From: malenovi@plains.NoDak.edu (Malenovic Nikola V.)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Croatian Political Scene ( VREME NDA 28 Aug 1992 )
Date: 28 Aug 92 20:44:04 GMT
Article-I.D.: plains.19942
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network


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     "Vreme" News Digest Agency                     No. 47, August 17, 1992
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    Croatian Political Scene
    ------------------------


                              INNOCENCE DEFENDED


    In a residential section of the Croatian Adriatic port city of Split, to
    the shop sign  Discount Sale someone has added  the graffito "of Serbs."
    About a hundred  meters away, another "witty" graffito  "Death to Serbs"
    may be seen written in large letters at the entrance to a tall building.

    This  and other  buildings in  the new  part of  Split are accommodating
    several thousand officers of the former JNA (Yugoslav People's Army) and
    their  families.  Those  retired  among  them  have  not  received their
    pensions since the  end of last year. They would  have received at least
    some advance pays, had their citizenship status been settled.

    In Croatia, pensions  are not paid out to  an estimated 15,000 military.
    But  the  state  apparently  guards  itself  against  being  accused  of
    discrimination  by  failing  to  solve  the  status  of  Slovenians  and
    Macedonians too,  not only that of  Serbs. Before this is  settled -- or
    before they die -- 70-year-old colonels  or naval officers can only line
    up  for  humanitarian  aid  parcels  distributed  either  by their local
    neighborhood communities  or through the Roman  Catholic Caritas charity
    organization.

    Thousands of families have been separated.  In case the head of a family
    is  "on the  other side,"  his  children  are forced  to renounce  their
    "Chetnik  father," his  wife is  urged  to  divorce him  possibly to  be
    entitled  to social,  health and  retirement benefits.  Big problems are
    encountered even by Serbs entirely loyal to the authorities.

    The  government and  the top   leadership, as  senior civil  servant and
    president of the Serbian National Party (SNS) Milan Djukic asserts, have
    never backed up the actions aimed at limiting the rights and freedoms of
    Serbs in Croatia.  But neither have they taken  a clear-cut stand toward
    terrorist onslaughts on  the lives and property of  Serbs. Terrorism has
    been, however, supported by  certain lower-level authorities. Apart from
    killings  or  illegal  moving  into  Serb-owned  flats,  there have been
    different "petty  crimes," say Djukic, Vojislav  Pejanovic, Milan Skoric
    and  other SNS  officials. So   even a  ten-year-old girl  expelled from
    Vukovar  was  required  to  prove  by  some  document  that  she had not
    "belonged to the Chetniks."

    Gojko Bulovic, shipyard  worker, was beaten to death. He  was one of the
    ten Serbs arrested under charges of organizing illegal armed groups. His
    case  was defended  prominently by   the then  MP Nikola  Viskovic whose
    thesis was  that Split was the  town of lawlessness. On  the other hand,
    the  military prosecutor  said "This  might  be  so, and  if a  military
    policeman or a warden has overstepped his powers, we shall prosecute and
    punish him. But, even so, an atmosphere must not be created that this is
    the city ruled  by lawlessness, for this is  not true, and I do  not see
    why Viskovic  insists on such  an isolated case,  the only such  case in
    Split since the war broke out."

    Petar Sunjic, a  prominent Split attorney, also maintains  that his town
    is  ruled by  law. But  he believes  that its  residents are  incredibly
    tolerant to whatever the war is bringing about. "Insecurity, if any, may
    only result  from overall war-generated effects,  certainly not from the
    authorities' endangering any one," says Sunjic and adds "I have not seen
    any  appreciable numbers  of discharged  employees, while  the number of
    discharged  Croats is  higher in  both relative  and real  terms... I am
    afraid, however, that such military circumstances like a general amnesty
    may  make an  individual Croat  soldier take  justice in  his hand  upon
    learning that  the world has forced  Croatia to pardon that  man who was
    burning houses down, and who was killing and slaughtering."

    Drazen   Budisa,  president   of  the   strongest  opposition   Croatian
    Socialist-Liberal Party (HSLS), says: "Those Serbs who had joined Croats
    in leaving Drnis  -- with them, I could always  live together. But hardy
    could I live together with those who were killing my dear ones. Yet I am
    firmly confident that revanchism cannot  determine the stand towards the
    Serbian  community in  Croatia. This  is where  I completely  agree with
    Cardinal Kuharic and  his recent statement that every  bomb planted to a
    Serbian house  is the bomb planted  to Croatia. As for  some objections,
    like  those  by  SNS  president  Milan  Djukic  about Croatian political
    parties  having only  irresolutely  fought  for the  Serbian community's
    rights, I believe this point may be solved just in its general aspect --
    as  the right  of all  citizens of  Croatia. I  agree with  him that the
    "state ruled by  law" does not operate. But it  does not operate because
    the rights  of Serbs as  well as  of  all the citizens  are violated and
    because there are no rights at all in Croatia's occupied parts."

    Another "civic" attitude  toward Serbs may be seen  from what says Goran
    Parlov, member  of the central  board of the  ruling Croatian Democratic
    Union (HDZ) and reserve police chief for Dalmatia: "I am for coexistence
    with people who recognize Croatia as their fatherland. There are 3.8 per
    cent Serbs  in Split. This is  an insignificant minority, so  Split, not
    Zagreb,  is Croatia's  'most Croatian'  city. But  I prefer  speaking of
    coexistence with Albanians, or still  better, with Moslems. They are our
    brothers in language, and now in  arms, too. As for living together with
    Serbs, they are  like other citizens, all citizens of  Croatia. I am not
    for persecution, especially that of women, children and the elderly, but
    focusing attention on  this issue now is --  senseless. All Serbs should
    incorporate themselves  in normal life  in Croatia, but  giving them any
    particular  significance is  absolutely out  of the  question! Serbs may
    certainly not enjoy the rights exceeding those of Croats."

    Serbs, at least  in Split, seem to be  exercising particularly the right
    to -- silence. This holds also for the boys who have been, or still are,
    fighting in the ranks of the Croatian army.

    In his  article in Slobodna  Dalmacija (Free Dalmatia),  one of the  few
    independent newspapers in Croatia, staff columnist Zeljko Zutelija says:
    "Hardly any  one in the  states against which  Serbia has warred  is any
    longer willing  to analyze which of  the Serbs have participated  in the
    wars with their body and soul and  which of them with body alone or with
    soul alone.  If striving for normal  relations with any one,  it will be
    the Serbs  who will have  to prove  they  have not taken  part in crimes
    against  nations. And  they will  have to  be happy  if any one believes
    them."

    A Croatian reader, who regarded Zutelija's article as the call to lynch,
    reacted thus: "Civilization in the last decade of the twentieth century,
    Europe and its  legal systems, where emergent Croatia  belongs, say that
    guilty  is the  one whose  guilt has  been proved,  not the  one who has
    failed to prove his innocence." Zutelija replied that he meant the Serbs
    would have to prove or assert  themselves in day-to-day life rather than
    before courts of  law. He said that the Serb  citizens of Croatia had to
    reaffirm  themselves by  pledging their  loyalty to  the Croatian state.
    "The  Serb-Montenegrin  aggression  against   Croatia  would  have  been
    impossible  without  a  very   firm  and  extensive  collaboration  with
    Croatia's  Serbs.  The  war  is  taking  place  in  Croatian  territory,
    one-third of which occupied still  today although the Croatian state has
    been  recognized internationally  months ago.  It would  be too naive to
    believe that just  a few seduced or insane Serbs  are taking part in the
    occupation," Zutelija  wrote. He maintained  that Croatia should  not at
    this time distinguish between the criminal and the innocent members of a
    nationality. Professor Ivo Banac, who,  acting in America, has done much
    for the Croatian  cause, holds that the "relationship  toward Serbs will
    be the  measure of Croatia's democracy"  and "Croats will enjoy  as much
    freedom as Serbs do."

    So far  there have been over  4,000 killed, 21,000 wounded,  14,000 lost
    and at least 600,000 expelled  or escaped. Material damage, estimated at
    an equivalent  to two annual  national incomes, comprises  200,000 flats
    destroyed partly  or totally, and  two-fifths of the  overall industrial
    capacity ruined. Under such  circumstances, every indication of violated
    rights of Croatia's Serbs is  invariably understood as an anti-patriotic
    act. Paying attention to "some problems  of some Serbs" is a shame, they
    would say, while  thousands of homeless widows and  children of Croatian
    soldiers  live  on  a  monthly  benefit  of  twenty-odd German marks. Of
    course, the easiest thing to be done  is "to mount a scapegoat" and move
    into a flat  that has been owned by  a Serb. Hence, in a  situation like
    this, even war  profiteers have trouble because they may  be in one flat
    in the morning,  in another in the afternoon, and  in still another flat
    "of their own" in the evening.

    The   Croatian  state   has  relatively   easily  gained   international
    recognition, but  it still has a  long way to go  before it acquires the
    full recognition  by other states. Germany,  for example, has apparently
    "cooled off"  its liking for a  small state spread between  the Adriatic
    and the  Pannonian lowland. It  wants Croatia to  begin returning German
    investments  by acting  as a  state ruled  by law  and by inaugurating a
    market  economy and  civic society.  The Vatican  also keeps  an eye  on
    Croatia.  It even  sends Croatia   its warnings  related to  the Serbian
    minority and other matters. Certain international programs simply ignore
    Croatia. This is not because of the position of Serbs in Croatia, but it
    is certainly  due to its low  rating ensuing from its  fragile levels of
    legality and justice -- the levels to  be felt and sustained by Serbs in
    particular.

    On the Croatian political scene,  such radical and extremist feelings or
    proposals  (by  the  Croatian  Party  of  Rights,  HSP) about a Croatian
    Orthodox Church,  have been done  away with in  an elegant fashion.  The
    formation of a wise policy is only  in the outset -- not for the benefit
    of Serbs but for the sake of  interests. In a nutshell -- for Croatia to
    be able  again to cry out  its another "Danke Deutschland,"  the Germans
    (and others in  the West) would first want to  hear how Serbs in Croatia
    voice their gratitude to the Croatian state. But how will this evolve in
    real daily life?  To begin with, perhaps, the  graffiti mentioned at the
    beginning of this article might be wiped out.
                                                                Mirko Mlakar


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     "Vreme" News Digest Agency                     No. 47, August 17, 1992
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