Saborsko Massacre - Background

Background

An important fact about the JNA was about its leadership, as well as its ethnical structure of troops (army obligants, reserves, officers). Although JNA (Yugoslav National Army) wore the name of Yugoslavia, the ethnical structure of JNA' soldiers engaged was not representing the ethnical structure of Yugoslavia; it had no army obligants from Croatia and Slovenia, nor Croats from Bosnia and Herzegovina, so the share of Serbs became extremely higher. That was because of ending of regular one-year military service - one of "big" classes ended its service at the end of August and the beginning of September, and after the December of 1991, the recruitmenet percentage from those republics sharply dropped. The class of June had no recruits from Croatian and Slovenia at all. The other important factors, that influenced changed army's ethnical structure was the deserting of army during the service (mostly non-Serb soldiers from Croatia and Croats from Bosnia-Herzegovina), higher percentage of relieving from army obligation (medical and other reasons) during the service (much higher than usual) and various evading steps undertaken before the start of military service. Additionally, reserve forces were recruited from Serbia and Montenegro (the latter were, however, engaged on southern Croatian battlefield). Similar was with army's professional personnel (officers, experts, tehnicians).