IS SANDZAK DISAPPEARING?

A Refugee Mosaic

AIM Belgrade, 7 September, 1997

The latest large wave of emigration of the Bosniac population from Sandzak started in April 1992, with the beginning of the war in Bosnia. This was the time when Sandzak lived in fear of spreading of the war and in an atmosphere of general uncertainty. Lines of tanks of the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) dragged themselves along the already dilapidated roads of Sandzak, and groups of bearded disorderly soldiers whose very appearance aroused fear patrolled the streets. Cities were under siege of cannons, and since Karadzic's artillerists were at the time at their "prime", the scenario irresistibly reminded of Sarajevo. Many allegedly mysterious cases, kidnapping, robberies and murders, especially in municipalities of Pljevlje and Priboj, remained unresolved. The administration, apart from verbal condemnations or false promises, did nothing about them. Buses full of refugees started on their way towards collective centres all around Europe. It is estimated that nearly 70 thousand people, mostly Bosniacs, have left Sandzak.

Emigration of the Serbs from Sandzak mostly went in the direction of better developed centres of Serbia and it is explained by the fact that Sandzak has been and still is the worst developed region, both in the former and in the present Yugoslavia, with no prospect, at least in the foreseeable future, for anything to improve much. This is illustrated, among other, by the fact that in the region of Sandzak, both its Montenegrin and its Serbian part, where more than half a million people live, there is not a single secondary medical school, least of all any college. The thesis about physically threatened Serbs and their emigration under pressure was launched back at the time of Milosevic's early national romanticism, along with the story about the threatened Serbs in every other part of the former SFRY. In some more subtle analyses, the fear of the Serbs of assimilation in places where they were the minority population was also mentioned.

However, statistics does not support these allegations: key posts even in these municipalities are held by the Serbs or the Muslims close to the political circles of the party in power. For decades the personnel policy here was designed by Belgrade and in such constellation of forces, it is difficult to find arguments to corroborate the alleged political or any other insecurity of the Serbs. And the state of neglect Sandzak is nowadays in is sufficiently well illustrated by the single fact that more than 150 cases of jaundice have been registered in Novi Pazar alone just in June and July this year.

With the signing of the Dayton accords and the end of the war in B&H, the question of the return of refugees from Sandzak was opened. The initial analysis shows that majority of them do not wish to return to Sandzak but to Bosnia. Local radio and tv stations increasingly publish advertisements for sale or exchange of apartments and houses between the Bosnian Serbs and the Bosniacs from Sandzak. According to the data we were given by Safet Bandzovic, president of the Sandzak committee for protection of human rights, exchange of apartments and houses is characteristic for municipalities of Pljevlja, Nova Varos, Priboj, in which the Bosniacs are the minority population. Lawyers from Priboj are engaged in the job. The fact that these transactions take place practically in silence and that neither the authorities in Belgrade nor those in Sarajevo care to even comment on them causes special concern. The Sandzak committee for protection of human rights sent a message to the addresses of a number of relevant international organizations asking the question whether the international community supported creation of ethnically cleansed states in the Balkans, because it was obvious that there was still no mass return of refugees either to Croatia or to Bosnia, and current developments in Sandzak were also pointing in the same direction.

Due to the still unclarified situation in Bosnia, it is impossible to speak about mass emigration in that direction either, but it is impossible to pass over in silence reasons due to which many Sandzak families are considering the possibility of moving to Bosnia. In conversations about this topic it is most frequently possible to hear that "we cannot live here any more" and that there will always be "some new Rankovic" (notorious Tito's internal minister responsible for repression against the Albanians and the Muslims) in Serbia. Memories of the time in the beginning of the sixties are still fresh, when Sandzak was also swept by a wave of emigrations and when, according to unofficial data, nearly 30 thousand Bosniacs emigrated to Turkey. At the time, the authorities were also silent about it, and even stimulated this process.

That is what it was like in the sixties. Hardly thirty years have passed since then, when the thesis about the Muslims as the "genetically corrupt material" was reactivated. In any case, those who are thinking of leaving Sandzak have plenty of reason to do it. According to the statement of Izudin Susevic, president of the Reform Democratic Party for Sandzak, since 1992, 200 Bosniacs, citizens of FR Yugoslavia, were killed, and to this day it has not been revealed who committed the murders. Under different indictments (concealing weapons, threatening the integrity of FRY...) about 17 thousand Bosniacs went through police torture. Almost 50 Sandzak villages have been ethnically cleansed, and property robbed. The worst thing about it is that there are absolutely no indications of any change of course of the official policy towards Sandzak. The latest example was the recent target practice of the members of the Yugoslav army in the village called Razdaginja (municipality of Sjenica) when 11 mortar shells fell in the vicinity of the house of Arif Brulic. The house, in which there were three children under age during this announced "military drill", was damaged.

What denouement could one expect in the circumstances? Concerning the interest of the international community, Sandzak is definitely in the shadow of Bosnia and Kosovo. Internationalization of the issue of Sandzak insisted on by the List for Sandzak of Dr Sulejman Ugljanin has so far yielded no specific results. The Serbian government obviously looks upon Sandzak as land fit for waste disposal, the leader of the Radicals Vojislav Seselj would resolve this issue in a "summary procedure", and Vuk Draskovic believes that only "Serbs of Muslim creed" live in Sandzak. Only a small part of the opposition is ready for a democratic dialogue. Its hands are tied, however, by "famous" declarations and political wavering of Sulejman Ugljanin, so it sees Rasim Ljajic as its partner for talks, but he does not have a firm stronghold in the homogeneous electorate. (Would it be appropriate to talk about the level of homogeneity at all, after introduction of coercive measures in Novi Pazar?)

Who know where the end of this story would be. Hopefully, not in some novel about a nation that has disappeared.

Enes Dizdarevic

(AIM)