SERBS IN CROATIA

AIM Zagreb, 23 October, 1996

Milan Martic, former leader of Knin Serbs, who got an invitation to go to the Hague because of shelling Zagreb, was proclaimed "Croatian national hero" in midst of that same Zagreb. At a gathering organized by the Croatian Helsinki Committee, with the participation of numerous scientific, political and public workers, where the topic "Serbs in Croatia - Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" was discussed, the President of the Association of Banished Persons of Croatia, Mato Simic, repeating his well-known theses about impossibility of coexistence, declared that he would be "happy if like last year from Krajina, some other Martic would lead the Serbs from eastern Slavonia to Serbia". This was actually promotion of Martic into a Croatian national hero in the manner of Croatian-Serbian brotherhood and unity, Professor Zarko Puhovski stated. Although this was said ironically, the quoted statement shows closeness and connection between two nationalisms.

That is how even at this gathering which was an attempt to answer the question what the Serbs meant for the Croats and what Croatia meant to the Serbs, two options were articulated. "Croatia is a pluralist historical community and the Serbs are part of Croatian history", said Professor Ivo Banac in his introductory speech. Contrary to the nowadays ruling thesis that history of Serbian-Croatian relations was the history of constant conflicts, this historian with an international reputation reminded of the tradition of close and productive mutual relations between the two nations, ever since the time of the Illyrian Movement, so he marked the current erection of walls between them as anti-renaissance.

There was cooperation even during the past war, but in a distorted way. Not cooperation between the Croats and the Serbs any more, but between Zagreb and Belgrade. Banac stresses that the Croat-Serbian conflicts in Croatia most frequently had external sources. As especially negative, he outlined the ideology of "Greater Serbia" and Serbian state policy; he says that "with their violence, they legitimized the new wave of Croat anti-Serbism, and even suppression of the Serb community in Croatia", but he did not forget Croat chauvinism either. The program of the current Croatian leadership is ethnically cleansed Croatia, with no minorities, but with a Croat territory outside Croatia, says Banac and adds that a large portion of opposition parties silently agrees with this program, as well as a considerable portion of intellectuals and majority of Catholic public workers.

Mirko Tepavac describes the immediate past in a very similar way. He stresses: "I have the same opinion about the Serbian aggression as you all do", "In fact, it was Serbia that cleansed Croatia of the Serbs, which Croatia, if it wished to do, certainly neither could have done nor would have dared do, if Serbia had not risen the Serbs against their Croatian homeland". But he adds that "only by guilt of the initial perpetrator, everything can neither be explained nor justified". According to him, "by dissolution of Yugoslavia, hundreds thousand people became aliens in the newly established states. In order to be equal, it was not sufficient to be a citizen and a native any more, it was necessary to belong to the same breed and religion. National states condemned all such people to the status of internal emigrants, and the domestic population to limited civil freedom".

In reference to the Serb tomorrow in Croatia - participants at the gathering were very sceptical. There was no dilemma about the right to return. It was a generally shared opinion that the right to return was legitimate, but alienated natural right. "A state is not a donor of homeland, the right to a native country and homeland can neither be given nor taken away. The right to homeland is natural and lasting. There is no crime that can be punished by deprivation of the right to homeland", it was said. But, it is extremely doubtful whether this right will be exercised. Different kinds of conditioning are at work. This is illustrated by the statement of Damir Zoric, head of the state office for banished persons and refugees, who bragged that he had helped more than ten thousand Serbs to return, but who also said that as long as he was at the head of the office, no Serb would be allowed to return who wrote remarks about "Ustashe authorities" in Croatia on the forms they filled out in order to return. "Every citizen has a right to return, regardless of their self-determination". Zarko Puhovski replied. "Stupidity cannot be a reason for loss of civil rights". The real problem is that the return of the Serbs to Croatia was contrary to objectives of both the Croatian and the Serbian policy. Croatia does not want them, indeed it is the conviction of the majority that the state without the Serbs is more stable and safer. The Serbian regime, says Novak Pribicevic, does not work on their return either, because it indends to use them to "set right" some of the demographic imbalance over there.

Contrary to the ruling stance, Banac believes that the Serbs are needed by Croatia: "the issue of the Serbs in Croatia is one of the most important items in internal organization of Croatia", "Croatian state independence will be incomplete if it is not accepted by the Serbs", "return of the Serbs is desirable from the aspect of Croatian interest", "presence of minorities promotes tolerance and democracy". Advocating stimulation of voluntary return of the Serbs and resisting nationalistic public culture, the Professor stresses in conclusion that the round table on the Serbian issue is "the initial step in creating in Croatia a society worthy of Man". He opposed the concept of ethnic cleansing, "the brutal project of changing the world which marked the end of this century", and declared himself in favour of creation of Croatia pluralist nad tolerant to all minorities Croatia.

"What Croatia will be like, democratic or authoritarian, does not depend on the Serbs any more", opposed Puhovski. According to him, there is also the option of ethnically cleansed, but democratic Croatia.

"If the Serbs do not return and if they will not be equal citizens, it will be remembered longer what Croatia did to the Serbs than what Serbia did to Croatia", concluded Tepavac and won the loudest applause.

Rade Serbedzija addressed the participants with a letter, claiming that "time when it was possible to talk about the Serb yesterday, today and tomorrow has irretrievably gone". The renowned Croatian actor of Serb nationality - who as he himself says "has been wandering around cities of the world in the past several years" and does not come to Croatia because "the risk is too great of all possible inconveniences which I am not ready to be exposed to any more" - writes that "the question of the Serbs in Croatia, today, after everything that has happened, when the greater part of that nation has left its country is primarily put to the Croats. As the absolute majority in their new state, they are the ones who need to reply to that question".

JELENA LOVRIC