THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST UNPROFOR

AIM, ZAGREB, JUNE 29, 1994

Since the beginning of their two years and four months long mission in Croatia, the forthcoming period will perhaps be the most difficult for the UNPROFOR. As it has been announced for ten days already, on July 1, mass demonstrations organized by the Community of Refugees of Croatia against ineffectiveness of the UNPROFOR will begin. Refugees from Baranja and Eastern Slavonija who were the first to respond to the invitation of their Republican organization, announce that they will completely block the UNPROFOR, but UNHCR as well - namely, they will block UN control points, vehicles of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, tank trucks which, as they claim, are "stealing" gasoline and diesel fuel from the Osijek region and transporting them to the Serbs, and they will also prevent movements of the members of Protection Forces in cities and villages. All these forms of protest will last as long as there is no progress in reintegration of the UNPAs into the constitutional and legal system of Croatia, and if none occurs - they will last until September 30, when the mandate of UNPROFOR expires. Mass demonstrations as of July 1 were announced by refugees from Sector West as well, from the region of Nova Gradiska and Brod. They intend to block regional roads and Zagreb-Belgrade highway and UN vehicles which arrive at the region. Refugees from Sector North have announced that they will organize a march to Turanj, the region bordering with the occupied zones around Karlovac. In Sector South, citizens of Biograd have announced that they will protest together with citizens of neighbouring municipalities by blocking the Adriatic Highway on July 1 at noon, unabling passage of UNPROFOR vehicles.

The flame of dissatisfaction with the UNPROFOR which has begun to spread intensely in the past few weeks not only among the refugees and in the UN Protected Areas, but in the entire Croatian public, got its initial spark in Biograd, more precisely, after the "Kakma case". A water supply installation which supplied both Serbian and Croatian villages in the region is in this village which is located, according to the provisions of the ceasefire agreement signed in Russian Embassy in Zagreb on March 29, in the so-called "blue zone" - in the separation zone between Croatian and Serbian forces that UNPROFOR was supposed to supervise. On June 3, a part of the pipeline was blown up, and the Croatian party immediately accused the local Serbs for it. At the same time, in the beginning of June, the bad situation with water supply in Biograd, deteriorated to such an extent that the citizens now have this indispensable liquid only twice a week for several hours. Although the problems with the Zadar water-supply system have lasted for quite some time and do not depend solely on a single source such as Kakma, representatives of Croatian authorities have used this case to focus the attention of the public - both on incompetence of UNPROFOR and the undiminished obstructiveness of the Serbs in UNPAs. High state authorities did not hesitate to state extremely sharp qualifications concerning the "Kakma case". This is the "continuation of criminal aggression of supporters of Greater Serbia" - that is how "prevention of water supply of Biograd" was qualified by the two Assembly Committees - for internal policy and national security - which met in mid June. According to interpretation of the members of these Committees, which was later generally accepted by Croatian public, according to the provisions of Zagreb agreement, the water source in Kakma was supposed to be supervised by UNPROFOR, and not "occupied by Serbian terrorists", meaning that the blue helmets could turn on the taps and let water flow to Biograd. Hrvoje Sarinic, the head of the Croatian delegation for negotiations with the local Serbs, said that the Serbs has destroyed the pipeline towards Biograd in order to "blackmail Croatian negotiators". Rebellious Serbs, Sarinic explained, had already demanded provision of water supply for Knin and Licki Osik in return for the water for Zadar and Biograd, so they just wanted to reinforce this hoped for reciprocity by the explosion in Kakma.

The Kakma case was later discussed by the Assembly House of Representatives (with only members of the Croatian Democratic Community -HDZ, and several independept representatives present in it at the moment), which adopted a "Resolution on condemnation of the genocide in the form of mass terrorism and violence perpetrated by occupying Serbian authorities by disabling water supply of Biograd and Zadar with the surroundings", which will be sent to the parliaments of all European countries and members of the Security Council, UN Secretary General, and the International War Crime Tribunal. Pulling at the already established link between the Kakma case and (in)efficiency of UNPROFOR, the Assembly representatives have turned the blade sharpened by the problem of water supply towards the mandate of the "blue helmets", so a decision was reached at the end of the Assembly debate that a special session would be held in July with only one item on the agenda: the mandate of UNPROFOR in Croatia: flexibility of the UN members towards the Serbs, inefficiency in implementation of the signed agreements, the need to increase authority of the blue helmets, (non)compliance to Security Council resolutions - primarily of Resolution 769 which prescribes deployment of UN forces on the borders of Croatia with neighbouring states.

The events that followed concerning the water source in Kakma were favourable for stirring up the flame, both concerning Kakma and the entire affair with the "blue helmets". Just like often before, significant stimuli came from the opposite party - from the Serbs in occupied regions. Having rejected economic negotiations with the Croatian Government which were planned to begin on June 16 in Plitvice, and having earned unanimous condemnation of the international mediators and raised the rating of Croatia which had accepted to negotiate, the Serbs have now decided to undertake the most obvious breach of the ceasefire agreement ever. "Due to the increasing threats of Croatia that it would take the water source in Kakma by force", as Tanjug reported, more than a hundred Serbian soldiers entered the demilitarized area on June 22, and surrounded the water-supply station and the UN soldiers who were repairing the pipeline. After assuarances by the UNPROFOR, most of them left the zone of separation in the course of the following two days, but, as the UN forces admitted it, armed Serbian civilians still occassionally keep watch around Kakma. The Croatian party grasped this incident as key evidence for its accusations of UNPROFOR which is manifesting impotence even in a situation when the Serbs are obviously breaching the Zagreb agreement, wishing to conceal it by untruthful statements. Even actual proofs were found for this - cameras of Croatian television, as claimed, a day after the blue helmets announced that the uniformed Serbs had withdrawn from the region of Kakma, caught sight of several Serbian soldiers (Croatian Television broadcast this film, but the shots were not clear and shot from a great distance so that one cannot be sure whether they were civlians or uniformed persons). UNPROFOR themselves contributed to its loss of credibility, having made a few contradictory statements that the Serbian soldiers have withdrawn from the region of Kakma. The dialogue between the representatives of Croatian authorities and UNPROFOR, at least the one that was made public, more than ever resembles communication between the deaf and the mute. Some claims made by UNPROFOR which could present the whole Kakma case in a different light are completely ignored (with the help of the media which "omitted" such news) - like, for instance that the water from Kakma did not flow to Biograd since the beginning of the war because the pipeline which was blown up now does not function for years. Several days ago, the UNPROFOR spokesman, Paul Risley, said that the water installation in Kakma needed repair because it could be used neither by Serbian nor by Croatian villages since the beginning of the war, and that both sides had to reach an agreement about its reopening.

Although UNPROFOR did not have an easy time before each expiry of its mandate in Croatia, and although a number of the forms of protest announced now have been used before

• gatherings of refugees with the intention to return forcefully to their homes, protests, building of the "wall of shame" and similar - this time they will probably be exposed to much higher temperatures. Bringing the problem of blue helmets to the state of red-hot is necessary for the Croatian authorities more than ever. It simultaneously satisfies two needs - directs the emotions and dissatisfaction of the population towards a single target, and prepares ground for a possible military action which will be necessary for the ruling party as a shock point in a campaign for the possible early elections, which the HDZ would, as predicted, by all means try to call for September, before the end of the UN mandate. One should not forget, though, that the dissatisfaction of the people might change direction at any moment. Some of the statements made by refugees speak in favour of such a possibility, which besides the anger with the blue helmets, contain considerable dose of dissatisfaction with the Croatian authorities as well - due to lack of concern, miserable assistance, unfulfilled promises concerning provision of funds for reconstruction of destroyed facilities. Therefore, Croatian officials must carefully follow the course of the arrow discharged in the direction of UNPROFOR, so that it does not turn into a boomerang and sweep away those who have sent it.

VESNA ROLLER