By Emina Ćerimović
NEW YORK, Jul 6 2015 (IPS)

Last week, I went to see the new flick “Love & Mercy,” about the life of Brian Wilson, a singer, songwriter, and the genius behind The Beach Boys. I hadn’t heard much about the film. In fact, I was expecting a summer movie about surfing and fun; The Beach Boys playing Kokomo, Good Vibrations, and Surfin’ U.S.A. on sunny California  beaches.

Emina Ćerimović. Photo Courtesy of HRW

I was wrong. Instead, lives of hundreds of people I’ve met unfolded on the screen.

Love & Mercy depicts Wilson in two narratives: in the first, he is portrayed at the height of his fame as the leader of The Beach Boys in the 1960s. The second features a middle-aged Wilson misdiagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia by Eugene Landy, Wilson’s therapist and legal guardian.

In the movie, Landy keeps Wilson heavily medicated as he controls every aspect of his life, including his finances, residence, family relationships and social interactions, and other basic life decisions. In one scene, Wilson talks about not speaking to his mother and daughters for years because Landy “doesn’t think it is a good idea.”

In another, Landy tells Wilson when and how much he should eat and whom he should date. Landy himself explains his influence:  “I’m the control. He is a little boy in a man’s body… It is my job, my duty to approve everyone Brian is spending time with.”Ivan and Tatjana told me that they did not consent to their confinement to an institution. They were, in fact, never asked about their preferences, wishes and wants.

Wilson did not argue against Landy taking charge for fear that Landy would have him committed to an institution. As Wilson explains in the movie: “I can’t do that [disobey Landy]. He is my legal guardian. He can do things to me… He can send me away… There’s no way out.”

As the movie unfolded, it wasn’t solely Wilson’s story that I saw on the screen. I was reminded of Tatjana and Ivan, whom I met in Croatia. They are among the 18,000 people with disabilities placed under guardianship there and denied their right to make decisions about their lives.

More than 90 percent live under full guardianship, under which the guardians – often nominated by the government – make all life decisions for them.

Tatjana was diagnosed with schizophrenia in her early 30s, deprived of her legal capacity and placed under guardianship. She is now 47 but can’t visit her daughter or her mother without the permission of her guardian – in her case, a social worker.

It is the same if she wants to move to another house, get married, sign an employment contract, make health care decisions, or even officially publish her poems. Tatjana lived for nine years in an institution against her will because her legal guardian placed her there.  

Ivan is 30 and was diagnosed with mild mental health problems. He was just 16 when he was placed indefinitely in Lopaca, a psychiatric hospital where 168 people, including 20 children, are confined. He still lives there.

Ivan and Tatjana told me that they did not consent to their confinement to an institution. They were, in fact, never asked about their preferences, wishes and wants. Both of them were stripped of their right to make decisions about their lives and appointed legal guardians.

Neither Tatjana nor Ivan was present during the court proceedings determining their legal capacity so they could  provide their input for this major decision about their life.  While guardians are supposed to only oversee decisions with legal consequences, such as signing contracts, in Croatia – just like what was depicted in Love & Mercy –guardians can monitor and control every move a person makes.

I saw firsthand that people with disabilities trapped in institutions in Croatia can experience a range of abuses including verbal abuse, forced treatment, involuntary confinement in hospitals, and limited freedom of movement.

At a pivotal point in the movie, Landy forbids Wilson and Melinda Ledbetter, his current wife, from seeing each other. That triggers Ledbetter, the true heroine of the movie, to intensify her efforts to free Wilson from Landy’s control. She learns that Wilson’s will would have awarded the vast majority of his wealth to Landy. The good news: Wilson’s family files a lawsuit successfully challenging the guardianship.

Sadly, there are no heroines to free Tatjana or Ivan of their guardians. There is a chance of a happy ending though. Croatia, unlike the U.S., has ratified the U.N. Disability Rights Treaty, which requires governments to move away from guardianship and instead provide a system of assistance and support for decision-making that respects the autonomy, will, and preferences of the person with the disability. Croatian laws, however, don’t reflect this.

Key policymakers in the Croatian government should see “Love & Mercy.” Maybe then they will abolish Croatia’s guardianship regime and provide a wide range of support measures. Who knew that The Beach Boys’ influence could go so far beyond their music?

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

By Roberto Savio
ROME, Mar 25 2015 (IPS)

The United Kingdom has been accused of “sleepwalking” into the Ukraine crisis – and the accusation comes from no less than the House of Lords, not usually considered a place of critical analysis.

In a scathing report, the upper house of the U.K. parliament has said that the United Kingdom, like the rest of the European Union, has sleepwalked into a very complex problem without looking into the possible consequences, letting bureaucrats taking critical political decisions.

Roberto Savio

It said that it was only when the conflict was well entrenched that political leaders decided to negotiate the Minsk ceasefire agreement, reached by Angela Merkel of Germany, Francois Hollande of France, Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation and Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine, with the notable absence of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron.

In fact, it was left up to bureaucrats of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to take decisions regarding Ukraine, the same kind of bureaucrats as those appointed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission who, with their usual arrogance, decided the European bailout conceded to Greece where it is widely known that the priority was to refund European (especially German) banks.

The media have a great responsibility in this situation. In all latter day conflicts, from Kosovo to Libya, the formula has been very simple. Let us divide conflicts into good and bad, let us repeat the declarations of the ‘good guys’ and demonise the ‘bad guys’. Let us not go into analytical disquisitions, complexities and side issues because readers do not like that. Let us be to the point and crisp.“The media have a great responsibility … the formula has been very simple. Let us divide conflicts into good and bad, let us repeat the declarations of the ‘good guys’ and demonise the ‘bad guys’. Let us not go into analytical disquisitions, complexities and side issues because readers do not like that”

The latest example. All media have been talking of the Iraqi army engaged in taking back the town of Kirkuk from the Caliphate, the Islamic State. But how many are also informing that two-thirds of the Iraqi army is actually made up of soldiers from Iran? And that the Americans engaged in overseeing this offensive are in fact accepting cooperation from Iran, formally an archenemy?

How many have been reporting that the ongoing negotiations over the nuclear capabilities of Iran are really based on the need to restore legitimacy to Iran, because it has become clear that without Iran there is no way to solve Arab conflicts? And how many have informed that all radical Muslims have received financial support from  Saudi  Arabia, which is intent on supporting Salafism, the Muslim school which is at the basis of al-Qaeda and now of the Islamic State?

Recent history shows the West has gone into a number of conflicts (Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011 and Syria in 2012), without looking beyond the immediate consequences, and without any consideration for long-term analysis. The costs of those conflicts have always exceeded the benefits foreseen. An auditor company could not certify any of those conflicts in terms of costs and benefit.

Let us start from the collapse of Yugoslavia, and let us remind ourselves that the West has three principles of international law under which to shield itself as a result of its actions.

One is the principle of inviolability of state borders, which was not applied to Serbia, but is now the case for Ukraine. The second is the principle of self-determination of people, which was used in Kosovo for the Albanian minority living in that part of Serbia but it is not considered valid now for the Russian populations of East Ukraine. The third is the right to intervene for humanitarian interventions, which was used first in Libya, and is now under consideration for Syria.

The drama of the Balkan conflicts was due to a very unilateral action by Germany, which decided to extrapolate Croatia and Slovenia from the Yugoslav federation as its zone of economic interest. The then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, pushed this in an unprecedented way throughout the West.

It was the first time that Germany had play an assertive role, with U.S. support, and it was a Cold War reflex – let us eliminate the only country left after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which still inspires itself to a socialist state and not to a market economy.

Serbia, which considered itself heir to the Kingdom of Serbia (out of which Josep Broz Tito had created the socialist Yugoslavia), intervened and a terrible conflict ensued, with civilians paying a dramatic cost.

That conflict renewed dormant ethnic and religious divisions, about which everybody knew, but Genscher, who was then no longer in the German government, explained at a meeting in which the author participated: “I never thought the Serbians would resist Europe.”

It is interesting to note in this context that just a few weeks ago, the International Court of Justice ruled that neither Serbia nor Croatia had engaged in a genocidal war. The news was reported by many media, but without a word of contextualisation.

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had been destroyed to implement the winning theory of “free market against socialism”. Did the creation of five mini-states improve the lives of the people? Not according to statistics, especially of youth unemployment, which was unknown in the days of Tito.

Then there was Iraq where, in the aftermath of the Twin Towers attack in September 2001, the rationale for attacking the country was based on assertions that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was both harbouring and supporting al-Qaeda, the group held responsible for the attack, and possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to the United States and its allies. These, which turned out to be lies, were blindly propagated by the media

But if, as is widely believed, petroleum was the cause, let us look at figures as an accounting company would do. That war is estimated to have cost at least two trillion dollars, without considering human life and physical destruction.

Iraq’s annual petroleum output at full pre-war capacity was 3.7 million barrels per day. Now a part of that is under the control of the Islamic State and Kurds have taken more than one-third under their control. But even at the full production, it would have taken more than 20 years to recoup the costs of the war.

It is, to say the least, unlikely that the United States would have had all that time – and since the war, has spent more than a further trillion dollars just in occupation and military costs.

And what about Afghanistan where there is no petroleum? Two trillion dollars have also been spent there … and the aim of that war was just to capture al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden!

Among others, it was said that democracy would be brought to Afghanistan. Now, after more than 50.000 deaths, nobody speaks any longer of institutional building, and the United States and its allies are simply trying to extricate themselves from a country whose future is bleak.

Now, the question I want to raise here is the following: what has happened to looking beyond the immediate consequences and long-term analysis in foreign policy?

Is it possible that nobody in power questioned the wisdom of an intervention in Libya for example, even assuming that Muammar Gaddafi was a villain to remove?  Did any of them ask what would happen afterwards? Did any of those in power ask what it would mean to support a war to remove Bashar al-Assad in Syria and what would happen after?

It appears that the House of Lords is right, we are taken into conflict by sleepwalkers. The West is responsible either for creating countries which are not viable (Kosovo), or for disintegrating countries (Yugoslavia and now probably Iraq), or for opening up areas of instability (Libya, Syria).

Without mentioning Ukraine where intervention is aimed at pushing the country towards Europe and NATO, thus provoking the potential retaliation of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Those errors have cost hundreds of thousands of lives, displaced millions of people and, altogether, cost at least seven trillion dollars. Who is going to wake the sleepwalkers up? (END/IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE)

Edited by Phil Harris   

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service. 

Excerpt:

Billboard for the referendum called to strengthen a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption in Slovakia in February. It says: WE ARE DECIDING ABOUT CHILDREN'S FUTURES. LET'S PROTECT THEIR RIGHT TO A MOTHER AND FATHER. Credit: Pavol Stracansky/IPS

By Pavol Stracansky
BRATISLAVA, Mar 15 2015 (IPS)

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) groups in Central and Eastern Europe, which still faced mixed prospects as they fight for rights and acceptance, are now taking some heart from the “failure” of a referendum in Slovakia, a member of the European Union.

Last month, a referendum called to strengthen a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and same-sex adoption in Slovakia was declared invalid after only just over 20 percent of voters turned out.

The controversial plebiscite was heavily criticised by international rights groups, which said it pandered to homophobic discrimination and was allowing human rights issues affecting a minority group to be decided by a popular majority vote.

The campaigning ahead of the vote had often been bitter and vitriolic, including public homophobic statements by clergy, and a controversial negative commercial about gay adoption, which Slovak TV stations refused to broadcast and eventually only appeared on internet.The reasons behind the relative societal intolerance towards LGBT groups in Central and Eastern Europe vary from entrenched conservative attitudes rooted in countries’ isolation under communism, to local political aims and the influence of the Catholic Church.

The commercial showed a child in an orphanage being told that his new parents were coming to collect him and, after two men appear at the door, asking: “Where’s Mum?”

Activists here say that the referendum’s outcome was a sign that, despite this campaigning, Slovaks know that LGBT people pose “no threat” to society and has positively furthered discussion about allowing registered partnerships in the country.

Martin Macko, head of the Bratislava-based LGBT rights group Inakost, told IPS: “The referendum showed that people consider the family important, but that they do not see same-sex families as a threat to traditional families. The long-term perspective regarding discussions on registered partnerships in Slovakia is positive.”

Importantly, the result has also been welcomed in other parts of Central and Eastern Europe where many LGBT groups still face intolerance and discrimination.

Evelyne Paradis, Executive Director of international LGBT rights group ILGA-Europe told IPS: “LGBT activists across Europe have welcomed the outcome of the Slovak vote … hopefully the referendum will lead to a constructive discussion about equality in Slovakia. At the same time, we know that there is a broad diversity of views in the region which means that much work remains to be done before full equality is realised.”

Compared with Western Europe, attitudes in many countries in Central and Eastern Europe to LGBT people and issues are often much more conservative and in some states actively hostile.

The Czech Republic, whose larger cities have relatively open and vibrant gay communities, is the only country in the region which allows for registered partnerships of same-sex couples.

In other countries, such as Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia and Poland, marriage is defined constitutionally as only between a man and a woman. In January this year, Macedonia’s parliament voted to adopt a similar clause in its constitution.

Adoption by same sex couples is banned in all states in the region while other important legislation relating to LGBT issues is also absent. In Bulgaria, for instance, inadequate legislation means that homophobic crimes are investigated and prosecuted as ‘hooliganism’. This, activists claim, creates a climate of fear for LGBT people.

Poor records on minority rights in general in places like, for instance, Ukraine, mean that while the state may ostensibly be committed to LGBT rights, such communities are in reality extremely vulnerable.

In Russia, legislation actively represses same-sex relationships, with federal laws criminalising promotion of any non-heterosexual lifestyle, while Lithuania has legal provisions banning the promotion of homosexuality.

Deeply negative attitudes towards homosexuals are widespread in some societies. A 2013 survey in Ukraine showed that two-thirds of people thought homosexuality was a perversion, while a study in the same year in Lithuania showed that 61 percent of LGBT people said they had suffered discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Isolated verbal and physical attacks and passive intolerance among more conservative groups are common across the region. But in some countries, specifically Russia, anyone even suspected of being non-heterosexual faces open, organised and sometimes lethally violent persecution.

Natalia Tsymbalova, an LGBT rights activist from St Petersburg, was forced to flee Russia in September last year after receiving death threats. Now claiming asylum in Spain, she was one of at least 12 LGBT activists who left Russia last year.

Speaking from Madrid, she told IPS about the continuing repression of LGBT people in her home country.

She said that although state propaganda campaigns had “switched to ‘Ukrainian fascists’ and the West” being portrayed as the public’s greatest enemy instead of LGBT people since the annexation of Crimea and the start of the Ukraine conflict, “state homophobia has not disappeared”.

“It has just faded into the background,” she added, “no longer making top headlines in the news, but it is still there and it has never left. The number of hate crimes is not falling, and they are being investigated as badly as before.”

The reasons behind the relative societal intolerance towards LGBT groups in Central and Eastern Europe vary from entrenched conservative attitudes rooted in countries’ isolation under communism, to local political aims and the influence of the Catholic Church.

In Slovakia, a strongly Catholic country where the Church’s influence can be extremely strong in many communities, supporters of the referendum welcomed Pope Francis’ personal endorsement of their cause.

It has been speculated that the conservative Alliance for Family movement, which initiated the referendum, is funded by Slovakia’s Catholic Church and that the Church was the driving force behind moves to bring about the vote.

In Lithuania, another strongly Catholic country, Church officials have supported laws restricting LGBT rights and have openly called homosexuality a perversion.

However, some rights activists also say that politicians in countries struggling economically or looking to entrench their own power can often use minorities, including LGBT people, as easy political targets to gain voter support.

ILGA’s Paradis told IPS: “Unfortunately many political leaders use the LGBT community as scapegoats … from activists we often hear that they do this to hide ‘real problems’ in countries, such as youth unemployment, access to education and healthcare. They promote ‘traditional family values’ as the way to rescue society. Sadly, in doing this, political leaders build a climate of intolerance and hatred.”

Saying that Russian politicians are now using homophobia to push wider agendas, Tsymbalova told IPS: “Homophobia plays an important role in the anti-Western rhetoric of President [Vladimir] Putin and his fellows. It is one of the main points of the conservative values that they try to promote and the public still has negative attitudes toward LGBT communities.”

The outcome of the Slovak referendum has left activists there more optimistic about the future for LGBT people in their country.

They are now pushing for discussions with the government about introducing registered partnerships and they hope that LGBT communities in other countries in the region will be heartened by the result or that, at least, people hoping to organise similar referendums will reconsider what they are doing.

Macko of Inakost told IPS: “Religious groups in some Balkan and Baltic countries are considering organising similar referendums and we really hope this will discourage them.”

Paradis told IPS that while the Slovak referendum had already been welcomed by many of its member groups in Central and Eastern Europe, progress on LGBT issues in many countries, including registered partnerships, was unlikely to be swift. “There indeed is more discussion in the region on granting rights to same sex partnerships, but what we see is a very mixed picture.”

However, the outlook for LGBT people in some places remains grim. Tsymbalova told IPS that many LGBT people in her home country have given up hope of any positive changes in the foreseeable future.

“In our community, there is almost no one who believes that the situation for LGBT people in Russia will seriously change for the better any time soon. Under the existing regime, which promotes and exploits homophobia, these changes will not happen and there is almost no hope of a regime change, so expectations are gloomy.”

She added: “Many LGBT activists have either left Russia, like me, or are going to. [As] for same-sex registered partnerships, it would take several decades to be accepted in Russia and I don’t believe I will see this in my lifetime. It is completely out of the question for the next 20 or 30 years.”

Edited by Phil Harris    

The 100-year anniversary of World War I (1914-18) may have come and gone, but the role of Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip – the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand – remains controversial in the turbulent history of the Balkans. For some he was a terrorist, for others a hero.

The Bosnian capital of Sarajevo marked the 100 years since assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie over the weekend in series of ceremonies dedicated to the event that triggered the 1914-18 war, and numerous messages of peace were delivered with calls that history should not be repeated and that violence should be excluded from the modern world.

But if many are looking to the future, historians agree that the tragic event of June 28, 1914, still haunts the region, after Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats were plunged into an atrocious inter-ethnic war more than seven decades later.Historians agree that the tragic event of June 28, 1914, still haunts the region, after Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats were plunged into an atrocious inter-ethnic war more than seven decades later

“Unfortunately, it is possible to link World War I and its influence to recent events in the Balkans,” historian Danilo Sarenac of the Belgrade Institute for Modern History told IPS in an interview.

“World War I led to the creation of Yugoslavia, which disintegrated in the 1990s; there is a predominant idea among its former republics that this state was a sort of illusion, a mistake, a kind of ‘dungeon of nations’, and that it had to disappear,” he said.

When Yugoslavia fell apart, six new states – Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia – were created. Ethnic Albanian-populated Kosovo declared unilateral independence from Serbia in 2008, but has not yet been widely recognised as a state.

Socialist Yugoslavia itself was an heir to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, created at the end of WW I. Its biggest portion, Serbia, an ally of Great Britain and France, was rewarded for participation in victory over the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany by obtaining South Slav-populated areas of Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia.

The assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was Gavrilo Princip, a 20-year-old Bosnian Serb and member of Young Bosnia, a revolutionary movement seeking the unification of all South Slav nations. He claimed to be “a Yugoslav (South Slav) nationalist” at his trial in 1914. At the time, Bosnia was part of the Austro-Hungary Empire that disintegrated in WW I.

According to Sarenac, “Princip’s action is being interpreted differently, depending on periods we observe in consecutive Yugoslavias.”

“When needed, Princip is a hero who helped create Yugoslavia; but, as newly carved out states (former Yugoslav republics) renounce Yugoslavia, they describe him as a ‘cruel Serb nationalist’. Divisions along such lines were visible in World War II, and came full circle in the 1990s. They were used or abused by everyone at will,” he added.

Princip is blamed by many outside Serbia as the man who triggered World War I, but historians say the world was practically ready for a major war due to many complicated circumstances.

“Princip’s act was just an ingredient that was needed to ignite it,” says Sarenac.

History books say that the Austro-Hungarian Empire blamed Bosnia’s neighbour Serbia for masterminding the assassination of the Archduke; Germany backed the Empire in declaring war against Serbia on June 28, and in a matter of days Russia, Great Britain, France and many other nations were drawn into an unprecedented conflict that took 16 million lives and left 20 million wounded.

For university history professor Predrag Markovic, there is a paradox among the states created by the disintegration of former Yugoslavia.

“They deny that Yugoslavia was created as a deliberate project after World War I, that it was a secular state, designed to bridge religious and regional differences between its new member nations,” Markovic told IPS.

“At the time, Yugoslavia was created much like the European Union today, as a union of entities that share same values. It is absurd that newly created states (since 1991) deny its progressive essence, because many of them – like Macedonia or Slovenia – would not exist had there not been the Yugoslavia after the WW I and Serbia’s victory in it,” he added.

“Their people would cease to exist or would be blended into the ethnicity of the country they’d gone to; Croatia would have been split by Italy, Hungary and Austria,” according to Markovic.

However, he points out, Yugoslavia was a “noble idea”, but with inadequate solutions and deficiencies.

“It inherited all the problems of the empires it helped bring down – Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman (Turkish) state: large numbers of minorities, and an inability to efficiently steer and govern”, he says.

The inter-ethnic problems continued until the Communists took over after World War II, but the two pillars of their regime – late leader Josip Broz Tito and socialist ideology with a human face – helped Yugoslavia to survive.

Markovic says that when these two pillars collapsed, with death of Tito in 1980 and the end of cold war in the 1980s, nationalisms revived and took over in Yugoslavia, setting the scene for the disintegration that began with secession of Slovenia and Croatia in 1991. Bosnia followed in 1992. The secession was opposed by the largest republic of Serbia which was engaged in bloody wars that took more than 100,000 non-Serb lives.

“The experience of Yugoslavia is very ominous for the European Union, bearing in mind the differences that are arising now between the member states,” Markovic argues.

“The circumstances of 1991 were poorly understood by many, the European Union in particular,” The independence of the newly-created states “was hastily acknowledged without any exit strategy or awareness on the consequences, on the next steps; it is much like the rush into the war in 1914, or recently in Iraq,” he added.

In a recent essay on ‘Shots fired by Gavrilo Princip’, Bosnian historian Slobodan Soja summed up the political abuse of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by saying that there is a paradox in recent efforts to establish “whether Princip was a terrorist or not.”

According to Soja, a university professor and former Bosnian ambassador to several countries, “the noble idea of liberation of oppressed and unity among Slav nations is giving way to manipulation” in the deeply divided Bosnian society, where its Muslims, Serbs and Croats are still not mentally at peace.

“Had they known what kind of people would live 100 years on, I doubt that the members of the Young Bosnia movement would give their lives for the generations to come,” Soja wrote.

“The majority of people living today in Bosnia are simply not up to the task of criticising or praising the Young Bosnians. Those were the idealists whose ideas we badly need today,” he added.

According experts from the Faculty of Agriculture at the Belgrade University, indigenous fruit and vegetable species in the Balkans have lost the battle against the big international seed-producing companies. Courtesy: Vesna Peric Zimonjic

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE, Sep 16 2013 (IPS)

This year, summer in the Balkans has been nice and warm, leaving behind a land of plenty, and enough food on the table. Except that people are talking about tomatoes “that don’t taste as they used to,” watermelons that are too watery, cabbages that are hard to slice through and onions that do not sting your eyes.

It is an angry buzz, resonating across popular forums and social networking sites in Serbia. Farmers are being accused of surrendering to the pressures of seed importers and neglecting home-grown or indigenous species that had served them well so far.“One’s own production of home-grown healthy vegetables means salvation for many small people in times of crises." -- Croatian journalist and environmental activist, Denis Romac

“There’s small chance today that you will find out whether what you have bought is a real, home-grown tomato,” says Jasmina Zdravkovic of the Institute of Farming in the central Serbian town of Smederevska Palanka, some 63 km southeast of the capital Belgrade.

“Most probably you’ll end up with one which has a white, inedible middle. It comes from the gene that was introduced to keep the tomato firm,” she tells IPS. Such tomatoes are never ripe; they only get red from the outside, Zdravkovic adds.

According to Zdravkovic and experts from the Faculty of Agriculture at the Belgrade University, indigenous species have lost the battle against the big international seed-producing companies. Native species have been reduced to being cultivated either in private gardens or in small local areas.

Since 2000, when the international sanctions imposed on Serbia following the 1998-1999 Kosovo war were lifted, imported seeds have made an unopposed, uncontrolled entry into the Serbian market. Hybrid seeds from biotech giants such as Monsanto, DuPont or Syngenta have taken over completely.

According to the latest statistics from the Chamber of Commerce, the country imported 230 tonnes of seed and propagation material worth 810,000 dollars in the first three months of 2013 alone.

“Under such circumstances, there is no hope of seeing any commercial production of indigenous species,” Djordje Glamoclija of the agriculture faculty tells IPS.

However, the country has been making sustained effort to preserve its genetic plant heritage. A national programme for conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources is in the final stages. And one of its main proposals is to consolidate a national gene bank.

Serbia’s plant genetic resources (PGR), says Milena Savic, the future head of the gene bank, are currently “scattered around the country, in agricultural institutes and faculties.”

The national collection has 5,000 samples of 273 plant species native to Serbia. “They will represent the basis for PGR, in tune with the national and global policy of preserving original species,” she says.

“Samples have so far been kept for the medium [20 years] and long term [50 years],” Savic tells IPS. Plant genes are kept in special chambers at temperatures of minus 20 degree Celsius, while plant samples are kept at four degree Celsius.

Working with these indigenous species, Serbia hopes to develop improved seed varieties by crossing them with high-yielding plant types. Serbia is also part of the regional PGR conservation initiative called the South East European Development Network.

West of Serbia, the outcry against the dominance of imported seeds in Croatia had peaked before the country’s entry into the European Union (EU) on Jul. 1 this year.

It continued throughout the summer, with 18 non-governmental organisations asking the authorities to prevent the “greed of multinational corporations that threaten to endanger resources that represent the foundation of Croatian food industry.”

Croatia does not have a single seed-producing facility any more, and relies completely on imported seed. The nation spends 60 million dollars annually on the import of seed and propagation material, according to the Croatian Society of Agronomy.

One particular cause for concern was the new EU regulation on seeds and propagation material that required, in the name of consumer and food safety, the registration of all fruits, vegetables and trees before they could be reproduced or distributed.

The regulation was finally changed under pressure from European NGOs, including the 18 in Croatia. It now allows home gardeners to save and swap unregistered seed and small organisations with less than 10 employees to grow unregistered vegetable seed.

“Seeds represent the richness of today and tomorrow,” says Denis Romac, a Croatian journalist and environmental activist. “One’s own production of home-grown healthy vegetables means salvation for many small people in times of crises. No wonder people are taking to lots in cities or even growing something on their balconies and gardens if they have them.”

The economic crisis of the past year has indeed hit the region hard, with the unemployment rate in Serbia hitting 27 percent of its 7.22 million population and 18.5 percent of Croatia’s 4.26 million people.

Serbian farmers and home gardeners, meanwhile, have taken recourse to the oldest yet safest method: of saving seeds at the end of one season and planting them in the next.

“I keep seeds from year to year and use them in the garden,” Milentije Savovic tells IPS. He has several hectares of different vegetable gardens near Belgrade and sells his produce in the city’s popular Kalenic green market.

In his stall, one can find the popular “oxheart” tomatoes, “cake” or flat onions, small pearl beans and very dry “cerovaca” melons, popular among elders as the fruit of their youth.

“As for domestic [indigenous] species,” says Savovic, “there is no doubt that they are the best adapted to our climate, soil and means of protection. So why change them if they are good?”

The agriculture faculty’s Glamoclija, however, strikes a note of caution here. “One should not confuse the growing of traditional or old, autonomous species with the modern trends of healthy food growing,” he tells IPS.

“Well-adapted home-grown species need good care and adequate protection. Non-treated fruits can contain toxic bacteria instead of pesticides. So the so-called ‘return to nature’ can be like riding a bike in the downtown of a city amidst gases exhaled by heavy vehicles,” he adds.

More than 10,000 people living in the coastal Adriatic town Dubrovnik have done what many others in the region could never. They are holding a referendum on a controversial development project that they believe endangers their city.

Dubrovnik is a sough after tourist destination in Croatia, and is listed as a United Nations Science and Culture Organisation (UNESCO) World Heritage site since 1979 due to its historical beauty and charm. The medieval Adriatic town has 43,770 inhabitants, and is often dubbed the ‘Pearl of the Adriatic’.

“The number of signatures needed for the referendum has overcome our expectations,” member of the organisation Board for Call on Referendum Ivan Vidjen told IPS. Under Croatian law a referendum call is valid if organisers collect at least 20 percent of signatures of residents within a region.

The board collected more than 10,000 signatures in the past two weeks.

“Local people have recognised the idea of taking their fate into their own hands…we expected them to be interested in the issue (of a referendum), but did not expect their almost plebiscite response,” Vidjen said.

The referendum will be over a golf park being built on the 415 metres high Srdj hill overlooking Dubrovnik.

Participants in the referendum will have to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the following question: “Are you for the adoption of the spatial plan that foresees, apart from construction of a golf course, the construction of accommodation objects (villas, apartments, and hotels) on the plateau of Srdj hill?”

Earlier referenda in the Balkans usually dealt with issues such as secession of Croatia and other former Yugoslav republics in the early 1990s, which led to 1991-95 bloody wars in the Balkans, new constitutions of some nations such as Serbia, certification of the European Union (EU) membership in Croatia and Slovenia, or joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). As a rule, they were organised by ruling elites.

“This will be the first referendum initiated by citizens, stemming “from below”; people have shown they want to have a say in their local issues,” said Igor Miosic from board. “It’s also a sign that things were not right in the past 20 years and that democracy should go into their hands.”

Croatia gained independence in the wars of the 1990s, and entered a painful transition into a market economy. This led to mass privatisations, closure of once prosperous factories, legal or illegal land sales, emergence of tycoons, and mass unemployment.

Illegal construction along the Adriatic coast has devastated some of the most beautiful spots, and the people of Dubrovnik feared this might happen to them as well under the cloak of promoting tourism.

Croatia’s economy relies heavily on tourism, which brings some 7 billion dollars a year to the tiny nation of 4.2 million, blessed with a lovely Adriatic coast and stunning islands.

Investors have promised a project in Dubrovnik which would see 18 and nine hole golf courses, a sports centre, a hotel, tennis courts, a horse-riding club, restaurants, galleries, cycling and running tracks, bars and parks.

For the time being, Srdj hill hosts only a cable car from Dubrovnik to the Napoleon-era Imperial fortress on its top, a few souvenir shops, and the small village Bosanka with 20 private homes.

The Dubrovnik golf course was listed among 100 top development priorities by the government some six years ago, but the global economic crisis has slowed down the Israeli firm Golf d.o.o registered in capital Zagreb from investing almost a billion dollars in the Srdj project.

Over the years the area for the project grew from the original and legally approved 100 hectares to 300 hectares.

“It looks like it will host 268 villas and a 1,600 apartments complex, and the equivalent of 5,600 units of 60 square metres,” Marija Kojakovic, local architect said at a January panel on the Srdj golf course project. “Is it really what Dubrovnik needs at the moment?”

Several concerns have been expressed about the effect the development would have on Srdj environment and its biodiversity. The hill is now mostly forest and agricultural land. Home owners in Bosanka village said the expanded plan does not provide for small roads leading from their property to the nearby asphalt road.

“Our law on referendum calls for all collected signatures to be sent to the Public Administration Ministry in Zagreb, which has 60 days to bring a decision on approval for the referendum, and then send it to local authorities who are obliged to call it,” Vidjen said.

“We see no problems with investments coming to Dubrovnik and development of our town,” Vidjen said. “We have a problem with functioning of local authorities.”

“The Srdj hill project is one that defines the future of the town, and we were betrayed by the corrupt administration that does not work in the interest of the public,” said Slaven Tolj, who heads the local Art Workshop Lazareti.

The Golf d.o.o. head Maja Brinar has promised 1,500 new jobs for the local population. But the referendum organisers hope the referendum will halt the building plans.

Stojan Kovacevic spent last weekend going about his usual routine in his tiny dwelling in the village of Grocka, near Belgrade: cleaning the kitchen and bedroom, going to the local green market and watching TV.

Fausto Pocar, one of five international judges opposed the acquittal of Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac. Credit: UN Photo/Marco Castro

But it was not as pleasant as it sounds. Kovacevic (55), a Serb who fled Croatia in 1995, has had no home of his own for 17 years now. He rents a tiny flat and does many odd jobs to survive.

And last Friday, a news item that came to him on his small television set has only added to his troubles.

On Nov. 16, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY), based in The Hague, overturned the convictions of two 57-year-old Croatian generals, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac, who had been sentenced in April 2011 to 24 and 18 years respectively for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The generals were pronounced guilty for their roles in the notorious Operation Storm, a four-day military offensive in August 1995 in which hundreds of Serb civilians were killed and over 200,000 expelled from the predominantly Serb region of Krajina in Croatia.

The operation ended the rebellion of Krajina Serbs against Croatia’s 1991-1995 independence drive from former Yugoslavia. It also signalled the end of centuries of Serb history in Croatia, as long columns of refugees on tractors and trucks flooded into Serbia.

That was how Kovacevic arrived in Grocka, a village 30 kilometres east of Belgrade, after putting his mother, father, sister and her three children into a small truck fleeing the Croatian artillery attacks on his hometown of Gracac.

Their home was later burned down, as were scores of others in the cities of Knin, Obrovac, and Benkovac.

Like most Krajina Serbs, Kovacevic and his family never went back.

The controversy over Operation Storm blocked Croatia’s road to membership in the European Union (EU) for years, and also impeded normalisation of relations between Croatia and neighbouring Serbia.

But the acquittal of the two generals last week suggests that the history of Operation Storm is about to be re-written; the decision led to a patriotic frenzy in Croatia and left thousands of Serbs flabbergasted.

“I have barely been able to sleep or eat since Friday, when I saw the broadcast from The Hague,” Kovacevic told IPS. “I felt a blow to the stomach and it won’t go away… My world fell apart once again and the sense of injustice will stay as long as I’m alive,” he added.

As Gotovina and Markac returned to their homeland last Friday to a heroes’ welcome – with Croatian President Ivo Josipovic declaring, “The generals are innocent” – the mood in Serbia was one of shock and disbelief, with President Tomislav Nikolic calling the acquittal “scandalous”.

Savo Strbac, head of the Documentation Centre ‘Veritas’, a representative group for Krajina Serbs in Belgrade, labelled the decision a “slap in the face”.

“It also looks as if everything surrounding international justice in cases of war crimes will (now) be called into question as well,” Natasa Kandic, a prominent Serbian human rights activist, told IPS.

“The court ruling did not bring justice to the victims,” she added.

Decision ‘undermines’ ICTY

Internal disagreements between judges within the appeals chamber have fanned the flames of controversy.

Two out of five international judges – Fausto Pocar and Karmel Agius – opposed the acquittal, standing against two important decisions made on Friday: that the indiscriminate shelling of Krajina towns was not unlawful and that there was no joint criminal enterprise (JCE) with Gotovina, Markac and the then Croatian head of state, Franjo Tudjman, to forcibly expel the Serb civilian population and settle the area with Croats.

JCE is a term established by the ICTY and represents the basis for most war crimes trials, including the trial of late Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and the ongoing trials against ex-Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.

More than 30 sentences by the ICTY, including one life sentence and several sentences of 35 and 40 years, used the JCE as a basis for judgements.

Judge Pocar said in his separate opinion in the appeals decision, “I fundamentally dissent from the entire appeal judgment, which contradicts any sense of justice.”

For Belgrade attorney Novak Lukic, who defends some indictees before the ICTY, “It’s unbelievable that judges could differ so much in opinion – both within the appeals chamber and in regard to the sentence pronounced previously by their colleagues.”

“The ICTY has basically changed its legal postulates with this acquittal; this sentence calls into question many other sentences dealing with deportations or evictions,” he told IPS.

For Katarina Subasic, an international journalist who covers war crimes, the acquittal could impact ongoing trials, such as those of Mladic and Karadzic, who stand accused of war crimes for the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, in July 1995.

“The idea of JCE has lost ground and that will undermine any process against military and political leaders (for the charge) of war crimes before the international courts…We see what is happening in Gaza now, Syria and what happened in Libya. The acquittal will bring controversy that will remain” and have echoes in future trials, she added.

According to the prominent historian Dubravka Stojanovic, “The acquittal shows that the ICTY can no longer represent the instrument of reconciliation in the region.”

“The ICTY was, for me, an instrument that could clear up some events from the wars (of the 1990s), involving all its participants (Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs),” she told IPS.

“Now it looks unwise to me; first a harsh JCE-based sentencing of 24 and 18 years, now an acquittal…the ICTY has lost credibility,” she concluded.

(END)