WESTERN SLAVONIA WITHOUT THE SERBS?

AIM, ZAGREB, May 7, 1995

Croatia's position after the operation in western Slavonia is complex - admitted Mate Granic on Saturday in Split, drawing particular attention to the presidential statement in which the Security Council strongly reacted to this operation, as well as the opinion of Lord Owen that Croatia is "very vulnerable" and that pressure should be brought to bear on it.

The latter statement aroused anger in the Croatian media and public at large, which long ago called the Lord a British Serb, like once the much disliked Lord Carrington. In Split GraniS stated that nevertheless, after 24 hours of the fiercest imputations and accusations addressed to Zagreb, a "diplomatic balance" had been established so that as things stand now it is necessary to find someone who would, in opposition to Owen, adamantly defend the Croatian side in order to strike the mentioned balance. However, judging by everything, things are much more prosaic and point to the total confusion which the Croatian intervention has caused in the United Nations and the European Union.

These two head organizations, which do not intend to abruptly change, but only to lamely "monitor" the situation on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, have demonstrated such undecisiveness and sloppiness in that monitoring that in the end it acquired the proportions of a classic rashomon.

The first news on the plundering and shelling of the Serb civilian population came from the Zagreb UNCRO Headquarters, where its spokesman Christopher Gunness quoted EU monitors, but they in turn denied having made any report which would point to such an accusation. After that this rickety marry-go-round turned once again, but in the opposite direction. Yasushi Akashi visited western Slavonia and after that stated that the Croatian intervention was carried out within the limits of international war conventions, but on that same day the Security Council, which should draw most of its information from Akashi himself, rejected the Croatian demand for an apology and resolutely stuck to its previous stand.

Thus the presentation of "the only truth" on the events in western Slavonia was left to the Croatian and Serb sides, which wholeheartedly grabbed the offered opportunity and renewed the fiercest propaganda war since late 1991, while the international mediators, which in such situations are expected to provide unbiased informative arbitration, eliminated thesmselves from the game. Judging by all things this knock-down of the blue and white arbitrators is not accidental and represents an expression of a deep impotence which only surfaced now, but had been accumulating for quite a while. To put it more precisely, it all started at that moment somewhere someone decided to "reconcile" the legitimate right of Croatia to the integrity of its territory and the likewise legitimate responsibility to observe the rights of minority nations, particularly the Serbs, in the following way: the territorial integrity of Croatia is left to the uncertain development of events, the end of which no one knows, but also to leave the minorities to that same uncertainty.

This dubious Croatian formula was best seen when Tudjman agreed to withdraw his termination of UNPROFOR's mandate, after everyone believed that such a turnabout was impossible. Contrary to all previous statements and boasting, the Croatian state leadership agreed even to the hitherto longest eight months stay of blue helmets, so that the local observers instantly concluded that the Croatian top will be payed back for that by two equally dear privileges - first foreign loans, which soon after that actually starting flowing in, as well as the right to more freely resolve the situation in its own house than before, i.e. without the nagging and raised finger of warning of the world. Some go even so far as to suggest that even the western Slavonian intervention itself was only possible on account of such conniving, as Resolution 981 no longer mentiones the "protected areas", and what is not protected - can be attacked. Such speculations will be further encouraged by the fact that the Security Council, in spite of the harsh criticism addressed to Zagreb, did not demand the withdrawal of its troops from western Slavonia. Consequently, it perhaps agrees to the intervention!

However, to accuse the Security Council of such direct complicity in the armed intervention is not convincing simply because it exceeds the degree of daring and "arrogance" it has shown so far. To preserve the status quo on the two bases we have mentioned, is the maximum the Council has reached so far and there is no reason why things should be different now. Therefore, it is more probable that there are calculations that the western Slavonian "lesson" given to the Croatian Serbs might divide their "hawks" and "pigeons" and, with additional pressure coming from Milosevic make them nevertheless, accept the continuation of negotiations which would eventually result in some form of "reintegration". Apart from these "kitchen" combinations, others are possible too, primarily the ones which result from the very status of western Slavonia. This is the most Croat part of all the former UNPA-s (both as regards the composition of the population and the willingness of the local Serbs to negotiate with Zagreb), so that the Z-4 plan envisaged the direct reinstating of Croatian authority only in it (without the five-year delay as in the case of eastern Slavonia and Baranja, and particularly without the attribute of a "state within a state", as in the case of Knin and Glina).

Perhaps the Security Council primarily had in mind mostly that side of western Slavonia's story and only on that account allowed what in case of Maslenica was never legalized, and even suspended in the case of the Medak pocket. However, even the leniency and maximum benevolence towards Croatia cannot absolve it of the responsibility to ensure the rights of the Serbs of western Slavonia according to the Constituional Law on Minorities, which Croatia adopted under the direct influence and pressure from without. These are the rights from the "basket" of the so called cultural autonomy which give Serbs, even outside "Krajina" where they are a relative majority, the right to establish "separate school institutions and separate school classes, with the instruction in the language and alphabet of that ethnic and national community" (also envisaged are "measures of special protection for participation in public affairs, education, culture, spiritual and religious life, as well as access to the media irrespective of their share in the total population"). In addition, the Serbs from western Slavonia could also claim their right to that part in the local government in places and towns of this region, which they won at the last elections before the war, in the summer of 1990.

But, no one mentiones that now. The Croatian officials assure the local Serbs that all the rights enjoyed by other citiznes of Croatia are guaranteed to them, although it is clear that minorities have other special rights, which was the reason for drafting the Constitutional Law on Minorities. It was also said that the Serbian leaders Dzakula, Ivanovic, Grozdanic, etc. who were the first to be released from detention, were expected to calm down the Serbian population, which would allegedly encourage those who have run away, to return. But there is no mention of whether they will be allowed to articulate the political interests of the Serbs in this region.

Thus, according to the same principle was reconquered western Slavonia which the Serbs took in 1991 solely as a territory, as they were not interested in having the Croats remain. This is now Croatian territory, with a Serb minority, and if the world doesn't split too many hairs (there are no guarantees that it will) - without it.

MARINKO CULIC