NOT TO RETURN, AND NOT TO LET OTHERS TO RETURN

Refugees in Republica Srpska

AIM Banja Luka, 24 June, 1997

The official statistics about the number of refugees in Republica Srpska still do not exist. President of the Republic recently stated the datum that there were about 500 thouand of them. According to other assessments, this datum is approximately correct, so it means that nowadays almost half of the population of RS are refugees and displaced persons.

The ruling party has taken great care to devote special attention to refugees and use them for its political goals. The Ministry for Refugees and Displaced Persons headed by minister Ljubisa Vladusic, is in charge of taking care of refugees. Their privileged status is regulated by a special law and a few by-laws.

Refugees from the beginning of the war, who had mostly belonged to the rural population, were accommodated by the authorities into houses of banished Muslims and Croats in cities and suburbs. This made the refugees war profiteers and most ardent supporters of the thesis that "there can be no return and coexistence with the enemy". At the same time with the accommodation, refugees were included in the political structure and the administration of RS. In Teslic, for example, the manager of the accountancy service, secretary of the municipality, two judges of the municipal court and a few directors were recruited from among the refugee population.

On the other hand, in 65 reception ecntres in RS, there are still eight thousand refugees. The worst situation is in Bratunac and Visegrad. There are 17 thousand refugees who are awaiting accommodation. Nobody is ready to listen to the voice of these people, and their destiny is not publicly discussed. Associations of refugees from Drvar and Petrovac in Banja Luka are an exception, because they are publicly demanding to be enabled to return to their homes. Their demands enjoy understanding and support only of international organizations and some opposition parties, and are persistently ignored by the authorities.

Several attempted organized departures of refugees from Drvar to their home town ended in unpleasant encounters with Croat authorities. In their first attempt to visit their homes, their four buses were stopped by the Croat police at the entrance to Drvar which forbade them to enter the town. "We shed our blood for this. Give us Banja Luka and Derventa... ", were the messages of the gathered Croats the Serbs from Drvar were forced to listen to, along with numerous curses.

Mile Marceta, president of the association of refugees from Drvar, explained this "welcome" by an agreement between the Croat and the Serb authorities and refused to give up organization of a visit of the citizens of Drvar to their hometown. Nowadays, four buses in the organization of the UNHCR take people regularly from Banja Luka to Drvar. People travel to see what has happened to their homes, some meet the new tenants and return without much hope that they will ever be able to return.

Attempts of the Serbs to return to Drvar are still hopeless. After the agreed procedure of return, the banished persons filed 36 requests for return to the authorities in Drvar. Only one elderly woman was issued a permit to return.

"The wish to return is normal. But the Serbs must face the fact that there are 10 thousand of us here and that none of us wish to return to places where the Croats are not in power", warns Borivoj Malbasic, mayor of Drvar, himself a refugee from Vares. Malbasic believes that return is possible only if the authorities recah an agreement about it on the "top level" and "if the Croats are allowed to return to Derventa or Brod". He also says that the wish to return among the banished persons is slowly dying down and that he knows it from personal experience.

Petar Dzodan, assistant minister for refugees and displaced persons of RS, describes the case of a citizen of Drvar who lives in a house in Banja Luka which belongs to a Croat, who is trying to get his house back "although he has no chance to return to his house in Drvar". "We are also in favour of return of refugees, but return of all of them. There are still no conditions for that, though", Dzodan tries to justify the attitude of the state towards the problem of return of banished persons.

None of the parties concerned are doing anything to create conditions for return of refugees. The authorities of RS have in fact incorporated norms in the legislature which make return impossible. The law on abandoned property introduces the principle of reciprocity into return of refugees, which practically means that a Muslim from Sarajevo will be able to return to his home in Banja Luka only if a Serb who has been moved into his house agrees to return to his home in Sarajevo. The law on amnesty does not prescribe amnesty for conscripts who refused to respond to the call-up. Most of them are Muslims and Croats so that in case of return they could all be indicted for having evaded mobilization. Refugees cannot participate in provatization nor are they entitled to purchase housing units. At a round table devoted to the legal aspect of return of refugees recently held in Banja Luka, it was stated that concerning these issues, solutions were identical to those in legislatures of the Federation and Croatia.

A lonely voice of support to Serb refugees who wish to return unexpectedly arrived from Bishop Hrizostom of Bihac and Petrovac Bishopric. In a proclamation addressed recently to his believers, the Bishop called the refugees to return to their homes and refuse the role of "world beggars". "They are scaring us with coexistence with nations we have lived with for centuries. They are demanding from us to be grateful for being banished, homeless, and beggars, they have caused us to be. ... Let us obey our own appeal and let us return in an organized manner to places of our origin, where we belong", the Bishop said to refugees from his Bishopric.

The international community is not giving up the demand that Dayton accords be implemented concerning this issue. Threats that mass return of refugees from western countries will begin resulted in selective return of refugees to regions where they are ethnic majority. For the others, projects of open cities are being prepared which would receive economic aid for successful repatriation. In UNHCR they believe that there are a few municipalities in RS where return of the Croats and the Muslims would be possible. Mons Niberg, head of the UNHCR office in Banja Luka says that the Serbs "raise each local project connected with return of refugees to the highest political level". "If we publish the list of these towns, it can be expected that mayors in them will be replaced by central authorities", Niberg complains. In the Federation, the status of open cities is planned for Kupres, Zepce and Gornji Vakuf. According to the spokesmen of UNHCR, such a project has been made also for Grahovo.

There is nothing to inspire hope that the project of open cities will succeed. The Saturday issue of state daily Glas srpski carried a report from Amsterdam according to which Helsinki association of citizens was "preparing new provocative and mass returns of refugees towards B&H which are expected to surprise representatives of the authorities in RS..." According to the report, certain Mint Ion Fober, secretary of an inter-church peace council, has toured in B&H and RS all those who are "implementing Bosniac policy", and even the high representative, "in order to prepare a mass march of refugees across the borders of RS". Such news are the announcement of pre-election strategy of the ruling SDS in which refugees will be used again for political purposes. And one of those purposes is "not to return and not let others to return".

Branko Peric