ZAGREB - NEITHER ETHNIC CLEANSING, NOR GIFTS TO THE SERBS

AIM Zagreb, 15 September, 1997

Ivica Vrkic, until recently the commissioner in the Croatian Government for implementation of peaceful reintegration of eastern Slavonija, Baranja and western Srijem, probably working in tandem with (also until recently) UNTAES transitional administrator of the region Jacques Paul Klein, believed that he was entrusted with the most complicated job in the world. Now when he is at the head of the State Agency for turnover of particular real estate, he has certainly realized that this had not been the case, because according to the evaluations his Agency has gathered, there are between 60 and 100 thousand real-estate units in Croatia which are subject to the Law on temporary ban of free use of real estate. Majority of cases refer to real estate of the Serbs who have fled from Croatia before and during the war, and whose destiny, in compliance with agreements the Croatian Government has signed with the UNHCR and UNTAES, and FR Yugoslavia, has now been put on the agenda to be resolved.

While he was still at the head of the Government commissariat for peaceful reintegration, Vrkic was one of the supporters of the idea that all the Serbs who wished to leave Croatia should be given just indemnities for their property in order to be enabled to begin a normal life in environments where they decided to live. In the beginning, their idea did not meet with understanding of certain political forces in Croatia, and especially poisonous stings against their idea arrived from the radicalized leadership of the Community of Banished Persons of Croatia. Vrkic was in fact observing the problem in a long run, believing that just compensation for property given to those who cannot settle down to the fact that Croatian authorities will soon take eastern Slavonia over, was the best bulwark against possible terrorism which could easily turn Podunavlje into a another West Bank. Regardless of the fact that the Danube will soon become the state border between Croatia and FR Yugoslavia, it is not a barrier which can prevent squaring of old accounts. That is why these accounts, Vrkic believed, should better be squared in the manner prescribed by law, than be left to individuals to resolve them as they see fit.

His idea was equally badly received by the other, also radicalized circles of the Serb party. His agency was immediately called the "office for ethnic cleansing", and its aim was recognized as a sophisticated form of the old idea on humane moving of entire nations. Just as the radical part of the Croatian banished persons, the public and indeed politics, could not accept the fact that private property must be respected regardless of whose it was, and that any "court-martial" in this sense could cause long instability in such a highly sensitive territory as the bordering region between Croatia and Yugoslavia, it was attempted by the other party to deny the fact that the decision whether someone will remain or leave was solely their own.

"An owner who has decided to leave Croatia and possesses real estate over here, addresses our agency, fills out the form in which he gives the main data about his property according to the address of residence from 1991. We process the data, contact the owner, make the evaluation, determine the ownership and check whether the given data are true. On the basis of the evaluation, but also the market value in the region, we sign a contract with the owner", says Vrkic. "We have so far received more than 20 thousand requests and about five thousand statements of families which are ready to sell their real estate. And we have obtained these statements based on polls conducted in the Centre for Reconstruction and Development of Podunavlje which included 24 places. We have completed about 200 evaluations, started negotiations and hopefully we will sign contracts on purchase of the first fifty real-estate units in Bilje, Ilok, Tovarnik, Lovas.

The State Agency for turnover of particular real estate is entitled by law to lift the ban from sale of real estate which could not freely be disposed of until now. At the moment the Agency is busy with making the register of such real estate, with creation of a data base which will make work easier and quicker. The biggest problems arise in evaluations of the real estate, because everybody seems to think that, regardless of the esteemed value, their property is worth more. The Agency appears as a representative of the state offering a certain price on the basis of evaluations made by state administration - the ministry of finance and tax authority. The evaluation is made by experts who do this job anyway and who have the same criteria for everything, regardless of whether someone is buying or selling property and regardless of ethnic origin, because their job is to defend the interest of the state. Vrkic claims that the evaluations are objective and professional, and anybody who is not satisfied with the offer is entitled to offer the real estate to any of the privately-owned agencies. Therefore, there is no state coercion which would force anyone to accept the offer made by the State Agency for turnover of particular real estate. The role of the Agency is, says Vrkic, to stimulate persons who have decided to leave Croatia to participate in resolution of their own problem, and to enable resolution of the problem of the persons who wish to return home - to the housing unit the former are temporarily living in.

This is a considerably complex procedure resolving of which demands great patience and quite a long time. It often happens that a Serb family living at present in Ilok or Tovarnik, for instance, where it has come from Okucani where it owned a house and land, has no intention to return to western Slavonia. The Agency has to estimate the value of the the house and the land of that family, offer it an adequate compensation and pay it in order to free the house which is in fact the property of some Croat who may at present be living in a house of a Serb in Osijek. Vrkic believes that this can all be resolved by good management, by paying a just compensation to those who have decided to leave Croatia, and then proceed with the cycle in which money earned by selling, purchasing and commission, would create a solid basis for offering loans for purchase of real estate to persons who have due to various circumstances left Voivodina or Bosnia and Herzegovina, or who are ready to return from abroad and take permanent residence in Croatia.

It is comparatively easy to evaluate property which exists, but it is quite another thing to evaluate property which has been completely destroyed in war actions or demolished in conditions of the war. What can be done with a house owned by a Serb which, for example, was worth more than 100 thousand German marks, but was blown up in western Slavonia or with a house of a Croat which experienced the same destiny, for example, in Vukovar or Ilok?

"At this moment", says Vrkic, "advantage is given to property which is vacant or can easily be reconstructed. This primarily because we could enable quicker return of the people and fill the vacant houses. Demolished houses are by far a bigger problem, because it is impossible to talk about market conditions when they are concerned, because there is nothing to sell or buy." In bilateral relations with Yugoslavia, as part of the work of the Commission which is entrusted to deal with these issues pursuant Article 7 of the Agreement on Normalization of Relations between Croatia and Yugoslavia, the Croatian party proposed that damage be compensated to all the owners of real estate in such a way that Croatia pay for everything that was under jurisdiction of Croatia and was destroyed, and that what was occupied, that is, on the territory controlled by Serbia or the JNA, be paid for from their funds. It can also be discussed to free the money "captured" because of the discussion on succession of former Yugoslavia, or find other possibilities and transform this money into a certain investment fund which would be used for the purpose of compensation of damage made by armed conflicts and compensate people on both sides.

In the meantime, the Croatian party has agreed about the technics of selling real estate with representatives of the local Serb authorities, UNHCR, UNTAES, and it is on the point of signing an agreement with the Yugoslav party and also with B&H, because this is a triangle the sides of which are connected, within which the people in these three war-stricken countries moved in different directions. Now time has come for their states to back individual destinies of each one of them and enable them to practice their right and decide where they will live, and in accordance with that to have the question of their property justly resolved. Vrkic says that Croatia has done it by making itself responsible for enabling everybody who wishes to return to the addresses where they lived in 1991, and to pay compensation for their property to those who have decided to leave.

Vrkic resolutely denies any hint that the State Agency for turnover of particular real estate is just a more subtle way of further ethnic cleansing. He corroborates this with yet another idea conceived in his Agency: "The Agency is not merely engaged in purchases aimed at getting rid of people and throwing them out of their houses. This is confirmed by the project we are carrying out with the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, which would enable us to provide for the elderly and feeble persons who cannot take care of their property any more, and who are at present not in their homes. We are working out a model with the help of which they would hand their property to the state, and the state would build old-people's homes and accommodate them, providing for them to the end of their lives".

DRAGO HEDL