Revolts among Refugees in Drvar and Derventa

PEOPLE FOR A SINGLE PURPOSE

As a political problem refugees can be considered only in relation to their abuse, whether by the entity in which they live or by the international community.

AIM Banja Luka, 27 April, 1998

The refugee boil burst open in Drvar and Derventa, towns which both the IPTF and the SFOR considered "high-risk places" and the local population as towns in which the night falls quickly and early. In the chain of conflicts that occurred in these two cities, initiated by the murder of the married couple of refugees Trninic, blood was shed again and the ambitious action of the return of refugees reversed back to its beginnings. The national media reported on the events in great detail and with a certain degree of (justified) malice vis-a-vis international community which is always manifested when the pragmatism of world mediators fails faced with local customs and inherited animosities. All in all, Drvar and Derventa have shown something which is far more important than the event itself, no matter how unique. First of all, refugees in Bosnia and Herzegovina are the last million of inhabitants of the Republic of Srpska and the Federation for whom the Dayton Agreement did not signify the end of the war and who all the empty decisions of their own parliaments and promises of the international community translate into one single question: "What will happen to us"? But, to no avail.

Drvar and Derventa are a collective picture of depressing events also by the fact that they prove that refugees are by far the most profitable cannon fodder for the local politicians: they need little and, consequently, are easy to mobilize. They give easily and in abundance. In addition, it seems that the international community, on the one hand, and the Bosnian entity, on the other, treat the problem of refugees quite differently. The world approaches this issue with a certain degree of idealistic pragmatism: it believes that the question of the return of refugees will help obliterate war results, i.e. that once the last refugee returns home and patches up his shell-hit roof, the international community will be able to declare that there never was a war in Bosnia. As far as entities are concerned, the refugees are a question of the state, meaning that Banjaluka and Sarajevo authorities are interested in the return of refugees only to those parts in which they want their political presence to be felt.

However, life is something else: today refugees are more than the policy of the international community or that of the ruling elites, which was evident already in mid last year when it was impossible, even with the assistance of the efficient repressive apparatus from Pale, to obstruct the plan of the denizens of Drvar. The international community is something else because it bears a significant share of responsibility for the events in Drvar and Derventa, and will soon have to finally realize that the acceleration of the Dayton process, for which the Republic of Srpska has opted after Biljana Plavsic's victory, could easily bring something much worse than the situation it was faced with at the beginning. Namely, Bosnia might easily end up with three cooperative authorities and three uncooperative nations. But, let us start from the beginning.

BREAKING OF THE SERBIAN - CROATIAN AGREEMENT: The last time Drvar and Derventa were mentioned, which is in some connection with the present events, was last summer. Namely, it happened at meetings held in Pale, attended by Kresimir Zubak and Bozo Raic, on the Croatian side, and Momcilo Krajisnik, Aleksa Buha and Dragan Kalinic, on the Serbian side. At these meeting the Croats reproached the Serbs for not being able to control the Serbian refugees from Drvar and Grahovo, who have formed political parties and registered for the communal elections. The Croats threatened helpless Serbian politicians, whose waters Biljana Plavsic has muddied quite a lot: "If you do not calm down your Marceta (Mile, the Serbian leader from Drvar), we shall take the Croats from Posavina to the local elections and then you shall lose the most fertile and strategically important region for the sake of several square miles of rocky ground".

Naturally, the Serbs took this seriously: they did not want the Serbs to come to Drvar for the elections, and even less to have the Croats in Posavina. But, there was not much they could do: in the accommodation of refugees the unwanted Drvar denizens fared worst and were mostly put in collective centres, while Marceta was told that he was living the last of his seven lives (later on, it turned out that he had more of those). He was called a CIA agent and labelled him several other epithets from the arsenal reserved for those who sometimes had a brain-storm but without the assistance of Momcilo Krajisnik's grey matter.

What with major problems that fell upon them and what with the estimate that, despite threats, the Croats were not coming to the elections in Posavina because they had to keep those few voters they had for the central Bosnia, where they were seriously threatened by the Bosniacs

• the Pale authorities did nothing more in this regard. After that came the elections and the Serbs won in Grahovo and Drvar, which Franjo Tudjman called a "fraud" and yet another example of the "Byzantine hypocrisy" of the Serbs. He used the same qualifications for the newly formed authorities in the Republic of Srpska which, as Zagreb fell from favour of the international community, became increasingly estranged from the inherited SDS-HDZ alliance.

CROATIA ON THE CARPET: In short, direct causes for conflicts in Drvar and Derventa can be also interpreted as a consequence of the political breakdown in the Republic of Srpska and the intensification of the international pressure on Zagreb and Mostar. On top of it came Marceta's election for the first man of Drvar and the return of the Serbs to that town. Last week's murder of the Trninic couple confirmed that the leaders of Bosnian Croats felt deeply cheated and have therefore decided to support the political sequence of events with more efficient means. The unfortunate couple was brutally murdered and burned to ashes. This was a message, more clearer than any other: not all the Serbs in Drvar have to live to see the morning.

How important this event was for the international community in the year which was proclaimed the year of return of refugees, was best shown by a stormy reaction to the murder and increased pressure on Tudjman to allow unhindered return of the exiled. At the same time, a conference on the return of refugees was organized in Banjaluka where it was said that Zagreb will be called on the carpet and requested to allow unconditional return of the Serbs. Vestendorp's deputy Klein, joined in as a person in charge of these activities and said that a precondition for a satisfactory return of refugees to Bosnia is the return of Serbs to Croatia.

That is why the killing of refugees in Drvar and the subsequent chain of violence can be hardly interpreted as individual incidents. For, all sides are in principle in favour of the return of refugees until their turn comes to demonstrate that in practice, as it is now expected of Croatia. Zagreb and Mostar still do not show any intention of efficiently resolving the problem of returnees and have engaged all their political forces for this purpose, including the Catholic Church in Bosnia, with Archbishop of Vrhbosna, Vinko Puljic. Last Friday the first man of the Church in Bosnia with 350 believers, demanded to be allowed to hold a mass in Derventa, a town now mostly populated by Drvar and Petrovac denizens.

The mass was scheduled for Thursday, April 23, when six years ago Croatian forces had committed a collective murder of Serbian civilians in a Derventa suburb. Naturally, the Serbs raised to the bait and demanded cancellation of the mass. The IPTF agreed with this Serbian assessment, but the SFOR thought it exaggerated, which meant that the adventure could start. The Serbs put up barricades, sealed off the Croats and caused riots, while Puljic with his bishops remained blocked in the town. The SFOR intervened with such subtlety that they left behind a man run over by a personnel carrier of the international forces. That Drvar and Derventa have definitely become connected vessels was obvious already on Friday: The Croats staged demonstrations in Drvar which turned into street conflicts. There were seventeen casualties, including the beaten Mile Marceta, as well as arson, shooting, chasing of Serbian returnees through the town streets- that was that day's balance. The piper was paid already that weekend: 150 Drvar returnees again left the town and fled to Banjaluka. The Project Drvar has practically failed.

WHO IS ABUSING REFUGEES: Naturally, condemnation of the international community ensued, mutual Serbian -Croatian skirmishing, and even those among Serbs, in which Momcilo Krajisnik led the way when he claimed that nothing would have happened if Biljana Plavsic and Milorad Dodik had not gone several days before the conflict to Jasenovac to pay their respect to the victims of the Second World War. However, nothing of this is of any use since these events have opened up some new problems which bring into question the very purpose of the "year of return". First, as a political issue the problem of refugees boils down to the question of their abuse, whether by the authorities of the entity in question or by the international community.

The change of political climate in Bosnia has calmed down national passions to a certain extent, but that is all very far from a situation favourable for a safe return. Aware that because of refugees, the question of the integration of Bosnia has become an exact problem, i.e. that Bosnia will become united in the same percentage in which the refugees return to their homes - foreign mediators reckon that the chain of political changes in entities represents a favourable moment to accelerate the implementation of the Dayton Accords. It would, perhaps, be only logical if, as a proponent of these actions, the State Department, torn between its obligation towards its tax-payers and the Congress, who complain of their costly involvement in Bosnia, on the one hand, and the logic imposed by the situation on the ground, on the other, would opt for the former. But, then, Washington and Bosnia would again be at cross-purposes, same as they have been during the preceding six years.

Zeljko Cvijanovic