclared. Vukovar itself had a narrow majority of Croats, with most of the Serb population living in outlying suburbs and villages. Borovo Selo is a mainly Serb-inhabited community just north of Vukovar, dominated by a large industrial plant in Borovo Naselje
Borovo Naselje
Borovo Naselje is a Vukovar borough located on the right bank of the Danube river in the Croatian region of Slavonia, 4 kilometers northwest of Vukovar town centre; elevation 90 m. The economy is based on rubber and shoe industries...
in which much of the village's population was employed before 1991.
The growth of political and ethnic tensions produced an increasingly difficult security situation in the area. Local militias were established on both sides and paramilitary groups established a high-profile presence in the region. At the end of April 1991, armed local Serbs assisted by volunteers from the Serbian Radical Party
Serbian Radical Party
The Serbian Radical Party is a far-right Serbian nationalist political party in Serbia, founded in 1991. Currently the second-largest party in the Serbian National Assembly, it has branches in three of the nations that currently border Serbia – all former federal republics of Yugoslavia...
of Vojislav Šešelj
Vojislav Šešelj
Vojislav Šešelj, JD is a Serbian politician, writer and lawyer. He is the founder and president of the Serbian Radical Party and was vice-president of Serbia between 1998 and 2000...
and other Serbian nationalist groups erected barricades in the village of Borovo Selo, according to the later ICTY indictment against Šešelj. They had the self-declared intention of keeping Croatian militias out of the village, though in reality this also meant the exclusion of Croatian police and civil administrators – in effect, setting up enclaves in which the writ of the Zagreb government no longer ran. According to Šešelj, his intervention had come at the request of Vukašin Šoškočanin, the president of the Borovo commune and commander of the local Territorial Defence militia. In 1994 Šešelj claimed that his volunteers had been equipped by the Serbian police, although he later retracted this statement with the claim that it had been a propaganda ploy to damage the reputation of Milošević during a period when Šešelj's party was in opposition.
Similar events happened elsewhere in eastern Slavonia. In an effort to defuse the situation, the area's moderate police chief, Josip Reihl-Kir, agreed that the Croatian police would not try to enter Serb villages without the explicit permission of the local Serb authorities; in return, the Serbs agreed to dismantle barricades. However, as he later complained, his efforts were seriously undermined by the actions of Croatian nationalists who stoked the tension. One particularly notorious incident occurred at Borovo Selo in April 1991. Several members of Croatia's ruling HDZ party, possibly including Gojko Šušak
Gojko Šušak
Gojko Šušak was the Croatian Minister of Defence from 1991 to 1998. A Bosnian Croat emigreé to Canada, he entered the political life of Croat diaspora in North America, subsequently becoming a close friend and associate to Franjo Tuđman, the leader of the Croatian Democratic Union, a nationalistic...
, who later became Croatia's defence minister, fired three Armbrust
Armbrust
Armbrust is a lightweight unguided anti-tank weapon designed and developed by Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm of Germany, who later sold its manufacturing rights to Chartered Industries of Singapore ....
anti-tank rockets into the village. The attack caused no casualties, but became a cause célèbre
Cause célèbre
A is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning and heated public debate. The term is particularly used in connection with celebrated legal cases. It is a French phrase in common English use...
in relations between the two republics. One rocket failed to detonate and was shown on Serbian television to support claims of unprovoked Croatian aggression. This incident further worsened tensions in the Vukovar area and elsewhere in eastern Slavonia.
The Borovo Selo killings
During the early hours of 1 May 1991, four Croatian policemen entered Borovo Selo and attempted to change the Yugoslav flagFlag of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The flag of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia consisted of three equal horizontal bands colored in pan-Slavic colors, blue , white and red, with a yellow-bordered red star at the flag's center...
flying in the village for a Croatian flag
Flag of Croatia
The flag of Croatia is one of the state symbols of Croatia. It consists of three equal size, horizontal stripes in colours red, white and blue. The flag combines the colours of the flags of the Kingdom of Croatia , the Kingdom of Slavonia and the Kingdom of Dalmatia...
. The incident appears to have been a spontaneous decision made in the wake of festivities to celebrate the national holiday, the International Workers' Day
International Workers' Day
International Workers' Day is a celebration of the international labour movement and left-wing movements. It commonly sees organized street demonstrations and marches by working people and their labour unions throughout most of the world. May 1 is a national holiday in more than 80 countries...
. Local armed Serbs who associated the šahovnica with the Ustaša regime intercepted the policemen, and in the subsequent gunfight, two of the policemen were wounded and taken prisoner.
On 2 May, Croatian authorities in nearby Osijek
Osijek
Osijek is the fourth largest city in Croatia with a population of 83,496 in 2011. It is the largest city and the economic and cultural centre of the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, as well as the administrative centre of Osijek-Baranja county...
sent around 150 policemen to Borovo Selo to free the captives. The police, traveling in a convoy of buses and police vehicles, reached the village but became embroiled in a firefight with armed Serb militiamen. In the ensuing chaos, twelve Croatian policemen were killed and another twenty injured. A number of Serbs were also killed, though it was unclear how many; figures from three to twenty were reported. It was widely reported that Serbian paramilitaries subsequently mutilated the bodies of the dead Croatian policemen. The Croats, as well as some outside observers, thought of this as a calculated atrocity meant to inflame ethnic hatred
Ethnic hatred
Ethnic hatred, inter-ethnic hatred, racial hatred, or ethnic tension refers to feelings and acts of prejudice and hostility towards an ethnic group in various degrees. See list of anti-ethnic and anti-national terms for specific cases....
. While the Second World War was at this point long past, the atrocities committed at that time could still be used by nationalist politicians as a talking point
Talking point
A talking point in debate or discourse is a succinct statement designed to persuasively support one side taken on an issue. Such statements can either be free standing or created as retorts to the opposition's talking points and are frequently used in public relations, particularly in areas heavy...
. In fact, this one was deemed a "symbolic re-enactment of [Serbian] Chetnik reprisals against Croats during WWII
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
".
At least three different – and conflicting – explanations were given of the events at Borovo Selo.
- The Croatian authorities claimed that the policemen sent to the village had been invited to a meeting agreed to by both sides and had traveled under white truce flags, but had been ambushed by local militants and "terrorists" from Serbia (meaning Šešelj's paramilitaries).
- Journalists pieced together a different version from accounts given by local residents, who claimed that the police had entered the village and began shooting at anything that moved. According to this version, the police took Serb women and children as hostages but were expelled by local residents, who freed the hostages without any outside help.
- Finally, Šešelj himself gave an account to BelgradeBelgradeBelgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
TV accompanied by video footage recorded by his men. He claimed that fourteen of his men, plus six local men and two other Serbian volunteers, had been responsible for fighting the "UstasheUstašeThe Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement was a Croatian fascist anti-Yugoslav separatist movement. The ideology of the movement was a blend of fascism, Nazism, and Croatian nationalism. The Ustaše supported the creation of a Greater Croatia that would span to the River Drina and to the border...
". They had supposedly killed one hundred Croatian policemen, with one civilian also being killed, although in his later war crimes trial he reduced his claim to thirty fatalities on the Croatian side and claimed that these included KurdKürdKürd or Kyurd or Kyurt may refer to:*Kürd Eldarbəyli, Azerbaijan*Kürd Mahrızlı, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Goychay, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Jalilabad, Azerbaijan*Kürd, Qabala, Azerbaijan*Qurdbayram, Azerbaijan...
ish mercenaries.
Aftermath of the killings
Following a meeting of the Yugoslav presidency on 4 May, which condemned the Borovo Selo killings, the Yugoslav defence ministry ordered the Yugoslav People's ArmyYugoslav People's Army
The Yugoslav People's Army , also referred to as the Yugoslav National Army , was the military of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.-Origins:The origins of the JNA can...
(JNA) to take up positions in the area to act as a buffer between the two sides. The 63rd Paratroop Brigade was among the units deployed. The federal prime minister
Prime Minister of Yugoslavia
The Prime Minister or the President of the Federal Executive Council of Yugoslavia was the head of government of the Yugoslav state, from the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918 until the end of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1992.-Kingdom of...
Ante Marković
Ante Markovic
Ante Marković was a statesman of the former Yugoslavia. He was the last prime minister of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.- Early life :...
traveled to Borovo Selo to negotiate the release of the captured Croatian policemen.
Croatia's government, in turn, agreed to the increased presence of the JNA in the area, which would have important consequences during the subsequent war. The government faced political difficulties in the aftermath of the incident, which had plainly exposed a serious tactical miscalculation on the part of the Croatian authorities. It was reported that news of the killings and mutilations had caused "panic" among senior Croatian government figures, who were concerned at the likely political consequences for Zagreb. Osijek's mayor, Zlatko Kramarić
Zlatko Kramaric
Zlatko Kramarić is a Croatian liberal politician from Osijek.Kramarić was born in Osijek and graduated in philology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb...
, was strongly critical of a lack of Croatian preparedness in his later memoirs. Osijek's police chief Josip Reihl-Kir also complained openly that Croatian extremists had hijacked the local situation and were obstructing efforts to broker peace; two months later he was assassinated by a Croatian police reserve officer with links to the ruling HDZ.
The incident served to radicalise both sides. Croatian nationalists portrayed the killings as part of Milošević's supposedly "Bolshevik" strategy to import Serbian ultra-nationalism and para-militarism into Croatia. One Croatian newspaper described the Serbian paramilitaries as "beasts in human form", "bearded animals on two legs" and "bloodsuckers" and presenters on state-run TV began to refer to the Serb rebels generically as "Chetniks", bringing the Second World War term back into everyday use. The day after the Borovo Selo incident, President Tuđman appeared on Croatian television to warn that "open war" had begun and that "if the need arises" the Croatian people should take up arms to "defend the freedom and sovereignty of the Republic of Croatia". On the same day, anti-Serb riots took place in the southern Croatian cities of Zadar
Zadar
Zadar is a city in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea. It is the centre of Zadar county and the wider northern Dalmatian region. Population of the city is 75,082 citizens...
and Šibenik
Šibenik
Šibenik is a historic town in Croatia, with population of 51,553 . It is located in central Dalmatia where the river Krka flows into the Adriatic Sea...
, on the other side of Croatia, in which Tuđman's HDZ was accused of complicity. The incident thus produced what some have described as a "sea change" in Croatian views, with the Serbian minority throughout Croatia – not just in the separatist areas – being denounced and in some cases physically attacked for supposedly being "the enemy within."
For their part, Serbian media claimed that the incident had been prompted by a "genocidal" Croatian attempt to repress its Serb minority, drawing explicit parallels with the Croatian genocide of Serbs during World War II. Each side interpreted the incident as a sign that its continued existence was threatened by the other side, and that secession – from Yugoslavia or from Croatia – was therefore the only course if national survival was to be ensured. As one commentator puts it, in the aftermath of the incident "the chances for initiatives to reach some kind of non-violent compromise were enormously diminished." Only a few months later, Borovo Selo found itself on the front lines of the Battle of Vukovar
Battle of Vukovar
The Battle of Vukovar was an 87-day siege of Vukovar in eastern Croatia by the Yugoslav People's Army , supported by various paramilitary forces from Serbia, between August and November 1991. Before the Croatian War of Independence the Baroque town was a prosperous, mixed community of Croats,...
, the biggest single battle of the Croatian war.