BALKANS: Ten Years Later, Lost Homeland Beckons

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Aug 3 2005 (IPS) - Ten years ago Dragoslav Dupor woke up one day to the sound of Croatian artillery shelling his village Karin Gornji on the Adriatic Coast.

He put his wife and children into his old Soviet Lada car, and travelled to Serbia 400km to the east. The journey took him eight days. It normally takes six hours, but there was a war on.

The roads from Krajina, the Serb-populated area of Croatia, were clogged with cars, tractors and other vehicles. More than 200,000 people were on the move in long columns towards Serbia, fleeing about 100,000 Croatian soldiers involved in Operation Storm.

The operation was aimed at finally crushing the rebellion by Krajina Serbs, who had stood against independence for Croatia since 1991. They had been backed by the Belgrade regime of Slobodan Milosevic and promised unity with Serbia, their distant mother.

Four years of conflict until 1995 claimed the lives of 20,000 people in the region, most of them Croats. On Aug. 5, 1995, the Croatian flag was hoisted over the ancient fortress overlooking the rebellion stronghold Knin.

Operation Storm, celebrated in Croatia as the final achievement of the territorial integrity of Croatia led to the death of more than 700 Serbs, according to the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights. The Krajina Serb non-governmental organisation Veritas says 1,205 people were killed, including 522 women and 12 children.

The United Nations (UN) protection forces, stationed in Krajina since 1991, had stood by as Operation Storm continued.

The 2nd Batallion of the Royal 22nd Regiment from Canada was told by Croatian soldiers to "relax" until the operation was over. And they did. When the operation was over, the UN troops were told they no longer had any formal authority in the region, and they left.

Serb refugees who arrived in Serbia did not find life easy. And things have hardly improved since. "We have barely put our lives together," Dupor, 60, told IPS. He and his family, now extended by the marriage of his sons live in the Belgrade suburb Krnjaca. Dupor, who was a bus driver, never found a proper job.

"We survived on part time jobs, me and my sons," Dupor said. "We were cheated by our politicians; Serbia was a stepmother to us. We were simple people and knew nothing about politics. We’re lucky to have stayed alive."

The Dupors built a small house in Krnjaca, like many Krajina refugees. They live close to what came to be called a collective centre. There are still dozens of collective centres for Krajina Serbs. The economically devastated Serbia has been able to provide little for them since 1995.

Serbs from Serbia proper could not themselves find jobs, proper housing or a normal life as the country collapsed under the economic sanctions against Milosevic’s regime. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) bombing in 1999 following Milosevic’s repression against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo only added to the problem.

The economy has hardly been on the route to recovery over the past five years since Milosevic fell from power.

The human catastrophe of Krajina Serbs went unnoticed in international media, because Serbs were blamed for the four-year long war. Pre-war Croatia had 600,000 Serbs in a population of 4.5 million.

"Operation Storm marked the end of history of Croatian Serbs," historian Predrag Markovic told IPS. Orthodox Christian Serbs had lived in that area for five centuries. They were invited to settle in the deserted areas of Croatia around the border with Turkish-held Bosnia by the end of the 15th century. Catholic Croatia was then under Hungarian rule.

"On the other hand, there is now hope for Serbs to return, as more normal people are running both countries now," Markovic added. Croatian president Franjo Tudjman who said "the problem with Serbs was solved forever" in 1995 died in 1999. Milosevic fell from power in 2000.

Under international pressure Croatia has withdrawn regulations that prevented Krajina Serbs from even visiting their homes.

It warmed up to providing Croatian documents to people originating from Croatia, and started returning Serb property to the original owners. Pensions are being paid to people who earned them while working in local, Croatian firms until 1991.

Tudjman’s regime tried to settle ethnic Croats from Bosnia and overseas (Canada, the United States and Australia) into Krajina, but many refused to return. It remains a scarcely populated area in the mountains of central Croatia.

But over the past five years electricity and phone lines have been restored and some 30,000 Serbs, mostly elderly people, have returned.

"Big steps have been taken in the improvement of the status of Serbs in Croatia," Rajko Gajica, MP in the Croatian Parliament from the Autonomous Serbian Democratic Party told IPS.

"Life is hard both for Croats and Serbs in this country, due to the economy. There are still ethnic and political barriers between the two communities, but things are better with each passing year. But we have a long way to go in order to achieve better lives, tolerance and reconciliation," he added.

"The young find it hard to adapt to Krajina," says Mirjana Krstic (65), visiting her two sons who remained in Krnjaca. "There are few jobs there, not many places to go out and my grandchildren do not even want to visit. But for me, there is no place like home."