SUMMARY
Serbian irregulars is an umbrella label used by the UCDP, to refer to a collection of militias that fought in the conflict that followed the disintegration of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) in the early 1990s. While the UCDP always strives to distinguish between different armed groups in any given conflict, it was not possible to make a distinction between individual militias due to lack of information, while still reflecting the developing violence on the ground.
The Serbian irregulars started to fight in the context of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s self-proclaimed independence from FRY in March 1992. Preceding this, both Slovenia and Croatia had seceded from Yugoslavia; this prompted Serb nationalists to fight for their own political entity. The Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina proclaimed their own state on 7 April 1992. This entity became a close ally of the Serbian irregulars, and the two commonly fought together. Due to this, and the type of reporting available, it was oftentimes impossible to distinguish between them when they carried out joint attacks. At times, the Serbian irregulars also carried out operations together with the Serbian Republic of Krajina, an alliance of Serb regions in Croatia.
Nevertheless, it was clear that the Serbian irregulars fought both the Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Government of Croatia after their secession from Yugoslavia. Despite some uncertainties regarding the number of deaths in the fighting between the Serbian irregulars and the two different governments over a Serbian territory, the UCDP found credible information on the Serbian irregulars actively fighting the Croatian government in 1992, and the Bosnia-Herzegovinian government between 1992 and 1995, with at least 25 deaths in the respective dyads per calendar year.
The militias fighting under the overarching umbrella label of Serbian irregulars consisted mainly of non-local Serbs, originating either from Serbia or from Croatia. At the time, they were generally described as volunteers that joined the fight for a Serbian nation. A number of militias in the Serbian irregular forces functioned as paramilitary branches of political parties in Serbia. The Serbian Radical Party (SRS) created the paramilitary wing, the Serbian Chetnik Movement (SCP) led by Vojislav Seselj, a nationalist Serb politician that had ambitions of a ‘Great Serbia’, which more or less would include all territories of former Yugoslavia. It was reported that the SCP had less than 200 fighters. The Serbian People’s Renewal party (SNO) led by Mirko Jovic, created two militias called Beli Orlovi (White Eagles) and Dusan Silni (Dusan the Powerful) which were organized by Dragoslav Bokan. Similarly, the Serbian Guard (SG), was initially formed by several Serbian nationalist parties, but quickly came to be the armed wing of the Serbian Renewal Movement Party (SPO) led by Vuk Draskovic. The Serbian Guard reportedly had around 1500 fighters and was initially led by Djordje “Giska” Bozovic; nevertheless, SG was in practice under the command of the Yugoslav People’s Army. One of the most infamous Serbian paramilitary groups was the Serb Volunteer Guard (SDG/SVG) also called Arkan’s Tigers, led by Zeljko “Arkan” Raznjatovic. A pro-Serbian group within the League of Communists-Movement for Yugoslavia party (SK-PJ) formed the SDG as a rival to the Serbian Guard. Estimations stated that the SDG had as many as 40 000 members, but that around 1500 to 5000 were actively involved in the fighting. It has proved difficult to establish how many fighters the Serbian irregulars had at their disposal in total. Some estimations early in the conflict stated that the non-local Serb militias might have been as many as between 40 000 and 50 000, however, this remains uncertain.
The Serbian irregulars had close ties with the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and, to a varying extent, took its order from Belgrade. However, the Serbian irregular’s close ally, the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was more directly controlled by Milosevic. The Serbian irregulars received extensive support, both arms and other equipment, from the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), which was loyal to the Serb nationalists.
Several of the militias included under the label of Serbian irregulars were notorious for their involvement in the violence against civilians during the conflict, see Serbian irregulars, Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina – Civilians. A number of the leaders of these militias were later indicted and/or convicted for war crimes in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as well as in the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.
