HOUSING POLICY AGAINST RETURNEES
TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT
AIM SARAJEVO February 21, 1996
No return for anyone! - The Government of Sarajevo unequivocally broadcasts this cruel message despite all the signed agreements, accords and annexes on the rights of refugees to return, by applying its extremist laws on housing policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Pursuant to those laws, persons who (despite the reason and motives), left B&H during the war, lose their flats, i.e. their tenant's rights! For, such rights - as decided by the ruling party, the SDA (Party of Democratic Action) - belong to those who entered the flat with a skeleton-key, an axe, by a kick of the foot or with a rifle!
Namely, the latest Decree with the force of law brought by the B&H Government, says that "a holder of tenant's rights who is not occupying the flat will be deemed to have lost the flat permanently if within seven days after the proclamation of the termination of the state of war he does not start using it again if he is in the country, or within fifteen days if he is abroad". In other words, if displaced persons within B&H do not return and occupy their flats within seven days, and refugees from European or overseas countries within fifteen days after the cessation of the danger of war - they will have irretrievably lost their homes.
But, there are two things the legislator has not brought to the attention of the army of almost two million displaced and exiled Bosnians and Herzegovinians. First, even if they return from exile in the legally prescribed period they cannot return to their flats and thus comply with the law on return. For, if these flats are at all habitable, someone is certainly living in them. And second, the legal deadline for return has long since expired without anyone having properly informed the exiled and displaced citizens of B&H about that. For, as early as December 22 last year the Presidency of B&H passed a decision on the termination of the danger of war which practically means that the deadline for returning to B&H was December 29, 1995 i.e. January 6 of this year!
Accordingly, tenant's rights have expired both for those who by coincidence returned before the expiry of the legal deadline but who are not living in their (occupied) flats and for those who are still legally refugees somewhere abroad. They actually have nothing to come back to (or perhaps shouldn't)!?
"This regulation concerning the expiry of tenant's rights is evidently designed and aimed primarily against civilians who left their towns and now have no legal grounds to move into their flats, and thereby neither grounds nor possibilities to return" - claim the Ombudsmen of the Federation of B&H - Vera Jovanovic, Esad Muhibic and Branka Raguz. Showered with complaints and appeals for help (mainly from Sarajevans who cannot repossess their flats), the Ombudsmen sent a protest letter to the Presidents of the Parliaments of the Federation and the Republic, Mariofil Ljubic and Miro Lazovic, claiming that "human rights and the principles of equal treatment before the law and legal security are today violated the most" in the area of housing. A similar letter was also addressed to the President and Vice-President of the B&H Federation, Kresimir Zubak and Ejup Ganic, the Governments of the Republic and the Federation, and international organizations charged with monitoring the implementation of the civil part of the Dayton Agreement.
In their letter, the Ombudsmen remind that Annex 7 of the signed General Framework Agreement for Peace in B&H states "that all refugees and displaced persons, irrespective of the reasons for their displacement and exile, have the right to freely return to their homes". Accordingly, it is the obligation of all the sides to "take all the necessary measures to prevent activities within their territory which would hamper or prevent safe and voluntary return".
However, the Government in Sarajevo, with the new law on flats, decided to "punish" those who during war operations saved their lives or those of their families by seeking safe havens. All this in disregar of the fact that the Geneva Conventions prescribe the obligation for all states to displace civilians from the zone of immediate war operations, and that the Constitution of the Federation guarantees the right of all refugees and exiles to freely return to their homes of origin and abode. By the adopted legal acts the Sarajevo Government punishes the "culprits", in other words refugees and exiles, by depriving them of their basic human right and freedom, closely linked to the right to property and its protection, i.e. the right to a flat or tenant's right.
Actually, during the whole war, legal regulations on the so-called abandoned flats, their new tenants and pre-war holders of tenant's rights "shook" the Bosnian-Herzegovinian public several times. The first instance was when empty flats - whose tenants fled from war dangers - were declared "abandoned", a category unknown till then, even in cases when persons who had to leave their permanent residence with valid orders were in question. The Decree on Abandoned Flats and their temporary allocation was soon transformed into the Law the abuse of which is a common practice here today.
This all the more as the new tenants in addition to the "abandoned flats" were presented with all the mobile property left behind by the holders of tenant's rights ("the property in the flat shall share the destiny of the flat itself" claims the lawmaker), which in conventional language can be called seized or confiscated property and in unconventional language - classical plunder or robbery. It is no secret here that the loyal members of the ruling Party of Democratic Action and their families, for instance in Sarajevo, "temporarily used" two, three or even more flats at the same time (in the center of the town, luxuriously and richly furnished, as a rule). On the contrary.
In the beginning, the temporarily allocated flats were given to new tenants under the clause that they could use them up to one year at the most after the cessation of immediate war danger. Opposition parties and frequently the other ruling party - the HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) whose voters left Sarajevo in great numbers, demanded a change of the Law on Abandoned Flats to the effect that in case the holder of tenant's rights should return within 7 days the flat should be returned i.e. vacated within a fortnight if it had been temporarily occupied in the meantime. It was proposed that the current users of the flat (mostly Moslem refugees from eastern Bosnia, SDA members or their relatives from the province, as well as a number of Sarajevans who fled parts of the city controlled by the Serbs) should be accommodated in collective centres or hotels all over the Federation till they return to their own places. However, the ruling SDA adopted a new Decree with the force of law amending the Law on Abandoned Flats whereby it ordered the annulment of the tenant's rights of those who failed to return to their flats within the mentioned 7-day i.e. 15-day period after the cessation of war danger.
To make things even more ironic, the Law on Housing Relations, which regulates tenants' rights in detail, is still in force in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In their letter the Federation Ombudsmen cite the following provisions of the mentioned law: "Tenant's rights are specific property rights encompassing elements of property and contractual law. A particularly important element is the possibility of exercising property rights to flats to which persons hold tenant's rights. Namely, flats to which persons have tenant's rights have been, as a rule, built with funds collected through contributions for housing construction from all employed workers in B&H".
"That contribution was rather large and amounted to as much as 10 % of the total gross income of the employed. For example, a married couple could have bought a flat at market prices before the war with the amount they allocated for the housing construction contribution, as it amounted to DM 70,000 to 75,000 during 25 years of their term of service". Precisely for that reason the Ombudsmen were of the opinion that in the course of the transformation announced by the Law on the Purchase of Flats which is under preparation, it was only logical for holders of tenant's rights to become owners of flats under very favourable conditions which would take realistic account of all their previous investments.
It is not hard to imagine why the ruling regime in Sarajevo unambiguously protects the rights of temporary users of flats, i.e. those who forcibly occupied them during the war, by the newly-established regulations. Namely, the announced law on the purchase of flats obviously aims at transforming the current users of flats into future owners whom, after the purchase, it will be impossible to move or evict from their private real estate. As significant migrations and demographic changes have also occurred on the parts of B&H territory controlled by the B&H Government, in other words, since the Moslem population represents a majority in that part of Bosnia, the ruling Moslem party is preparing itself for the elections and shaping the society it wants to rule by cementing the new ethnic picture.
Namely, by giving away flats, the SDA is attempting to create reliable voters within the Moslem national corps, which would be more than difficult to achieve in a mixed and multi-ethnic Bosnia. The possible returnees, particularly the Serbs and the Croats are surely not future Izetbegovic's supporters, and after the extremism demonstrated by this Party in the last year or two, the stepping down of some party leaders who disagreed with such a political option as well as various speculations with money and humanitarian donations, the reputation of the ruling party has rapidly deteriorated within the Bosniac national corps as well. Therefore, the payoff of future voters has started by the giving away of occupied flats. When it is known that the greater part of the housing fund remains in the hands of the party leadership this could be a bull's eye.
But, the Ombudsmen of the Federation are publicly protesting against the adopted Law. They invoke the violation of the provisions of the Dayton Agreement, i.e. prevention of the return of refugees and displaced persons. The dilemma whether the disputable housing law will be revised before the Constitutional Court of B&H is practically superfluous. Even more so as foreign judges hold the top positions in that Court, according to Dayton. In other words, Bosnia is again awaiting another diktat from without.
DRAZENA PERANIC