Last week Vecernji List introduced its readers to a seemingly shocking situation: on the front page, it was announced that in Croatia in the future houses will be rebuilt "even to war criminals". Naturally, only those who are ethnic Serbs. That headline, given without a question mark and printed in 200,000 copies, immediately achieved its basic goal. Namely, yet again it shocked Croats with "generosity" of the regime and hypocrisy of the International Community which favors Serbs and humiliates Croats.
However, not only is it not true that the Government is rebuilding houses to Serb war criminals, but even those returnees who did not participate in the war cannot get their houses back! The returnees cannot get back those houses that haven't been damaged. On the other hand, Serbs can only fantasize about the reconstruction of the demolished houses, although the Plan for Return, whose adoption last spring deflected the threat of economic sanctions against Croatia, envisaged something totally different. The Plan for Return envisages, for example, the procedure according to which the returning refugees, after their return to Croatia, report to the competent authorities. Then, the authorities must within five days give them the form PP2. This form should explain who lives in the house owned by the returnee, the state of the property and include current occupant's permit for temporary residence in the house. Also, the current occupant must be a refugee.
True, a drawback of the Plan was that it was not specified by when that alternative accommodation would have to be found. Nevertheless, the Plan was adopted and given a passing grade since at least on paper it provided pre-conditions for a final solution. For those whose houses had been destroyed, it envisaged reconstruction under equal conditions [regardless of nationality of the returnee].
Today, almost six months after the adoption of the Plan, the progress in its implementation has been negligible. The obstruction was implemented professionally, ablosutely and without specific criticism from the West. An analysis of the situation in the former Krajina shows that in the whole region a returnee is more likely to win in a lottery than to move back into his own house.
"Until November 1, only two houses were returned to Serbs returnees in Vojnic," says for Feral Tribune Ninko Miric, chief of the local office of the Serb Democratic Forum for Banija and Kordun. "In Topusko, four houses were returned, in Plaski 11 houses; in Gvozd [Vrgin Most] the authorities have so far been issued 3 permits but no one has returned to his own house. In Glina, two or three permits have been issued but no one has reclaimed his property. In Dvor, no permits have been issued and only one house was given back to its owner. That house was empty: no one wanted it. In Petrinja about ten houses have been returned to their owners, but only in those cases where the houses of local Croats had been reconstructed".
In the region for which Miric lists data, namely a significant part of Banija and Kordun, according to some estimates up to ten thousand people have returned, but only rare individuals have managed to reclaim their property. Therefore, it is not difficult to fathom what these people will do faced with the forthcoming winter. Besides, all the (rare) returnees who manage to reclaim their property receive totally destroyed houses.
SDF reports for the former UNTAES sectors South and West confirm the general trend. According to the SDF office in Okucani, which covers eight municipalities, the situation in connection with the return of property and reconstruction is the same as at the end of the war. Thus, in the municipality of Nova Gradiska, no contract for the reconstruction of property has been signed and not a single house has been returned to its owners. In Okucani two contracts for reconstruction have been signed; in the municipality of Gornji Bogicavci none. In Stara Gradiska one, in Cernjik none, in Novska none, in Jasenovac none and in Dragalic three.
"During all of 1997, and until September 30 1998, the Ministry of Development and Reconstruction has not rebuilt a single house owned by an ethnic Serb returnee, such that the reconstruction can be classified under the organized reconstruction of the houses with the damage of the fourth to sixth degree!" states the SDF report.
The situation in Knin is similar. "Not a single house has been returned through a commission," we were told by lawyer Ratko Gajica, chief of the local SDF office in Knin. "The commission only invalidated several permits for the temporary usage of accommodation. All the papers from the wider Knin region, for example Orlic, are sent to Zagreb," says Gajica. According to him, the local accommodation commission in Benkovac has not been working, as well as the one in Obrovac. Moreover, and that is the practice in most of other localities, the authorities demand numerous documents as a precondition for the return of property to the returnees: for example a building permit, residency papers for all the family members (!?) etc. Such conditions could not be fulfilled without trouble even in Zagreb. The local commission has not visited any of the houses so far, and without a visit to the object, it is impossible to establish the state of the property that should be returned.
Therefore, on the territory of the former Krajina, apart form east Slavonia, at most about one hundred houses have been returned to their owners, ethnic Serb returnees. It appears that not even a single house has been reconstructed with Government's assistance! In that context articles in Vecernji List about "the reconstruction of houses of war criminals" sound like pure cynicism.
Until then, burdened by the lack of accommodation, many Serbs will give up and again leave Croatia. The Croatian Government plans to start construction of two new settlements for Croats from Bosnia and refugees from Croatia next spring. These are so-called Donji Boricevac where the construction of 150 houses is planned for the first phase (and another 300 in the second phase) and a new settlement in the municipality of Korenica with 300 houses and 1715 inhabitants, roughly the number of Serbs in the village of Korenica before the war. The construction of houses for Croats from Janjevo [a village in Kosovo, Serbia] in the village of Kistanje continues. All of this indicates that the Government does not want to give up its strategic plan to totally change the ethnic composition of the former Krajina region. Obviously Serbs will not be allowed to remain in majority anywhere [in Krajina].
As before, local authorities will be in charge of one part of the job in the realization of that task: pressures, discrimination in employment, refusal to return property etc. The other part of the plan - immigration of Croats - will be financed from abroad. The building of these settlements will be also financed by the International Community as indicated by the recent agreement between OSCE and Lika-Senj County about the financing of the construction of a new settlement in the Korenica municipality.
The dismissal of more than 200 workers of the General Hospital in Vukovar, mostly ethnic Serbs, the dismissal of teachers who did not teach in Croatian language [a dialect of Serbocroatian, the language used by Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks] in the same town, the beating of a youth in Borovo Selo, as well as the recent incident at the meeting of non-governmental organizations in Zagreb Fairgrounds - when the members of the Serb Democratic Forum were attacked without provocation, are all evidence that the real situation significantly differs from that presented in the state-controlled media. The state-controlled media in new conditions differently, but with same goals, "spread tolerance" as they did in the past. The project of ethnic cleansing is not over: obviously it has been adapted to new circumstances.
Translated on 1/15/99
Six Months After the Adoption of the Plan for Return, Only About One Hundred Ethnic Serb Refugees Managed to Return to Their Houses
Home and Hell
Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, November 9 1998
by Boris RasetaPaper Fraud
After the reception of that form, in the following seven days, according to the Plan for Return, the returnee should receive another form (PP3). The form PP3 should state that the current occupant of the house will be placed in alternative accommodation (an empty apartment or a house, or a house bought by the Agency [government Agency which buys property from Serb refugees]).Spend Winter Abroad
According to the September report of the SDF local office for Lika, there are "no known cases that the property has been returned to its owners". Accommodations commissions exist in Plitvice, Donji Lapac and Vrhovine (as others they were established after a long delay), but they are almost totally inactive, while it is not known whether a commission has been established in Udbina. According to estimates, up to 3,000 Serb refugees have returned to this area! If it is true, as our sources confirm, that not a single house was returned to its owners, than it is obvious that the returnees have been given a clear sign not to wait for winter in Croatia.New Method of Cleansing
The mentioned article from Vecernji List failed to touch upon another very important matter. Namely, Croatia has run out of funds for the reconstruction of houses except in a very limited number of cases and will need support of the International Community for the building of new houses and apartment buildings. Consequently, the Government awaits the Donors' Conference with impatience. The Conference was supposed to take place during the summer or autumn, but was postponed for early winter. Consequently, any funds allocated for the reconstruction at the Conference will in the best case be available the next spring.