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The United Nations Confidence Restoration Operation in Croatia, commonly abbreviated UNCRO, was a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission in Croatia. It was established under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter and approved by the UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 981 on 31 March 1995. UNCRO inherited personnel and infrastructure from the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR). Its command was located in Zagreb; the peacekeeping troops were deployed in four sectors named North, South, East, and West. Twenty different countries contributed troops to the mission. UNCRO started with more than 15,000 troops taken over from UNPROFOR; the personnel count was gradually reduced to approximately 7,000 by the end of the mission in early 1996. South Korean diplomat Byung Suk Min was the civilian head of the mission, while the military commanders of UNCRO were Generals Raymond Crabbe and Eid Kamal Al-Rodan. UNCRO was linked with UNPROFOR, which remained active in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and with the United Nations Preventive Deployment Force (UNPREDEP), which was deployed in the Republic of Macedonia. The mission was terminated on 15 January 1996 by UNSC Resolution 1025, passed on 30 November 1995. Sixteen UNCRO troops were killed, including four during Operation Storm in August 1995. UNCRO was tasked with upholding the March 1994 ceasefire in the Croatian War of Independence, supporting an agreement on economic cooperation between Croatia and the self-declared Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK), monitoring areas between opposing armies, monitoring the demilitarised Prevlaka peninsula, undertaking liaison functions, delivering humanitarian aid, and occupying 25 checkpoints along Croatia's international borders between RSK-held territory, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. UNCRO, like the UNPROFOR mission before it, was criticised for lacking sufficient troops and adequate resources to carry out the mission, and fulfilment of the mission's mandate proved nearly impossible. ==Background== In 1990, following the electoral defeat of the Communist regime in Croatia, ethnic tensions worsened. After the elections, the Yugoslav People's Army (''Jugoslovenska narodna armija'', or JNA) confiscated the weapons of Croatia's Territorial Defence Force (''Teritorijalna obrana'', or TO) to minimise any resistance. On 17 August 1990, the tensions escalated to an open revolt of the Croatian Serbs, centred on the predominantly Serb-populated areas of the Dalmatian hinterland around Knin, and parts of the Lika, Kordun, Banovina and eastern Croatia regions. The Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK), later established in those areas, declared its intention to integrate with Serbia, and was viewed by the Government of Croatia as a breakaway region. The JNA prevented Croatian police from intervening.〔 By March 1991, the conflict had escalated into the Croatian War of Independence. In June, Croatia declared independence as Yugoslavia disintegrated, but implementation of the decision was postponed until 8 October by a three-month moratorium. A campaign of ethnic cleansing then began in the RSK; most non-Serbs were expelled by early 1993. As the JNA increasingly supported the RSK, the Croatian police could not cope with the situation. In May 1991, the Croatian National Guard (''Zbor narodne garde'', or ZNG) was formed as the military of Croatia and was renamed the Croatian Army (''Hrvatska vojska'', or HV) in November.〔 Late 1991 saw the fiercest fighting of the war, culminating in the Battle of the Barracks, the Siege of Dubrovnik, and the Battle of Vukovar. In January 1992, a ceasefire agreement to implement the Vance plan was signed by representatives of Croatia, the JNA, and the UN, and fighting paused. The Vance plan was designed to stop hostilities in Croatia and allow negotiations by neutralizing any influence caused by fighting, but offered no political solutions in advance. The plan entailed deployment of the 10,000-person United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) to the major conflict areas known as "UN Protected Areas" (UNPAs). UNPROFOR was tasked with creating a buffer between the belligerents, disarming Croatian Serb elements of the TO, overseeing JNA and HV withdrawal from the UNPAs, and return of refugees to the area.〔 United Nations Security Council Resolution 743 of 21 February 1992 described the legal basis of the UN mission that had been requested and agreed upon in November 1991, and made no explicit reference to Chapter VI or Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. Only a reference to Chapter VII would have permitted the peacekeeping force to enforce its mandate regardless of the level of cooperation of the belligerents. Because of organisational problems and breaches of the ceasefire agreement, UNPROFOR did not start to deploy until 8 March〔 and took two months to fully deploy in the UNPAs. Even though UNPROFOR had placed most heavy weapons of the Army of the Republic of Serb Krajina (ARSK) in storage controlled jointly by the UN and the RSK by January 1993, the force was unable to fulfil all of the provisions of the Vance plan, including disarmament of the ARSK, the return of refugees, restoration of civilian authority, and the establishment of an ethnically integrated police. It also failed to remove ARSK forces from areas outside the designated UNPAs which were under ARSK control at the time the ceasefire had been signed. Those areas, later known as the "pink zones",〔 were supposed to be restored to Croatian control from the outset. Failure to implement this aspect of the Vance plan made the pink zones a major source of contention between Croatia and the RSK. In 1993, worried that the situation on the ground might become permanent, Croatia launched several small-scale military offensives against the RSK to seize significant local objectives and attract international attention. In response, the ARSK retrieved their weapons from the UN/RSK-controlled storage sites, reversing the only major success of UNPROFOR in Croatia.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「United Nations Confidence Restoration Operation in Croatia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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