ETHNIC CLEANSING VIA HOUSING LAW

Housing Purchase

AIM Sarajevo, 19 June, 1997

The Law on purchasing housing units adopted by the Chamber of Representatives of the B&H federal parliament seriously re-opened the question whether the proclaimed return of refugees and banished persons to their homes was just a hackneyed phrase made up to try to blur the intention to make the current situation official. And while among the ruling parties in B&H, the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) and the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ) have practically always been supporters of ethnically cleansed territories and maintenance of the existing situation, agreement of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) to these "rules of the game" is a surprise for some people.

Therefore, this amendement pushed aside all other elements, such as the starting price of a square metre of housing set at 600 German marks, discount rate of 30 per cent for paying in cash and the possibility to use certificates for the so-called old foreign currency savings, military foreign currency accounts, restitution certificates, and certificates which will be issued to all adult citizens of the B&H Federation.

The key part of the Law became the amendment of the group of the SDA deputies submitted literally at "a minute to twelve", or precisely just before the vote on this law. The essence can be brought down to the legal provision according to which, if a families of killed combatanta are living in housing units, or disabled veterans, refugees and banished persons, or demobilised combatants with temporary papers, they are entitled to stay, for a period not longer than five years, in these housing units until adequate housing is provided for them which they will be able to purchase, or until they are enabled to return to their destroyed homes.

It is interesting that the law which had for several months been the topic of public discussion, not in a single version included any such or even similar provision. Moreover, amendments such as this one submitted by deputies in the parliament and veterans' organizations, have always been flatly rejected by the comtetent ministries and the federal government as unacceptable. The fact that at the last session of the Chamber of Representatives there were no deputies from the HDZ, who discontented with the law on establishing new municipalities had decided not to participate in the work of this parliament chamber, was an extenuating circumstance for the voting machinery controlled by the SDA. Whether this law will really come into force is still uncertain. According to provisions of the federal Constitution, identical text of a law must be adopted by both chambers - of representatives and of nations, with the only difference that in the Chamber of Representatives decisions are reached by majority of votes and in the Chamber of Nations there is no outvoting, but a consensus of representatives of the Bosniacs and the Croats is necessary. When this law on purchasing of housing units will appear on the agenda of the Chamber of Nations is still a question mark, as well as what the stand of Croat representatives will be, since without their "blessing" there will be no law.

Pressured from one side by growing discontent of the banished, families of the killed combatants, disabled veterans, and demobilised soldiers, whose tenancy permits are expiring in December, and from the other side by refugees and former tenants who wish to return to their homes, with such a legal provision the SDA tried to avoid the threatening social explosion and at the same to gain (pre-election) time.

Implementation of this law means that for the time being return of former tenants to their homes is completely out of the question, regardless of whether they are abroad or in Republica Srpska. This questions everything the SDA has formerly said in favour of return of refugees and banished persons to their homes on the whole terrirtory of B&H, because such a law is nothing but legalization of the existing situation which is the result of ethnic cleansing. Explanation of the controversial article has been found in the decision of Robert Farand to condition return of the Bosniacs and the Croats to their houses and apartments by finding adequate accommodation for the Serbs who are now living in their homes.

When speaking of interfederal relations, the result of this law will also mean petrification of the existing situation in Mostar. A large majority of the Croats who are living in the apartments of the Bosniacs in the western part of Mostar with no exception belong to one of the categories of people to whom this federal law guarantees that they will remain in the housing units they are in at the moment for the period of next five years.

On the other hand this also means that return of the Croats to their apartments in Sarajevo, Zenica and Tuzla will become completely uncertain. That is why adoption or failure to do so depends on the evaluation of the HDZ what suits it better - to get western Mostar and Drvar and lose Sarajevo, Tuzla and Zenica, or to insist on return of the Croats to these cities, but other parts of the Federation as well, in order to have the pre-war ethnic structure re-established. Naturally, return of the Croats to the territory controlled by the army of B&H implies return of the Bosniacs, but also of the Serbs and all the others to the territory controlled by the Croat Defence Council (HVO), which makes matters even more complicated.

    Reaction of representatives of the international

community was quite expected. As it was possible to hear from the officials of the High Representative's Office, such a legal solution was a surprise for them and had a logical result in the impossibility of return of refugees, which was a violation of provisions of the Dayton accords, and therefore, they said, they expected that in this form the law would not be adopted in the Chamber of Nations. If it were, they claimed, they would not be able to do anything, because it would be a "democratic and legal decision", but in that case the federation would be faced with consequences of such a decision.

The law on sale of housing units in this form will create more problems than it will solve. Nobody has the answer for the question whether tenants who have temporary permits to live in certain housing units can buy them, and who can appear as the buyer. According to one interpretation, such an apartment can be bought, but the buyer cannot move in, that is on no grounds can he throw out the present tenants who are holders of temporary permits to live in them. The new law enables only the holder of tenancy right to purchase the apartment, so that along with the decision on allocation of the apartments by the firm of the owner, it is also necessary to have a contract on use of the apartments signed with the housing enterprise.

The pre-war law on housing which is still in force prescibes that the contract with the housing enterprise on use of an apartment may be signed only after the tenant moves into the apartment, which means that even those who have a permit of the owner for lasting use of a housing unit cannot become holders of tenancy right because the apartment has already been taken. At the same time, tenants with a temporary permit cannot buy the apartment either although they live in it, if the enterprise which is the owner does not allocate the apartment to them for permanent use.

Adoption of this law was intended to bring about clarification of housing relations, but it caused such confusion instead, that in a series of articles the law is contradictory to itself and to other laws which regulate this sphere, so it is quite obvious that such a law cannot be good. One of the reasons for adoption of this law is in the attempt of the federal authorities to get from western countries, primarily Germany, which had offered hospitality to hundreds thousand B&H refugees additional financial resources for construction of the lacking housing units for allocation to tenants with temporary permits.

    It is quite certain that 30 per cent of the money

obtained by selling the existing housing units and the money planned to be allocated for construction of housing units will not at all be sufficient. If it turns out that expectations that the western countries would "dip into their pockets" for housing units were a wrong evaluation, the price of such a mistake would be too high. In that case, it could easily happen that hundred thousand odd refugees deported willingly or by force will appear on the territory of the Federation which would have to take care of their accommodation the best it could, while at the same time political and any other type of pressure would not be exerted on Republica Srpska to permit return of the banished Bosniacs and Croats.

Besides, from the beginning of the war, when majority of the current temporary tenants in the Federation were banished from the territory of RS, five years have gone by, and together with the next five years for how long the "temporary" permits will be valid, it is quite a long period. To expect that after that the people who have provided for themselves some kind of roof over their heads and existence would be ready to return and start life once more from the very beginning on the ruins of their homes seems quite unlikely. In the end, such a law satisfies nobody, neither the current tenants with temporary permits who cannot resolve permanently their housing problem, nor the former tenants because they have nowhere to return, but not even the enterprises-owners of the housing units, which cannot control them and allocate them to their workers who have no roof above their heads.

The authorities in the Federation are, therefore, faced with, perhaps, the largest challenge so far. To give up all their principles for the sake of a short-term political benefit or to sacrifice if need be even power for the sake of preservation of principles, that is the question. In both cases, they will be sorry, and we will feel the results of their decision on our own backs in the next few decades.

Drazen SIMIC (AIM Sarajevo)