AUTONOMOUS BANK ACCOUNT

Voivodina Turning to Itself

The waste which is spread around Voivodina by the ruthless Serbian centralism has set in motion both the old and the new autonomy lovers and brought the idea of true Voivodina autonomy back on to the political scene

AIM Belgrade, 15 November, 1996

Eight years after the "anti-bureaucratic revolution" which practically abolished autonomy of Voivodina, and after five federal and republican elections in which citizens in Voivodina voted for "Serb unity", "indivisibility of the Serb national being" and "the only efficient state centralism" - federal elections have come which proved that the idea of autonomous Voivodina is powerfully rising to the surface again.

Coalition Voivodina, probably more thanks to its name than to the humble election campaign of its founders (League of Social Democrats of Voivodina /SDV/, National Peasants' Party and Alliance of Citizens of Subotica) managed only with three election lists to win two deputy posts in the Chamber of Citizens of the Assembly of Yugoslavia, and almost all its candidates for the Assembly of Voivodina and city and municipal assemblies have made it to the second round of the elections. These are, indeed, "grapes of wrath" provoked by unscrupulous humiliation of Voivodina and citizens of Voivodina after the "yoghurt revolution", but most of all the result of brutal economic exploitation of the northern province, policy of ethnic intimidation and permanent dissolution or marginalization of all its traditional institutions.

That Voivodina is turning to itself again was felt already a year ago when the Voivodina Club launched its Manifesto for the Autonomy of Voivodina and when this document was signed by 17 different political groups and non-governmental organizations. Much more than previous attempts (Memorandum on Voivodina, Declaration on Voivodina, Platform for Modern Autonomy of Voivodina and some other documents), this Manifesto met with very broad approval and favourable reception among the citizens - which was an indication of an essential shift in the political disposition of the people in Backa, Banat and Srem. The greatest opposition parties from Belgrade tried to react to this signal, so for example the Serb Revival Movement (SPO) publicized a proclamation on Voivodina, but practically did not give up on its basically centralistic conception not just of Serbia, but also of Yugoslavia. The shift in the disposition of Voivodina was felt also by the people in power, both the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), but even more by the Yugoslav United Left (JUL), so they tried to go in the elections with the slogans "For Voivodina we Love", "Say Yes to Novi Sad" and similar. But, it was too late, because neither the central authorities nor Belgrade opposition parties had a specific answer to the main slogan of the coalition Voivodina: "Let Us Put an End to Plunder of Voivodina".

Giving up on the assistance of the opposition or "the other Serbia" as a bad job in its attempt to attain democratization of Voivodina and re-establishment of real political and economic autonomy, Nenad Canak, leader of the League of SDV, explained with the following words: "Since Serbia is living on exploitation of Voivodina, it is impossible to find an ally in Serbia who would be in favour of the autonomy". Stanimir Lazic, President of the Voivodina Club expresses a similar stance saying that "nobody in Voivodina who really cares for autonomous rights of the province ought to cherish illusions that any authorities, if it depends on them, even democratic ones, will voluntarily give up cakes from Voivodina - because this is a conflict of different, primarily material, but other interests as well".

This disappointment in not just official but also the oppositionist Belgrade resulted in a very sharp criticism of "anachronous Serbian opposition", its "nationalistic foundations" and its "exhaustion by the war" which one of the founders of the coalition Voivodina, Dr Dragan Veselinov has deduced on several occasions. Nevertheless, this group manifested a wish to join the coalition "Together" in the beginning of the election activities, especially when it seemed that it would be headed by Dr Dragoslav Avramovic. Leaders of coalition "Together", however, did not assess correctly the power of the change of disposition in Voivodina, and rejected any possibility of talks with the partners who proclaimed them so resolutely to be political losers. At the last hour, only the cunning Zoran Djindjic mentioned something about "autonomy of Voivodina purses". People in Voivodina trusted him more when he was accusing the Serbian Prime Minister for plunder of profit made on last year's harvest.

Plundering of Voivodina indeed is not just a hyperbolic political slogan. There is plenty of evidence for this allegation. For many it is sufficient to note that in the past five or six years, not a single session of the management board of Oil Industries of Serbia was not held in the seat of the enterprise, Novi Sad, but all are held in Belgrade. This allegedly greatest Serbian firm which controls an income of over a million tons of oil and over a billion cubic metres of natural gas from Voivodina deposits, two refineries, one in Novi Sad and the other one in Pancevo, keeps its central bank account in Belgrade Bank, and not in any in Voivodina. For some time, what a paradox, consumers from Voivodina paid for a cubic metre of gas more than consumers from Serbia. Just as they still pay more for the coal from Kostolac or their own heating wood - controlled by centralized firm called "Serbia Forests". Import of oil and gas which used to bring a large profit and great power to Oil Enterprise (NAP) from Novi Sad, has simply been taken away from this firm and transferred to Jugopetrol and Progresgas Trading in Belgrade. The system of Post Telephone and Telegraph should be described in a separate story - in it Voivodina is in a catastrophic position, so that even in the latest "development cycle", this region, with one third of consumers in Serbia is getting just one tenth of new connections and telephone exchanges.

Plundering of agriculture has for years been pointed out in all analyses, but Vopivodina is rarely mentioned in the context, although on its 42 per cent of all Yugoslav arable land it produces 53 per cent of wheat, 43 per cent of maize, 87 per cent of sugar beat, 86 per cent of sunflower - and in export of these goods firms from Voivodina participate with less than 20 per cent (and export is the only thing that brings any profit).

To what extent Voivodina has been degraded, devastated and neglected (twice as much as the also retrograde Serbia) is shown by the fact that in it, participation of gross investments in the social product amount just to 9.4 per cent (in Central Serbia it is 17.9 per cent). In Voivodina "net investments" (difference between gross investments and depreciation) in the beginning of the nineties did not exist at all, while in Serbia, however low they may be, they are observed (between 1 and 3 per cent, with the exception of 1993).

In the whole domain of public expenditures Voivodina does not fare well either, and its assembly has at its disposal just a meagre budget of less than 100 million dinars, although about 5 billion dinars of annual taxes and contributions are collected in Voivodina. This was deeply felt by professors, physicians and administrative workers in Voivodina, so that the state apparatus here cannot even count on the votes of this fixed part of the electorate which in other parts of the state regularly votes in favour of the authorities.

All things considered, as the defeat in Voivodina in 1988 was "catchy", now it may happen that all injustice done to a mostly civilized and highly-developed region fits into a "contageous victory" of autonomy lovers and supporters of Voivodina constitutional independence. Especially because leaders of the coalition Voivodina are constantly stressing that the question of autonomy is a "Serb issue", the question of a "Serb-Serb dialogue", so that neither the authorities nor the rightists can reproach them for any destructive or anti- national tendency, as they have until recently efficiently broken up all autochtonous Voivodina political parties and groups.

(AIM) Dimitrije Boarov