EXCLUDED FROM LIFE

AIM Zagreb, June 27, 1996

In the village of Dabar near Otocac there are about a hundred inhabitants, most of them are Serbs between the age of 60 and 90, who have remained here after operation "Storm". If, for instance, a snake stangs you or a horse kicks you in the head, pray to whatever god you usually do, because you have no chance to survive, you will die for sure. The out-patient clinic is far from here, more than twenty kilometres away. If you are especially strong, you may get there in seven or eight hours. That is how much you will need to get to Otocac - on foot, of course. However, if you are seventy or eighty, give it another thought. Maybe it is better to die at home, in your own bed, than somewhere on the road, in the woods.

That is how inhabitants of this village feel when illness or another misfortune befalls them. And they have reason to feel this way. In the whole village there is nothing that even reminds of a van or at least a pick-up truck. There is no telephone, no store. If a mow cuts off your leg or if something similar happens, which is possible in summertime, what can you do... put it in a refrigerator? No way! There is no electricity. And they say, there has not been ever since operation "Storm". Until then, everything was OK. But, a shell hit an electricity pylon, and the authorities in Otocac do not care. They always find some excuse. The latest is that everything has been mined, and there is noone to take the mines out. The inhabitants, however, claim that there are no mines where the pylons are. That is, they are sure that there were none until the "Storm".

Even before the "Storm" life was not too good over here, but since then it has been absolutely no good. Out of a little over 300 people who lived here until summer last year, now there is three times less, which is not bad on the average. Although they were very close to the war, but in the valley, with no touch with the world, they did not even know when it began. Suddenly, an army appeared, in front of which about a hundred people ran into the cornfields or the woods. A large part of them hid in the nearby village of Rudopolje. Those who did not take shelter in time, had no opportunity to regret. There were about ten of them, all civilians. The others went with other people from Krajina, either to Serbia or to Bosnia. Those from the cornfields and the woods nowadays form the village of Dabar, which is in the valley and on hill-slopes. It consists of two hamllets. We visited the one where there are 75 people living, mostly Serbs, which is quite an exotic phenomenon. In other places, the species known as "Srbius Crainus" is extinct or there are much fewer of them.

When they have seen us, about ten of them, mostly women, gathered in front of the house of Ilija Vlaisavljevic. Apart from members of the Vlaisavljevic family which is numerous, there are also the Luzajics and the Klisaks. There is no other family name here. But they are not all relatives.

We said we were friends of Mirjana Galo from the HOMO organization from Pula which is the only one which takes care about them, so it made contact easier.

A pig joined our conversation, wiggling its behind all the time, and a greyish-black dog. "By golly, it looks exactly like a wolf", the photographer observed.

"To hell with the pressure of the public", says Ilija Vlaisavljevic, the youngest man in the village. He is 63, he has had a pain in his left leg for a long time, so he cannot mow. "And there is a lot to do, you know, by God, three meadows". It is difficult for him to stand, so we sit down on the concrete in front of the house which belongs to Vida Vlaisavljevic. "Heaven knows who has not been here. There were even some people from Geneva, they said they would write everything down and send it to Geneva. My dear child, no use of that Geneva. There were foreign journalists too, and they talked just as you do. That it will reach the public, the municipality".

"Maybe it will, who knows".

"My dear boy, only old people remained in the village, and there is so much suffering. And, according to everything they have done so far or haven't, those in Otocac would be happy if we had not existed at all. There are neither doctors nor veterinarians here, nor transportation. There is nothing. If there were least electricity. But there isn't. If I had a refigerator (it burnt down in the "Storm"), I would turn the motor by hand just to cool a piece of bacon".

"How do you stand with the state?"

"It stands much better with us. Soon we will all... ", and he circled twice or thrice around his temple. "This piglet should have been vaccinated back in May. They said in Otocac, in May they would vaccinate all. It is the end of June and nothing happened. There is no help, although there is no place in all of Krajina, where so many people have remained".

To this day, not a single representative of the authorities in Otocac has visited this village. Only once, right after the "Storm", they came to evaluate war damage. After that, noone ever came.

"We have been left to die. There is no help, least of all real help. Upon my soul it is true that small Dutch packages with some flour and oil arrive", Dragica Luzajic says.

For a time, the police helped people reach Otocac or Vrhovine.

"There are no such lads in the whole of Croatia, not in all of former Yugoslavia, like these lads of ours, but for three months it was good, and then the muinicipality forbade them to drive us, even once a week, at least to see the doctor. And that is how they excluded us from life", Ilija says.

"It would be best if they moved us out of here, because it is impossible to go on living like this", says Milka Vlaisavljevic, a very brisk woman in spite of her being

1. "There is nothing here. But, they should give us something in return. What shall we live on? They should pay us, and we will leave the space to them. Let them do with it whatever they wish".

"Let them colonize Gypsies, Slovenians, Serbs from Serbia, let them come live in our houses, and we will leave, let them make their own houses, that would be even better, maybe some kind of life would be conceived. Like this, only a few of us old folk are left. This is not the verge of destruction, it is still possible to return from a verge, this is total destruction, there is no verge. Thank God, we are still alive thanks to the soil", Ilija says.

The main joke of the people in the village refers to illness. When they are asked about it, they laugh from the heart, because they believe it to be humorous. Ilija is the main narrator. "And when the pain starts, I know what is in line for me. There, above those plum trees, we have a cemetery. Over there, you see". And then they all cheer up. Milka or Draga always continue after Ilija becomes silent. "There are less and less people, soon there will be noone to bury me. This shoulder hurts (she shows to the right) from carrying the dead up there".

This is the climax. The others all wait for Milka or Draga to finish to begin to laugh. They all roar with laughter. Even the pig roars with laughter. Black humour is highly esteemed here. They defend themselves from death by laughter. The more death, the more they laugh. And there is a lot of death. Ilija says that people die from influenza even, just like that. Those who are alive, are waiting their turn. "Until then, we will laugh".

The house in front of which we were sitting is the property of Vida Vlaisavljevic. In fact, it is the house of her husband who died. Vida is from Bosnia, but has been living here for 20 years. She cannot get a citizenship certificate, nor an identity card. She does not know why, because pursuant all laws, she should. Chief of police in Otocac says that she can get all these documents, but only if she pays 1,500 kunas. She had the old identity card issued in 1991 which was burnt by the Croatian soldiers. "How can I pay when I don't have that kind of money. Even if I wanted to go somewhere, I can't. If I get sick, without an identity card, I can't even go up there".

At the end of the village, under the hill which is during the day a pasture for the sheep, another Milka lives, also Vlaisavljevic, with her mother-in-law and four children. They are the only children in the village. Zeljka is 16, Nikolina 9, Jivanka 15, and the youngest, Sasa is five. Those who can go to school do not go because there is no school to go to. Milka has lost her husband and her house in the war, and in Otocac they tell her that things are as they are, and why should they care because her children are not going to school and because they are living with no money. They always say that her husband shot at them.

"Everything we had burnt down to the ground. Both the stable, and the house and everything. Now we are living in the old house", says Milka. "When it rains we need a hundred little bowls to put on the floor. That is where we are living, where we are", whispers the mother-in-law, just a few years younger than Tito was when he died.

They have gone to the authorities, and some of the authorities have visited them. Some say that they might get some money from social welfare and that they will be able to send children to school, and the others claim that they have no right to do so. In fact, they are depriving them of this right because they wish them to leave Croatia. They are aware of it, but are silent about it. They are disappointed that they cannot go up the hill above the village to get firewood where the forest is dense, because there are mines over there. They know that this is so because every now and then, an explosion is heard. Then they all shudder with fear. However, it happens because an animal steps on a mine, most frequently deer. They also say that before the "Storm" there were no mines, so they are surprised that they are there now. "There used to be fir-wood and all kinds of boards, nowadays there is no that either".

They are afraid of winter. They spend their time in the fields, and the children, usually Zeljka and Nikolina, watch the sheep. And that is all.

ALEN ANIC