PROJECT OF THE LAND OF ISTRIA AIM Zagreb, 27 January, 1998

At the moment when centralism as a way of ruling has no serious opponent, and the attempts of the opposition to resist the party which has the monopoly on power in an organized manner yield only partial and ephemeral results, after quite some time and quite unexpectedly, regionalism appeared again in Croatia. This provocative idea about which swords were crossed for years, has come from Istria again, but this time not due to the Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS), but despite it.

The initiative was signed by one of the founders of the IDS, nowadays just a member of that party, Ivan Pauletta, who is publicly supported by a part of the Istrian diaspora (especially in Australia) while reactions in the Istrian public for the time being remain concealed. It can only be assumed, based on commotion Pauletta caused in his own party, that it is not indifferent. Pauletta presented his initiative in the form of a project called the Land of Istria which begins with the sentence that "the right of the citizens of Istria to self-determination, the right to decide idependently about their destiny is unquestionable and inalienable". This right, it is specified further on, includes "the right to self-governed autonomy", "the range and limitations of which will be determined by the citizens of Istria themselves".

    The "range" is stated precisely in the project, which

says that "the citizens of Istria must not be forced to serve anybody, not even their own compatriots", and that "going into military, police and other services and formations outside Istria is done by the citizen of Istria on their own responsibility". It is explained that it is "uncivilisational and humiliating to force Istrian young men to participate in regressive and criminal nationalistic wars. These wars are undeclared, formally unended, that is, always latent... Not only because of pluralist Istrian society, but because of the basic foundations of our culture, we do not wish to wage war".

In the project the Land of Istria demands with which the citizens of Istria will appear at the Assembly of Croatia are precisely listed: adoption of the constitution of the Land of Istria, defining of its legislative rights and responsibilities, its own fiscal system, its own judiciary, its own territorial police. They also demand introduction of a schooling system according to the European standards, the right to decision-making on ownership and "demilitarisation of Istria, physical financial and of its media and propaganda". The final words of the project are as follows: "The Land of Istria" would be organised as a "federal unit of the Republic of Croatia" which is a demand which will be made "peacefully and calmly, but also irrevocably, and persistently until its met".

    In reactions to Pauletti's idea the trail was blazed

by regime-controlled media which renewed old accusations about separatist motives of the initiative which they addressed at the old address. The IDS is suspected of being the true author of the Land of Istria, but that for tactical reasons it let the project appear as the civic initiative of one of its members. The opposition received the new rise of the regionalistic idea with old doubts, so the HSLS and the HSS disassociated themselves from it, and reservations were expressed by others as well. It was necessary to wait the longest for the reaction of the IDS itself, although in Pauletti's Medulin, the local committee of the IDS immediately took the stand that parts of the project of the Land of Istria were opposed to the program documents of the IDS and even demanded that "proceedings" be initiated against the author within the Party.

But, the party leadership decided to take a time-out, announcing that the Presidency of the IDS would schedule a special session and discuss the topic of Pauletti's project and inform the public about it. But, even after several days no news have arrived, although everybody knows that the presidency of the party had its session and discussed it. Only the president of the party Ivan Jakovcic was somewhat more precise having declared for a newspaper that it was catastrophic for the IDS, but that he was not in favour of taking "radical" disciplinary measures against the author. It is evident that the IDS has got a hot potato in its lap and that it is not easy for it to decide what to do with it.

    Pauletti's initiative was not forwarded to the party

for some kind of internal discussion, it was signed by a group of citizens which calls itself the Initiative for Istria, so that by taking a rash stand about it, the IDS would exceed the mandate of a political party and appear in the role of a "state-building" authority. Besides, this project is not essentially contradictory to the opriginal regionalistic ideas of IDS, which can easily be proved, for example, by the fact that immediately after foundation in 1990 it came up with the demand for demilitarisation of Istria. It was explained by the fact that this was a tourist region which had "almost no strategic meaning for defence of the country" (this referred to the still existing SFRY at the time, and this stand is even more justified in the present circumstances of the independent Croatian state).

    The thing concerning Pauletti's initiative that the

IDS cannot digest refers to the timing of its appearance, that is, to the fact that the genie of regionalism has been released from its lamp just now. In the past year or two, the IDS was shaken by internal party splits, so that a number of people have left the party who had participated in its foundation and were among its leaders, and even represented Istria in the Republican parliament. They were mostly officials who left the IDS out of conviction that that its regionalistic component had swallowed the national one (these joined the HDZ). The other group of renegades was convinced that regionalism had driven out both the national but also the ideological - social, liberal etc. - component (these joined other opposition parties or founded their own).

The IDS has survived this split by applying, among other, methods unknown before in this party, and these are sharp public showdowns (which especially at the end could be brought down to defence of economic interests), initiating disciplinary measures etc. Although it managed to preserve certain cohesion, the party has lost what used to be plebiscitary support in Istria (although it remained the most powerful on the peninsula). What is even more important, like in all such splits, the ideology of the party moved towards the central values, and this means that the idea of regionalism which has made this party "famous", lost its popularity and provocativeness (especially because everything was happening during the war and immediately after it).

In such a situation, the appearance of Pauletti with the idea of return to the original values of this party sounds as an open call to this party to re-examine whether for the sake of preserving peace in the party it had sacrificied something much more valuable. The issue is made even more intriguing by the fact that the IDS has blunted its ideological blade not only because of internal quarrels and other circumstances of its own choice. Since 1995, the IDS "stepped over mount Ucka" (which separates Istria from the rest of Croatia) and started joining coalitions with continental parties among whom the idea of regionalism did not rate as high as in it, and some were explicitly mistrustful towards it. To adjust to new partners might have been reasonable if the coalitions had been successful, if they had sacrificied something of their idealogical particularities for the sake of a joint cause - abolishment or limitation of political monopoly of the HDZ.

But, these coalitions have not accomplished their goal, but given up half way, and the latest (Croatian Political Centre) split even before it had started to operate. In such a situation, Pauletti's initiative sounds as an invitation to the IDS to return to the sunny side of mount Ucka, which in the worse case can end in autarchy, but in the better one it can make this party come face to face with itself, which would be very useful.

MARINKO CULIC