THE SPELL OF THE SEA
Refugees and the Locals in Montenegro
There is a new widely accepted practice in Montenegro: to anyone who comes from the outside, the local authorities, as proof of their humanistic aspirations, serve the story on their noble attitude towards refugees and exiled from Bosnia and Croatia. As a rule the guests do not spare words of praise. Last week the UNHCR Special Envoy Soren Jensen Petersen surpassed them all by his statement in Podgorica: "The policy of Montenegro towards refugees may serve as an example."
Some time earlier a comprehensive discussion developed here about the traditionally hospitable hosts and ungrateful guests. The debate was initiated by a Montenegrin youth paper. A young associate of the paper "Index" obviously inspired by those newcomers with a kilo of gold chains around their necks, was not in the mood for nuances. He analyzed the situation as follows: "Refugees are in a privileged position...They sell humanitarian aid to us so that we could survive. They drive expensive cars and open private firms and cafes...They are the heralds of drug addiction, of the future black spring". After this overview of the situation, the author drew a precise conclusion: "We have actually taken in genuine scum which permanently endangers both us and our homes." Then followed a proposed line of action: "The time has come indeed to send them to hell". Only the "feeble" were excluded from the action.
This started a heated discussion - whether the text "The Hadji has the Money" was signed by "our local little fascist", or whether just youthful rebelliousness, with some exaggeration, was spilled out in the students' paper. Opinions are seriously divided. Judging by the reactions of the listeners of the Podgorica radio "Antena M" it is quite certain that the local population is starting to see refugees, except for "the children and the elderly" as competition into whose hands the authorities are playing more than warranted by customs of hospitality. Of course, the easiest thing is to proclaim a student "a fascist"; only such a proclamation will not be of much help in concluding what the Montenegrins are afraid of, now that the war is over.
There was not a single more serious conflict between the locals and the newcomers here - confirms the Republican Commission for Refugees also. None of those who came here committed a crime, or any similar feat which could make the hosts especially angry. There is no evidence that drugs are widespread in Montenegro thanks to the inventiveness of the refugees. "They are no more prone to criminal than the local population," claims Francesco Natta, Head of the UNHCR Office in Podgorica.
There are all sorts of stories about the wealth of the refugees, but all available data show that in that respect they are no better off than their hosts. Most of them are indeed poor and the few who made it in life differ in no way from the domestic new "businessmen". They have the same vocabulary, the same behaviour and they operated according to the business rules (meaning smuggling) established by the local authorities. The people only fitted in well. There is no direct, and especially no "extreme" reason behind the fact that there is less and less sympathy for those who have been guests here for four years now.
Nevertheless, it is quite clear that serious talks are pending on refugees in Montenegro. No one knows how many refugees and banished persons there are in this Republic - a register was never made. Official sources say that the number of registered now is 43,500. It cana be only guessed how many others there are. The Republican Commission assesses that between 20 and 30 thousand will definitely stay here. Some because they originate from Montenegro and the others for a valid reason: they are better off here than in the places from which they came. At this point things become rather sensitive.
Among the arrivals from Bosnia and Croatia especially in the first wave, there was a considerable number of those whom it would have been more honest to call settlers from the very beginning. We should remember that about 70,000 people came in 1992. Until the end of the year, without any special procedure, irrespective of the fact that they had never been Montenegrin citizens, they were issued all the necessary papers (identity cards, drivers licences, passports) to live here like at home. They get jobs, buy real estate and if possible get rich. The people, naturally, knew what to choose - for some reason the sea attracted them.
Today 25 percent of the inhabitants of Herceg Novi are "refugees". Since approximately at the same time on the same beach the YPA (Yugoslav People's Army) Navy, rich in personnel and materiel found a safe harbour, Boka summarily became something else. Silently, without the authorities even noticing, the Croatian inhabitants of Boka left: they are so few left that at the next population census in Montenegro they will figure as a statistical error. Not only the national composition has changed at the coast, but also everything accompanying that. When you walk through Tivat today everything will be clear to you except what the sea is doing there. The ambitions of the Montenegrin opposition to seduce the authorities into thinking that solidarity is one thing and the mass settlement of the most valuable piece of Montenegro another, were nipped in the bud.
When the association "Srpska Boka" (The Serbian Boka) issued a timely plan and programme for the dismemberment of Montenegro if it separated from Serbia, fear intensified among the advocates of a sovereign Montenegrin state that those upholding the transformation of ownership over the Montenegrin coast strengthened by thousands of newly arrived angry Serbs from Krajina and Bosnians would successfully complete the job. The reckoning is simple: this Republic has only 600 thousand people and after such large scale displacements of the population it would not take much skill to turn the Montenegrins into a minority. Fear that the arrivals could become the masters of their hosts only grew after the fall of Knin and the settlement of the issue of Sarajevo. There is no doubt: Montenegrins who would like their small state much more than a greater Serbia, sincerely hope that the guests will, at the earliest possible date, and massively start returning to their homes as soon as conditions permit.
That is only but a piece of the story. A profound disagreement has been smouldering from the beginning between the pro-Serbian Montenegrins and the refugees. When they started arriving here before the war, they met with the ancient proverb: the warriors brought their feeble to safety and will immediately return to defend their homes. They served various useful purposes: patriotic journalism used them as evidence of the brutal nature of their neighbours which was particularly useful to the authorities in the action of the awakening of belligerent enthusiasm. Since a considerable number of brethren in need were in no hurry to go back and die a glorious death there, but charged together with their hosts towards flea markets, the epic folk song about the "warrior and the infirm" somehow started sounding hollow. In the meanwhile the theory according to which only the "infirm" can be honest refugees, gave practical results: it first started with rumours behind their backs and later with open reproaches for evading the war.
The authorities followed the same mental pattern in the beginning. In the spring of 1992 Karadzic was handed over 92 Serb and Moslem refugees in "three to four days". Damjan Turkovic, one of the police chiefs in Herceg Novi was especially proud of the result: "We gather these people, deprive them of freedom and return them to the Reception Center in Bosnia and Herzegovina. By order of the Republic of Srpska we are authorized to take in all persons, from 18 to 60 years, staying in the area of Herceg Novi and deliver them to the Reception Center." Similar actions were carried out in the north of the Republic also: in Pljevlja, Pluzine. The Serbs were taken away to wage war - the Moslems to be killed or exchanged. President Bulatovic later called "that a tragic mistake to which an end was put as soon as the authorities found out about it". If I told him that in the spring of 1992 the Montenegrin police was not part of the "official authorities of Montenegro" he would be offended.
If we forget the "tragic mistake" from the beginning, the attitude of the Montenegrin authorities towards the refugees was later correct according to neutral sources. "There was no discrimination on national grounds" says Francesco Natta, "nor did the authorities incite intolerance on the part of the local population. Among the poor it is easy to cause a conflict and lay the blame on the refugees." In Montenegro no special effort is really required to cause dissatisfaction against anyone. The number of unemployed is 58 thousand. The average salary is 120 din. and the trade unions say that a four-member family needs DM 550 to make ends meet. For a time people sincerely envied the refugees on their relief packages.
Over 90 precent of the refugees live in privately rented rooms, a vast number of them are sub-tenants and a very small number depends only on Red Cross charity. "In order to survive these people have to make do, and the Government of Montenegro did not prohibit their employment" explains Djordje Scepanovic, Commissioner of the Republican Commission for Refugees. Until now they mostly engaged in reselling all sorts of goods, but judging by everything, with the lifting of the sanctions smuggling as the most developed economic activity in this Republic will most probably start lagging behind. The employment rat race will become even more ruthless - experience shows that the domestic population is especially sensitive when a refugee who came only two years ago manages overnight to develop a business. Those who fled the war to Montenegro and originate from here, also object because no special attention is devoted to them. "We returnees are the worst off. We lost everything there and scarcely anyone plans to go back. However, we are treated just like the other refugees here. The government still has no strategy of how to help us solve our problems", says professor Vukic Konjevic, who worked in Zenica until war broke out.
The Republican Commission claims that most of the refugees are from those parts of Bosnia which went to the "other" side. No one counts on a rapid decrease of the number of refugees. UNHCR records show that interest in returning home is lesser than expected. The number of refugees is even increasing these days - Serbs from Sarajevan suburbs are coming. Commissioner Scepanovic knows for a fact that Sarajevans are prohibited to enter Serbia, but he has no idea why the parent state has taken this position.
Naturally, Montenegro could not endure such an inflow of guests. Over three years UNHCR spent USD 15 million on refugee relief in this Republic and also extended aid for 30 thousand local welfare cases, according to the same criteria. "For the next six months we have ensured 250 ECUs for self-financing programmes. The local population will also participate in them. After this, the same amount will be allocated for the next four months" explains Francesco Natta.
Life is an interesting phenomenon. In the past when they sent warriors outside the borders of the Republic, the Montenegrin authorities gave a decent contibution to the manufacture of homeless people. Now the message to those interested is: no one will be expelled from Montenegro, but will leave it of his own will if normal conditions for their return are ensured. It can, if it wills, show by personal example how to welcome someone coming home from a long journey. In the summer of 1992 in the presence of these same authorities, after zealous beating, arresting and killing all Moslems were expelled from the villages of Bukovaca (the commune of Pljevlja, Republic of Montenegro) and scattered throughout the world. The latest news: none have yet returned home.
Esad KOCAN (AIM Podgorica)