HUB OF REFUGEES AND RETURNEES IN KNIN

AIM Zagreb, 23 March, 1998

The news that the first Orthodox religious service was held on Sunday (22 March) in the Knin St. George's church and that it passed without a single incident - which were registered on a similar occasion a few months ago in the near-by Drnis - should serve as an illustration that the situation in Knin is going back to normal. It should also be noted that the walk of supporters of Djapic's Croat Party of Right around Knin last weekend also passed without any incident. But, the illusion of tolerant Knin which readily survived both Orthodox religious services and Djapic's walk around Knin suddenly tumbles down when one knows that both took place with police forces guarding them. The Rightists, after their rally was banned, were escorted by the police in their walk around Knin, while at the same time not even a fly could enter Knin. The police, of course, guarded the service in St. George's church too, and all that was carefully monitored by OSCE observers.

But, even the engagement of the police in protecting order and peace in Knin is just an illusion of operation of the legal state. Indeed, what makes the situation in Knin abnormal is the lack of the legal state. "The Serb returnees are exposed to various administrative and bureaucratic harassment, especially when their property is concerned", says the head of the OSCE office in Knin, Andreas Kohlschuetter. The head of the Knin office of the Croatian Helsinki Committee Olga Simic adds to this the datum that out of 400 Knin Serbs who have returned to the city, just four managed to move back into their own homes.

Legal insecurity of the Serbs does not mean that the Croats colonised in Knin from B&H are safe. "Among the Croat colonists there is a feeling of uncertainty, concern, nervousness, threat and wrath because of the announced return of property to the Serbs. Many of them think that it is the fault of the Croatian authorities, and many are very violent to the returnees", says Olga Simic. To the region covered by the OSCE Coordination Centre in Knin - and this means from Korenica to Zadar coast region - about 10 thousand Serbs have returned, and at the same time, between 18 and 20 thousand Bosnian refugees of Croat nationality were accommodated in the region", says Andreas Kohlschuetter.

Once a significant railway hub, Knin is nowadays a hub of refugees and returnees in which the switches do not operate very well. This is a region of latent conflict. The native Serbs and the colonised Croats share economic problems. Knin has the problem of unemployment and poverty. In such an atmosphere of legal and economic insecurity, the "others" are to blame, of course: the former because they are returning and the latter because they have come to live here. The dialogue between the two communities is established only through false invitations for protests. First, in the beginning of this month, the returnee Serbs were supposed to organise a protest, and then the colonised Croats, a counter-protest. Fortunately, the reasonable people in Knin claim, neither has happened. The only thing that did happen was a change in city authorities. The previous mayor Milivoj Tomas from the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ) handed over the rule of the city to Josip Odak, assembly deputy from the same party.

"I have come up against a wall", Tomas declared at the end of his mandate. A few days before that, president of the Serb National Council Milorad Pupovac defined that wall: "The mayor must be a mayor, the head of the police - the head of the police, and there must not be anybody above them, nor anybody more powerful than they are. Therefore, there can be no police above the police and no authority above the authorities. This is at this moment the most important thing for all, both for the Serbs and for the Croats", said Pupovac after a visit to Knin with other few members of the National Committee for confidence building. He says also that "some people still do not understand that the war is over".

The attention of the ambassadors accredited in Zagreb, members of Article 11 Commission who supervise implementation of the Erdut agreement was diverted by Knin in the beginning of March. They stressed that the same conditions for return had to apply for Croatian Podunavlje and for the region of Knin. They are asking the Croatian authorities to interrupt colonisation of the Croats into property of the Serbs, either from Bosnia & Herzegovina or from Kosovo. The question remains what will become of those who are already living here. The Article 11 Commission is offering the possibilities: voluntary repatriation to B&H and reconstruction of their homes, exchange of property through the real estate agency or construction of new houses.

All three possibilities will be difficult to accomplish, but primarily the first one. As Andreas Kohlschuetter says, refugee Bosnian Croats do not wish to return under Serb or Bosniac authorities. They prefer to stay. The OSCE is investing efforts for creation of "peaceful coexistence" between the Croatian Serbs and the Bosnian Croats. In Golubic near Knin they are trying to establish dialogue between the two communities. But, they are aware that this is just an attempt to mend the difficult consequences of the war on people who are divided by many things except by similar destiny: neither ones nor the others can go back to their own estates. They say in OSCE that there will be no results until the Croatian authorities join in the dialogue.

The "humane moving" of people has shown its monstrous face on the example of Knin. Those eager to gain political points are trying to profit from these people's hopelessness: "The HDZ has brought you here and abandoned you, we will leave you here", is the main message of Djapic's Rightists to the new citizens of Knin conveyed during their "walk". After Djapic, the spokesman of the HDZ Drago Krpina arrived in Knin and said that the Croatian state guarantees maximum safety to the colonists, "and such safety cannot be guaranteed by Djapic who just makes a lot of noise".

It is difficult to talk about safety when in Knin and its surroundings, out of 16 thousand inhabitants, there are 2,500 registered unemployed and only 2,100 employed persons. Many live on humanitarian aid, and 900 of them are welfare recipients. All enterprises are owned by the Croatian privatisation fund except Dinarka and the screw factory (TVIK). This factory which used to employ three thousand workers, and nowadays hardly one hundred, was bought by John Vujevic, and Amarican of Croat origin. Vujevic has bought TVIK for five million dollars, or as they say in Knin for two jack-pots in lotto. But, another thing causes real anger: along with the existing one hundred Vujevic will employ only another hundred people.

Local Knin authorities stress that normal life cannot be re-established in Knin until foreign investors come there. Both natives and colonists in Knin can do nothing but hope that local leaders will keep in mind the warning which was recently stated to them by British ambassador Collin Munro: "The investors will come only to the places where the climate of confidence exists. If there is a discriminatory policy in employment, they will go somewhere else. Failing to employ one ethnic group de facto means that the other one will also remain without jobs". For the time being, except for John Vujevic who the people in Knin are not very happy to have, the other investors are still very far away.

GORAN VEZIC