The current situation in the metropolitan Tuzla area is a clear indication of the forced concentration of the ethnically "cleansed" population. According to the 1991 census, this area had 437,000 inhabitants in 1991; current estimates use a figure of 663,000 people, more than half of whom are Muslim refugees from other parts of Bosnia-Hercegovina. At the same time, 67,000 Serbs (out of 82,000) and 20,000 Croats (out of 39,000) have fled the Tuzla area. The most recent estimates, made by the UNHCR (UN high commission for refugees), mention 1,327,000 refugees and 1,422,000 persons affected by the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina; the total is almost equal to the present population of what is left of the former Bosnia-Hercegovina.
In October of 1991, Ms. Sadako Ogata, warned on behalf of UNHCR that the number of refugees at the time had reached the saturation point in the countries receiving refugees; she also expressed fear that by the end of that year the number of refugees, both within and outside Bosnia-Hercegovina, would increase by another 400,000. Reality, as usual, surpassed all fears: in December of 1991, the number of refugees within Bosnia-Hercegovina was higher than 500,000, and the total number of refugees was estimated as 750,000. Term "population exchange" entered daily use, without causing unusual distress, especially among politicians of a "national leader" type. Besides, ever since the two famous meetings between Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo Tudman, in Tito's hunting grounds at Karadordevo and Belje, at the beginning of 1991, the rumors about the agreed "swap" of Western Slavonia for Eastern Slavonia and, of course, the division of Bosnia-Hercegovina were rife.
WAVES AND A FLOOD: The existence of that one and similar agreements among the national-state leaders, has never been denied, neither by them, nor by the events in the following four years of the latest round of Yugoslav wars. Waves of refugees became, not only a sad reality, but also the means for political promotion - or manipulation, it doesn't matter.
An example which cannot be ignored is a first exodus from Western Slavonia in December 1991. As, more or less, the direct consequence of "serbing" of the former communist generals, posturing of the local territorial defense and empty promises of brotherly help from Bosnian Serbs and "our" JNA {Yugoslav Peoples Army, "old" federal armed forces], at least 20,000 people fled in the dead of winter. The recipe remained, since then, unchanged: they were greeted in Banja Luka by Radovan Karadzic and his "most-serb" [serbujusci] collaborators, who promised resettlement in Eastern Slavonia to women, children and elderly and guns and return to the front line to the fighting age men.
The summer of 1992 brought the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina, new movements of old refugees and, so far, the largest waves of new ones. Only in June of that year, 14,000 passports were issued in Subotica [northern Serbia, province of Vojvodina] to the refugees from Bosnia-Hercegovina; crowded trains, full of refugees, were stranded for days at border crossings; Slovenia refused to allow the trains to its territory, Croatian authorities were taking fighting age men off the trains and sending them to Bosnia; European states had hard time agreeing about the numbers of refugees they were ready to receive. In Serbia, followers of the chetnik vojvoda [leader] Vojislav Seselj, president Slobodan Milosevic's favorite politician, practically implemented their model of "realignment" of population in Hrtkovci [village in Vojvodina with large Croatian population before the war] (bomb attacks, threats, arson, one murder).
Infection spread to eight counties in Vojvodina, burdened by the largest portion of 140,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. Not for the last time, Serbia's national Skupstina [Parliament] refused to issue an amnesty for all those citizens who refused to take part in the war; besides everything else, this was a big contribution to ethnic cleansing, since it blocked the return of several tens of thousands of citizens who are not Serbs but were eligible for military service; ethnically correct [Serb] war resisters were labeled as "bad Serbs" and it was deemed that they shouldn't be allowed back. That summer, the official estimate of the number of refugees within the country [former Yugoslavia] reached 1,7 million; the number of refugees outside the country was estimated at about 500,000 people.
HEARTH CLEANSING: Whatever the case until then, the world joined the local production of refugees, and at the same time was trying to understand what the war parties wanted. Thus, the first maps for division of Bosnia-Hercegovina appeared ("Cutillero's" map in March 1992). Starting with "Cutillero's" map all the way to the Contact Group map, all of the maps accepted at least the possibility of ethnic cleansing by using the ethnic majority as the basis for territorial division.
There's no trace of cynicism in the remark that the following year, 1993, was dedicated to the thorough cleaning of the territories which the war parties had occupied or considered to be theirs. Truck driver from Trebinje, national leader Bozidar Vucurevic concluded, erroneously as the events would show, that the war in eastern Hercegovina had finished; therefore, in January 1993 he expelled several thousands Muslims who were loyal to the Serb authorities; many of them fought against Hercegovina Croats together with the Serbs. "We cannot guarantee your security," he said on that occasion. Nor the property, of course: in the middle of winter, crossing the mountains, the refugees crossed into Sandzak [part of Serbia with large number of Muslims] and Montenegro carrying only plastic bags with personal belongings they had been allowed to take and certificates about "voluntary giving up of property for humanitarian purposes".
On the eve of new 1993, UN Secretary general, Boutros Ghali, revealed the "qualified" estimate by the competent UN organizations that there were more than three million people with refugee status from the former Yugoslavia or within the country. Almost every eighth citizen of the former Yugoslavia. However, already in the Spring of 1993, started the Croatian-Muslim war in Bosnia-Hercegovina. Enemies on some "front lines" suddenly became friends on others: several thousands of Croatian refugees from Central Bosnia found the refuge in the territory controlled by the Serbs; later, some of them were let through to Croatia, while the rest were sent back to fight.
TRADE IN HUMAN FLESH: "Safe Havens", formed in Bosnia-Hercegovina under international protection, were slowly turning into concentration camps; the victims of "silent" ethnic cleansing, which continued unabated congregated in them. From the rest of the territory, emigration was "humane", in front of the eyes of international observers. An example: between June 1994 and May 1995, 9054 citizens left the territory of Bosanska Krajina (Banja Luka, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Prnjavor and Bosanska Gradiska); they were the remnant of those who didn't have the luck to belong to the "victorious" nation or weren't unlucky enough to be eaten by darkness. When the Army of Bosnia-Hercegovina (ABiH) decided in June 1994 to settle accounts with Fikret Abdic, some 45,000 people fled with him to the Republic of Srpska Krajina; Croatia refused to accept them, Europe as well; the refugees refused to return to the territory controlled by the 5th Corp ABiH and, these days, the majority of them celebrated the anniversary in the small area around Velika Kladusa which Fikret Abdic controls with help of the army of Krajina Serbs.
Coincidentally, that same June 1994, Bratislava Morina, Republic of Serbia's commissioner for refugees, announced revision of the refugee status. Result: 90,000 of persons without a refugee status and a hunt on fighting age men conducted by brotherly police forces of all Serb lands. While the hunt went on, and the refugees learnt the vocation of an illegal refugee, Ms. Morina revealed for the state-controlled "Borba" her complaints regarding the help sent from abroad and her preferred solution:" We asked to receive money in the new assistance so that we can buy ourselves whatever is really needed by the refugees."
The refugee story ends, so far, with the first of May cleansing of Western Slavonia from the remaining 15,000 Serbs and exodus of about 35,000 Muslims from the Srebrenica enclave. At this time, grenades are falling on Zepa and Bihac, United Nations are announcing withdrawal of Blue Helmets from Zepa and promising to continue protection of the civilians there even after the withdrawal. Todays civilians are learning from todays refugees how to tie a knot on a sack.