By Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE, May 15 1996 (IPS)

Five years of conflict in the former Yugoslavia created a jumble of regions occupied by single ethnic groups, but in a brutal paradox, the main sponsor of this war of ‘ethnic cleansing’ remains a centre of ethnic diversity.

Now, as a delicate peace returns to Bosnia-Hercegovina, uncomfortable signs of ethnic hatred offer reminders of Serbia’s own ethnic ferment. For of the 9.7 million people living in Serbia, only 65.8 percent are Serbs.

Ethnic Albanians (17 percent), ethnic Hungarians (3.5 percent), Muslims from Bosnia-Hercegovina (2.4), and Croats (1.4) complete the brew, according to figures from the last Federal census in April 1991. Montenegrins, Macedonians, Slovenes and people who declared themselves as ‘Yugoslavs’, mostly those from mixed marriages also contribute to the mix.

That composite defies the public image of Belgrade as agent of ethnic purity and patron of wars fought in pursuit of that objective.

In fact, parts of Serbia have minorities comprising a large percentage of the population. Two million ethnic Albanians live in the southern province of Kosovo. About 300,000 Muslims of Bosnian origin occupy the southern region of Sandzak. Large Hungarian (340,000) and Croat minorities (170,000) live in the northern province of Vojvodina.

There are thousands of non-Serbs living in large cities like Belgrade, where the urban population does not appear to care much about the ethnic composition of its neighbourhoods.

Recently however, bomb attacks on a Belgrade mosque and a Roman Catholic church highlighted the position of minorities — and how deep the fears. Unlike in previous years, Serbian police arrested the suspects within days.

The 17th century Bajrakli mosque has been rocked by seven bomb attacks since 1992. The most recent — on March 30 and April 15 — provoked fierce reactions.

Patriarch Pavle, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, visited the head of Belgrade’s Islamic community, Mufti Hamdija Jusufspahic, and promised “further religious tolerance and better care for people of other faiths”.

Serbian opposition parties as well as the Mayor of Belgrade, condemned the bombing, which came shortly after an attack on a Catholic church building.

“We thank God that during the war, in which over 1,000 mosques were destroyed in Bosnia-Hercegovina (by radical Serbs), not one was destroyed in Serbia itself,” Jusufspahic told journalists recently.

“But now that peace is back, these last attacks show the potential of such crimes spreading. Those who destroyed mosques in Bosnia-Hercegovina would like to do the same here and threaten peace.”

Hundreds of thousands of Croat and Bosnian Serbs have moved to Serbia proper since 1991. They are deeply hostile towards Muslims and Croats. Human rights observers say Muslims and Croats in Serbia are breathing easier now that fighting in Bosnia- Hercegovina and Croatia is over.

“The mosque attack in particular was a bit surprising because (pressures on minorities) seem to have slackened since the wars ended,” says Ivanka Kostic, a researcher at the independent humanitarian law centre in Belgrade.

“Even during the wars, (Serbian president Slobodan) Milosevic wanted to retain a picture of tolerance towards minorities. but serious problems of discrimination remain,” she adds, referring to the President of Serbia.

Two million ethnic Albanians want autonomy in Kosovo where Serbs are a minority. The autonomy of Kosovo was abrogated by Milosevic in 1990. Since then, international and domestic human rights organisations regularly report that “the rule of repression and discrimination by Serb-held police and local government are the cornerstone of Serbia’s control over Kosovo”.

Ethnic violence has recently resurfaced there. Five Serbs were killed in a single day after the slaying of an Albanian student by a Serb.

“Serbia has endangered the elementary human rights of people in Kosovo,” says Behljulj Becaj, coordinator of the European Movement of Kosovo. “It is still doing it systematically. Only the regime and its federal minister for human rights do not see it or admit it.”

The federal minister for human rights, Margit Savovic, is a loyal supporter of Milosevic, An ethnic Hungarian, Savovic was said standards of human rights in Yugoslavia were among the highest in the world.

Official Serbia rejects the idea of Kosovo as a separate republic, quoting the examples of Slovenia, Croatia or Bosnia- Hercegovina that seceded from the former federation, causing the disintegration of the country.

And in Sandzak, some 300,000 Muslims of Bosnian origin want limited autonomy for the region, their political leaders say. The tiny area borders Serbia, Montenegro and a part of Serb-controlled territory of Bosnia-Hercegovina, where the campaign of ethnic cleansing of local Muslims in 1992 was one of the fiercest during the war.

“Serb nationalists see Sandzak as a nuisance, stationed between Serbia proper and Montenegro, which does not make it possible for Serb and Montenegrins to unite ethnically,” Rasim Ljajic, president of the Party for Democratic Action (SDA) says. “It’s only a way to justify things that are done here in Sandzak.”

In several separate incidents, dozens of Sandzak Muslims have been kidnapped and presumably killed since 1992 by still unknown persons.

U.N. special rapporteur on human rights Elizabeth Rehn visited Kosovo and Sandzak last week. She was on a mission “aimed at creating a special report on the state of human rights in the region.”

Rehn said a special international commission would be created to investigate the kidnapping of over 20 Muslims from a train going from Belgrade to the Montenegrin port of Bar in February 1993.

Further large minorities in Serbia include ethnic Croats and Hungarians in the northern province of Vojvodina, that borders Croatia and Hungary.

According to the human rights organisation statistics, about 45,000 out of 170,000 Vojvodina Croats have fled to Croatia since 1991, in an effort to escape sporadic waves of persecution which peaked last year after angry and armed Serb refugees from the formerly Serb-held Croatian Kraijina region flooded into Serbia.

Some 340,000 ethnic Hungarians and their main political party Democratic Union of Vojvodina Hungarians (DZVM) want “the survival first, and then negotiations with the state for better minority conditions” as their leader Andras Agoston says. The DZVM has the aim of so called “triple autonomy” for ethnic Hungarians in Vojvodina, meaning the autonomy of language, politics and territory.

Official Serbia’s answer remains the same regardless of who is delivering it: Serbia is one state and all its people have to respect such a state. The message is clear: those who don’t want to leave are free to do so.

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