THE CROATS FROM KOSOVO HEADING FOR LIKA

AIM, ZAGREB, November 11, 1999

One of the last acts of the tragedy called "human resettlement" happened on Sunday, October 31, day before the Memorial Day. On that day 293 Croats from Letnica, a place in Kosovo where Croats had been living for the last seven hundred years, have arrived to Croatia to Zagreb Airport Pleso. All they brought with them were some necessities which they could carry on the plane and those better-off had with them their savings and the figure of Our Lady of Letnica. According to the Croatian papers, they felt awful because they could not take with them the Church of the Lady of Letnica. Apart from being pathetic, that statement also had its political significance. Namely, it clearly showed that the Kosovo Croats did not intend to go back to Kosovo, i.e. that seven hundred years were crossed out for ever.

After the villagers of Letnica have moved out, the only remaining Croats in Kosovo is a small group of four hundred of them in Janjevo. It is to be expected that they will too, perhaps soon, move to Croatia. For, according to all reports, life in Kosovo is becoming increasingly hard for all the non-Albanians- all villagers of Letnica stated that unbearable pressure was the reason for moving out - while the policy of the Government of Croatia, which is hiding behind a constitutional provision on the obligation to assist Croats all over the world, is to create as ethnically clean Croatia as possible, as well as to have all Croats return to Croatia, those from Australia and these from Kosovo alike.

In that context, it is rather interesting that this entire operation of the resettlement of Letnica villagers to Croatia was carried out in utmost secrecy and under the highest political patronage. Namely, before they moved the villagers of Letnica have allegedly sent as much as three appeals to the Croatian authorities asking to be allowed to come with the explanation that the situation in Kosovo was becoming unbearable. After the arrival of the third appeal, a special delegate was sent to Kosovo - his mission was wrapped in a shroud of secrecy from the beginning to the end - Dr.Slobodan Lang, humanitarian issues advisor to President Dr.Franjo Tudjman who has successfully completed his mission. However, the international community also took part in that project. Namely, the villagers of Letnica were first taken by buses to Skopje escorted by eight KFOR armoured carriers. They crossed the same border crossing Blace at which we saw rivers of Albanians this summer, first going in one and then in the opposite direction.

Even before this many people from Letnica have already moved to Croatia. Thus, for some of them, their arrival to the Zagreb Airport meant the reunion with their families. "After three years I will finally see my father, brother and his three children. When in 1996 I came from Kosovo to Croatia in a roundabout way, I did not dream that so much time will pass before we get together again", said Grgur Gegic whose entire family is in Croatia. "You cannot imagine how happy we are", was a short comment of Ljuba Gegic, an old lady who came with nine members of her family. Her husband stayed behind in Letnica to sell the livestock. "It would be great if we could hear the Letnica church bells in Croatia" said Viktor Kasic the priest who was unable to explain to journalist of "Vecernji list" (The Evening Paper) why have the Albanians harassed the Kosovo Croats although these same Croats helped them before protecting them from the Serbs.

However, the state media did not insist on that fact. Some even tried hard to hide it so that a greater part of the public was left in two minds whether the Kosovo Croats have fled from the Albanian or Serbian violence. In any case, this exodus has helped the weakened HDZ to show just before the elections that it was capable of providing for all Croats, even under the hardest conditions. From the moment they landed on Zagreb Airport onwards, the Croats from Letnica have certainly become and will remain the subject of political manipulations. As soon as they came to Croatia, Government representatives announced that they would settle in Lika. Quoting the decisions of the Croatian Government, the "Vecernji list" wrote: "The Ministry of the Interior will speed up the procedure for issuing citizenship and personal documentation and the Agency for Legal Trade and Mediation will purchase family houses to be given to exiled families without any compensation and a right to claim the ownership after ten years". Deputy Minister for Immigration, Development and Reconstruction, Lovre Pejkovic, promised everyone that everyone would get adequate accommodation.

Already the next day the media announced that the villagers of Letnica would end in Srb, a place in south Lika, which according to rumours should soon change its name. It turned out that there was an earlier plan to settle the Kosovo Croats - admittedly in two apartment buildings - in Srb, because the Bosniac Croats could not have been moved there as it was heavily ruined after the "Storm". According to records of district authorities, over 150 flats in Srb are mostly state-owned because the Serbs who have fled from the "Storm" have lost all rights to them. At the moment there are 1,200 returnees inhabitants of Srb, exclusively of Serbian nationality. It is anticipated that that number will grow during winter, and even more in spring, since the process of return is not over yet. Moreover, it could acquire large-scale proportions in spring because of the NATO bombing of Serbia. That is probably why the HDZ authorities plan to settle the Kosovo Croats precisely in Srb. Local elections are scheduled to be held in Croatia in two years time and already now in several communes in former Krajina the Serbs are a demographic majority so that some officials have openly asked - what was the purpose of "Storm" anyway!

The treatment of the Kosovo Croats is interesting in another respect. Namely, while the Croatian Serbs are prevented from returning to the country and from voting (they are the only community from the former Yugoslavia which cannot exercise any of its political rights anywhere), the Kosovo Croats who are without citizenship, have been brought to Croatia by a special plane and, if plans of the state leadership progress as envisaged, will move into other people's homes. According to the official explanation, as already mentioned, these flats were once the property of Serbs who left them abandoned for more than three months without any justified reason, and therefore lost any right to them. However, the Croats who had abandoned their flats during the war did not lose their tenant's rights as their reasons for leaving were considered to be justified.

Since basically they both left because of the war, one conclusion comes to mind: either the Serbs should not have gone into exile as nothing could have happened to them during the "Flash" and "Storm", or they are all guilty. However, since over 400 civilians perished during the "Storm" in the South and North sector (according to the confirmed HVO data, but the guess is that there were as much as 650 killed) it is more than clear that the exiled Serbs had a very good reason to flee.

The resettlement of Croats from Kosovo in Lika is announced for spring as there is no chance that the authorities will manage to repair apartment buildings (which the Croatian army and police mostly demolished without any military reason) and make them habitable for the cold Lika winter. That means that the project of resettling the Kosovars will fall under the mandate of the next government which could easily consist of members of today's opposition. They have recently reiterated that they plan to abide by all international agreements signed by Croatia and have expressed their wish for quicker integration into European associations. The continuation, be it even as an epilogue, of the ethnic-political engineering in regions to which a large-scale return of the Serbs is expected in spring, is certainly not a thing which representatives of the international community will eagerly support. The example of Kistanje, where new houses had to be built for Croats from Janjevo, shows that such engineering is too expensive. That is why "final destination" of Letnica villagers is still open to question. One thing is certain - they will never return to Kosovo and the majority of them will remain in Croatia.

BORIS RASETA