Heni Erceg of the Split weekly Feral Tribune discusses the issue of the return of the Serbs to Croatia in the May 25, 1998 issue of this magazine.

The constant refusal to enable the Serbs to return to their homes which they left ahead of the operation Storm, along with all the shenanigans and tricks used by the Croatian government since 1995 to prevent their return, has been stimulated and fed the hope of the regime that the world will finally accept to legitimize the state produced by the war. In that manner, Tudjman would get what he spent his efforts on in the last decade in the framework of his program of human resettlement - almost completely pure Croatia.

Creating an impossible situation by not respecting the Dayton agreement, resettling the BiH Croats and Janjevci from Kosovo into Serb houses in Krajina, he has succeeded in completely directing the international community towards only one problem - quick return of Serbs to Croatia. So today, eight years after the Serb rebellion, the complete Croatian opposition and the regime is not dealing with anything else but discussions about whether to allow all Serbs to return, or just some (or none), then, where will they return, since some other people are living in their houses, or those are destroyed or burned.

Three years after the Croatian army has orderly burned down the majority of Serb houses in the Storm action, so that it could successfully integrate Krjina into the Croatian state territory, the regime is manipulating with the facts and is tricking the public by saying that the massive return of Serbs to Croatia could politically destabilize the state, and in that manner is successfully producing excess of nationalistic adrenaline.

But, if it would be like that, will - for example - those 80 thousand Croats from BiH,exiled to Germany - which, according to a recent statement by the Sabor President Vlatko Pavletic, Croatia is ready to immediately accept and settle - also destabilize Croatia in a social sense ? It is understood, of course, that this is not so important, because with the arrival of such a number of Bosnian Croats the state would stabilize and strengthen in that sense which is most important for Tudjman and his people - in the national sense. In that manner, Pvletic’s statement fits into constant HDZ efforts to redesign the Dayton Agreemeant and underlines those statements insisting on the dread of supposed massive return of Serbs to Croatia.

If Tudjman would stop waving with the returning Serbs as a red flag in front of the eyes of Croats and the international community, then, of course, other tragic bills would arrive for payment, represented in total robbery and destruction, in social and spiritual disintegration of the Croatian state, in catastrophic division of reconciled Croatia, which is threatening to explode in conflicts of new and old Prtizans and Ustashis, big and small Croats...

In all this, with their threats of sanctions the international community is only on sight irritating Tudjman, while this actually suits him. As things stand now, what really concerns the international community is the return of all everywhere, meaning also Serbs to Croatia, while it is quite satisfied with the internal situation in Croatia.

The constant flirting of the American and European bureaucrats with the local dictators and their proteges on the ground has turned Crotia into a completely frustrated state, in which nobody is able to determine the priorities, let alone initiate a conversation about some other Croatia.

Today, almost all those conditions - except the urgent return of Serbs - due to their lack of fulfillment Croatia stands a long way away from numerous European associations, are almost completely forgotten and which are essential for the establishment of democracy here. If the international community has the right to threaten the whole of Croatia with sanctions because the regime is not enabling quick return to exiled Serbs, why is it not sending a true threat to the statesman under whose guidance Ustashi ideology is flaring up and the former concentration camp in Jasenovac is being tailored up, why is it not threatening the regime which passes laws that are completely contrary to the laws of that international community itself - those that are making possible political trials against journalists, or those that let the property be taken away from workers and given away to wild capitalists, those that completely pacify the operation of the institutional mechanisms, as well as those that let those suspected for war crimes be freed after they have been formally taken into custody, while their files are being put away...

In other words, why doesn't the international community, instead of threatening with sanctions, which only strengthens Tudjman and uneccesarily homogenizes Croats, makes more intensive attempts at strengthening the democratic institutions in Croatia, as well as independent media, without which no free elections can help in removing the HDZ despotism ? The problem of return could not have turned out other way than it did, nor will it be solved, despite the nervousness of the world, while Tudjman and Milosevic are treated and spoken to as gentlemen who respect promises, or with Biljna Plvsic as a fine lady, instead as a face from the Hague wanted poster.



Source: Split weekly Feral Tribune, May 25, 1998