LIKA AND KNIN BEFORE THE ELECTIONS

AIM Zagreb, 14 March, 1997

The April elections officially confirm results of operation "Storm". On the territory of Krajina there are practically no Serbs, and those who have returned form just a negligible number in relation to the number of people who live there. In Lika, for instance, five parties are running in the elections, and not a single one of them could call itself "Serb" or anything of the kind, although there is in fact no need for that, because who would these parties gather there anyway. Lika is indeed the region where the smallest number of parties are competing for the votes, because there is the smallest number of people there. Almost everywhere else there are at least 10 or 11 parties, except in Lika.

There are no small parties like in Dalmatia or around Knin. Lika is in fact a battlefield of large parties. The Croat Democratic Community (HDZ) is still strong over there, and its candidates are again the mayor of Otocac Drazen Bobinac and the Licko-Senjski district prefect Ante Frkovic. The first on the list is, of course, Franjo Tudjman. The SDP and the HNS are running together and they are represented by Martin Spegelj. The first on their list is Ivica Racan. Certain Miletic is running in the elections in the name of the HSLS whose list is headed by Vlado Gotovac, and Mate Copo is running for the HSS. And that is that.

If Gospic and Otocac were taken away from Lika, there would remain just a couple thousand people. Hardly enough to fill a local stadium. Nowadays, there are somewhat more people there because the so-called action "Humane colonization" filled Donji Lapac, Korenica, but not Srb, where there are still just ten-odd people, mostly elderly. In Donji Lapac and Suvaja there are only about 50 people who used to live there before the war, the rest are the Croats from Kosovo or from Bosnia & Herzegovina.

The Croats from Kakanj, Derventa and Banja Luka have been moved into houses of the Serbs who have left, and their number is close to 700. In spring last year there were hardly 400 of them. However, they are afraid because they believe that by entering houses which are not theirs they are destroying the possibility for their own return. Refugees from Bosnia think that what is being done with them is a postponed genocide. "By denying the others the right to return to their home, we will never assert the right to return to our own homes", says Drago Kisic from Derventa.

Last year there was a lot of talk about collective return of the Serbs to Croatia, especially around Vojnic and Glina. The Helsinki Committee of Serbia and Borislav Mikelic spoke much about it. Nothing will come out of that not only now, but probably never. But the HDZ has taken measures to arrange colonization there in its own way and they are arrogant about it because they are aware that nobody from either within or without is seriously opposing it. Indeed, they are not even hiding what their objective is and how they will attain it.

Minister of reconstruction and development, Jure Radic, is the one who is in charge of implementing the official idea about colonization. Every now and then he is saying that he will colonize thousands of people and that he is offering in that region what nobody else is for any other region. Whoever wishes to work in this region is offered a large salary and a series of privileges. This alse refers to the Croats from Bosnia. Another thing is that despite all privileges, people do not wish to work in places where blood has not yet settled down, except those who have absolute no other choice. People who wish to live where they have never lived before are interested in knowing what will happen if the owner of the house decides to return. Radic likes to say that there will be no problems, because they will be given another flat or house, which is not true, because after operation "Storm" there is no surplus of houses.

In Donji Lapac there is but one single party, and this is the HDZ. The others still do not have their business premises, their secretary and their telephone number. Although they like to say that Donji Lapac, Srb and Korenica are something very important for this state (especially the first two) and that it will invest a large sum of money to help these places go back to normal, it has not happened yet, and it is highly questionable whether it will happen in any foreseeable future, because there is hardly any power supply, and factories which could offer people jobs are nowhere in sight. Humanitarian aid and several acres of land is all there is.In order to do anything at all, it is necessary to have more people, but the authorities still do not allow the Serbs who have fled to return.

In Vrhovine and Korenica it is not any better than in eastern Lika. That is where people from Janjevo have been colonized, but there are also Croats from Bosnian Posavina there. Life is somewhat more normal here than elsewhere in Lika, but there is still fear of violent people supported by the authorities. That is how fear of retuurn is being created, especially of the Serbs who were issued all the necessary papers. Some of them are returning where they had come from because they cannot stand the pressure. It is always possible to find out from the authorities who and when is coming, so usually just a day or two before someone appears his house is blown up. If a group is coming, these things rarely happen because in the mentality of the people, a group is still a group.

    It is generally somewhat more lively in Knin. There is

eleven major and minor parties struggling for every vote, because for the Croats Knin is symbolically very important, something like Christian Dior for the models. Among them are the Croat Pure Party of Right (HCSP) with Gabelica, then the HDZ represented by Pasko Bubalo, then the Croat Peasants' Party (HSS) with Ante Markov and the Croat Social Liberal Party (HSLS) with Nikola Bak, then there is is HNP (Croat National Party) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) the candidate of which is Snjezana Biga Friganovic, a Serb by nationality, and a few minor parties. Brigadier Goran Dodig (former liberal, former member of the HDZ and former head of SIS) is running for the Party of Croat Spring. The other parties are just more or less in the way.

Jokingly, Knin is calles "Bosnian", which is not at all untrue. Knin is mostly populated by Croats from Bosnia, but also from Herzegovina, who are shifting around for themselves the best they can - opening coffee shops, coffee shops, and more coffee shops, and then for long nothing, and then a gas station. In the beginning they were soldiers, smugglers and people from everywhere, to whom Knin was given by the Croatian Army as an award. In the beginning this was the city of warriors, but soon after, kindergartens and schools were opened.

    Commissioner of the Government for Knin is the member

of the HDZ Zvonimir Puljic, who inherited Petar Pasic. He continued in the same direction as Pasic for as long as the mandate of the latter lasted, and now he is nominated for another four years. Recently he said in Vjesnik that Knin had considerably advanced since operation "Storm" and that life was better in it than ten years ago, which is absolute nonsense. Perhaps his criterion is that nowadays the Serbs form less than 10 per cent of the population. Because the standard of living certainly is not better than ten years ago, when the salary in the metal factory in Knin was higher than nowadays that of the director of the high school.

Before the war, Knin had about 12 thousand inhabitants, and nowadays this number is quite close to the that - about 9 thousand. At least this is what the authorities say, but data show that there are not that many people, because the nine thousand include tourists - that is, daily migrations. Puljic in fact colonized Knin because since he had come, about 1600 people were moved into housing units, while previously there had been only about 300 people with papers. However, there were by far more of those who had nothing, who broke into flats and remained there, or who were not interested in the apartments, but what was in them. The latter were not just soldiers, but people you can see every day in the streets, stores or in the looking-glass.

Allegedly, the majority of decisions with which these peoplemoved into housing units have nothing in common with law, the commission was not even consulted, and documentation does not exist. Ownership was not established either, so that all the stories about life being good in Knin and about efforts made to make it even better, are nothing but tall stories. Knin is neither better nor worse than the other cities, but just a mixture of lies and bad authorities. The administration is also shaky, so little or rather nothing was done, because while Knin was in the jurisdiction of the city of Zadar, it was expected that it would be turned to Sibenik, so Zadar did not wish to invest into it in any way, so that everything is back at the beginning.

    Puljic says that Knin is living the life of a real

city, because it has children (about two thousand), a clinical centre, the chamber of the economy and five branch offices of different banks. "Every month about 30 children are born in Knin". This is the desired ideal for Puljic, because he says it is time for Knin to take care of itself. Since for the time being there are no citizens of Knin, it is necessary to wait for them to be born!

According to Puljic, there are nearly 1200 "citizens of Serb nationality", because about 700 have returned since the "Storm". In the meantime, Croats from Voivodina, Sarajevo, Ilijas, Vares and Bosnian Posavina are living in Knin. There are, to be true, about thousand banished persons from Croatia, but it is still not sure whether they will remain in the city, although Puljic wishes this to happen. However, in order to remain somewhere, it is necessary to know that it is possible to remain there, and in Knin it is still possible to live on smuggling, and much less on the economy or the land, because young people are not interested in the land.

Data of international organizations for human and similar rights show, however, that there are less Serbs than the number presented to the public, but also that there are less domestic Croats. For instance, in Dzepine near Knin there are only about ten people now, and before the war there were about 200 inhabitants there.

Kistanje is a completely different story. Things are quite clear over there and they are spoken of as a fait accompli. The Croats from Janjevo have been arriving in Kistanje for quite some time and this will certainly go on, and will not diminish but only accelerate. People from Janjevo are coming to stay and they are arriving in large numbers. So far at least one thousand of them, because all the houses are still not fit for living. An out-patients clinic will soon be opened, and a school, but also construction of the catholic church is well under way. They have already started to open shops and everything else they have become famous for. Whoever wishes to bet that the Serbs will ever again live there is either crazy or is fond of losing, or both.

Knin is becoming a village in respect to that which Puljic calls - cultural institutions. There is the cultural club called Zvonimir - for those who wish to dance, then there is also the patriotic scouts' society and finally the Croat cultural society which cannot even distribute more than 200 copies of its editions for free in Zagreb, least of all sell them.

The sports spirit in Knin consists of football, basketball and handball. Names of clubs are local, warlike and planetary: football club Dinara, handball club '95 Knin, and basketball club Novodob (New Age) or the Age of the Aquarius. It is difficult to find out what the people in fact live on in Knin. But, mostly it is trade. Things are moving very slowly, because nobody is ready to give any money for start-up of production. Trading company Dinarka is opened, with stores for selling bread and milk and a couple of specialized stores. The factory of cardboard packing materials Mladost is still at a standstill, because it is waiting for someone to buy it, and TVIK, the largest enterprise in Knin, is slowly starting operation (it has got money for reconstruction). Clothing factory Kninjanka, is working but hardly. In the course of the year it is expected that it will reach full swing, but it would be good to take into account that these are all more or less official data.

The HDZ has the best chances both in Lika and in Knin, although it is often said that the ground is sliding from under its feet. And will the people over there realize that such as it is the situation is not good, or will this happen just a couple of days after the elections. It would be good to know which elections, though.

ALEN ANIC