Re-establishing Voivodina: How and What Next?

"If You Don't Give Us Autonomy, You Will Give us a Republic"

The increasingly loud warnings are coming from the informal bloc of Voivodina parties (led by the League of Social-Democrats of Voivodina – LSV and Reformists of Voivodina) that centralism is now greater than it has been under Milosevic. They got an additional impetus when the Republican Assembly rejected the Provincial Assembly's amendments to the Law on Privatisation.

AIM Belgrade, July 19, 2001

Currently, no one is satisfied in Voivodina: neither the autonomy-seekers nor protectors of "national interests", nor pragmatic reformists. But, even after the change of power, the themes have remained the same. According to Nenad Canak, President of the Voivodina Parliament, the sequence was the following: "We first had to bring Milosevic down, then arrest him and send him to the Hague. We had to ensure the essential economic base for the country and then see what next. Now, time has come to talk again and see what shall we do and how shall do it in Voivodina".

For the autonomists of Voivodina Milosevic's state concept of centralistic Serbia is changing too slowly. The increasingly loud warnings are coming from the informal bloc of Voivodina parties (led by the League of Social-Democrats of Voivodina -LSV and Reformists of Voivodina) that centralism is now greater than it has been under Milosevic. They got an additional impetus when the Republican Assembly rejected the amendments of the Provincial Assembly to the Law on Privatisation. Essentially, the proposal was that the Province should regulate the terms and procedure for the privatisation of Voivodina firms. That political option insists that since Milosevic is now in the Hague, the system on which his omnipotent power was based should be gradually dismantled and institutions, which he systematically destroyed, rebuilt.

By announcing its intention to set up a separate deputy group in the Provincial Parliament, President Kostunica's party (DSS) formalised its disagreement with the rest of the DOS in Voivodina too, but keeping all functions in the authorities, the Government, administration and other spheres in which party quotas instead of professional qualities are used as a criterion. Here, DSS has demonstrated its visible reservedness or opposition towards not only the idea of autonomy, but its general opposition accompanied by occasional explanations that the rights of national minorities are endangering the rights of the (national) majority. Miroljub Lesnjak (Vice President of the Assembly of the Autonomous Province of Voivodina - APV) gave an invaluable contribution to the understanding of the DSS political platform with his assessment that the exhumation of bodies that came from Kosovo and uncovering of secrets of refrigerated trucks could have waited because at this moment that step is not morally justified: "Had similar war crimes against the Serbs been uncovered in Croatia or in the territory of Kosovo we could have expected different consequences. However, now the Serbs will be proclaimed as collective culprits". His moral bargaining did not receive much publicity.

Followers of Djindjic's pragmatic Democratic Party (DS) are not satisfied either. A multitude of words exchanged between Belgrade and Novi Sad regarding the controversial and postponed sale of the Beocin Cement Works to the French firm "Lafarge" clearly showed that Djindjic's autonomist phase has given way to a new one - "decentralisation plus democratisation equals the new Serbia". Regarding autonomy, his Democrats started speaking and voting in the Voivodina Assembly with much more control and caution than it demonstrated in its extremely loud promises from the electoral campaign. Competition as to who is a greater autonomist ("I am more of an autonomist than Canak" Z. Djindjic) is over and the story on "economic autonomy", launched by Democrats, swept under the carpet.

Several months ago, Mile Isakov's Reformists were the first to introduce the term "internationalisation" in describing possible ways of resolving the issue of Voivodina's future and, in all fairness, no one paid any attention to that. The term became "scary" the moment pros and cons were presented in the course of Canak's participation in the discussion at the round table organised by the Washington Centre for Strategic and International Studies. The subject was: "The Return of Autonomy to Voivodina: Stable Multinational Model in Yugoslavia". The opposing arguments were raised only regarding the status (whether Canak went to Washington as President of the Voivodina Assembly and if he did, why did he not consult the Parliament, or he was there just as the LSV leader). Donka Stancic (DSS) raised a question in the Assembly of Voivodina - whether the notion of "internationalisation" was linked to post-conflict situations or not.

According to "Magyar So", Janush Bugajski, Director of the East European Programme in the Washington Centre for Strategic and International Studies, invited the international community to urgently support the recovery of the economy of Voivodina, as the richest and most productive region in the country, and thus, within the frameworks of economic autonomy and regional integrations, assist Serbia's integration into European processes. His idea was to establish an international expert group that would, together with representatives of the authorities from Novi Sad and Belgrade, elaborate solutions for the future status of Voivodina - adding a suggestion that, with a view to ensuring minority rights, corresponding forms of self-governance and self-organisation should also be established. No one in Serbia found the discussions at the Washington round table, inspiring. Not even for a controversy.

The stage is slowly being set for some future divisions. Globally, it is dominated by Kostunica's "legalists" and Djindjic's "pragmatists", but apparently no so much in relation to different concepts of the state. Namely, the warning that 102 laws, which additionally limit the already reduced rights of the Province, are unconstitutional did not mean much either to the legalists or the pragmatists. A "third bloc" of expressly autonomist and civil parties of Voivodina has turned this into a problem.

"At the next elections we shall see what will the political scene in Serbia look like, because I do not expect some supra-national, civil and truly reformist forces to win an overwhelming majority. That should not be expected, the more so as even that part of DOS inclined to Vojislav Kostunica is doing everything so that such forces would lose both power and influence, while the part of DOS inclined to Djindjic is against that. That is our harsh reality", said Nenad Canak for the AIM. "Until now, things in Serbia changed in a technical and not in a strategic sense, and these are the main coordinates of the situation here. For, what we used to call "October 5th changes" is now euphemistically labelled "October 5th events". This clearly shows that essentially there has been no change; despite a great charge, great dedication of the citizens of the entire country, what we aspired to do at that time, has not been done - i.e. to change the system", claimed Canak.

At the celebration marking the 11th anniversary of the League of Social-Democrats of Voivodina, Canak concluded: "This is our first birthday we are not celebrating as an opposition and it seems that it will be the last". Before that he warned that the removal of Slobodan Milosevic did not mean that all evils in the country have been eliminated. In his interview for the AIM he reminded that the Democratic Opposition of Serbia had rallied under that name in order to bring Milosevic down from power ("And that has been done"), but that it is not reasonable to expect from DOS to do everything else necessary for the democratisation of the society. Canak reminded that the DOS has ("I wouldn't say predominantly, but...") a large number of people who had been against Slobodan Milosevic not because they disagreed with his objectives but because he failed to meet their expectations; people who wanted to change certain structures of the authorities, but not the system. Asked whether the problem of Voivodina was next on the agenda, he replied briefly: "I am not sure that Voivodina's turn has come, but when it does it will not be because that question will be raised on its own, but because people from Voivodina have raised it, both in and outside institutions, in the streets and fora, but on their own".

According to him, the question has to be raised so as to make sense: that the problem of Voivodina is not a part of Serbia's problems, but rather an answer to its problems. "That is why", explained Canak, "in order to raise that question we need focused and articulated political will of Voivodina".

"The main Voivodina's question in relation to Serbia is: hot to prevent outvoting. We have already been outvoted at the adoption of amendments to the Privatisation Law seven days ago. That is the main question and threat. For, if Voivodina gets outvoted in the Serbian Parliament too often and too many times, it will no longer seek the opinion of the Serbian Parliament". Canak defined this idea more accurately in another situation: "If you won't give us autonomy, you will give us the republic and we will never again turn to those who deny us the republic".

According to the new Law on Privatisation, Voivodina will get five percent of the value of property sold on its territory, the city or municipality will also get five percent, while central authorities will dispose of the remainder. Not one of all the laws the Voivodina Parliament submitted to the Republican Assembly has been placed on the agenda. In a "legalistic" letter the President of the Serbian Parliament, Dragan Marsicanin (DSS), pressed by deadlines from the Rules of Procedure, warned the DOS Presidency that although the Parliament of Voivodina is authorised under the Constitution to submit laws and that, in line with the procedure, he has to put them to vote it would be much more convenient if parties would order their deputies to withdraw the proposed bills! As a result the two Governments (Republican and Provincial) established a Commission which would be examining these bills indefinitely.

At the same time, although almost three fourths of citizens (70 percent) think that 70 percent and more of taxes and public revenues collected in the territory of Voivodina should remain in its budget, and even 15.8 percent would keep all the money in the provincial budget, Voivodina will remain an item in the Serbian budget. Nenad Canak warned that "the amount of money that leaves Voivodina in 36 hours is equal to the entire budget of Voivodina for one year". The money is distributed according to powers. And that brings us back to the beginning.

Milena Putnik

(AIM)