used without permission, for "fair use" only

Crying on the Way Home

by Drago Hedl

Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, January 27 1997

"I have no other choice: I can drown either in the Danube or the Sava river," says 66 years old Leposava Trivic while sitting in an UNTAES bus parked in the yard of the Okucani primary school. Leposava and 14 more people from Eastern Slavonia arrived on the bus to visit their homes which they had abandoned after the [operation] "Flash" [Croatian liberation/occupation of Western Slavonia]. Today she lives in Vukovar, on the ninth floor of a building which has neither electricity nor water; nor does it have a lift. She doesn't know who had lived in the apartment before she moved in; when she moved in, there was no trace of the previous tenants in the apartment to which she was sent by the local authorities. It was stripped bare and in such a bad state that no one else wanted to move in. Today was the first time, since May 1995, that Leposava has seen her house and her village of Cage, next to Okucani. Today, Jakov Bozic and his family live in her house; in June 1992, Mr. Bozic and his family were expelled from Novo Selo in the former Bosanski Brod municipality in Bosnia-Hercegovina. A short conversation between the Bozics and Leposava Trivic ended with a simple but unimplementable conclusion: the Bozics would gladly move out of Leposava's house if she finds them another one in which they can live.

Regardless of their will, Leposava Trivic and Jakov Bozic became victims of a plot involving interests and relations of several countries. When, in a few months, Croatian authorities return to the Danube valley region, someone will, almost certainly, knock on the door of the apartment in which Leposava Trivic currently lives and dreams about her Cage, next to Okucani. That someone may come from an apartment in Osijek whose owner - a Serb - in the autumn of 1991 escaped to Belgrade and now, with Croatian documents in the pocket, is waiting for the refugee from Vukovar to leave his apartment in Osijek. When that happens, Leposava Trivic will have to head for her Cage; however, since Jakov Bozic has no idea who lives in his house in Novo Selo, in the Republic of Srpska, he won't leave Leposava's house, because he simply has nowhere else to go. His house in Novo Selo may be occupied by a Serb from Kistanje, whose house is right now being taken by a numerous family of Croatian refugees from Kosovo.

Doorsteps of Intrigue

Saying goodbye at the doorstep of the former Leposava's home, two people concluded that they cannot solve the their problem. A group of locals from Cage, mostly refugees from Banja Luka, watched their goodbye aware that soon some new Leposava would knock on their door. In desperation, a woman from the group said to Bozic's wife: "Did you cook a coffee for the old Chetnik [Croatian derogatory term for Serbs] woman?"

"There's nothing left to do, either the Danube or the Sava," repeats Leposava Trivic, her face covered in tears, while sitting in the UNTAES bus which will take her and other 14 passengers back to Eastern Slavonia, to somebody else's apartments and houses which they will soon have to abandon.

Milomirka Lalic, once a cleaner in the primary school in Okucani, didn't get a chance to visit her house in the village of Bodergaj, which she abandoned, as all the other villagers, in the May of 1995, during the operation "Flash". New tenants in her house, refugees from Bosnia, attacked her with snowballs, and a young man dressed in a uniform, pushed her away. She had to be protected by the Croatian police, which because of possible "encounters" between the former and present owners of houses, followed the UNTAES bus. Milomirka, her husband and a six-years-old daughter found accommodation in Dalj, in Eastern Slavonia, where with three Croatian families, they are sharing an apartment which before the war belonged to the Croatian Railways. They want to return to their Bodergaj, but the new occupants made it clear that Milomirka and her family should stay away.

Nostalgia for Okucani and insecurity in somebody else's house in Lovas, near Vukovar, made Ostoja Radojcic get on the UNTAES bus and snatch a chance to visit his two houses in Okucani. At first, the new tenants tried to chase him away, but eventually the atmosphere improved and they finally even offered him a drink of brandy. But, when he tried to visit his other house, a two storied building in the center of Okucani, the new tenant adamantly refused to let Ostoja in. He shook hands with Ostoja, "for the papers" and didn't seem to care when the old men, walking toward the bus, told him: "I would have let you in my home and shared my food with you." Ostoja Radojcic now lives in the house owned by Ivo Balic, a Croat, who had to escape to Vinkovci and who, from time to time, calls his neighbors asking about his house. Soon, he will knock on Ostoja's door, demanding his right to return to his own house.

Dayton Smile

"I walked around my house in Bodergaj, knocked on the door, but no one opened," says Ilija Dzambas, who had until the "Flash" lived in Western Slavonia and then "ran away with the people" and moved into an empty Croat house in Lovas. "Window-shades were pulled down; I saw laundry drying in the yard, and there were two dogs in front of the house. I don't know who lives there now and why they didn't want to let me in. I wanted to talk with those people and see if they will let me use one room when I come back. Now, I live in Lovas, in somebody else's home; I know that I can't stay there for long. I don't know the man in whose house I live now, but it says on the facade that it belongs to certain Stipan Balic; when he shows up, I'll have to move out. I have no idea where I will go then."

Pakrac office of the Committee for Human Rights has the data collected by the June of last years which lists 253 requests for return by the families who left after the operation "Flash" their homes in Pakrac, Lipik, Slatina, Daruvar and Okucani municipalities. Only twelve of them have returned by now, without assistance of the Office for Refugees and Displaced persons, until recently headed by Damir Zoric; the returnees received assistance from UNHCR and UNTAES. All together, 80 people who left during the operation "Flash" have so far returned to Western Slavonia. Their fates and problems are a good indication of what awaits future returnees. Nada and Nikola Seatovic's story should blow away any illusions about the "guaranteed right of return" from the Dayton agreement, which the people from the UNTAES bus and hundreds of thousands of refugees elsewhere may still have.

Nada and Nikola Seatovic, an elderly married couple, returned to Western Slavonia in the most legal manner: they obtained Croatian documents through Zoric's Office, based on the principle of "unification of families". After the "Flash" they spent some time in Novo Milosevo in Banat, and on March 16 they returned to Okucani. However, the family Ilaca who had been expelled from Eastern Slavonia, had already moved in to their house.

In Somebody Else's Home

"We talked with those people but they refused to move out," says Nada Seatovic in the conversation with Feral's journalists. "Although at that time, there were still free houses in Okucani, they didn't want to move to another house and they kept showing us a document which said that they had a right to temporarily use our home. Municipal commission, which issued that document, offered to find us accommodation, but in somebody else's home. Why should we live in somebody else's house if we have our own? We appealed, complained and in the August of last year we even contacted the Ministry of Justice in Zagreb, but we still haven't received a reply from anyone. I called today and they told me, as always, that our case is being considered. Now we live on the first floor of this house and have to pay rent of DM50 per month to the owner who lives in Austria. That is a lot for us, because my pension is 250 kunas and my husband's 700 kunas. We spend most of that for wood. In the Red Cross they told us that we shouldn't get aid in wood and food because we were not returnees but the original settlers; therefore we were denied a assistance of 250 Kunas per month and a packet of food, which is given to other returnees.

Vlado Aleksic, chief of the Pakrac office of the Committee for Human Rights and Rapprochement, says that the Croatian Red Cross is leading discriminatory policy in Pakrac. "Assistance is delivered to some recipients in tractor trailers, while others receive only 2-3 kilograms of flour a month. If it wasn't for the donations by UNICEF, UNHCR, ECMM, Caritas, and various foreign humanitarian organizations, 1045 citizens who received last year some humanitarian aid through the Office for Human Rights might have not survived. That is especially true for the small number of people who live in isolated villages and hamlets, who are left to fend for themselves".

Slap Worth DM100

Although all property stolen from Serbs who remained in Western Slavonia after the "Flash" or later came back, was meticulously recorded and the records given to the police and competent state authorities - until now nothing has been done to find and recover the stolen property. "Indeed, it is difficult to fathom that out of 50 stolen tractors, cars and other vehicles, as well as about 200 heads of cattle, so far nothing has been found and returned to its owners. We have the documentation about all the stolen property, but it is useless," says Aleksic.

Unlike the 14 passengers on the UNTAES bus who arrived on last Thursday, full of hope, to visit their houses, convinced that they will soon return to them, some Western Slavonian Serbs, dispersed all over the states who came out of the former Yugoslavia, have a different understanding of the guaranteed right to return: they authorized some lawyers in Grubisno Polje to sell their houses and land. Supposedly, only one local lawyer at the moment has 20 such authorizations, and the trade is going really well. True, the prices are pretty low: houses, together with the land, are sold for as little as DM900 [approx. $600].

"Still, even that is better than to sell property the way it was done after the 'Flash' at the famous Pakrac market," relates a local. "Then, one could buy hogs from Pakrac Serbs for as little as DM200. A slap on one cheek was worth DM100, and a slap on the other cheek covered the rest."

translated on 4/10/97