All Migrations of the Serbs Under Milosevic

It is estimated that in the past ten years of Slobodan Milosevic's rule about a million and a half Serbs have abandoned their homes, cities and villages. Some of them have come to Serbia seeking refuge; others have gone to other countries running away from wars and misery

AIM Podgorica, 27 September, 1999 (By AIM correspondent from Belgrade)

There is not a single photograph or video film of the president of FR Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic with refugees - neither those from former Krajina and Bosnia, nor with the latest ones from Kosovo. He has never paid them a visit: neither when after the lost wars in 1995 the roads were thronged with endless columns of tractors, waggons pulled by horses and overloaded trucks carrying women, children, the elderly and demobilised soldiers, nor when the Serbs from Kosovo in 1999 met with the destiny of the Serbs from across the Drina. The reason for this certainly is not the president's full schedule - nothing and nobody like the refugees testify so convincingly about the complete failure and breakdown of all Milosevic's policies. Aware of this fact, his regime has never been choosy about ways of giving vent to its anger on these people who have lost everything but their accent: from delivering them as cannon fodder to Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan and similar in 1995, to forcing the Serbs who have fled from Kosovo to go back in 1999, although their lives in the full sense of the word hang by a thread over there.

It is estimated that just in FR Yugoslavia there are more than 700 thousand refugees from Croatia and Bosnia, and another 200 thousand from Kosovo. Their migrations have begun with the death of former Yugoslavia, when its territory became the testing ground for those who enjoyed drawing maps of new "great" national states founded on ethnic engineering. The main tone in this process was set by Milosevic with his hangers-on, although his example was closely followed by his counterparts in other former republics. As at the time the then president of Serbia seemed powerful and impossible to stop, they appeared just as pale imitations who use all possible means to fight him.

Like the Serbs, and even before them, the Croats, the Muslims, and Kosovo Albanians, set out on the sad refugee journey. Their migrations are directly caused by the manner in which by dictate of Belgrade Serb self-proclaimed states of Krajina and then Republic of Srpska were created in 1991/92, and control of Kosovo taken over and "resolution" of the Albanian issue approached ever since 1987. When the listed returned after they had won the wars, severe revanchism usually followed. Often there were not even direct clashes: during the Balkan wars at the end of the twentieth century every one of the conflicting ethnic groups has learnt that it was best not to wait at home for the army of another ethnic origin. Mass graves of civilians and prisoners of war proved that they were right.

In the period between 1990 and 1999 there were a few major tides of Serb refugees and/or displaced persons. The first was abandoning large cities in Croatia and Bosnia, and places where the Serbs had been minority population and departures to the self-proclaimed Krajina or the Republic of Srpska, Serbia or the third countries. These were prewar migrations or in the first months of the war, and the main motives were pressure exerted by the authorities, retaliation, uncertainty and lack of prospects for the future, as well as the wish to be in one's own ethnic surroundings.

The second rush were refugee camps into which people withdrew voluntarily to evade offensive action of armed forces of Croatian Army or B&H Army: in summer 1991 tens of thousands of people from Banija and Eastern Slavonia were in exile; a few ten thousand left their homes in part of Western Slavonia in December that year; in January 1993 several thousand Serbs from Ravni Kotari near Maslenica became refugees; 1 May 1995 (after Croatian offensive called Flash) marked the end of the life of the Serbs in the rest of Western Slavonia with the centre in Okucani, and in the beginning of August of that same year (after operation Storm) almost the entire Serb population

• more than 360 thousand people - left the western part of former Krajina with the centre in Knin, and in October 1995, Bosanska Krajina experienced the same destiny.

The third tide consisted of the refugees after signing of peace agreements. They were the Serbs from a part of Sarajevo controlled by the Republic of Srpska after the Dayton accords, and slow and quiet emigration from Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srem after the Erdut agreement in 1995, and the Serbs from Kosovo after the agreement reached in Kumanovo in 1999.

During all that time, apparently concealed, the fourth tide of refugees or emigrants was leaving Serbia: students and experts were constantly leaving, but others too who wish to live off their work, without wars, ethnic differentiation...

When speaking of the life of refugees and displaced persons, it constantly deteriorated. In summer 1991, politicians of the regime simply competed to show concern for Serb refugees from Croatia, state television followed closely their movement, and humanitarian aid from Serbia was sent regardless of whether it was needed or not. In the search for justification of the war every sacrifice was welcome. As the Serb armed forces and former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) progressed, majority of these people returned home or moved into the houses of refugees of Croat ethnic origin from the territory. But this was just a temporary state: after a few years they were forced to set out from their homes again.

December 1991 refugees from Western Slavonia were already the merchandise to bargain with in the exchange of territory for population: Serb forces conquered Vukovar, and Croat troops the mentioned territory of Western Slavonia, so that the Sarajevo ceasefire between Republic of Croatia and JNA could be signed in the beginning of January 1992. This meant that there would be no return. Received and accommodated at first in Banja Luka, western Slavonians sharply accused the army leadership and self-proclaimed Serb authorities of treason, but they were calmed down by politicians such as Dr. Radovan Karadzic. A part of them were colonised in Eastern Slavonia, in houses of the Croats and Hungarians, and others set out towards Serbia. A certain number of those who arrived in Voivodina were used in exerting presure and intimidation of the local Croats and Hungarians. The most notorious example was the local power-wielder from the village of Hrtkovci Ostoja Sibincic. But when Sibincic and similar were denied protection of the regime, refugees from Western Slavonia were forgotten and left to shift for themselves. This is best illustrated by the case of a few ten of them who were promptly thrown out of a building owned by the army in New Belgrade in 1993 where they had moved in "illegally".

A real refugee crisis exploded in 1995 in former Krajina. The first to set out on the journey were refugees from the remainder of Western Slavonia under Serb control. Very few managed to enter the "parent" country: they were directed to Eastern Slavonia or remained in the Republic of Srpska. The aim was to keep them on the territory emptied of the Croats and the Muslims at any cost. However, three months later, nothing could prevent refugees from Korenica, Gracac, Knin, Petrinja, Benkovac, their entire population - from mayor to garbage collector - to arrive in Serbia via Sremska Raca.

With scarce rations of humanitarian aid, with refugee identity cards as their only documents, these people live day by day in various ways. Just because the regime is not willing to grant the citizenship of FR Yugoslavia to them without a severe bureaucratic procedure, this does not mean that it had given up on the people from Krajina whom Milosevic, like to all the Serbs for that matter, had promised life in a joint state. Like in Krajina, they were ruthlessly manipulated in Serbia whenever needed: there was the illegal mobilisation in 1995, accusations that they were fascists who formed the backbone of civil protests in 1996/97 (by Dragan Tomic, chairman of the Assembly of Serbia), they were directed and colonised in Kosovo, and in various ways confrontations were artificially provoked with the domicile population, in which the most prominent was the one with the para-regime association called Society of Natives of Serbia.

Refugees from Bosnian Krajina who fled in October 1995 were spared the mentioned ill-treatment because they mostly remained in the Republic of Srpska. They were displaced on the territory where before the war majority of the population had been the Muslims and the Croats. And vice versa - the territories where the Serbs had been the majority population are nowadays inhabited by members of the other two B&H peoples. A simple case of ethnic engineering: in other people's homes, in other people's surroundings, but among one's own...

Emigration after the signed agreements, contrary to the described ones, although it did not take place under cannon or machine-gun fire, was no less dramatic. After signing of the Dayton accords, a part of Sarajevo controlled by the Serbs was left without its inhabitants: on the one hand their leaders pressured them to emigrate in various ways in order to persist in combinations aimed at proving that no form of coexistence was possible, and on the other hand, the authorities of B&H Federation did not strive to give them convincing guarantees for normal life after the war.

The case of the Serbs from from Eastern Slavonia is somewhat different. Having learnt the lesson from their ethnic brethren from Croatia, a considerable part of them decided to stay. They were primarily aborigines. Nevertheless, after departure of those from other regions who had moved into the homes of the Croats, the younger members of the Serb population who believed that they had no future there, sold their estates and silently left for Serbia.

However, the Serbs from Kosovo, despite the awareness of what being a refugee means, after another failure of Milosevic's policy and the lost war, did not wish to wait for the return of the Albanians who had fled to northern Albania and Macedonia together with the armed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Although averted by the regime, not only verbally and politically, but also physically by the police, majority of them left the province. Since then they are facing administrative limitations and listening every day to the news about their kidnapped and murdered ethnic brethren who had stayed in Kosovo.

During all this time, the young educated people are leaving FR Yugoslavia. There is nothing queer about it: national income in 1990 in Serbia and Montenegro amounted to 2700 dollars per capita, and nowadays it is estimated to be about 980 dollars. Depending on their profession and skills, these people have fared differently: while some of them are dish-washers in restaurants, others are quickly working their way up as experts. Many of them suffer from home-sickness. However, they are quickly cured after occasional visits to their fatherland.

What was Milosevic's attitude towards all these migrations during his rule? It is estimated that about 1,500,000 Serbs have left their homes, their cities and their villages and set out as refugees to Serbia or other countries where it is possible to live normally. The simplest answer would be that Slobda Milosevic was not at all interested in the destiny of these people. They were simply just the material by means of which his regime developed, consolidated and was preserved. Once used for his purposes, they became later just a mere burden and unpleasant witnesses.

The Serbs from Kosovo were at first used by Milosevic to come to power: in the late eighties manuipulation with their position in the province was the foundation of the notorious "anti-bureaucratic revolution". In the nineties they were turned into voting machinery of the ruling party which due to the fact that ethnic Albanians boycotted elections ensured about thirty seats for Milosevic's party in the republican parliament right from the start. Finally, when Milosevic's "easily promised speed" in resolving the problem of Kosovo experienced a complete debacle in the war with NATO, the regime could find no other role for these people but to keep as many of them in Kosovo as possible which would enable him to claim for internal political purposes that FR Yugoslavia has preserved its sovereignty and territorial integrity over the province. Moreover, their suffering and lack of protection by KFOR were abused as one of the crucial arguments for the thesis on global anti-Serb conspiracy.

A similar thing was done to the Serbs from Croatia. As seen from the book by Borislav Jovic (member from Serbia in the last collective presidency of former Yugoslavia) titled "Last days of SFRY", in 1991/92 Milosevic was mostly busy planning how to get hold of parts of Croatia in which the Serbs were the majority population. The destiny of the Serb population in Croatian cities which was more numerous than the one in mostly rural Krajina, was of no interest to him. Using Knin for five years both in order to exert pressure on Croatia and as an important stake in haggling with the international community, but also because of paralysis of political life in Serbia itself, in the end when everything went to the dogs, for Milosevic, the people from Krajina were to be blamed for their misfortune. It turned out that they had drawn him into the war, and not vice versa.

In the initial plan for creation of "trimmed" Yugoslavia (Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and B&H), the Serbs from Croatia were suppoased to play the role of the detonator; Bosnian Serbs should have been the decisive factor. Since this ideal could not have been achieved, leaders from Pale had the assignement to take control over the largest possible piece of Bosnia, to enable contacts with Krajina and remain in power for as long as it might be needed, at least to establish another Serb state on the territory of former Yugoslavia. After seas of blood shed in Bosnia, ethnic cleansing, suffering and destruction, Dayton accords came as a forced move made to save the Republic of Srpska from total ruin similar to the one in Krajina.

Contrary to the Serbs who had left their "eternal homes" and whose "protection" was the fundamental alibi of Milosevic's war-mongering policy, the regime did not notice the exodus of the young and educated people from Serbia proper. This process was even convenient for it: those whose knowledge and capabilities are the greatest threat to the current regime in Serbia - such as it is, are leaving or have already left.

In the past ten years Milosevic has rejected all reasonable solutions and then regularly faced a debacle. From his point of view this was even logical: how could he admit it that from the very start everything was a complete failure. For as long as national enemies are created and cherished, national failure does not threaten the regime. Refugees and displaced persons as one of the most dangerous and most terrible consequences of this policy, for Milosevic and his followers are nothing but side effects of relentless and shameless preservation of their power.

Philip Schwarm

(AIM)