THREATS OF MORAL INVERTEBRATES

Refugees and demonstrations

This is not a story about the life of refugees from former Krajina and parts of Bosnia in Serbia. This is a story about the regime which, after six years of unprecedented manipulations, is trying to intimidate and remove refugees as crown witnesses of the total failure of everything it tried its hand at.

AIM, Beograd, 3 January, 1997

Namely, the Association for Assisting Refugees and Exiled Persons in FR Yugoslavia sent a message warning them not to join the demonstrations at which the authorities are demanded to recognize the election results of November 17. Milorad Muratovic, President of the Association threatened them that their participation in the political life "the host country can use as a reason for cancelling its hospitality". Consequently, the refugees may not have a mind of their own under the threat of deportation, irrespective of Conventions ratified by FR Yugoslavia. And so as to keep them from going astray, Muratovic sends them a message: "Join the humanists who are helping you and not those whose are making your position even more precarious".

CHEERING

That means that for several fish tins and couple of liters of oil from the Red Cross the refugees have to cheer to the regime on account of whose policy they were left without homes and property and which now treats them as second class citizens. It is difficult to list all the situations in which Milosevic and his men abused the Serbs from across the Drina river: they did not want to recognize the AVNOJ borders because of them, they started the war under the pretext of protecting them, they referred to the will of those people when rejecting relevant peace plans such as "Z-4"...Although for a time the Serbian regime licked its lips over a possible territorial expansion, the Serbian authorities still dealt best with these people forced into bloodshed preventing all possible changes.

The coalition "Together" is on the other side. Although quite a number of its leaders agreed with the regime when the war was in preparation and when it finally began, later on they radically drifted apart and denied support to Milosevic. Even disregarding this (no one knows to what extent is it sincere and to what extorted), it is certain that they could not have been in command of howitzer batteries, tank battalions and para-military armies, that they could not have ordered massacres, destruction and displacements, they could not have appointed and removed the local war lords. Even if it was unable to help refugees, the Serbian opposition at least knew the right questions that should be asked in regard to their survival and fate.

In any case, the coalition "Together" stood up resolutely against plunders and violation of the will of the citizens of Serbia expressed at local elections. During protests and demonstrations, the aim of which is the winning of democracy and making rigid authoritarian authorities answer for their actions, refugees - although Milosevic succeeded where Ante Pavelic had failed, i.e. to root them out from regions in Croatia and Bosnia where they represented a majority for centuries - may not shout even "boo" at the one time all-Serbian leader. That is the stance of the Association for Assistance.

Although it is certain that six hundred thousand refugees, how many there are in Serbia according to the regime, cannot return to their homes, as much as it is certain that there is no state that would take them in, Muratovic's threatening with deportation should not be taken lightly: it was released in the prime time RTS News, which in local circumstances give it a force of law. What else can be said of the authorities which hunted in the streets refugees- conscripts and sent them to the front the moment they reached this side of the Drina river on tractors carrying their families, plastic wash-basins and some summer clothes. It should thus not be surprising if the members of the Department of the Interior of Serbia (MUP) would start taking away these people in foggy nights to borders and deport them in order to intimidate all the others. Naturally, officially the regime would not know a thing about this, just as it did not know anything about mobilization of refugees and about the participation of Serbia in the war.

In a way in that same context is the announcement of Bratislava Buba Morina, Republican Commissioner for Refugees, that the Memorandum on their return will be signed with the Republic of Srpska (RS) in January. What it will look like and what it will contain is unclear: it is certain that RS is overcrowded with refugees from Bosnian Krajina and Sarajevo, that they are in a disastrous situation concerning bare survival, as well as that hundreds of thousands of Moslems and Croats, victims of ethnic cleansing, also have a right to return.

A WRETCH

There is hardly a more flagrant insult than the mentioned Muratovic's threat. In the first place because it did not come from some shaken and enraged SPS potent, but from someone who, by definition of his work, should know all the tragedy of life in exile, as well as its causes. After all that has happened to these people, they are urged to be servile moral invertebrates and miserable sycophants. In other words - after they have already lost everything - they should lose their human dignity to be able to say and show what they think, no matter what.

Inevitably a question arises as to why did the regime need Muratovic's threat. The answer lies in the balance of Milosevic's ten-year rule. Although in Serbia it is possible to see at each corner people living on leftovers from garbage containers, factories run to weed, workers as petty smugglers selling goods in flea markets, towns and villages falling apart - the position and fate of refugees are the most convincing indicators of the position that regime has brought us to and what is to be expected. This is even more important because the only answer Milosevic and his men offered citizens demanding the recognition of their free will, was to accuse them of fascism and show xenophobic hysteria against USA, Germany and the whole world, i.e. "world power-wielders for wanting to enslave Serbia". Refugees, who once fell for this trick and who serve the regime only as an excuse for the catastrophic situation in Serbia, symbolize its true character.

It is well known how Milosevic manipulated these people when they were still in their homes, how he installed and brought down those posing as leaders of that people. Along God knows what lines, rummaging through demi-monde and scam, he found Milan Martic, Milan Babic, Borislav Mikelic, Dr.Radovan Karadzic and the like. Unquestioningly they carried out all his orders when it was necessary to push their compatriots into war with their neighbours and to destroy them for the sake of privileges and power that lords of war win in such times. Now, when everything has fallen to ruins, figures like Mikelic and Muratovic, in exchange for flats, shady deals, a handful of German marks, continue to follow further their master and carry out the most foul deeds of intimidating and driving people crazy.

It is superfluous to raise the question of their responsibility and honour. Depending on the developments, Muratovic might say that he had to make his threat under the pressure of the regime, so that the refugees would not find themselves in a situation even worse than it was. Or - that he sincerely believes that everyone who whistles down at Milosevic must be expulsed from Serbia. It is known that there are always those poor devils who would stoop at nothing for a privilege or morsel of power over desperdoes such as the refugees. However, the thing is that it is them who know from personal experience all the "far-sightedness and wisdom" of Milosevic's policy, and who should not allow Muratovic and the likes of him to represent them and speak in their name. After all, they would have perished long ago had they lived only on sardines and oil they were given by his "humanists".

(AIM) Philip Schwarm