WITH VERBAL BLUDGEONS AGAINST DJUKIC'S PARTY

AIM, ZAGREB, January 30, 1995 In Croatia, for several months already, a campaign against the Serbian National Party (SNS) has not abated, and in the past few weeks it seems to have intensified. This is the only Parliamentary party of Croatian Serbs (it has three deputies in the Assembly), and until the recently founded Independent Serbian Party of Milorad Pupovac, it was the only one with documents registered in the Croatian Ministry of Justice. The campaign against the SNS and three of its leaders - Djukic, Pejnovic and Hinic, has now become equally fierce and persistent as it once used to be against Milorad Pupovac. But, it should be noted that he was passing through whipping of the public, the media and parliamentary haranguing at the time of bombardment of Vukovar, Osijek or Dubrovnik, so that the accusations at the time included an almost tangible physical threat.

This difference is what causes most of the doubts. Attacks against the SNS come at a time which, although still wartime, does not resemble the described times in any way, when "normalization" of relations between Zagreb and Belgrade which lasts for a year now could soon, according to all the announcements, lead even to an exchange of regular diplomatic representatives. The notorious fact that the SNS was born in the incubator of Croatian authorities should be added to all this, with the aim to fill the gap which appeared when contacts with the Serbs from Krajina (Jovan Raskovic) were interrupted, and their alternatives in the form of "loyal Serbs" resigned and withdrew soon after (Simo Rajic). Djukic inherited from the latter the prestigious, although solely protocol function of vice-president of the Assembly, and in order to enable his party, which was too weak to endure the election competition on its own, and to enable it to appear in the Parliament at all, a special election law had to be adopted. It was elaborate with the unwritten motto "it is important to participate" and enabled the SNS, as the only Serbian party that participated in the elections in summer 1992, to inherit the empty seats in the Parliament abandoned by the rebellious deputies of the Serbian Democratic Party - Opacic, Zelembaba, Tanjga and the others.

The attacks against the SNS coincided with the new ideas of Djukic and his comrades about "a broad and hard political autonomy" of a federal type for the Serbs in Krajina (and cultural for the others), but it is difficult to say which had happened before. To say that the SNS has become the target of attacks after it had adopted more radical views sounds convincing only in the past four months, for that is how long bargaining about what the mysterious plan of the mini Contact group for Croatia lasts, which this party very actively and highly polemically joined in. That is why the opposite should not be discarded either, that is that Djukic, Pejnovic and Hinic have become radical after the attacks against them had acquired the proportions of a daily campaign (last summer, dismissal of Djukic was initiated, but it has not been mentioned since), assessing that the gap in relation to the authorities cannot be bridged any more, so it is better - to make it even deeper. Why has this campaign been initiated, and why in the past few months? According to some interpretations, the SNS ceased to be interesting for the HDZ and its first man after it had proved to be without any influence in "Krajina", and especially Belgrade, towards which Zagreb is turning with all its expectations concerning the return of the Serbs from Krajina under its control.

According to the same opinion, this pushed Milorad Pupovac to the surface, since he has this type of connections, so that when last year a donation of a million German marks was approved for "Prosvjeta" which is closely linked with him, it was interpreted by many as a marriage with a new Serbian bride. Although there is no convincing evidence about it, the news about the one-million "dowry" was supplemented with another one, the news about meetings of Pupovac with the leading men of the HDZ (the new secretary, Zlatko Canjuga), and his comparatively frequent appearances in the media, where he recently announced the forthcoming "big agreement" between the Croats and the Serbs. But, when speaking of the media, it should be stressed that they do not skirt Djukic's SNS, moreover, Srecko Bijelic, obviously "the most Croatian" of all Serbs in the Assembly, recently protested angrily for their scrambling so much about Djukic and the rest, although there were other Serbs in the Assembly. To be sure, the media are not at all gentle with Djukic and his supporters, but nor are they gentle with Pupovac. They are just elaborating criticism on their account, if we chose to use one of the new (?) terms of President Tudjman, which induced journalists to break down into components and analyze his recent epistle about the situation the state and the nation are in.

And yet, unwillingly Bijelic has touched upon perhaps the most characteristic aspect of the attitude of the authorities towards the SNS. It is some kind of "amiable hatred", which means that indisposition and intolerance of the public is now directed towards this party whose loyalty has never been doubted. The aim is probably to incorporate psychological and propagandist shock-absorbers in the new policy of "normalization" relations with Belgrade, in order to make the public believe that this is in fact a tactical approximation which changes something essential in the stance towards Serbia and the Serbs. Thus Djukic, who should be a living example of coexistence of the Croats and the Serbs becomes on the contrary an example of how the rlations between the Croats and the Serbs can remain strained even when the relations between Croatia and Serbia improve to the best. This is how the most reliable pens in the state media "elaborate" this: they do not allow even a shadow to fall on Tudjman's policy of Croatian-Serbian "normalization", but at the same time they state theses about Pupovac being a "drawing-room", and Djukic a "highland Chetnik".

Contrary to Pupovac who always defended himself against such accusations by a superior silence, Djukic is having a difficult time getting used to his new role and he seems to be falling into feverish affective national exclusivism. He recently declared that "the Serbian people will never allow to have the Croats choosing their representatives", which, broken down to the ultimate consequences even he himself would be unable to support. But, when he continues to be even more violently and ruthlessly attacked for such theses - Seks determined not long ago that Djukic is just a step ahead of Martic, and that what he propagates is open secession - he completely loses control. A few days ago, when a journalist at the local Zagreb television (OTV) insisted he answered to the question who destroyed Vukovar, he laconically answered - the war, and then a spectator (this was a contact program) sent him straight - to hell!

In this turmoil the only Serbian parliamentary party found itself in, there might be a hidden sense which stands out from the first impressions. It is not impossible that the fact that stances of the SNS suddenly became radical enjoys a discrete support of the authorities, because Djukic's ideas - especially those about federalization of Croatia - are preparing the public that the war will have to end in a compromise in which significant concessions will have to be made by the Serbs, but probably by Croatia just as much. One should be reminded that the Constitutional Law on ethnic minorities which offers, so far unsuccessfully, high autonomy for the Serbs in counties of Knin and Glina, was adopted at the initiative of the SNS in 1991. In the meantime, this party raised the threshold of demands and now it is seeking autonomy for the Serbs on the level of the districts, meaning that they would approximately have the same status as Istria or Slavonia. And, as if by a miracle, Seks himself mentioned the possibility of actually implementing this.

That is how in this story, verbal bludgeons which both sides are waving with, clobber much fewer heads than it might seem at first sight. Moreover, the impression is that nothing very new has happened after the angry quarrel between the SNS and the HDZ, but just that another cycle is being rounded off with the state losing confidence in its "good" Serbs, and its announcing a public competition for new ones. And, as everybody knows, competitions never pass without minor tricks and imputations, but great passions as well.

MARINKO CULIC