From: CP6uH@plains.NoDak.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Ethnic Purging ( VREME NDA 22 Jul 1992 )
Date: 22 Jul 92 19:20:00 GMT
Organization: University of North Dakota at Grand Forks


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     "Vreme" News Digest Agency                       No. 43, July 20, 1992
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    Ethnic Purging
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                           The Ugly Side Of the War


    The wall of the fire station in Hrtkovci (a village where Croats make up
    70%  of the  population) is  covered by  nearly 200  adds for exchanging
    houses:  Hrtkovci -  any town  in Croatia.  The most  sinister one says:
    "Organized  moving  to  Croatia,  safe,  truck  with  Macedonian license
    plates".

    Let's start with Hrtkovci. A village  whose population is 70% Croat, 20%
    Hungarian and 10% Serb. Its record was blotted once in 1941, when groups
    of  Serbs were  taken to  a nearby  crossroads and  shot; some  of their
    neighbors, according  to the testimonies,  threw boiling oil  over them.
    They were either killed or had to leave the village.

    The latest  events: four young  men from different  Croatian families in
    Hrtkovci  enlisted  in  The  Croatian  National  Guard  (CNG).  All four
    families left Hrtkovci soon after that.  Most of those who stayed joined
    the  Yugoslav Peoples'  Army and  spent the  war in  the battlefields of
    Slavonia.

    The biggest  problem: the moving out.  It began on May  6, when Vojislav
    Seselj, leader  of the Serbian Radical  Party (SRS), read out  a list of
    families that should leave Hrtkovci because of their "disloyalty". Their
    sin,  according  to  Seselj,  is  "sympathizing  with  the HDZ (Croatian
    Democratic  Union)  and  the  DZVM  (Democratic  Community  of Vojvodina
    Hungarians)". Seselj did not bother to provide any proof (if proof is at
    all necessary,  since being a supporter  of a legal political  party can
    hardly  be termed  a sin).   Instead, rumors  started going  around that
    Seselj's  men,  dressed  in  CNG  uniforms,  collected more than 300,000
    German  marks in  the village  "as aid  to the  Croatian army".  On that
    occasion - as they now like to  brag in cafes - the donators' names were
    carefully  written down.  These are  the names  that figure  on Seselj's
    list.

    A rather dubious  story, although apparently quite  convincing for those
    who are ready to believe such  things and promptly force all those named
    to  leave. Of  course, it  goes without  saying that  the most luxurious
    houses (most of  them the fruit of years of  hard work abroad) belong to
    the people on Seselj's list.

    According  to those  familiar with  the present  situation in  Hrtkovci,
    Seselj's  men are  behind the  moving out.  The most  zealous of all are
    those who recently went through the same thing, i.e. Serbs expelled from
    Western Slavonia (Croatia).

    Ostoja Sibincic, a refugee from Pakrac  and, some claim, a member of the
    SRS, was recently elected president of the Hrtkovci Municipality. He was
    elected  thanks  to  quite  an  unorthodox  procedure allowing all those
    present to vote.  Some 200 refugees from Western  Slavonia were there to
    support the candidate.

    The most  tragic result of the  entire action initiated on  May 6 is the
    murder of Marika Stefanc, 45, whose single fault was that he belonged to
    a different  people. Not  even the  arrival  of  a special  unit of  the
    Republican Police on June 27 could help poor Stefanc. He was murdered in
    the night between June 28 and 29.

    After  this  incident,  the  until  then  silent  and  tolerant  Serbian
    authorities reacted for  the first time. Four people  suspected of being
    involved  in   the  murder  of   Stefanc  are  behind   bars  undergoing
    investigation.

    Mr. Ilija  Radulovic, an SPO  (Serbian Renewal Movement)  attorney, says
    that the engagement of the republican police reflects not only part of a
    large-scale  farce, but  the authentic  ambition of  some people  in the
    force to do their job professionally. Other witnesses in the "case" also
    confirm  that police  was fair  most of  the time,  which leaves room to
    assume that  the problem is in  those who give orders,  and not in those
    who carry them out.

    Mr. Dobrica  Cosic, the President  of a country  full of such  "haunted"
    places  like Hrtkovci,  said recently  that, when  it comes  to minority
    rights, "Yugoslavia" exceeds world standards. The fact that Article 1 of
    the 1990  Constitution says that Serbia  is a state of  all its citizens
    does not  mean that Seselj  can commit several  crimes (provoking racial
    and  national animosity,  inspiring  actions  that result  in somebody's
    death) and remain unpunished.

    One  of the  main reasons  for the  sanctions is  the unsettled minority
    issue. "Yugoslavia" was asked to  provide adequate mechanisms that would
    guarantee the implementation of minority  rights that are so beautifully
    conceived.
                                                            Ivan Radovanovic


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     "Vreme" News Digest Agency                       No. 43, July 20, 1992
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