CONFISCATION OF THE PROPERTY OF THE KRAJINA SERBS

Krajina Serbs

AIM, ZAGREB, September 12, 1995

When on August 1, the Croatian Army attacked Serbian Krajina, all the electronic media broadcast President Tudjman's message, repeated every half hour, inviting the Serbian population to remain in their homes, while just indemnification was promised to those who left. Only a month later both vanished into thin air.

In the "train of freedom" aboard which three weeks later President Tudjman travelled from Zagreb via Knin to Split, he angrily commented on the Serbs who had fled, reproaching them for having been a "problem" since Turkish times and saying that despite the sufferings they had just gone through, it was "positive" that they had left. In a raised voice he wished them a "Bon voyage". Several days later to the Austrian "Focus", when asked: "May the 150 thousand Knin Serbs who fled return"? - he answered without anger and decisively: "If they wanted to return they wouldn't have gone. It is almost unimaginable that all will return. In any case that is not in the interest of the normalization of the Croatian and Serbian relations. But, we shall observe human rights and allow return in individual cases".

The first promise made at the beginning of the "Storm" (Oluja) evaporated in thin air. The second had suffered the same fate several days earlier. On August 31, the Croatian government brought a "Decree on the Temporary Take - Over and Management of Certain Property". The term "certain" probably reflects the embarrassment of the author of the Decree to draw up a regulation for only one ethnic group, namely the Krajina Serbs, and they are nowhere expressely mentioned. But, it is easy to recognize them in the explanation that the Decree refers to "property located in the previously occupied and now liberated territory of the Republic of Croatia, which their owners have abandoned and do not use personally". That property "temporarily comes under the management of the Republic of Croatia", and shall be "given" to exiles and refugees as well as citizens performing activities important for security, defence, reconstruction and development, etc.".

The new users cannot dispose of the property alloted to them as if they owned it( namely, they cannot sell, exchange or lease it, etc.), but Laws have already been announced which will considerably shorten the period of temporary disposal (20 years now) and enable the transfer of ownership to the new users. In the meanwhile the Decree protects the new user by Article 10 which reads that the new user "cannot be deprived of the property until he gets occupany and user rights to other corresponding property." In the "interpretation" of the Minister of Reconstruction, Jure Radic, this in short means that the new users "will be protected more then those who ran away". That there is no reason to doubt this is clear from the key article of the Decree which regulates the period in which the legal owners who have abandoned their property may demand that it be exempt from the Decree. That period is 30 days.

This ultra short period practically gives the Decree the force of nationalization, partly on an ethnical basis (the Decree stipulates that the take-over of property does not refer to "Croatian nationals" which is a very dubious formulation, but it is clear that it refers only to Croats and "urban" Serbs having Croatian nationality). The term of expropriation is also mentioned and some independent legal experts and journalists think that confiscation is in question, a term not known to the Croatian Constitution. The Government itself uses the term "sequestration", claiming that the Decree does not "encroach on property", but only temporarily regulates its use.

However, the secretary of the Croatian Helsinki Committee, Orhideja Martinovic, claims that private property can equally be called in question by "encroachment on property", and the Government itself admits that that is what happened. Most of the Serbs who have fled cannot meet the thirty-day deadline because only those having official passports, and such do not exist, can come to Croatia in so short a time and submit an application for exemption. Or those who get "travel permits", which the so far agile Croatian Office in Belgrade does not issue, or only exceptionally (allegedly, there are no problems only in the case of certifying "red" passports, but only for trips to third countries).

This firm closing of the Croatian door to citizens of the former "Krajina", which would hardly be justified even if all of them had committed war crimes - for Croatia should supposedly be interested in meting out deserved punishments to them - is not founded either in the international documents accepted by Croatia or the institutions of which it is a member or would like to be. Neither is it founded in the Croatian Constitution.

The independent "Arkzin" recently published a text entitled "Despite the Constitution", quoting Article 9, para 2 of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia which reads: "A national of the Republic of Croatia cannot be expelled from the Republic of Croatia nor deprived of his citizenship and cannot be extradited". In all fairness this holds little hope for the Serbs who have left. All Croatian officials discussing the possibilities of their return these days repeat the same, probably agreed upon, sentence: The Serbs left "of their own free will" or did that prompted or ordered by their military and civilian leaders. In other words, they are anything but "expelled".

But even if that were true, the manner of departure could not suspend their return. This is undisputably testified to by Article 32, para 2 of the Constitution which reads: "Every national of the Republic is entitled, at any time, to leave the territory of the state and settle, permanently or temporarily, abroad and return to the homeland at any time (this has in all likelihood been written for the million-strong Croatian diaspora, but now cannot but also be applicable to the Serbs that have fled). After this, the mentioned officials could only claim with risk that the Serbs that have fled are not Croatian nationals because they have no official certificate of citizenship. This could, however, be refuted by every legal apprentice because citizenship is acquired (also) by birth in Croatia, which is true of the majority of the Krajina Serbs, and moreover most have left behind centuries - old family roots.

Without pressing major, historic charges, the untameable "bomber from Kvarner", Vladimir Bebic, claims that Tudjman and Kuharic "solved the Serbian question" more efficiently than Pavelic and Stepinac - we can thus say that the Serbs, until yesterday protected by the "most democratic" Constitutional Law on National Communities and Minorities, overnight remained without any legal protection. They have actually been turned into plain demographic scum which no one cares about or seriously deals with.

Is there nevertheless any hope for them to start returning in greater numbers? Requests to that effect have been submitted to Croatia till now by the Security Council, the European Union, Richard Holbrooke...But, this does not have the effect of serious pressure and as things now stand the world has reconciled itself to, if not discreetly assisted in the creation of two ethnically homogenous areas to the west of the Una and to the east of the Drina river, while B&H is the "buffer" between them. B&H is also divided among ethinc "entities", but with a somewhat firmer obligation, from the trilateral meeting in Geneva, to enable the return of all refugees who wish to do so. The possibilities of repatriation in the broader region will probably to a large extent hinge on the success or failure of that "experiment".

MARINKO CULIC