by Ivica DIKIC
"My man, the future stayed behind in Titograd," [a pun on the name of a soccer/basketball team from Podgorica (Titograd, or Tito's town in the formet Yugoslavia), Montenegro - Buducnost or future] he says and adds that it seems to him that there were less inter-ethnic incidents in the town while Tudman was alive and the HDZ was in power. The previous authorities, he says, had to be careful about causing trouble, although they used all the available means to pressure Serbs to leave Croatia.
"Now they are in opposition and can do whatever they like, and it is even in their interest to keep provoking incidents here and to maintain tense atmosphere. I can only imagine what will happen on May 30, when Djapic is supposed to organize a rally, named 'Cry from Ovcara'," says Darko. His words are confirmed by the recent events: first, Dinamo's fans after the match with the local soccer team Vukovar went on a rampage through Serb pubs and smashed everything they could; then the unidentified someone demolished the monuments to the slain Serb soldiers; another incident followed, also with unidentified perpetrators; in this case, someone uprooted cypresses commemorating deaths of twelve Croat policemen killed in Borovo Selo on May 2, 1991; discounting daily pub brawls, the series of incidents stopped for now with the recent drunken violent orgy of a demoted officer of the Croatian Army in Serb pubs at the town market. Lest there be confusion, in Vukovar terms such as Serb cafes and Croat cafes are a normal thing, since in the town inhabited by, according to imprecise data, about 15,000 residents (about 13,000 Serbs and about 2,000 Croats) it is very well known who goes out where. The exceptions are rare and only confirm the existence of the invisible line that divides Vukovar to two warring sides. The division disappears only in several specialized pubs in Bobota and Tenja, where Serb-Croat brotherhood is again initiated by folk melodies.
"Of course, there are normal people here, who realize that the war is over and that we have to live together. Look, Tomislav Mercep's nephew drinks every day in my pub. But there are also fools whose life has no sense without a war. I would like to make a request to the Croatian Soccer Association not to expand the First Soccer Division, and to allow Vukovar to be demoted to the lower competition rank, because every time Hajduk or Dinamo come here we have to close down cafes, pubs and restaurants and spend the day at home," says Ivkovic.
"Look, screw it, what they do," says Ivkovic. "That is the only way to survive. People cross over to Backa Palanka, buy a few boxes of cigarettes or something else and that is what they live on. Smuggling is saving most of population in this town."
And indeed that is so. The former Yugoslav footwear giant Borovo company, which before the war had more than 22,000 employees, today has only 500-600. In Vupik, another large Vukovar company, there are about 1,000 employees, but they haven't been paid for months, while the production in Vuteks has almost totally been halted. The remaining ten companies employ a negligible number of individuals, and the luckiest residents of Vukovar are those who receive pensions or work for the state institutions, such as the Police, in education, health service, and state administration.
Therefore, the destitute army living in Vukovar has no other choice but to take on market days anything they can spare, and try to sell it at the market. The goods offered for sale include tights and Thai made cassette players, tampons and Belgrade newspaper Vecernje Novosti.
"Every morning I travel to Sid and buy about 50 copies of Vecernje Novosti which are on sale there for DM0.2. Then I smuggle them to Vukovar and sell for 5 kunas each. I make some money, but it is a lousy job. I fear every day whether the Police will confiscate the newspapers. That could be done legally," says Slobodan Lucic, who worked for full seventeen years in Borovo. He says he is not ashamed of doing any work, as long as he can feed his two children. By the way, his daughter had a nervous breakdown a year and a half ago. That was a consequence of a rape. The rapist is in the court, but the policeman who protected him will most likely get off without punishment. Also, his cousin, although his father is a Croat, denounced him to the Police as a war criminal. Slobodan interprets her action with the fact that he stayed in Vukovar throughout the war and is married to a Serb woman. He claims that he never touched anyone in his life.
"Perhaps this is bullshit for you, sir, but I bet you have a good pension and do not have to worry every morning whether the Police will confiscate your goods, just for fun," Slobodan holds his ground. "In Vukovar, people who before the war did not have enough money to buy a bicycle now drive expensive cars, and their only achievement is that they gave a son for Croatia. They have good pensions and live like gods, but what about us, who do not have children for sale and who did not give birth to children so that one day they could die for any country. We have to live somehow."
"You should be ashamed for saying that," Mr. Ledic persists in his contempt.
"Why should I be ashamed? Everything I said is true and the Croatian media never wrote the truth about Vukovar. Why the HTV never reported how many times monuments to slain Serb soldiers have been destroyed? How come they never said that the destruction of monuments, regardless of whose monuments they are, is barbarity? No, for the HTV it is barbarity, as it should be, when cypresses planted in memory of the policemen killed in Borovo Selo are pulled out, and when the monuments to Serb soldiers are destroyed, then it is barbarity that these monuments include a reference to traditional Serb headwear."
"That Serb alley was built on the spot where Croat houses used to stand. That is Croat land and those monuments should have been demolished long time ago," Miljenko Ledic attacks.
"No, but this is Croatia and some things should be known. And all of us must have more patience. Not everything could have been reconstructed in three years. The state had to be strengthened, money had to be put aside for the military..."
However, it is more likely that Vukovar was not reconstructed on purpose, for one, very banal reason. Namely, too many Serbs still live in the town, and that reason for regime's neglect of the town can easily be spotted in the transcript of a conversation between Tudman and his orderly for ethnic cleansing, Jure Radic, published last week in Feral. The local Serbs did not meet Tudman's expectation to leave this region en masse after the integration in Croatia, and Croats disappointed the Leader by stubbornly refusing to return to their homes, so that during all these years the town only functioned in nationalist mythology and was almost totally denied any assistance from the state budget. Just like in the fall of 1991 when trucks loaded with weapons were, instead of to Vukovar, traveling to Hercegovina. That opinion seems to be shared by all the current inhabitants of the town, but Croats are reluctant to agree in public.
"I think that Vukovar was not reconstructed to allow the government to demand assistance from abroad for the reconstruction. Vukovar was supposed to be the picture that was to be shown to the world public, just like in 1991, when we needed an international recognition [of independence]," believes Vlado Benic, the director and editor-in-chief of the Croatian Radio Vukovar. If the state really had plans to expel the Serbs from the region, that could have been done more efficiently via the Agency for Sale of Real Estate: the state could have simply earmarked large funds for that agency and all Serb houses in the town could have been bought that way.
"Every Serb would sell his house and go to Serbia if only enough money were offered. The state, however, did not offer that money, so that most Serbs from Vukovar remain in the town. Then, Croats refused to return, because they were afraid for themselves and of their actions. Namely, it is not easy to every day pass by a neighbor if you know that he set your house on fire or looted it or killed someone from your family," says Benic.
"It is not simple for many Croats to return to Vukovar, because it is not easy to daily pass the house that you set on fire in the spring of 1991, the neighbor whose brother or son you beat up or killed in the summer of the same year," says Milos Vojnovic, the president of the Common Council of Municipalities [with significant Serb population]. He then gives a detailed talk about May 24, 1991. Namely, on that day two Croat plainclothes policemen took Vukovar judge Slavoljub Sremac from the courthouse. Somewhat later they came to pick up Vojnovic, at the time also a judge in the same court.
"However, the data about Milos Vojnovic they were looking for did not match my personal data, so they did not take me with them. I went home and soon received two warnings to get away, because they were coming to get me. I managed to leave that very same afternoon to Novi Sad, and the man who drove me is named Ferdinand Jukic. As far as I know, someone recently tried to kill him in Zagreb because of his attempts to contact the investigators of the Hague Tribunal; I can only say that he treated me well."
"What do you know about the activities of the Hague Tribunal investigators in connection with the events in Vukovar in the spring and summer of 1991?"
"I know that they visited the area several times and that they inquired about the details of the events preceding the outbreak of fighting in Vukovar. I also know that that other side of the dark Vukovar story will have to be opened one day. The side about the suffering of the Serbs. Serb crimes against Croats were horrendous and we do not intend to deny them, but it is time to speak out about our suffering during the spring and summer of 1991, when many Serbs from Vukovar disappeared and haven't been found until today. We know who committed those crimes, but it is too early to talk about that," says Vojnovic and adds that there will be no normal life in the town until all crime and all wartime events are not cleared up. To the question about the destruction of the monument to Croat policemen in Borovo Selo, he replies that he condemns the act, but that he also doubts that it was done by Serbs.
"You want to say that Croats did that in order to implicate the Serbs?"
"I am not claiming anything, but I do know that that act is definitely against the interests of the Serbs. However, in that whole story about twelve killed policemen in Borovo, the only true thing is that there were twelve of them."
"You won't say that Croats did that too?"
"I will not say anything, but I heard pretty reliable stories that those young men were sent by someone on his own initiative and that they had no idea why and where they were going."
Rade Leskovac, the leader of the Party of Danube Valley region Serbs and the individual who in only several years transformed himself from a fiery follower of [Serbian nationalist politician] Seselj to a preacher of multiethnic reconciliation is the only optimist encountered by Feral's reporters in the town on the Danube. People say that it is easy to be optimistic if one is loaded, and Leskovac without doubt has money. However, it seems that he truly believes his own words.
"Incidents taking place here are sporadic and should not be given any significance. The situation is going back to normal, people drink together in pubs, go to each other's celebrations and are renewing old friendships..."
"I must say that you're the only person to tell me something like that."
"Of course, Milos Vojnovic will not tell you something like that. His sons are in Novi Sad. He has a way out, if his politics here fails. It is in his interest that tension continues here and to continue to create an illusion of some inter-ethnic hatred. Here Serbs and Croats did a lot of evil, but it is time to again live together in harmony. No one will fare well if we continue to squabble and hate each other."
"I only want to leave," twenty-years-old Vesna, a waiter in a Vukovar café, tells the reporter. "This town kills. I do not go out, because there is nowhere to go out and have normal fun, so that I am always at home or at work. I am scared that I may get used to this darkness. I am awfully scared of that. Here, neither Serbs nor Croats have any future."
The future, screw it, was anyway left behind in Titograd.