Background:
In 1918, the Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes formed a kingdom known
after 1929 as Yugoslavia. Following World War II, Yugoslavia became
a federal independent Communist state under the strong hand of
Marshal TITO. Although Croatia declared its independence from
Yugoslavia in 1991, it took four years of sporadic, but often
bitter, fighting before occupying Serb armies were mostly cleared
from Croatian lands. Under UN supervision, the last Serb-held
enclave in eastern Slavonia was returned to Croatia in 1998.