THE END OF THE "STATE" WHICH WAS DIVIDED BY THE HIGHWAY

later

AIM, OSIJEK, May 10, 1995

The scene appears quite unreal: a group of Croat soldiers having their picture taken in front of a wall across which a large advertisement reads "Foto Krajina" in cyrillic letters, while from a window of a nearby house at the entrance of which the sign "Serb Radio Okucani" still stands, sounds of the song "I was born to a Croat mother" can be heard. On the wall of the same building from which the music blares, from two loudspeakers standing at an open window, time-table of "Krajina-trans" buses leaving for Belgrade and Banjaluka still stands untouched. The place of the scene is Okucani, and the time a few days after the quick action of the Croat Army and police which returned the whole region of Western Slavonia under the aegis of the Croat constitutional legal system. If it were not for a multitude of soldiers and policemen who are celebrating the victory drinking cans of beer in a hastily opened inn in the centre of Okucani, the town would appear quite deserted. Just a lot of livestock, mostly pigs and piglets, roam around the streets and gardens, and a cow chews a curtain at an open window of a deserted house.

HOUSES PRESERVED, ROOFS INTACT

Windows of the shops are mostly broken, but the shelves are still full of commodities which cannot be seen in Croat shops. Spices by Belgrade "Centroprom", cases of "Krajina" and "Jelen" beer, a bottle or two of "Rubin" cognac, cans by "Carnex", and cosmetics by "Merima" from Krusevac in Serbia. In a deserted and demolished cafe, several empty bottles of Belje "Rizling" wine, vintage 1994, can be seen. Down streets which cry for an urgent action of municipal services, a spring breeze carries several-days old issues of "Vecernje novosti", "Politika" and other Belgrade journals. Along gutters and pavements by the houses, countless empty cans and beer bottles - equally those from "Krajina" and Zagreb and Karlovac breweries. Two preserved monuments from the time of the National Liberation Struggle, one bearing rhymes of a poem by a partisan poet Grigor Vitez, and the other with a series of names of partisan fighters from the region in Cyrrilic alphabet, all intact. None of the houses is blasted, none burned down, and just a few bear a drawing of the Croat coat of arms with a "U" (for Ustashe) or "NDH" (for the Independent State of Croatia during the Second World War) added here and there. Mostly in places where the four Cyrillic "S" used to stand.

Numerous Croat and foreign journalists, contrary to the first few days, are now allowed perfectly free access to the entire region. Only when you turn off the highway and take the branching-off towards Okucani which cuts through fields full of yellow rape flowers, after passing the torn down toll booths, Croat police will stop you at a control point, identify you and let you take pictures of whatever you want and talk to whoever you choose. Okucani do not appear as a town where there were street fights - houses are preserved, roofs intact. Just broken windows on the houses and the shops and a few cafes in the centre - some due to detonations, and some due to consequent actions of "cleansing".

The effort of Croat authorities to establish normal life as soon as possible is obvious. Across a tin sign which still shows traces of paint with the logo of "Beobanka", a blue sign of "Zagreb Bank" was pasted. The Post Office is open, and at its entrance the public phone booth is working. The program of the Croat Radio Okucani is broadcast from the same studio where the "Serb Radio Okucani" used to work. Even the channel is the same - 93.6 megaherz. Emir Altic, Alan Snajder, Elijana Candrlic and Branimir Spoljaric whom we find in the small studio, carefully separated the records and tapes and documentation of the previous team. In the former photographer's studio, "Foto Krajina", on the first floor of the building where the Radio is located, we go through the texts which were read from the "Serb Radio Okucani" just a few days ago: "Dear listeners, good morning! This Monday, at the beginning of a new working week, we are together on the same channel with the morning program of Serb Radio Okucani. This morning, Dragana Petrovic is in the studio with us, and Slobodan Bozic at the mix control panel..."

"IT REALLY DID RUMBLE..."

We are in the street again and from the centre of Okucani start towards the North, by a road which leads to Lipik and Pakrac via Bijele Stene. Most of the houses have their blinds down, hens are plucking at the lettuce and chalotte and wandering around gardens. We are looking for the inhabitants. We ask a Croat soldiers who is peeping out of a few-storey building on the right-hand side of the road, whether there are any civilians, those who have lived here before the arrival of the Croat Army. He points with his hand towards the oil station:

• There are a few, down towards the oil station - he says. Truly, in a yard, we see an elderly woman, and in the neighbouring yard another, a younger one. They both say they are Serb.

• I am here since 1956 uninterruptedly - the older woman says. - I've just come back from the clinic, I went to have my leg re-bandaged. I've had that from before - she says. She has two packages of "Kolumbo" cigarettes in her hand.

• The soldiers gave them to me down there - she explains.

She also says that she was in the cellar during the attack on Okucani. It really did rumble, and when it stopped she came out from the cellar. She saw the Croat army, at first she was frightened, but when she saw that they did not harm anyone, she left her hideout. There is still no water and no electric power supply in the part of Okucani where she lives. But, she adds, the Army gave them bread, and they have "everything else".

The younger woman who says that she suffers from diabetes, does not complain about the way she is treated either. She stayed here, because she has "nothing to fear, she did no harm to anyone". We ask her whether she lacks anything from the house. She hesitates with the answer. Then finally, after a long pause, she says that they have taken her colour tv set and casette-player. The same is with her neighbour.

• Never mind - she says. - Just let there be peace, so we don't live in fear any more.

A young member of the Croat Military Police who guards the entrance to Okucani from the direction of Bijela Stijena, advises us not to take that road to Pakrac. He explains that it is not safe and that in the neighbouring Psunj forests, there are still armed groups of the army of rebellious Serbs. But, we decide to go via Bijele Stijene anyway. In a few villages by the road, at the entrance of which signs with the names have been removed, we find only members of the Croat Army and Police. Cows, horses and pigs roam around. The road is narrow and in bad condition. It is not easy to follow the recommendation we were given by the Military Police - to drive as fast as possible.

The region which was until a few days ago part of the "Republic of Serb Krajina" covered some thirty kilometres to the North, almost to the entrance to Lipik, and then, like a tongue, it stretched along the railway tracks and divided Pakrac, going towards the East by the road Pakrac - Pozega. Several control points where UNCRO used to be, are now held by the Croat Army and Police. White UN cars are scarce, a vehicle or two passes here and there. Contrary to villages we have passed through where there are no burnt or demolished houses, the entrance into Lipik appears apocalyptic. Numerous demolished and burnt houses stand in fact as traces of the war which raged here in the end of 1991 and in 1992. The situation is similar in Pakrac.

DZAKULA IN "HOME CUSTODY"

We are driving down Gavranica, a part of Pakrac which was a divided town until May. In a part held by the Serbs, we are trying to locate Veljko Dzakula, one of the Serb leaders. In Gavranica which starts at some hundred metres from the bullet-ridden Orthodox church, there are by far more people than in Okucani and villages we passed through. We ask around about Dzakula. They tell us to drive up the hill to the house of Obrad Ivanovic who discharged duties of the President of the Executive Council of Municipal Assembly Pakrac during the rule of the "Krajina". In front of the house is a UNCRO vehicle and several armed soldiers. There are also two Croat policemen. We ask them whether we can visit Dzakula. They say we can, and it depends on Dzakula whether he wishes to let us in the house.

In the company of Obrad Ivanovic and Miroslav Grozdanic, who was until recently, the President of the occupied part of Pakrac municipality, Dzakula calls us in. At the entrance, inmates tells us that he is already tired of numerous visitors. Journalists, TV teams, UN representatives, European observers keep visiting him. Milorad Pupovac paid him a visit the day before.

We ask Dzakula whether he is in house custody. He says he is not, but that he was recommended not to walk around too much. - I know too well that the very sound of my name makes some people's hair stand - Dzakula says. He tells us how Croat military action caught him in his sleep, that neither he nor anyone else in Western Slavonia expected an attack of the Croat Army. He describes the panic they were stricken by. He claims that seven civilians were killed in a mass of refugees and a still undetermined number of persons who wanted to run away across the Sava in a truck, he says. They came across an ambush of the Croat police, Dzakula claims, somewhere near Seovica. He knows nothing else, because he has no data.

He says he was caught on the second day of the action, when ceasefire was negotiated, and then their unconditional surrender. They came to get him in a UN transporter in which the commander of Croat police rode. He spent the night in the police station in Pakrac, and then he was transported to Bjelovar, he was interrogated by the local police there and released. We ask him what he intends to do, remain and continue living here or leave to "Krajina" or Serbia.

• It depends what these people decide - he says. - Whatever they decide to do, I'll do the same. My departure or stay, individually, mean nothing at all.

We return by the same road towards Okucani. The sun is approaching the hill brows. It seems that for a long time to come, nights around here will not be pleasant.

DRAGO HEDL