Vukovar - A Victim of "High Politics"

AIM Zagreb, January 14, 2001

Only two days apart and a week before the third anniversary of the peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danube Basin Region on Jan. 15, the national HINA news agency released two interesting pieces of news. The first said that this spring archaeological excavation would resume after 10 years at the Vucedol site near Vukovar. The second said that the Vukovar city administration had compiled a project for clearing the bombed out remains of buildings seriously damaged and d destroyed during the shelling in order "to improve the appearance of the city center." In this context it seems appropriate to quote yet another peace of information, not released by HINA. It is a statement by Vukovar Mayor Vladimir Stengl made to the Arena weekly magazine that the Serbs from the region, whose three-year moratorium on military service in the Croatian army expired on Jan. 15, and who opt for civilian service, could, unwilling to carry arms, pay their debt to the fatherland by clearing the ruins in Vukovar.

As much as the news of the resumption of archaeological excavation near Vukovar, on the bank of the Danube, sounds good, the report that the Vukovar city administration, three years after Croatia re-established full control over the region, has prepared a plan for clearing the debris, sounds indeed incredible. It is even more so, given that it is conditioned with the arrival of DM30 million, expected from the sale of the president's Challenger, from which the DM2.5 million needed for the removal of the buildings would come.

When three years ago at a big celebration in Vukovar on Jan. 15, 1998, the current transitional administrator of the UNTAES region (comprising Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem), William Walker, turned over to Zagreb the peacefully reintegrated area, the Croatian public was probably convinced that at its border big teams of workers equipped with heavy machinery were just waiting for the sign to enter it and start reconstruction. This is, namely, what the official propaganda suggested. The exiled people were told they would soon return to their homes, that there were plans not only to remodel houses but the estates as well, and that Vukovar would, very soon, become "even older and more beautiful than before."

Today, three years later, the city authorities informed the public they have a plan to clear the ruins. The Tudjman government, over two years, did very little to improve conditions in the city. It, in fact, never intended to do so. When the local Serb majority population could no longer be intimidated so that it would move out to Yugoslavia -- because even after reintegration international observers remained in the region -- unbearable economic conditions were created as the next best option. Tudjman would not let anything happen to decrease the success he publicly used to boast about: that thanks to Operations Flash and Storm, he had reduced the percentage of Serbs in Croatia from 12 before the war to some five percent. He looked forward to having as many Serbs as possible move out to Yugoslavia so that "the factor of disturbance," as he used to call them, could be eliminated.

In doing that, the Croatian Democratic Union government did not mind that exiled Croats weren't returning to Vukovar either. From a transcript of Tudjman's talks (published after his death) with his minister, Jure Radic, in charge of reconstructing regions affected by the war, it became clear that the Croatian leadership had a well-planned reserve scenario. They intended to settle in the region their "frontiersmen," Bosnian Croats, refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Thus two precious years were lost. Without investment in the economy no return of refugees could be expected. This is why the new government, elected on Jan. 3, 2000, decided to demonstrate "how this should be done." Last May, only two or three months after Ivica Racan finally manage to put his cabinet together -- all of its members theatrically arrived in Vukovar for the first cabinet session held outside Zagreb and in that way show the public that Croatian Danube Basin Region was one of their priorities. The gathering was not as pompous as the one staged by Tudjman, who, at the end of the peaceful reintegration, arrived in the city with his enormous escort on a "Train of Peace," promising the moon, and that each of the 21 Croatian counties would construct a building on the list of Vukovar's priorities. But there was one close similarity to Tudjman's performance: nothing in Vukovar changed for the better.

The Racan government then pledged to pass a bill on the city's reconstruction at the first regular fall session of the parliament, to sell Tudjman's plane, and from the expected proceeds of DM30 million set aside a certain sum for the reconstruction of the destroyed city. Instead of passing the bill, however, the government dealt with declarations to protect the dignity of the War for the Fatherland, cooperation with the Hague tribunal and similar issues, that prevented the promised bill from making it to the agenda. The government even failed to sell the presidential Challenger.

Resolved to deal with "high politics" in general, the government and Parliament did the same when Vukovar was concerned. Precious energy was thus wasted in haggling over what names would be given to certain Vukovar streets. Croats destroyed tombstones erected by Serbs at a graveyard for their young men who died, as they put it, in the defense of Vukovar. The Serbs responded by felling cypresses planted in memory of Croatian police killed in Borovo Selo, on the eve of the war, in spring, 1991. A nationally-motivated clash of high school students followed. Then the news media stepped in, blowing the whole matter extremely out of proportion. A story was published about Serb policemen working in the Danube Basin Region and living in Yugoslavia. It described how every day after their shifts were done they took off their uniforms and went back to their families in Yugoslavia, just across the border, to return the next day to their jobs in Croatia.

The Vukovar high politics as of recently have begun dealing with the military service of Serb young men in the Croatian army, to which Vukovar Mayor Stengl, as we have already seen, gave his specific contribution. Namely, after the moratorium on military service agreed between the Croatian government and Transitional Administrator Jacques Paul Klein expired last Jan. 15, a tacit agreement was made between the Croatian Defense Ministry and the Serb ethnic community, represented by the Joint Council of Municipalities, that over the next year Serb youths would not be sent to military units, but only conscripted and registered. This Jan. 15 marked the expiration of the latest agreement, and prompted many to ask whether three years were enough "to heel the war wounds," and whether the time had come for the Danube Basin Region Serbs to put on Croatian army uniforms without frustration.

As much as these and other questions from the domain of local "high politics" continue to preoccupy the local government, still sharply divided along ethnic lines, so do similar "high policy" issues continue to preoccupy the Racan coalition government, preventing it from dealing with the concrete problems of Croatian society, which include economic recovery and the reconstruction of Vukovar alike. This is why in this context the proud announcement of the Vukovar city authorities -- today, a full three years after the region was reintegrated in Croatia -- of its plan for clearing the ruins "so as to improve the appearance of city's center" came as no surprise at all.

Drago Hedl

(AIM)