If they want to avoid the terror imposed by the Fifth Corps of the Bosnian Army, the refugees from Kladusa have nowhere to go. Presently, the West does not want them and Croatia refuses to give them refugee status, as purportedly they can return to their homes, which was supposedly settled by the above mentioned agreement; according to the agreement three different police forces were supposed to guarantee the security of the returning refugees: Turkish, Croatian and Bosnian police. The influence of the international police (sic!) is small and does not mean much in practice.
At the time, there were 6,500 children younger than 15 at the camp; today there are about 5,500 of them. There were 380 pregnant women, five thousand people older than 65, about 12,000 adults, 52 orphans and many more children without one of the parents.
Today, there are at least 12-13,000 refugees in the camp. With every new day they have less and less hope for survival. The children are getting ill, there are infectious diseases, there is a shortage of everything besides bread and fresh air!
Taking into the account the conditions in which they live (without heating, water, electricity, in hovels and stables), every normal person must wonder why the refugees do not want to willingly return to their homes when the Bosnian government has promised that everything would be OK? The reply is, on the other hand, in Kladusa, where the Fifth Bosnian army Corps lives, works and acts together with the local bosses who obviously have a political trump card to do what they are doing - to rape, kill and burn. Three months ago a girl from Kladusa was brought to a Karlovac hospital; she had been raped about ten times by about ten "buzimci" (elite soldiers of the Fifth Corps). Doctors almost couldn't sew her up.
The West also doesn't give a damn for the position of the refugees, although it, as early as 1992, secretly suggested a referendum and later autonomy [for the Western Bosnia], and the colorful humanitarian crowd plays its own tune and usually doesn't do anything positive. If they show an intention to do something positive, Croatian administration quickly changes their mind.
In all this, it is interesting that no one has so far asked the people from Kupljensko what they really want and feel, where would they like to go and how. However, at the beginning of December, Doctors Without Borders conducted a poll in Kupljensko. It consisted from three questions: How long do you think you can stay in the camp? Under what conditions would you return home? Do you want to move abroad?
The third question about the relocation abroad gives three possible choices and includes one sub-question. The first reply absolutely excludes relocation abroad, the second one conditions the return to Kladusa on security (human rights, property), and the third answer was chosen by those who wouldn't return to Velika Kladusa even if it were New York. At the end of the third question the respondents were asked to choose a country to which they would like to relocate and to state the reasons for that choice (relatives, language, cultural advantages).
ARKzin has found out the preliminary results of the poll which will be officially published at the end of this month. The Western governments, because of whom this poll was conducted will have to face the facts. We will find out their reaction and whether they will really help the people who expect their assistance in January. Let us return to the results of the poll. More than 90% of the respondents stated that they couldn't stay in the camp for more than another month. Out of that number, about a half said that they couldn't take more than another two weeks in the camp, which can be concluded from small, but frequent groups on the road to Kladusa. Only 10 percent had decided to stay in the camp to the very end, until everything is conclusively resolved.
Germany, Canada and Scandinavian countries are at the top of the wish list (50 percent) of those who wish to relocate abroad. Another 24 countries were mentioned on the list. The reasons given for the desire to relocate to those countries are different. Relatives are the most important reason (45 percent), then language (15 percent) and other reasons (20 percent) - humanitarian, cultural, political democracy, human rights) good and good looking people (mostly women). About 20 percent didn't respond to this question.
There are another several important problems which cannot be solved by the people in the camp. Wood, winter and fear are at the top, but almost every one of the participants mentioned in the poll, apart from the the questions and responses, a moral problem. The feeling of rejection, perception of moral destruction of everything that surrounds them, despite their will, influences their willingness to return to Kladusa.
85 percent of refugees want to relocate abroad; they can be divided into those who would leave in any case and those who would only leave if the situation at home is very difficult (40 percent).
The second question almost unanimously confirmed the political will of the refugees who expressed desire for their own government, Fikret Abdic as its leader and the autonomy for Western Bosnia. Almost 90 percent of participants chose that answer, while the rest chose non mobilization and minimal safety guarantees.
Every Western Bosnian knows that if he accepts Sarajevo crescendo he will live in a reservation, insecure for property and personal safety, with chances for worse. Their stories about fear are not fabrications. Between mid-October and mid-December, 95 beatings of the returnees were recorded in Velika Kladusa and the surrounding villages; several of those ended with the death of a beaten refugee. Those who need medical assistance do not have a right to see a physician and helplessly await death in their homes. If they have a home, of course.
Coordinator of the Kupljensko camp, Ramo Hirkic believes that the situation will not change until the regime in Sarajevo is pressured to ensure secure return for the refugees in the camp.
House burning, especially in the villages, is a daily occurrence. The fear is greater every day and the hope for (promised) peaceful life smaller. Until now, at least 8,500 people have returned; refugees in Kupljensko know very little about the experiences of the returnees. UNHCR tried to be sympathetic and started gathering (reliable) information about the returnees. The action started well, first two times, but was later banned by the Fifth Corps; probably because the truth would have revealed the real nature of their crocodile tears for the destiny of their ethnic brethren in Kupljensko. UNHCR got scared and since then regularly gives out false information about the experiences of the returnees in Kladusa. It is still recruiting people for the return to Kladusa, and people have nowhere to return to. And nobody cares about that.
All that the people from Kupljensko want, and do not have, can be put in one sentence. Trust in the state and its legal system, personal safety and a place to return to. In other words, protection for their property.
In order to stop the uncertainty regarding their own destiny, the refugees offered five demands at their demonstration in Kupljensko which took place on December 11. The refugees stated that if these conditions were fulfilled they would consider collective return. They demand to have a say in decisions regarding their own destiny. Then, they demand respect for all international conventions regarding the rights of refugees, another meeting of the signatories of the August 8 agreement, informative and humanitarian blockade. The last demand can be explained by that old revolutionary motto : "Better to die than to be a slave."
Unfortunately, the Bosnian government is not ready to consider a compromise. It actually wants to eliminate Fikret Abdic as it has publicly stated. In addition they object that Croatia is still protecting and tolerating Abdic. On the other hand Croatia is feigning sincerity, the West sympathy and all together trade in human misery. The one with better cards wins. In this case there is no winner.
It was a response to the needs of the refugees. Despite all agreements regarding the refugees in this camp, no one has ever sought their opinion.
What do you intend to do with the results of the poll? Will you use them in lobbying, as a recommendation, or something else?
I am hoping that we will be able to use these results in order to make the world more aware of the refugee problems in the widest geopolitical sense. We will demonstrate through this poll that this is a specific group of people which cannot be defined through narrow ethnic criteria which have so far been the basis for all agreements.
So, how can you define that sort of a group?
My personal opinion is that these people desire peace, not war. They only lack a strong ideology which would hold them together. They simply gathered around a strong leader, Fikret Abdic. Exactly because they lacked an aggressive ideology, they couldn't defend themselves from nationalism which penetrated and burned them from all sides.
What will happen with them this winter?
The next two months will be the hardest. Winter conditions in the camp are hard. I am hoping for the reduction in restrictions regarding the humanitarian aid so that we can receive more warm clothes, better food... This would improve humanitarian conditions in the following few months, since the governments and everyone else understand that the camp will remain here until the following spring. This is a humanitarian tragedy. There is not one international organization which hasn't had problems with financing, coordination, organization and which hasn't been surprised with the conditions. All that produced a lot of confusion. Still, Croatian authorities bear a lot of responsibility because of their refusal to cooperate in the improvement of conditions in the camp. For example, relatives are not allowed to visit the people in the camp, sick people are not admitted to the Karlovac hospital because of the Croatian authorities; there are a lot of similar examples.
The reason is that they do not have a refugee status.
The reason is the politics, although according to the international law and the opinion of all international organizations, these people are definitely refugees. Croatian government can not give them a refugee status because that would imply a sharp criticism of its federal partner. It is a serious accusation to state that your partner in the Federation is unable to protect its own people. The giving of the refugee status to these people would confirm that.
If the Federal partner says that these people are traitors, then they are traitors, aren't they?
Something like that. But also because these people cannot be put in one of the categories which are used for the solution of the war in the former Yugoslavia. Refugees from Velika Kladusa are often forgotten and misunderstood. The fact that they are misunderstood allows journalists and TV reporters to represent them as they wish, since everything goes. They call them Abdic terrorists, Chetniks [derogatory term for Serbs, WWII nationalist Serb resistance fighters who committed crimes against Croats, Muslims and Serbs who fought with the communists], war criminals and similar names. These people are traitors because they wanted peace in their own freedom. If your state, regardless whether you agree or not says; "You live in my territory and have to be on my side," and you aren't, then you automatically become a traitor. On the other hand it is possible that these people were traitors, but in that case, both Izetbegovic and Tudman are also traitors, since they simply signed an agreement which these people had signed two years ago.