Brain Tumor

Feral Tribune, Split, Croatia, May 24 1999

by Ivica Dikic

"Stanko Penavic, the head of the Tompojevci municipality came to our house about a month ago. He was drunk and told us that Serbs cannot live in Croatia and that he would do everything in his power to force us to leave. Probably because he was drunk, he admitted that he had thrown a bomb on our house and that none of this was his initiative, but that he was following orders of his superiors," say Milka and Veljko Miljenovic; Penavic denies his responsibility for the siege of the Miljenovic family home, but adds that he would be pleased if Milka and Veljko "finally left the village because this way they are only making problems."

"What is to be done with the remaining Serbs in the Croatian Danube valley region?" This was the title of a recent contact show on the Croatian Radio Vukovar. It seems that precisely that title is the best indication of the current main concerns of the Croat regime and Croat returnees in that region. If the calls by ordinary citizens who would solve Serb question by forced expulsion and murder of the remaining Serbs are ignored, the answer to the above question can be surmised from everything that has been happening to Serbs in Eastern Slavonia during the last month or two: ethnic Serbs in the Vukovar municipality, especially the villages of Berak, Cakovci, Tompojevci, Lovas, Sotin, and Marinci, have been exposed to constant violence, namely bomb and arson attacks on their houses, and physical assaults on those who have decided to stay in this region. Thus, in April 1999 OSCE mission in Podunavlje recorded as many as 71 incidents in which the victims were citizens of Serb nationality.

Before the start of the NATO attack on FR Yugoslavia, Serbs from Podunavlje were in large numbers selling houses and moving to Zrenjanin, Novi Sad, Bajmok, or Subotica [cities and towns in Serbia]; Croats were mostly celebrating these departures; consequently, since the beginning of the reintegration there haven't been any larger incidents. Then, the bombardment started and Croatian citizens of Serb nationality who hadn't sold their houses started to return to Podunavlje and those who intended to move to the other side of the Danube river put off their decision for better times; it seems that that sudden increase in the number of Serb returnees and a drop in departures provoked Croat extremists.

Bullets and Bombs

Since NATO blocked the peaceful reintegration as envisaged by the Croatian authorities, it was now Croat extremists' turn to speed the process up: bomb and arson attacks became a daily occurrence in the villages where Serbs and Croats live side to side, and the whole campaign reached culmination in the villages of Berak and Milinci, near Vukovar. On Sunday, May 16, fifty-nine-year-old Teodor Bogdanovic was murdered in Marinci. He was murdered by Croat returnee Petar Perulic. The most likely motive for the murder is revenge since the mentioned Perulic lost his father and two brothers in the war.

Our collocutors do not believe the police report which claims that the murderer was extremely drunk: if it is true that Perulic had 3.17 parts per million of alcohol in his blood, how is it, they wonder in Marinci, that he managed to drive a car and make it all the way to the police station.

On the other hand, since May 7 Croat returnees have been holding demonstrations in Berak and demanding from the local Serbs to tell them where the bodies of about thirty Croats who had been killed at the start of the war in the village are buried. People today say that Berak, before the war a community of about 1,000 people, 60 percent Croats and 40 percent Serbs, has always been on edge. Before the war, every fair in Berak ended with a fight between Serbs and Croats. All that happened once the weapons arrived to the village was only a logical extension of the fairground brawls.

The quiet peacetime intolerance grew into hatred when the war arrived; a lot of blood has been spilled and who knows when the inhabitants of Berak will start living again without hate. Judging by the current mood of the local Croats, that could happen when the last Serb leaves the village. Today, in Berak, there are about 300 Croat returnees and about 70 citizens of Serb nationality, although the number of the latter is falling daily.

Fifty-seven-year-old Veljko Miljenovic and his fifty-years-old wife Milka have been unable to leave their house since the start of the protests by the Croat returnees in Berak. The demonstrators have erected a huge cross in font of their house in Radic street. They have set up signs, lit candles, raised a tent and are demanding truth about their fellow Bercani who were taken away during the war. Two years ago someone shot at the Miljenovic family home; then two bombs were thrown into their yard and the protests, described as peaceful by the Croatian media, started with a break in into their house and a physical assault on the Miljenovics.

Minister on Patrol

"I know that these people have every right to demand that someone tells them the truth about the fate of their loved ones; I know that a horrible crime against Croats was committed here, I know that a lot of people were killed, but my wife and I do not know who is responsible. Our neighbors are aware that we do not know anything about that. I asked the police whether they had any incriminating evidence about me and they told me I was clean, but that does not mean anything to my neighbors," says Veljko Miljenovic. During the war, Veljko refused to fight and was jailed because of that for a while in a Serb military prison. Besides, he risked his own life in order to save his Croat neighbors.

"Some of them, while this was [the Republic of Serb] Krajina, called from Zagreb and told me to come over there and that they would pay for my accommodation in the best hotel in Zagreb. However, since they've come back, they seem to have gone mad. They are besieging our house; the first night they hung some sort of lights around our plot, they have been leaving bread and pate in front of our door and are demanding from us to tell them what we do not know. Our neighbors are aware how much we did for them but no one is prepared to talk about that; they are afraid of authorities, above all the head of the Tompojevci municipality, Stanko Penavic, who hails from Berak. His brother-in-law Slaven Kujundzic broke into out house on the first day of the demonstrations, broke my wife's glasses and ripped her clothes," says Veljko Miljenovic. He and his wife are convinced that Penavic is responsible for everything that has been taking place in the village during the last three weeks.

"Stanko Penavic does not care about the people who were taken away and for their fate. He arranged these demonstrations in order to chase all Serbs away from Berak. He came to our house about a month ago. He was drunk and told us that he was an Ustasha [Croatian fascists during WWII], that Serbs could not live in this state and that he would do everything in his power to chase us away. Probably because he was drunk, he told us that he had thrown a bomb on our house and that he was not organizing all of this on his own initiative but was implementing orders received from his superiors," says Milka Miljenovic.

About ten days ago, those superiors alighted from a "higher plane" to Berak. Croatian Minister of Justice Zvonimir Separovic and president of the National Council for the Re-establishment of Trust Vesna Skare-Ozbolt addressed the demonstrators. Separovic said that the lack of punishment for those responsible for war crimes against Croats in Berak is the consequence of "too wide an amnesty and clemency demanded by the International Community". Besides the mentioned duo, Croat returnees in Berak also had a chance to hear Petar Kljaic, the president of the District Court in Osijek. He delivered a fiery anti-Serb speech, similar to those that could be heard in this region in the summer of 1990; Tomislav Mercep spoke next, and the village was visited by the Djakovo bishop Marin Srakic. The bishop called on the returnees to stop their daily protests in front of the Veljko Maljenovic's house, to calm down and move religious services in to nearby church, but the demonstrators did not heed his advice.

Neighborly Violence

"I would have said it into bishop's face if only my voice does not betray me these days. And it betrays me because of all the tears I have wept over the last nine years," fifty-seven-years-old Evica Penavic says through tears. She continues: "How can the bishop call on us to get off the street and celebrate mass in the church when he knows that a bordello was set up in our church [during the war]. Child, I was raped and how can I go to that church. We only want the truth."

"Do you think that the people in that house know the truth you're looking for?"

"Veljko is a good man and they say he refused to fight for the Serb army but his wife is scum and she knows who took our people away. In 1991, she walked around her yard with a rifle, that is what she's like."

"None of them has tried to talk to us and hear our story. Again, I agree, Croats should find out who took away and killed their relatives, and they need to find out where they were buried, but I do not understand why our neighbors have decided to pick on us, why they are making our already difficult life even more difficult," says Veljko Miljenovic.

"The neighbors who are howling in front of our house and prevent us from going to buy food do not know what Stanko Penavic is doing to them. They do not know that he has visited us and openly tried to convince us to sell our house. We may have even sold it to him and left this damned village had he offered a fair price. Our house and land are worth at least DM 300,000. We offered all of it to Penavic for DM 100,000, and he said that we would beg him to give us thirty thousands. It is sad that these people are using their dead for such purposes. It is hard to endure this terror and neighborly violence, but it is even more difficult to leave: partly because of the property, but also because if we leave, all of them will say, look they left because they were guilty," says Milka Miljenovic.

When you ask Stanko Penavic whether what Milka and Veljko Miljenovic say is true, he only nonchalantly waves with his hand and says "it's all rubbish"; then he starts a story how he's had enough of Serbs because at the moment they are one of the minor problem of the Croat state.

"Is it true that you initiated these protests in order to grab a very valuable property?"

House on Sale

"All that is rubbish. I have enough houses here and why would I need to incite a whole village to get another one. People here have spontaneously organized to make sure that criminals are tried and to find out the truth about our neighbors and relatives who had been slaughtered by the Serbs. It is true that I tried to help Mrs. Milka to sell her house, but..."

"But she refused a humiliatingly low offer?"

"Price is not a problem here... It's that she gets in trouble all the time and keeps provoking others."

"Is it true that you visited Miljenovic's in a drunken state and told them that your goal is an ethnically clean state and that you want to chase them away from Berak?"

"That's all rubbish... I repeat, Serbs are not a problem in the Croat state. I won't deny that there were incidents. It is true that a bomb was thrown on that house and that the demonstrators are now throwing eggs, but all of that is a consequence of the eggs that Mrs. Milka threw in April 1990 on the founders of HDZ in Berak. At the time even her husband Veljko, at a pre-election rally of the Social Democratic Party said that blood would be spilt in Berak. This whole problem was incited in order to skew the whole OSCE report about the situation in Podunavlje against Croatia."

"You do not think that it is a problem when a house is besieged for three weeks, when bombs, eggs are thrown on Serb houses, when Serb houses are set on fire...?"

"No one is besieging that house. They can go wherever they want. But ask yourself - isn't it strange that only a few Serbs families are pretending to be in danger, while everyone else is leading a normal life? These families, including the Miljenovic's are serving the local Serb politicians, namely Vojislav Stanimirovic and Milos Vojnovic, who are again advocating the same ideas as in 1991."

When in the end Penavic is asked whether, privately, he would be pleased if all the Serbs left Podunavlje, he says that that would be against his interests. However, as far as the Miljenovic family is concerned he would be happy if "they finally left the village, since this way they only cause trouble". If you ask Marica Mitrovic, whose property was protected and saved by the Miljenovic's during the war, she replies that she "can't wait for all the Serbs to get lost from our state".

"Milka keeps phoning me and asking me to protect her, but I'm not stupid. Then the whole village would say that I'm no different from them," says Marica Mitrovic.

Fruit of Manipulation

Doctor Vojislav Stanimirovic, president of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), believes that the current inter-ethnic tension in Podunavlje is the product of manipulation with the victimized population.

"Actually, it is not hard to manipulate with these people, and HDZ is aware that it will have a hard time winning the forthcoming elections unless it can manufacture some enemies and push the relations between Serbs and Croats to the stage in which they were in 1991. I am concerned that some Serb may respond to the Croat terror and that all of these incidents may turn into a wider conflict. And believe me, that is not impossible," says Stanimirovic, adding that the NATO intervention has encouraged radical Croatian forces which want to use the current situation to expel all the Serbs from Podunavlje.

Croatian returnees, who have for years traveled from one camp to another, and especially those who have lost someone in the war, cannot today accept that no one is responsible for their suffering. Instead of turning toward state institutions in their quest for justice, they have reached for those who are at hand - their Serb neighbors who have become responsible for all troubles. While hatred in these people is swelling like the Danube waters after spring rains, Croatian authorities can sit back and enjoy.

Translated on 6/5/99