The demand of the president of the Democratic Alliance of Croats in Vojvodina Petar Kuntic, made last Wednesday at the celebration of the 15th anniversary of the founding of the party in front of presidents of Serbia and Croatia, Boris Tadic and Stjepan Mesic, respectively, recently pushed the Croat-Bunjevac dispute in Subotica and Vojvodina to the national level. Actually, it seems that Kuntic's response to the question whether Bunjevci are Croats or a separate ethnic group only added another knot to the complex issue that has for years been tackled by not only representatives of the two opposing options, but by the two countries as well.
Naturally, walls of the city hall in Subotica were not thick enough to keep Petar Kuntic's appeal reserved for the two presidents. Two days later, the response of the other side came like an echo at a session of Subotica municipal council. Councilor Mirko Bajic - at the same time a member of the National Council of Bunjevac Ethnic Minority (Nacionalni Savjet Bunjevaca, NSB), member of the Vojvodina Provincial Council For The Rights Of Ethnic Minorities and representative at the Vojvodina Provincial Assembly - thundered at Kuntic - who is also deputy mayor of Subotica - that if he did not publicly apologize to Bunjevci, "he'd feel the hard Bunjevac head". Denying that that was an emotional outburst, Mirko Bajic stated that it was unacceptable that the second ranking city official, even if he did that in the status of the president of his party, make statements that "directly endanger rights of others".
"It was stated that Bunjevci do not exist as a nation, or that it should be believed that they do not exist as a nation, but that Bunjevci are Croats. As far as I am concerned, that is nonsense, and that statement directly contradicts human and minority rights," Bajic believes. He added that the best evidence of the existence of Bunjevci as a separate group are about 20,000 citizens (about 16,000 in Subotica) who declared in the most recent population census to be members of the Bunjevac ethnic minority.
Bajic also brings up the argument that two years ago Bunjevci established their National Council through which they have been trying to secure their legal rights. At the same time Bajic says that he does not deny others, "including Croats", the right to be what they are and that he welcomed all positive changes in connection with official use of minority languages, education and media.
Given that in 1994 Subotica Municipal Council besides already existing Serbian and Hungarian languages, introduced Croatian as an official language, some of the later legally recognized rights had been enjoyed by Croats before they were even officially recognized as an ethnic minority. For example, Radio Subotica, run by the municipality, set up an editorial team for the program in the Croatian language which is today broadcast two hours (between 7 and 9 p.m.) every day. Pointing out that example, Bajic claims that he would be very happy if within the Croatian language program some time was reserved for content in Bunjevac Ikavian [Croats use the Croatian standard language, based on the Ijekavian Shtokavian dialect, while Bunjevci speak the Ikavian Shtokavian dialect], which would, he says, in practice start the process of bringing the two branches of the same tree together.
On the other hand, Petar Kuntic claims that he is very surprised by such reaction, recalling the consistent views of the DSHV regarding the national origin of Bunjevci for the last fifteen years.
"Politics has to a large extent gotten mixed up among Bunjevac Croats with the goal of fomenting disturbances and continuing divisions. It is our view that Bunjevci are Croats, and this year our view has been confirmed by the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Vojvodina Academy of Sciences, and the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts regarding the so-called Bunjevac language. Therefore, we shall in the future continue to work on the protection of the interests of Bunjevci Croats, regardless of the baseless assertions by Bunjevci who believe that they are not Croats," says Kuntic. He added that he did not see why Bunjevci would be a separate ethnic group only in Vojvodina, while in Croatia (Senj and Lika), Bosnia-Hercegovina (western Hercegovina) and in the south of Hungary other speakers of the Ikavian Shtokavian consider themselves to be Croats.
On Tuesday, at the meeting of the Council for Ethnic Minorities in Belgrade, leaders of the two national councils got involved in the clash between Bajic and Kuntic.
President of the NSB Nikola Babic says that on that occasion he repeated to Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica that the Croat community in Vojvodina has constantly exerted pressure not only on Bunjevci but also on the state institutions. Babic demanded that the Government "clearly take an official stand and legally define" the status of Bunjevci. The demand received the support of eleven Bunjevac institutions; among other, they claim that Petar Kuntic at the DSHV celebration "committed the crime of fomenting ethnic, racial or religious hatred, divisiveness and intolerance". Bajic, just like Kuntic, refers to the same argument, but this time in a different context:
"He is deliberately confusing issues, forgetting the decree from 1945 that ordered that all Bunjevci had to be treated as Croats. After everything that was said at the DSHV celebration I believe further dialog would be pointless, but we do not seek further confrontation. Consequently, we requested from the Government to clearly explain our status, and I will personally invite people from the DSVH and the Croat National Council to sit together and talk in order to find a solution as the Prime Minister suggested," Babic says.
Commenting on this request, Lazo Vojnic Hajduk, president of the Executive Council of the Croat National Council, says that it is a "start or an end" of a cycle of relations between Croats and Bunjevci that has reached its culmination these days.
"We now have concrete demands by both sides, but we haven't so far had a chance to compare arguments of both sides regarding the existence of the Bunjevci National Council and their claim that Serbia is their motherland. Our view is that there should not be any serious conflicts and everything could be resolved using objective and transparent discourse, provided obvious facts regarding that issue are accepted," Lazo Vojnic Hajduk claims.
One of these facts is the fairly recent initiative of the NBS for raising the status of Bunjevac idiom to that of a language with its own standard, which would lead to the definition of the educational program in that language. Thus the issue of standardization of the neo-Ikavian Shtokavian has become a purely political process in which everyone seems to be more important than the linguists. The launch of "the Bunjevci language program", named "Spektar" [spectrum], which will be broadcast bi-weekly for 30 minutes by TV Novi Sad 2, in addition to further increasing pressure of politicians and silencing linguists, experts on different dialects especially, in some way reveals the official state policy regarding the relations between Croats and Bunjevci.
Lazo Vojnic Hajduk says that that only continues the process of confrontation between the two options.
"The Croatian National Council claims that the attitude of state institutions regarding this problem is such that it in some way encourages assimilation of Croats in this region, splitting them into two fictive options that are actually identical".
With the end of WWII the national issue seemed solved. Until 1991 Bunjevci were officially Croats. However, after the introduction of the possibility to declare separate ethnic identity in the 1991 population census in Serbia, the number of Croats in Vojvodina was significantly reduced (from over 100,000 to 74,000), and in Subotica reduced by half (17,000 Bunjevci and 16,000 Croats). The 2002 Serbian population census produced an almost identical picture: the number of Croats in Subotica exceeds that of Bunjevci by a few hundred, while both groups are a bit below 17,000. The official right of Bunjevci to declare their nationality led to a confrontation with Croats. Almost in parallel two political parties were founded (Democratic Party of Vojvodina Croats (DSVH) and Bunjevacka-Sokacka party (BSS), today "only" Bunjevacka party (BS)). DSVH has all this time been allied with the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM) and the League of Vojvodina Social-Democrats (LSV), and more recently with the Democratic Party (DS), while the B(S)S has had the support of the Serb Radical Party (SRS), the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) and the Yugoslav Left (JUL), and more recently the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS). Besides political parties, over the last fifteen years both Croats and Bunjevci have established their cultural centers with about ten similar institutions, most of which have headquarters in Subotica and its surroundings. Two years ago both Croats and Bunjevci were officially recognized as ethnic minorities in Serbia. Both groups used that status to establish separate National Councils; both have their printed media - weekly Hrvatska Rijec and magazine Bunjevacke Novine which has so far appeared from time to time; both communities also have a 30 minute TV show broadcast by TV Novi Sad.