MISFORTUNE ON SALE

Who and in what way is bargaining with the destiny of refugees from Kuplensko?!

AIM, Zagreb, December 15, 1995

More than four months after signing of the first agreement on return of the refugees from Kuplensko to their homes in Velika Kladusa, the question of their return seems to be more hopeless than ever. As far as we know, by signatures in Dayton, the war has ended for the (Western) world, but in its contents there was no room for what these deprived human beings wish for - Posavina for the people from Posavina and Western Bosnia for people from Kladusa and Cazin. For the first, the situation is somewhat clarified, and for the latter just apparently.

Refugees from Kladusa have nowhere to go if they do not wish to find themselves under uncertain "protection" of the Fifth Corps of the Army of B&H. For the time being, the West does not want them, Croatia refuses to give them the status of refugees, because they can allegedly return to their homes, as agreed by the agreement (which has so far manifested all attributes of a fiasco) dated a month ago which prescribed that their safety would be guarded and supervised by as many as three different police forces - Turkish, Croat and Bosnian. But, Western Bosnians do not want that, at least not in the way Croatia and B&H want it. In the meantime, they have no rights whatsoever, except to die in the camp near Vojnic where it is impossible to live like a human being, and humiliation is a rule.

When they came to Croatia on August 7, and temporarily settled down on both sides of the 5-kilometre long road to Vojnic, they were convinced that their outing from Kladusa would be short and endurable. There were about 25 thousand of them, and about 8500 have returned home. Another 3500 (mostly men) emigrated - mainly illegally - to various countries abroad. They had come with a lot of arms and a few tanks which they turned over to Croat authorities. It is possible that they have secretly kept some of the armament.

At the time there were 6500 cildren at the age below 15, and nowadays there are 1000 of them less. There were 380 pregnant women at the time, 5000 persons over 65, about 12 thousand grown-ups, 52 children without both parents, and many more with a single parent. Nowadays, there is at least 12-13 thousand refugees surviving in the camp. Chances that they actually will survive are diminishing every day. Children are ailing, contagious diseases have appeared, they lack everything - apart from bread and fresh air.

In view of the bad conditions they are living in (with no heating, without water, electric power supply, in hovels and stables), the question arises why these refugees do not wish to return joyfully to their homes, if allegedly B&H Government has promised that everything would be alright? The answer should be sought on the other side, in Kladusa, where the Fifth Corps lives and operates together with the local ruffians. It is quite clear, Croatia does not want (Muslim) political disputes on its territory and takes all possible steps to send them back to Alija to take care of them in his own way. Croat policy concerning refugees is elegant and perfidious. In the initial phase, there was a wish to resolve the problem by force, because there was no time to be lost. There is the intention to colonize Croats in this region who had fled from Banjaluka and the surrounding villages, which is slowed down by Abdic's people. In the middle of October, Croat special police was ready for this operation by order of the Defence and National Security Council, but then the plan was abandoned. Croatia was warned at the time not to behave recklessly, because it would be punished if Geneva Convention were violated. That is why, Croat brutal policy is now waiting for the winter to play its role and force the refugees to leave of their own free will and go wherever they choose. It is assumed that only 2-3 thousand of the most persistent ones will remain in the camp. And then it will be easy to deal with them.

The West is also pretending to be taken aback by the bad situation these people are in, although it had secretly suggested an autonomy to them back in 1992, and the variegated humanitarian crowd is playing its fiddles and usually doing nothing or just very little for them.

The recent poll conducted among the refugees, unanimously certified the political will of these people who imagine their return home in their own way - with their own administration, with Fikret Abdic, and Western Bosnia. There are more than 90 per cent of the answers in this sense, while just the small remainder stressed non-mobilization and minimum of security.

These data show that things are not as the militant ex-minister and priest Adalbert Rebic claims - that they are just infatuated people whose lives are conducted by a handful of wrongdoers and war criminals. All those who have been in Kuplensko know only to well that this is crazy, because it is not at all probable for a couple hundred armed rascals to keep control over 25 thousand people for almost five months.

The Bosnian-Herzegovinian administration repeats the platitude about people threatened from within whose uncivil armed compatriots are creating an atmosphere of fear. Some representatives of the administration (e.g. Hasan Muratovic, a Minister in B&H Government) go as far in their fantasies to claim that criminals, if any, in the camp have been pardoned ("... we have sent all documentation to Croat authorities, according to which they have been pardoned"), and on the other hand, quite innocently call them criminals and threaten with not in the least innocent penalties. The story about hooligans in the camp is often repeated and serves all parties as a pretext to do nothing, to hush up the problem. Armed rogues are not the real problem. The political problem in its red-hot form is the question - which everyone is taking great pains to answer - how to outmanoeuvre the political will of a nation, how to fool it, how to force it to accept what it does not wish to accept.

It has become quite clear by now to each and every Western Bosnian that if he agrees to the Sarajevo crescendo, he would live in a reservation, unsafe both for property and for living. Their stories about fear are not dreams. From mid October to mid December, 95 cases were registered of badly beaten up persons who had returned to Kladusa and the surrounding villages, several of them beaten to death. The story usually begins at sundown with two or three men knocking at the door, often dressed as policemen (although usually not policemen at all), who then jam the host into a van or similar vehicle and drive to a nearby forest or warehouse. Torture sometimes lasts throughout the night. The ones who get less beating, who by mere chance avoid the game of bottle neck and anus, oil and mouth, steel "boxers" and head manage to survive. The Coordinator of the camp in Kuplensko, Ramo Hirkic believes that this will continue happening until pressure is exerted on the regime in Sarajevo to guarantee safe return of the refugees.

Arson is a matter of routine in the villages. Fear is growing, hope of (promised) peaceful life diminishing. So far, at least 8500 people have returned, and camp-mates in Kuplensko know very little about their destiny. UNHCR has tried to to be nice and organized an operation of gathering (reliable) information about the life of those who had returned. But the truth was so brutal, that UNHCR was alarmed and ever since has offered wrong information to the refugees about the life of returnees in Kladusa.

Adalbert Rebic lies once again when he says that he is certain "that their houses are completely preserved" and that local authorities "guarantee their safety during return". The utmost cynism is his final remark: "There is indeed no serious reason for them not to return".

Many who could not stand life in the open in Kuplensko, indeed did return to their apartment/house where somebody was already living and where that somebody was the master now. Not many people know that there is a camp of about a hundred people who live in the place of their origin during the day, and then go to sleep in Buzim, because noone knows them over there. Most of them sleep in the open, and only those who are lucky in houses of their friends or simply of some good people.

There is another category, those whose houses have remained intact or noone has moved into them. They too are frightened and insecure. And there is plenty of reason for that. For instance, in the afternoon of December 11, near the stadium of "Krajisnik" football team, a distressed soldier of the Fifth Corps, threw a case of bombs at the house of a refugee who had arrived from Kuplensko a few days before that. Only ashes were left of both the house and its host. And this is not the only such case. Similar cases are happening too often to be simply an act of a disturbed veteran.

To put an end to the suspense, the refugees themselves have offered, at a protest held on December 11 at the Kuplensko camp, five demands which - if fulfilled - would be sufficient to make them consider the possibility of their collective return. The best political move, in the old sense of the word, is the demand to talk about their destiny with them. They also wish respect of all international conventions dealing with the rights of refugees; they demand a new meeting of all signatories of the agreement dated August 8, 1995, and an informative and humanitarian blockade. The last demand can be described with the old slogan: "Better grave than slave".

During all this time, Fikret Abdic lives in Rijeka and believes that all has not been lostyet. May his memory live!

ALEN ANIC