Ramhead, I had no idea of the EQ's. That is quite an unavoidable ramification of geography.
I also was unaware of corruption. As much as I knew that Croatia has had it's history mostly amounts to this:
Communist Yugoslavia
Under Tito’s leadership, Yugoslavia, which included
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Serbia, adopted a type of planned market socialism, and privately owned factories and estates were nationalized. Tito transformed Yugoslavia from a largely agricultural nation into an industrialized one. After Tito’s death in 1980, however, cracks in the Yugoslav system grew wider. The economy was weak, Slobodan Milosevic was stirring up divisive Serbian nationalism, and the unity of the Yugoslav government was tenuous. Finally, Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia on June 25, 1991, a day that is now celebrated as “Statehood Day.” At that same time, Serbs living in the Croatian territory of Krajina proclaimed their independence from Croatia. Civil war was imminent.
War and Peace
The Bosnian War, from 1992 to 1995, was a territorial battle among Serbs, Croats and Bosnians that is characterized as the bloodiest event in Europe since World War II. Approximately 100,000 people died, a large number of them civilians, and horrific war crimes were rampant. Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic and his soldiers attempted to ethnically cleanse parts of the former Yugoslavia of Croats, Bosnians and Muslims, with the aim of creating what Milosevic called “The Greater Serbia.” When NATO finally intervened with airstrikes in 1995, opposing parties were forced to come to the table. The Dayton Peace Accords were signed on Dec. 14, 1995, officially ending the war.
