A MONTH BEFORE THE END OF UNTAES MANDATE

Preparations of the Battle for a Better Past

AIM Zagreb, 17 December, 1997

Just a few hours after William Walker, UNTAES transitional administrator, gave Ivan Penic, Croatian minister of internal affairs, the charge of 1,500 members of transitional police forces on 15 December, a bloodshed occurred in Beli Manastir. In shooting which was heard in immediate vicinity of the police station, one policeman was wounded, and one person killed. From a brief statement issued by the police on the occasion it is impossible to discern whether the motives for it were political.

Allegedly, the man who was killed, like the wounded policeman, was a Croat by nationality, which, if true, would eliminate the political motive from this story. The killed D.M. lived since 1991 in FR Yugoslavia, while the policeman, who did not even have his initials published, is a Croat who allegedly lived in Krajina ever since operation "Storm". Be that as it may, the very fact that on the day when Croatian ministry of the interior took over responsibility for security in Podunavlje a policemam with the chessboard insignia on his cap killed a person on such shaky ground as Croatian Podunavlje, can have very embarassing connotations.

Less than a month's time is left until peaceful reintegration of Croatian Podunavlje. For more than a few months now, this operation of UN peace forces is proclaimed to be the only successful operation ever carried out by the United Nations. The same evaluation was stated last Monday, in the presence of administrator Walker, by minister Penic, who also promised that the police, under his command, would treat equally all the citizens, comforming exclusively to the law. Walker, nevertheless, retained the right to annul in the course of next month any decisions contrary to provisions of the Erdut agreement, Security Council resolutions and Letter of Intent of the Croatian Government. Therefore, regardless of Penic's guarantees, Walker added another, fragile guarantee to the local population that they would not be discriminated - at least not while he was in Vukovar. What will happen when in February, as he has already said - he will be lying on one of California beaches - at this moment nobody knows and all hopes are invested in about 180 UNCIPOL policemen (international police forces which are still in Podunavlje) who are expected to supervise whether Croatian Police is playing by the rules.

The very fact that the members of the Transitional Police Forces have recently put on uniforms of the Croatian police which differ from the "real" ones only by a metal plate with the inscription: "Transitional Police Forces", caused considerable consternation among the local Serb population. They think that this is how "everything started", and their feeling of uneasiness does not seem to have changed even by the fact that out of 1,715 policemen, more than half (834) are of Serb ethnic origin, that 829 are Croats and 52 of them belong to other ethnic groups. Although change of uniforms cut out for Transitional Police in July 1996 by the Americans (made of poor quality blue twill, they irresistably reminded of suits worn by janitors in American schools) passed quite painlessly and although Croatian insignia with the chessboard appeared on caps and sleeves of the new uniforms, plenty of uncertainty is felt about what will be happening in the future. Not only concerning actions of the police towards the local population, but also among the police itself, which, ethnically mixed as it is, will have difficulties in surviving. In a sense this was announced by minister Penic himself who said to Walker that 1,500 policemen in relation to 100 thousand inhabitants living in Podunavlje according to his estimates (or one per 80 odd inhabitants) was too much even according to Croatian standards. This can mean but one thing: the number of policemen will be reduced. Will the ethnic structure be preserved is a question which the population in Podunavlje is greatly concerned with.

Nobody has reliable data about the number of people who have emigrated to Serbia in the past few weeks. In the press centre of Vukovar and the Joint Council of Municipalities it is possible to learn that in a single day - just before the agreement of the two states on local border trade came into force - 370 families, or at least one thousand people emigrated from Podunavlje. Figures about several thousand persons who have left Podunavlje in the course of this month alone might be exaggerated, but nobody knows the true ones. The problem is that a part of the people have ensured themselves before - having moved their property to FR Yugoslavia in expectations what will happen in Podunavlje. Their departure will be registered by noone. This silent exodus, they say, is the most massive. Connoisseurs claim that mostly persons whose status has not been resolved are leaving Podunavlje. There are several thousand of them and they are mostly people who have not been able to get Croatian papers (Bosnian Serbs, citizens of FR Yugoslavia). But, it is impossible to tell who will leave and who will stay. The situation of general expectation mixed with suspicion is the main characteristic of the psychological atmosphere prevailing in eastern Slavonia, Baranja and western Srijem.

American ambassador Peter Galbraith whose five-year mission of the first US Ambassador in Croatia is just coming to its end, considers signing of the Erdut agreement one of his greatest diplomatic achievements. This agreement is the reason for his optimism: "The foundation of the Erdut agreement was to create a transitional period lasting one or two years during which period Croatian institutions would gradually be re-established, and the Serbs would during that time accept Croatian citizenship", says Galbraith in the interview given to the December issue of London journal War Report. "The stress was on gradual reintegration in order to provide the time necessary for cooling down of war passions and for offering the opportunity to the Serb population to adjust to civic life in a democratic state and, through the democratic process, assert their rights. And that is exactly what has happened: the Serb population took Croatian papers and took part in the local elections in April 1997. This resulted in the fact that nowadays in almost all municipal councils, both the Serbs and the Croats participate and that half of the mayors are Serbs, and half are Croats. The two nations cooperate, and the process has reached the phase in which the banished Croats are starting to return".

Galbraith is almost convinced that in Podunavlje there will be no mass emigration seen in the suburbs of Sarajevo after signing of the Dayton accords when they became part of the B&H Federation. "I believe that the Serbs will remain to live in eastern Slavonia", says Galbraith, "because circumstances there are quite different from what they used to be in the suburbs of Sarajevo held by the Serbs which later became part of the Federation. There are two reasons for this: first, the Erdut agreement prescribes gradual introduction of Croatian rule, and second, Serb leaders in eastern Slavonia were responsible and interested to have the population remain there contrary to leaders in Republica Srpska who used force to drive away the Serb population from Sarajevo suburbs". But, Galbraith is, nevertheless, aware that everything is in the hands of the Croatian government and its readiness to implement what it has promised.

The international community cannot remain in Podunavlje forever, nor can it build confidence between the deeply divided nations which, perhaps more than the war itself, were separated by a deep chasm created by merciless propaganda which had for years equally brain-washed both the Croats and the Serbs. That is why what Glabraith - who is an exceptional connoisseur of the situation in UNTAES - sees as the "additional guarantee" to the Serbs that they can "remain in Podunavlje and live on their farms, in houses and apartments and be in the state which is quickly becoming prosperous", is not at all comforting. "One of the things which can encourage people to stay and live in Croatian Podunavlje is the fact that they always have the possibility to depart should things go bad. This additional possibility will encourage them to stay", says the departing American Ambassador and adds: "Or they can go to Serbia where they will not have a citizenship and where they will live in refugee camps, in a state where average salaries amount to just a quarter of what they are in Croatia".

The way things are with mutual confidence of the two nations is best illustrated by the fact that only two Croats have returned to Vukovar so far - not counting the state and other officials working here. After everything that has happened to them in Vukovar and humiliations they were exposed to, it is difficult to expect that their return will go smoothly. To "Danube II" - large Vukovar eleven-storey high building in which its 71 apartments were reconstructed with the money of the European Union, just a few of its tenants have returned. The idea was to have the same people live there who used to live in it before the war. Apart from two Croats and two or three Serb families nobody else has returned. Even the local Serbs prefer to live in other people's empty houses than return to apartments under the common roof of which they once shared with the Croats the entrance, the stairs and the elevator.

Next spring, it will be possible to check the assessment about successfulness of the UNTAES mission which everybody is bragging about. Croatian authorities will be fully established there by then. The transitional administrator Walker will be enjoying himself on one of California beaches, Ambassador Galbraith will be replaced by Ambassador Montgomery, and Tim Guldiman, head of the observing mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will still head the mission and monitor whether things are going the way prescribed by the agreement. The banished persons will start to return and that will be the true test of possible coexistence, for which conditions were created for two years in Croatian Podunavlje which were expected to enable it. Then it will be clear to what extent the slogan holds of Jacques Paul Klein, Walker's predecessor who built the house of reintegration leaving his successor just to add the "final finishing touches", that past cannot be changed and that it is necessary to turn to the future. Around here, the past has always meant more than the future. And the struggle for improving, it seems, is just about to begin.

DRAGO HEDL