HOW TO COLONIZE KRAJINA

About forty days have elapsed since operation "Storm" had swept through "Krajina", and since the Serb population under still unclarified circumstances had decided to leave in a mass exodus. According to unofficial assessments, as the official ones are hard to get, on the territories of former sectors "North" and "South", only about five to six thousand Serbs, mostly elderly, have remained, and a few armed groups which the Croat Army and Police are "cleansing" the place of daily. And according to the 1991 census, about 170 thousand Serbs lived here. Croatia has thus effectuated its threat that it would return the space from Glina, Petrinja, Kostajnica and Dvor via Slunj, Korenica, Donji Lapac and Gracac, all the way to Knin, Benkovac and Drnis back under the jurisdiction of its constitutional legal system, but it met with the problem how to renew life here as quickly as possible and where to find people who would fill up the enormous empty space of its "soft belly".

The first ceremonial part of reintegration has passed, flags have been raised, signs put up in their proper place, post-offices opened, the train called "Marjan Express" travels every day from Zagreb towards Split, and soon Zadar and Sibenik will also be connected by the railroad. It is already possible to travel by road through Lika, although the bridge near Slunj has not been reconstructed yet. Some schools have been reopened, and as proof that this is a safe region, last Thursday the Croat Government met in Knin. However, that very session held at the Knin fortress revealed all kinds of problems the authorities are faced with and showed that many things would not go as smoothly as planned. Two problems are dominant. First, what should be done with the property of the Serbs, and second what should be done to return Croat banned persons who numbered 103 thousand according to official statements. The figure might appear exaggerated, because the attempt to create an image that this was almost exclusively a Serb region lasted far too long. The data, however, show that 13,5 thousand Croats had lived in the former Benkovac municipality, that in Drnis where they were in a large majority about 19 thousand Croats had lived. Slunj was also Croat with 12 thousand of them out of the total of 19 thousand inhabitants, and there were more than eight thousand in Glina, and almost 16 thousand in Petrinja. Almost all of them were banned, and as a rule their property ruined, robbed and burnt to the ground. Exceptions were towns such as, for example, Benkovac, Obrovac or Knin itself, but villages practically do not exist any more.

After operation "Storm", the entire Croat state leadership, from Tudjman downward, strove to prove that the Croat army did not act the same. That there were no murders, no plundering, arson, banishments. They persistently refused to admit what every citizen knew, although to a certain extent they were right. Namely, the Croat Army had received very strict orders not to touch property and mistreat civilians, and in fact in the first few days of the war operations there had been such cases just in "normal proportions".

And then, the plundering "storm" began, according to the rule eye for eye Serb villages were set on fire, too. The first to warn against such phenomena was Zadar-Knin District Prefect Sime Prtenjaca, but he met with an odium and almost proclaimed a traitor. Mr Prtenjaca clashed with Commander of Knin, general Ivan Cermak, because he disapproved that this sem-iskilled soldier, but in fact a businessman from Zagreb and former minister, was overtaking civilian authorities. The journal Slobodna Dalmacija which is close to the authorities also warned that things did not go as smootly as the authorities were trying to present. It turned out actually that numerous international organizations for protection of human rights were right, and that numerous reports of foreign journalists were true, and that they were not just a part of the special war against Croatia.

Even Cermak himself was forced to admit dishonourable activities when he declared in Knin that "after operation 'Storm' other 'liberators' started systematically coming in. Dressed in uniforms of the Croat Army many have committed dishonourable acts". He listed forceful moving into flats, taking away things from houses and flats... "Defaming of the Croat Army - Cermak stated - increased to intolerable proportions, so that now about ten members of the Croat Army were arrested because of suspicion that they have committed such acts. They will be court-martialled". Due to such phenomena, general Cermak intensified patrolling of military and civilian police.

Vice Prime Minister Bosiljko Misetic spoke about instances of arson at the already mentioned Government session in Knin, and Sime Prtenjaca wondered how production could be renewed when machinery and equipment from enterprises was being taken away? According to the assessment of Minister of agriculture Ivica Gazi, about 30 thousand heads of cattle, 40 thousand pigs, 4.5 thousand horses and about 100 thousand sheep have remained in the region. Minister of the interior Ivan Jarnjak stated the fact that about 60 thousand heads of cattle have so far been gathered, and about 15 thousand were gathered by "holders of various certificates" who were issued exportation permits.

Even these official statements clearly indicate that Croatia will have problems with establishment of civilian authorities and that it will have to reach out for more radical measures if it wishes to restore order. In the meantime, the head of the Government Office for Banned Persons and Refugees, Dr Adalbert Rebic, states that one third of the banned persons does not wish to return. And they will not return because they managed to find a solution for themeselves

• they got permanent employment, bought a flat, acquired tenants' rights or similar. That there is actually still no wish to return in the expected extent is illustrated by the fact that the hotels in Dalmatia are still full, and the assessments claim that there are still about 26 thousand banned persons in the regions of Sibenik and Split alone.

For all these reasons, the Government decided to implement a special regulation pursuant to which all the abandoned property will be managed by the state. The need to accomodate banned persons was cited as the main reason for this, but so is protection of property of large national value which would be exposed to ruin if left without tenants during the forthcoming winter. The principle of temporary use is applied, respecting the constitutional principle of protection of private ownership. Abandoned property, therefore, will not become property of the state, but will only be managed by it. According to the regulation which will soon acquire the form of a special law, this property will be returned to its owners under certain conditions. The fundamental condition is that they return home within 30 days after publication of the regulation, that is, that they apply for return of their property approximately within the same period after adoption of the law. The Government also wishes the return of the banned persons as soon as possible, so those who refuse to do it will be deprived of the present benefits, and working obligation will be introduced for them. At the same time, with the intention to reach the number of inhabitants who had lived in these regions, "krajina" is systematically colonized with refugees from Bosnia & Herzegovina, especially from the region near Banja Luka and from Vojvodina, which indicates that Croatia does not expect a large number of Serbs to return.

The state is in a great hurry to take as many banned persons and refugees from its back as it can, and as it puts it, to return them to their homes or colonioze them somewhere else. This ought to be the first key step towards normalization of life, but plans and wishes are one thing, and facts of life something quite different. Because the most important issue is revival of production which was of no concern to anyone in the "krajina", so that factories and enterprises which will make a profit can be counted on fingers of one hand. First of all they are the hydro-electric power plant "Obrovac" which has already started operation and reintegrated in the network, meat industry "Gavrilovic" with a part of its facilities, Water Works "Zrmanja" and a small factory here and there. According to assessments of the Ministry of labour, there used to be about 44 thousand employed persons in these regions, but they have not been classified - how many had worked in production, how many in services, how many of them were employed in the Army, police, education, health services...

So far everything points out that "krajina" will for a long time, at least a year remain a true military frontier which it has been in history, that mostly army and police will be inhabiting it, and that one will have to wait for quite a while for its "real" population, apart from those who have been moved here by government decrees for the needs of the railway company, power generation, telecommunications, education, health services and public utility enterprise. Its national composition will fundamentally be changed, because although there are certain indications that some of the inhabitants of "krajina" would like to return, it seems that there is absolutely no good will for anything of the kind either in Croatia, or in the FR of Yugoslavia, and especially in the "Republic of Srpska". All things considered, one of the greatest exchanges of property and population in the history of this space has been made.

GOJKO MARINKOVIC