TWO BRIDGES AND THREE SERB AUTO-GOALS

AIM Zagreb, 20 April, 1997

Everything that Jacques Klein, the transitional administrator, has done in almost a year and a half of his mandate in the Croatian part of the river Danube valley could be compared with establishment of two football teams which have not yet faced each other in the field. But now that the elections have passed and the results are known, and the two teams have put on their colours, further comparison with football ends. This game will be played without a referee, or more precisely, his role will be taken over by the stronger team. In this case it will be the Croat party.

When on Saturday afternoon, "interim and incomplete and uofficial" results of elections in eastern Slavonia, Baranja and western Srijem were finally publicized, nobody was surprised. Out of the three cities in the UNTAES territory, the Croats won power in two - Ilok (absolute majority) and Vukovar (relative majority), and the Serbs in one - Beli Manastir. The Serbs have also won power in majority of municipalities, but in the authorities of both districts which their until recently "united region" will be divided into, they will have the minority. It is true that pursuant the Erdut agreement, they will be able to form their Joint Council of Municipalities. But if you happened to ask for the sense and competences of the Joint Council of Municipalities to be explained separately by the Croatian Minister of the Administration Davorin Mlakar, transitional administratior Jacques Klein, and - until recently prime minister of the local Serbs and nowadays just the leader of the Indepenent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) and possible deputy district prefect of Vukovar-Srijem district - Vojislav Stanimirovic, you would undoubtedly get very interesting answers, but with hardly anything in common.

There is no doubt that after this (election) struggle, many "generals" will appear who will explain its outcome. But, three key elements will be impossible to ignore in these analyses. The first is the pre-election behavior of the leadership of local Serbs, the second is that of the UNTAES, and the third is that of the Croatian Government. Serious differences among the local Serb leaders in relation to the Croatian authorities in general, and especially the elections, caused great confusion among the population which had not known to the last minute which way to turn. The fact that the local assembly hesitated until just 48 hours before the elections to recommend the population to go to the polls speaks best of the first Serb auto-goal which significantly affected the final score. The second time the Serbs shot in their own goal was their hesitation to take Croatian identity papers. Although a decent period of time of several months was left for this comprehensive job, most of the time was spent in obstructing those who wished to take the papers. One should be reminded of the pressure exerted by Serb extremists on persons who were the first to queue in front of the offices which issued identity cards, passports and certificates on citizenship, demolished cars of Croatian clerks and changing of locks on offices where the papers were issued. Vojislav Stanimirovic himself admitted what the results of such behavior were: about six thousand Serbs have not picked their papers up yet, and about five thousand of them still have not got them. One need not be exceptionally wise to realize what 11 thousand Serb votes could have meant in tight relations established in the elections in the terriotory. The third time the Serbs scored in favour of their opponents resembles an anecdote, although its authenticity is confirmed by Serb sources, was extremely bungling. A certain number of voters which is not at all negligible, as the well-informed say, having voted for the SDSS, could not resist not to strike out the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ) on the same ballot, making the ballots null and void.

It cannot be denied that the transitional administrator has done everything he could. Having found himself in the impossible situation to meet the deadline for the elections and by doing it to fulfill the obligation to the Croatian Government, and on the other hand to prevent a possible Serb boycott of the elections, he made moves which neither of the parties were satisfied with. It is an established fact that, due to the manner in which the elections were organized, Klein's administration came into a serious conflict with the monitoring mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Only higher causes, it seems, prevented the OSCE from proclaiming that the elections were irregular, because rules were changed in the midst of the game and a series of other omissions. Peter Galbraith, American Ambassador in Croatia, who was highly involved in the elections, equally as the American monitoring mission headed by Nancy Ely-Raphel, guarded Klein as outside players. At one of the meetings with the press, during the elections, in answer to the question about their irregularity, Galbraith declared that the international community did not have endless resources for completing the process of peaceful reintegration of the Croatian part of the Danube river valley. By saying this he has actually said everything, but also sent word to the OSCE that if it should advocate annulment of the elections, it would have to find ways on its own to get out of the stalemate position.

The Croatian Government used the general election confusion to add a little oil on the fire itself. However absurd it may sound, results of the elections in Podunavlje did not concern Croatia much. It was easy to figure out and foretell what direction things would take, and loss of votes in some municipalities and even towns (just as it actually happened in Beli Manastir) in the total act of establishing Croatian authority in the region means absolutely nothing. What can, for instance, Serb administration mean in the municipality of Tenja, in Osijek-Baranja district where the HDZ will be in power, when four years of rule of the Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS) in Osijek have clearly shown the reach of local administration and self-administration, brought down to what the HDZ mockingly told the election winners in Osijek in 1993: you will take care of cutting grass in parks, time-table of trams and resolving the problem of stray dogs. And that is exactly what it was like all four years.

Regardless of how hard the Croatian state media allegedly stressed the importance of the elections in Podunavlje and used big words about "fatal and historical elections", everyone even slightly informed knew that the rhetoric was more aimed at homogenization of the electorate in the free part of Croatia than it referred to voting in Podunavlje. And sloppiness manifested by the Croatian authorities in the elections there, by sending the election material for one municipality into another or by sending an insufficient number of ballots to polling stations, was just a small contribution to the general election chaos in Podunavlje. This could have, although not must have, influenced the final outcome which was known in advance anyway.

The real game, however, is just about to begin. The Serbs are already announcing that they will demand prolongation of the UNTAES mandate (in its present composition, number of troops and competences) until 15 January next year, and, as Stanimirovic declared, "even after that", until "tensions are eased". Declarations of some of the American officials (Cornbloom) do not eliminate such a possibility either, pressuring Croatia with the obligation that the process of return of people must go in both directions.

In Vukovar Danube Hotel - an oasis in the demolished city which creates the illusion of normal life reminding slightly of Casablanca during the Second World War - a cynical journalist commented on Cornbloom's declarations by saying as follows: "There is no doubt that the return will go in two directions. One will go over the bridge across the Danube near Batina in Baranja, and the other over the bridge across the Danube near Ilok. The only problem is that the other end of both bridges is in Serbia".

DRAGO HEDL