YWS 10/13

Yugoslav Daily Survey Directory

From: [email protected] (D.D. Chukurov)

13. OCTOBER 1995. YUGOSLAV WEEKLY SURVEY

CONTENTS

- WHEN SERBS ARE CLEANSED, IT'S SILENCE - THE PRICE OF COVER-UP - ETHNIC CLEANSING UNDER THE PROTECTION OF LAW - ON CROATIAN TERRORIZING OF KRAJINA SERBS

FROM FOREING MEDIA

WHEN SERBS ARE CLEANSED, IT'S SILENCE (by Alexander Cockburn) When Bosnian Muslims are shelled, driven from their homes or murdered, the world weeps. When Serbs are driven from their homes or are discovered with their throats out, eyes stay dry. When Serbs do the cleansing, it's "genocide". When Serbs are cleansed, it's either silence or an exultant cry that they had it coming to them. Two years into a propaganda campaign - often demented - on behalf of the Bosnian Muslims, we are now reaping the consequence of that campaign: "The largest ethnic cleansing of the entire war - the expulsion of the Serbs from the Krajina region now overrun by the Croats-is a topic virtually unmentioned in any news forum in the United States. At least 150.000 Serbs have now fled the Krajina, abandoning the homes in which their ancestors have lived since the 17th century. President Franjo Tudjman of Croatia bellowed coarsely from his "freedom train" that the refugees left so fast they didn't have time to take "their dirty hard currency and their dirty underwear" - language somewhat similar in timbre to Tudjman's infamous diatribes in his professorial writing about the Jews. Croat apologists say the Serbs fled the orders of their leaders and that there is no official Croat policy of cleansing. The U.S. embassy in the Croatian capital of Zagreb endorses this line, which is scarcely surprising since the ambassador there. Peter Galbrith, long and successfully argued the U.S. green-light policy that allowed the Croatian onslaught. But Croatian authorities are making it impossible for any Serb refugees to return, and U.N., observes report that between 60% and 80% of houses in some Serb villages have been destroyed. In a vivid report in the British "Independent", Robert Fisk described how every house in Kistanje, a village in the Krajina, had been destroyed earlier this month. The United Nations continues to discover the corpses of Serb civilians, including one women of 90. Monitors from the European Union prepared a confidential assessment quoted by Fisk:"Evidence of atrocities, an average of six corpses per day, continues to emerge. The corpses, some fresh, some decomposed, are mainly of old men. Many have been shot in the back of the head or had throats slit, others have been mutilated...Serb lands continue to be torched and looted. Contrary to official statements blaming it on "fleeing Serbs and uncontrollable elements", the assessment says, "the crimes have been perpetrated by the H.V. (Croatian Army), the C.R. (Croatian) police and C.R. civilians. There have been no observed attempts to stop it and the indications point to a scorched-earth policy". If you believe in the absolute evil of Serbian, then news of a 90-year-old Serb women having her throat slit probably will not be as burdensome as that of a 90-year-old Bosnian Muslim. Thus do the propagandists achieve their victories. But the Serbs are not wholly evil. Back in 1991 and 1992 they always believed that Croatian and then Bosnian independence, with speedy recognition of these two states by the West, would lead to slit throats and cleansing in Serb areas of Bosnia and in Croatia. They were right. And they are right to say that the bulk of the media in Western Europe and the United States has been partial to the Muslims and the Croats. Gen.Charles Boyd, recently retired from the U.S. Air Force and deputy commander in chief of U.S. European Command between 1992 and July of this year, has a very striking piece in the current issue of "Foreign Affairs" describing the manipulations of the Bosnian Muslims and how U.S. policy-purportedly neutral- has ignored legitimate Serb concerns and prolonged the conflict in accordance with Croat and Bosnian designs. The arms embargo on Bosnia, Boyd observes, has long been a fiction, with the United States ensuring a steady flow. He notes that amid the siege of Sarajevo the commercial price of gasoline in the city was 35% lower than in Germany and the violent death rate for 1994 (32%)was less than in Washington. "No seasoned observer in Sarajevo". Boyd writes, "doubts for a moment that Muslim forces have found it in their interest to shell friendly targets. In this case, the shelling usually closes the airport for a time, driving up the price of black-market goods that enter the city via routes controlled by Bosnian army commanders and government officials". As thing are, the United States has ended up as a sponsor of ethnic cleansing, with its NATO pilots acting as the Bosnian Air Forces. Call it a policy option, but don't confuse it with justice. Bosnian and Croat agitprop has won the war hands down. (Commentry, "Los Angeles Times", September 28, 1995)

THE PRICE OF COVER-UP (by Matthias Rueb) Ever stronger voices are being heard that not everything ran as smoothly in the reconquest of the area that Serbs had taken in so-called "Krajina" by the Croatian military as the government in Zagreb would like to present. Soon after Operation "Storm", once occupied territories could first be visited by newsmen. This paper also wrote about pillage and arson, noticeable in such proportions, that the contention that these were individual cases was excluded. However, most of Croatian reporting in pro- government newspapers and on State television makes no mention of these incidents. It was repeatedly contended that the Croatian military behaved with extreme discipline, that incidents occurred only in very rare cases which were not spoken about directly. This reporting was odd above all because the representatives of the said newspapers were privileged with respect to access to the re-conquered areas. As exclusive first-echelon correspondents, they were taken by the Croatian military to the "location" before there was time to remove the traces. However, the reported only about the triumph of the Croats in the war which was obviously to be presented as a surgery. Most of foreign journalists were bused to the area only after a number of days under the surveillance of the Croatia military. Until then the dirtiest job had already been done. Yet, much could be seen nevertheless. The following day the Croatian State-run radio and newspapers reported again that this or that number of foreign journalists had an opportunity to convince themselves that the Croatian military comported itself with extreme discipline etc. Quite understandably, nobody bothered to ask us about our real impressions and experiences. Among these, let us repeat and understand well, is also the fact the Croatian military did not cause senseless destruction during combat operations. Heavy weapons was used for military purposes and not against civilian targets or in destructive rage. Not only were Orthodox churches not destroyed, but are even being protected by the Croatian military and police. And whereas the Serbs had destroyed almost all Catholic churches during the occupation, almost all Orthodox churches are untouched. However, pillage and arson did occur and on a large scale. Members of the military also took part: in Knin we saw with our own eyes military vehicles loaded with booty and these vehicles obviously did not participate in an organized pre- planned impoundment. The sad fact is that pillage and arson were a rule rather than an exception. He who travelled to "Krajina" at the beginning of August could see palls of smoke hanging over deserted villages. According to the largely identical statements of Croatian soldiers, these infractions are to be ascribed primarily to those parts of the military which entered these places subsequently, while frontline combat units were, as a rule, disciplined. First reports of these phenomena were not echoed in the international public because the world entertained itself by a new balance of forces that supervened after the Croatian victory over the Serbs. A deceptive picture of a disciplined Croatian military was painted in rosy colours in Croatia itself. It has had harmful consequences. Quite understandably, the feeling of satisfaction and triumph because of a successfully performed military action has spread in Croatia. At the same time, the looters and arsonists must have felt that their acts were correct as there was no protest or indignation at home or abroad. It was only gradually that the representatives of international organizations began to arrive to the conquered area with the Croatian authorities ready to cooperate, then all of a sudden changing their mind the next moment and openly opposing their activities. The reports have been piling up for several days now. The European Union monitoring mission (ECMM) made a report available to a news agency which was to be confidential. "Amnesty International", the organization providing assistance to prisoners, has published a report following a several-day tour of the region by its members. The United Nations had published the impressions of the United Nations observers much before, but Zagreb rejected these impressions with the explanation that the anti-Croatian positions of some members of the United Nations press had been known to them for quite some time so that, consequently, these reports were not trustworthy. Some time later, the head of the department for human rights in the United States Department of State Mr. Shetac sided with them and said that the practice of doing all sorts of things in Krajina unpunished had to stop. According to Shetac, during and immediately after the military action, many people, especially the old people, were killed. This was said by an American, a great ally, who had to be taken seriously in Zagreb. Finally, a few days ago Cardinal Kuharic of Zagreb also raised his voice before several thousand soldiers of the Croatian Army at Marija Bistrica and anathemized those who committed crimes; in his words, they disgraced the Croatian Army. Only after many similar warnings, statements and articles, the Government in Zagreb was ready to acknowledge that both civilians and soldiers had committed crimes. The Minister of Interior hurriedly announced that in the meantime 260 civilians, 70 policemen and 65 members of the Army had been arrested in the meantime on suspicion of arson and looting in the re-conquered territories. At the same time, he insisted that those were "individual cases" against which "energetic steps" were to be taken. Nevertheless, the number of arrests continue to rise. What we witnessed ourselves, as well as the reports of numerous independent eyewitnesses, provide a pretty bleak picture. Even weeks after the cessation of fighting at the end of August which, in the official estimation, had lasted only 92 hours, there was looting, arson, harassment of civilians and even wanton killing of people. Entire villages were torches and in some places not a single apartment went unrobbed. These cases, reported too frequently to be covered up as individual, are in sharp contradiction with the statements in Zagreb to the effect that refugees can return. The thirst for revenge exists primarily among those Croats whom the Serbs had expelled from their homes and who now returned to see the debris of their homes. Yet, such behaviour cannot be condoned. According to United Nations data, out of 170 000 to 180 000 Serbs who lived in Krajina, only some 4 500 of them remained, most of them elderly people. Regardless of the circumstances they had to be protected from attack, just as the property of refugees. Instead, the Croatian Government decided to confiscate the property of refugees if they did not return within a certain period of time. Admittedly, the deadline had been extended in the meantime, but the question is why there should be a deadline at all. Two months after Operation "Storm", Croatia is now paying the price of cover-up. Since State propaganda denied them, the attacks on the life and bodily integrity of the remaining people and the property of Serbian refugees continued, maybe even increased. This must have encouraged potential and manifold perpetrators of these atrocities since they were given to believe that their crime was no disgrace. This has damaged the reputation of Croatia. ("Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung", Frankfurt, October 5, 1995)

ETHNIC CLEANSING UNDER THE PROTECTION OF LAW (by Helene Despic-Popovic) The Croatian Parliament adopted a series of laws which, two months after the re-conquest of Krajina, confirm the disappearance of the Serbian community from Croatia. Passing through devastated Krajina, deserted by its Serbian populace expelled in the fighting from the region in which they had lived for centuries, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, obviously more pleased than disappointed, exclaimed: "They left as if they never existed". Subsequently, Croatian parliamentarians saw to it that they never return. One of the laws, published in the official gazette on 27 September 1995, draws on the decree under which the property of Serbian refugees was put in the hands of the Croatian Government. By another law, adopted at the same Parliament session on 20 September 1995, the users of socially-owned flats in the re- conquered region are deprived of the right to rent them, if their absence is longer than 90 days and the Government is entitled to rent them to new users. "It is evident that the laws are discriminatory since they relate only to a precisely defined category of people", says Croatian lawyer Dafinka Vecerina, member of the Croatian Human Rights Committee in Zagreb. Croatian officials explain that they wanted to react to an extraordinary situation in order to accommodate the 1991 war Croatian refugees and those arriving from the parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina under Serbian control, on the one hand, and to prevent seizure of Serbian property in Krajina, on the other. International institutions estimate that between 60 and 80 per cent of the Serbian property in the region has been either destroyed or burned down and reproach Croatian authorities for treating leniently the acts often committed by soldiers. The lawgiver, denying that it has opened the door to confiscation in the true meaning of the word, says that Serbian owners will be able to reclaim their property if they return to Croatia within 90 days. In the decree, replaced by the law, the deadline was only 30 days and was extended because of the protests of the international community. This change is insufficient because the deadlines in the question of the use of property range between ten and twenty years, as was stated in the United Nations Security Council where Croatia was criticized because of the continued killings and pillage in Krajina. In its report published last week, the European Union explains: "It seems that Croatia wishes to make sure that Serbs do not return" and puts the following question: "How will the refugees settled in Serbia be able to get to know for the new law and how can they return to Croatia?" The statement goes on to say: "If they arrive at the border with a passport of the former Yugoslavia, it is almost certain that they will be returned. They will need a visa that the Croatian Liaison Office in Belgrade cannot issue. They will have to go to Budapest where they need a couple of weeks to get a visa." According to the Helsinki Committee in Zagreb, already as many as 24 000 Serbian refugees from Krajina have approached the Croatian Office in Belgrade. And an ever greater number of people is being returned from the Croatian border. However, the refugee who was wise enough to take on himself the ownership documents as he fled the area would be very far indeed from seeing the end to his troubles as the law grants legal protection to the new tenant who moved into his property and is in need of accommodation. In an interview to the Split daily "Slobodna Dalmacija" at the end of August, President Franjo Tudjman implicitly admitted that the departure of Serbs was a desired go. He pointed out that the "idea was to carry out a humane exchange (of the population)" between the Serbs from Croatia and the Croats from Serbia. At that time agencies were establishing contacts between the Serbs from Zagreb and the Croats from Banjaluka and Belgrade desirous of exchanging flats and special bus lines were opened between Serbia and Croatia via Hungary to facilitate this slow but inevitable population resettlement. The Serbs from Croatia were often encouraged to do so in which many of them encountered administrative problems in getting citizenship certificates, while others were evicted, often by force, from their flats which had belonged to the former Yugoslav federal army. Explaining that he did not want a mass exodus of the Serbs from Krajina, the Croatian President concluded: "Notwithstanding the individual tragedy of these people, the results will be positive for they will prevent the Serbs from playing the role in the present-day Croatia they have played since Turkish times." The Serbs, whose property has been affected, have also been affected as a recognized and protected minority. In order to be internationally recognized, Croatia was to guarantee at the request of the Europeans special rights to the minorities which accounted for more than 5 per cent of the population, in other words to the Serbs who accounted for about 12 per cent of Croatia's population before the war. Three weeks after the re- conquest of Krajina, answering a question related to the continued validity of the election law on the proportional representation of Serbs in parliament, President Tudjman was explicit: "It is self-understandable that by voluntarily (sic) leaving Croatia, the Serbs themselves created the situation in which the provisions of the constitutional law on minority rights and the corresponding constitutional law have ceased to apply. We have to take into account this reality." What was said was done. The articles of the constitutional law providing for the granting of the autonomous status to the regions around Knin and Glina and the local population have been "temporarily" frozen, as well as the establishment of a human rights court which was to be made up of two members from Croatia and three from the countries of the European Union. On the eve of parliamentary elections, the Croatian Parliament also decided to reduce the number of MPs to be elected as representatives of the Serbian community from 13 to 3 even without waiting for the results of a new census which was hurriedly announced for the coming spring. This was said by the chairman of the Helsinki Committee from Zagreb, Ivan Zvonimir Cicak. For the first time the category of "non-citizens" appears in this census. "By suspending the law on minority rights, the Croatian Government deprived the Serbian refugees of their citizenship, although it has no right to do so according to the Constitution. The authorities do not recognize Serbs as their nationals and instead provide citizenship to Croats from Bosnia who never lived in Croatia. Not only does it represent ethnic cleansing but is also a racist policy," concludes this activist of the human rights Organization, expressing his concern that the timid warnings of Europe and America remain ineffective. ("Liberation", Paris, October 9, 1995)

BRITISH TELEVISION ON CROATIAN TERRORIZING OF KRAJINA SERBS The renowned Belgrade daily "Politika" said on Thursday that thank to a report by London's Channel Four Television, the British public had received probably the most impressive picture of the destruction of the remains of the Serb civilization and terrorizing of the remaining Serb population in Krajina, which is being carried out with Croatian authorities' obvious blessing. "Politika" carried almost the entire text of the report, saying that because of the lack of the filmed material, it could not have such impression as on the British viewers two days ago. Images of torched houses and demolished and plundered villages are accompanied by the text about U.N. reports that three-quarters of houses in Krajina cannot be lived in since the Croatian army seized them from the Serbs in the August aggression. The reporter said that U.N. officials confirmed that civilian (Croatian) police offered no protection for about 3,000 remaining Serb civilians. However, the recently appointed Croatian regional commander claims the region is secure, the reporter said. According to Yugoslav officials' information, thousands of mostly civilians were killed and about 250,000 others fled northern and southern Serb Krajina after Croatia's August aggression. Serb property was looted and torched. Croatian President Franjo Tudjman plans to populate the region with Croatians, the reporter said, illustrating this with the image of a mass to celebrate the "liberation" of the village of Kijevo and statement that the Catholic religious service and Croatian nationalism were inseparable. No one can dispute Croatians' right to celebrate their return, like the population of Kijevo did, but the entire region cannot be populated with Croatians at the expense of the Serbs, who lived there for half a Millennium, the reporter said. All attempts by Croatian authorities before the international community to dispute or play down the crimes committed in Krajina during the August aggression and after it, were annulled by the power of the reports' authentic images, "Politika" said. ("Tanjug's Daily Bulletin", Belgrade, October 6, 1995)