From: malenovi@plains.NoDak.edu (Malenovic Nikola V.)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.yugoslavia
Subject: Vojvodina: Autonomy or "Cleansing" ( VREME NDA 5 Sep 1992 )
Date: 5 Sep 92 18:13:30 GMT
Article-I.D.: plains.20181
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network


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     "Vreme" News Digest No. 49                             August 31, 1992
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    Vojvodina: Autonomy or "Cleansing"
    ----------------------------------


                        THE LOCOMOTIVE IS OUT OF ORDER


    Either a true autonomy, or ethnic cleansing of the "northern province" -
    these are key  political options being maneuvered about  for almost four
    years. Conflict  could not be  delayed when in  the last year  a wave of
    140,000 refugees broke on Vojvodina.

    The  apparently  illogical  idea  that  conflict  between  the different
    nationalities inside  Serbia is likely  to break out  first in Vojvodina
    before Kosovo because ethnic cleansing of "non-Serbs" can be more easily
    carried out in the north than the south, almost seems to be happening.

    Even  though not  a single  political group  has explicitly spoken about
    this, the essence  of the "Vojvodina question" inexorably  floats to the
    top.  Either  a  true  autonomy,  or  ethnic  cleansing of the "northern
    province" - these  are key political options being  maneuvered about for
    almost four years. Conflict could not be delayed when in the last year a
    wave of 140,000 refugees broke  on Vojvodina. These people, with nothing
    and nobody, who  have lost their homes in Western  Slavonia (but also in
    Vukovar)  and throughout  Croatia, who  have fled  from the  war-ravaged
    Bosnia-Herzegovina, have  been placed along  the southern edge  of Backa
    and in  Srem, where the Serbian  majority is irrefutable, and  where the
    minorities are  truly minorities, which, objectively  speaking, could be
    quickly "extinguished". No-one knows yet  who it was who was responsible
    for the distribution,  but certain facts stick out.  If there are really
    10,118 refugees in Ruma, this is arithmetically  the same as if in a few
    months  800,000 people  who have  nothing left  to lose  were placed  in
    Belgrade  (there are  at present  139,918 in  Belgrade, which,  from the
    point  of view  of the  authorities and  radical nationalists,  probably
    improves  the  blood  count  of  the  voting  body).  It is difficult to
    suppose,  with regard  to the  Ruma municipality,  that the  decision to
    place 10,000 unfortunate  Serbs in the area, Hrtkovci,  Golubinci and on
    the Ruma  "Breg", which is  mainly inhabited by  Croats, was merely  the
    result of the  fact that the president of  the Association of Emigrants,
    Mr Brana Crncevic, was kicked out of high school just there. Because for
    the  municipal officials  in Vojvodina   today, to  be sent  refugees is
    experienced more and more as somebody's vengeance.

    This fear of refugees and their needs for ethnic cleansing was obviously
    what two weeks ago forced a mixed delegation (Croats and Serbs) from the
    infamous Hrtkovci, to seek protection from Panic's government, because a
    local  leader, Ostoja  Sibincic, with  a group  of refugees, had already
    "cleansed" the  village of 2,000 indigenous  Croats. Ostoja Sibincic was
    arrested last week-end after a lot of trouble.

    The  ethnic cleansing  which is  being offered  to Vojvodina,  in no way
    accidently brought back to the front door of politics the problem of the
    true autonomy of the province, and  it certainly was not accidental that
    it   happened  on   the  eve   of  the   London  Conference.  Apparently
    DEPOS,Democratic Movement of Serbia, was  first motivated by London when
    at  the beginning  of August  it went  public with  its document  on the
    creation of  four regions which would  "satisfy the legitimate interests
    of minorities not  to be artificially divided into  a lot of territorial
    units". Trying to  avoid the autonomy of provinces  in Serbia, the DEPOS
    council  divided the  Albanians in  Serbia into  two regions (Kosovo and
    Metohija), it placed the Moslems in  South Raska, and for the Hungarians
    foresaw "Northern Backa" (nine  municipalities with a Hungarian majority
    of around  60 percent). If the  idea is rejected as  impossible that the
    DEPOS council  knows nothing about either  European regions or Vojvodina
    and Kosovo,  then, in a  political sense, it  is a matter  of DEPOS also
    looking  for  a  strategy  of  ethnic  cleansing  in Serbia, except that
    expulsion  from  Serbia  is  not  talked  about,  but  instead "national
    cantonization".

    It  is interesting  that DEPOS'  idea is  actually nothing  more than an
    elaboration  of the  already old  demands of  the Democratic Alliance of
    Vojvodina Hungarians (DZNM)  on territorial autonomy. In Novi  Sad it is
    said that  Mr. Agoston, leader  of the Alliance,  would "sacrifice" even
    half of his  350,000 compatriots in order to  "encircle" some territory.
    Some  Hungarian intellectuals  from Novi  Sad say  that DEPOS' Hungarian
    enclave would  "legitimize" the persecution  of Hungarians from  all the
    other territories in Vojvodina with the comment: "Here you have Northern
    Backa, what do you want Novi Sad for!". Is it possible that DEPOS is for
    a "final solution"  in Vojvodina in  order to definitely  extinguish the
    autonomy  of the  province -  this can  once again  be heard amongst the
    indigenous population.

    As is known,  this initiative of DEPOS forced  the Reform Democrat party
    of  Vojvodina to  urgently launch  the "Declaration  on Vojvodina"  as a
    proposal (with  the possibility of certain  deviations). The Declaration
    says that the autonomy of Vojvodina is "the most important condition for
    the acceptance and resocialization of innocent people who will, in these
    restless times,  have to look  for long-term refuge  here for themselves
    and  their   families".  It  didn't  help:   all  the  national  parties
    immediately raised an outcry against Vojvodina moving into autonomy with
    a "constitutive position" in the new Yugoslavia.

    That  the  ethnic  cleansing  of  Vojvodina  in  Serbian Vojvodina is in
    question can be shown by the fact that all attacks on the Declaration on
    Vojvodina are tied into the resistance to the law on amnesty for refugee
    conscripts.  The party  in power,  SPS (The  Socialist Party Of Serbia),
    which  has  already  called  the  action  of  the  Vojvodina  Reformists
    "perfidious political  provocation" and apologized  to Seselj's Radicals
    by rejecting their charge that they are not taking all possible measures
    against  the "autonomizers",  discards with  disgust the  possibility of
    amnesty and says that it is "impermissible to build a legal state on the
    affirmation of  treason and disloyalty". The  connection between amnesty
    and  the ethnic  cleansing of  Vojvodina  is  clear for  all to  see. If
    100,000  refugee  conscripts  (mainly   Hungarian)  are  prevented  from
    returning  to  the  country,  in  time  they  will  be followed by their
    families. This simple fact has brought together in Vojvodina Socialists,
    Radicals, the League of Communists,  the Serbian Democratic Party (SDS),
    the Alliance of Workers, etc.

    All  national  seething  and   political  insecurity  this  autumn  will
    dramatize  in Vojvodina  the consequences  of the  terrible drought that
    threatens to  halve the production of  the province. If it  happens that
    someone  takes  over  Vojvodina  by  force,  it  may  be  found that the
    "locomotive of Serbian development" (as Vojvodina used to be called) has
    long  been out  of order  and that  it was  good only  as long as it was
    someone else's.
                                                            Dimitrije Boarov


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     "Vreme" News Digest No. 49                             August 31, 1992
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