"I do not want to politicize this case, I do not hate nor accuse anyone. My mother Danica legally has tenant's rights for that apartment; we have sued Zemun municipality because they prevented her to buy the apartment; we have the final court decision (no more appeals possible) to move into the apartment... At the moment, the Supreme court of Serbia is considering the case and I am hoping that after its decision my family will finally be allowed to return to the apartment in which I have lived since my birth and which I never intended to leave," says Barbalic with clear Zemun accent. We are sitting in a garden of a Zemun restaurant and many passers by are approaching Barbalic and expressing their support.
"My colleagues are also supporting me; my superiors confirmed for the 'Beobanka' newsletter that I haven't used sick leave for years; I have written to the director of the bank Zoran Perucic and the adviser Zoran Cicak... It makes me sad that people here do not understand that according to Croatian laws, all Croats, regardless of where they live, have Croatian citizenship, that the relations [between Yugoslavia and Croatia] must normalize and that every day eight busses drive between Zagreb and Belgrade. The recent war was not my war and I don't see why I shouldn't spend holidays in my father's birthplace [in Croatia]," wonders Barbalic, adding that his mother has been decorated, and his father has received St. Sava prize; he shows "Zajedno" badges and fishing permit for his son and himself, which were not featured on the pogrom inciting front page of the Zemunske Novine.
Barbalic case is already well known, as well as all incidents which followed it.
In the meantime, a bomb was thrown on the shop owned by Ljubisa Rankov, vice-president of the Association of Independent Citizens for Zemun, graves in the Jewish cemetery have been vandalized, a man was attacked in the street because his wife was Croatian, and the case of an adolescent who was forced by the municipality to cede half of his apartment to a policeman was revealed... It turns out that the Serb Radicals do not only intend to settle between 100,000 and 200,000 persons, mostly refugees, in the villages which are a part of this municipality, on the meadows which are collectively owned by the villagers, on the land earmarked for a future landfill and without infrastructure needed for residential building, but that they are also trying to gain control of all the apartments which so far haven't been privatized. The opposition representatives in the city hall claim that the local police has formed a coalition with Vojislav Seselj's paramilitary units and have been bribed with the rights to move in to a certain number of repossessed apartments. The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights reveals some of the numerous cases of the citizens of Zemun whose rights have been violated.
17 acres of land in the village of Ugrinovci, owned by Radomir Jankovic, have been expropriated because a road was supposed to be built over his land. The municipal authorities told him that there is no other plot which could be given in exchange, but that he would be paid for the expropriated land. Having no other recourse, Radomir accepted the sum much smaller than the market value of the land. Nevertheless, the municipal authorities are refusing to make the payment, saying that Radomir will also use the road whose construction has already started!
A retired, armed, Army officer from Bosnia-Hercegovina has moved in by force into a large house in Boljevci belonging to Muhamed Huskic [a Muslim or Romani name]. Consequently not only was Huskic thrown out on the street with his two children but, since the house had been used as a collateral for a loan, the lender was unable to repossess it.
Stjepan Marojevic, from 248 Car Dusan Street, found new tenants in his house after the return from the visit to his daughter who lives in Croatia. Court decisions, as in all other cases, are worthless.
Petar Gojcevic has never been to Croatia; he is a peace time invalid, and consequently, he was given the apartment in 55 Bezanijska Street. The last February, a refugee broke into his apartment; he hasn't received any sort of a document regarding his right to use this apartment, but the refugee has in rapid succession received the documents confirming her right to use the apartment and buy it from the municipality. The court has made a Solomon like decision that Mr. Gojcevic and the refugee are supposed to share the apartment!
Milan and Vera Prodanovic from Dositej Street have been litigating with their neighbor from number 14 for 12 years; the neighbor has illegally taken control of a part of Prodanovic's plot, blocked their windows and built an ugly two floor building which, according to the opinion of the Institute for the Protection of Monuments seriously endangers the cultural-historic district of old Zemun. In spite of all papers the building is still there. Nevertheless, lately, owners of one fifth of the building in which the Prodanovics live have been demanding that the Prodanovics vacate two rooms although the trial still hasn't been completed. Several days before the announced forced eviction from the mentioned rooms, local policemen had visited the Prodanovics to inquire whether they had received the eviction papers and whether they kept arms in their apartment... Such (illegal) dedication of the policemen, naturally has nothing to do with the facts that Prodanovic is a member of the Association for Zemun and that the neighbor is related to the former dean of the Belgrade University and the Socialist representative in the parliament, Dragoljub Velickovic.
The force of the Radical propaganda in which all who disagree with them are called Ustashe, and the behavior of the police, on one hand provoke fear, silence and apathy, but also inspire other victims to seek assistance of the Helsinki Committee. This organization has prepared a long report about the position of the Croatian national minority in Serbia which will soon be presented to the public; in the report, it is estimated that since the census in 1991 more than 40,000 Croats have emigrated from Serbia; the report reminds that so far no one has been sentenced for the attacks on the property of Croats living in Serbia and that the number of the perpetrators which were caught is negligible compared with the total number of attacks.
A lawyer with the Helsinki Committee claims in the conversation with NIN that on one hand it is possible to talk about the ethnic cleansing of Croats, while on the other hand this process is the result of the general lack of legal protection for all Serbian citizens which is a consequence of the destabilization of the legal system, the attack on its authority and the general increase in crime.
"The essence is the demonstration of force and the rule that there is no law, state, court, stronger than the will of a powerful individual. We have been approached by tens of people with final court decisions which have no effect because no one is willing to implement them. In Zemun, a representative of the local authorities gives himself the right to form a commission which searches for unsuitable tenants and puts its authority above that of the law and courts. The Serbian authorities haven't reacted, and if this tendency does not stop in Zemun, it is clear that it will spread all over Serbia.
"Our organization has assisted refugees from the start of the war and yet today we are accused of being Ustashe [Croatian fascist]; also this illegal repossession of apartments increases the animosity between the indigenous inhabitants of Zemun and the refugees which is very dangerous," Bojana Stanojevic says for NIN.
The Helsinki Committee has sent an open letter to the Minister of Internal Affairs Vlajko Stoiljkovic demanding that he explain to the public the behavior of the Police in Zemun; the policemen have consistently refused to assist the court executors in the implementation of the court decisions in Zemun. Helsinki Committee has also signed the initiative to ban Vojislav Seselj from holding a public office.
Since Seselj is still a candidate for the president of Serbia and is even promoted in the state-controlled media, it is clear that the aforementioned initiative has been futile. Nevertheless, many are hoping that the Serbian authorities, which tolerate Seselj's actions because of their political goals cannot tolerate the escalation of such behavior and that the criminal suit against Seselj [because of attack on Barbalic's lawyer Barovic] will have some effect. Obviously, the return of war time terminology, methods in which neither women nor children are spared, warnings about violence and fomenting of the clashes between the refugees and inhabitants of Serbia can only result in more isolation. Recent clashes in Kragujevac and Nis and failure of police to intervene in those incidents give basis for the suspicion that those clashes were coordinated attempts to destabilize municipalities where the Socialists do not control the local authorities.
"The situation in Zemun is very tense; both the indigenous population and the refugees are on the edge and any further provocation can lead to bloodshed. Because of that, The Association of Independent Citizens for Zemun does not want to enter in any clashes with the Radicals, nor have we accepted the assistance of others who had offered to 'sort out the things'. We do not want chaos, behavior which encourages hatred and youth delinquency. We are not sending anyone away, the refugees are welcome and their children will be the inhabitants of Zemun, maybe even our members, but we will not allow anyone to force us into exile," says Rankov. The Association is working and trying to reduce the tensions. They have prepared fliers in which they call for calm behavior, prevention of illegal repossession of apartments and houses, and endangerment of law, dignity and lives of the citizens of Zemun. They plan to distribute the fliers from a plane as well.
The founding of the organization was motivated by the desire to promote the development of Zemun as a cultural and tourist, as opposed to industrial center it is today. Indirectly, the founding of the Association indicates the dissatisfaction with the work of opposition parties in Zemun.
As in other banana republics, all eyes are directed toward the leader who has had himself promoted to the president of Yugoslavia without following the legal procedure. If the report published by Dnevni Telegraf, that the next agreement between Croatia and Yugoslavia will allow renting or sale, but not the use, of the property of Yugoslav citizens in Croatia, is true, that would be a call for the seizure of the property of non-Serbs in FRY and total chaos.