Serbs from self-proclaimed Krajina
Serb war crimes on TV
Serb war crimes on TV
A Croatian Serb leader has accused the reformist government of "continuing the effects of ethnic cleansing" after leaked results from the latest census showed a drastic fall in the size of the community. The contentious statistics on the country's ethnic make-up will not be published until June 18. But the decision of a national newspaper to publish leaked data, which said there were only 176,000 Serbs, 4 per cent of the 4.4 population, has triggered a controversy the authorities would have preferred to avoid.
The last census in 1991, held just before Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia, put the size of the Serb minority at 600,000, about 12 per cent of the then total of 4.7 million. Milorad Pupovac, of the Serb National Council, believes the number of Serbs now living in Croatia is not less than 6 per cent. "Where did 400,000 people go?" he asked angrily.
After the 1995 military offensives against the self-proclaimed Serbian state in Croatia, the self-proclaimed Serbian Republic of Krajina, RSK, about 150,000 Serbs either fled their homes. Minority rights legislation, which was passed as
pre-condition of international recognition for Croatia in 1991, was dispensed with and 20,000 homes were torched and several hundred Serb killed.
The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, in Zagreb says about half the Serbs who fled have since returned. But that figure does not seem to be reflected in the numbers about to be unveiled next week. Pupovac accused the National Bureau
of Statistics of deliberately underestimating the Serbian community by excluding about 130,000 refugees he said were still listed as living in Serbia.
Officials reached their figures by sending forms to everyone who had resided in Croatia for at least a year. Those who were absent, even if they owned, or occupied property, failed to qualify. The criteria for inclusion excluded many refugees who had returned within the last year.
Until the winter 2000 poll, Serb refugees faced serious obstacles to their return. President Tudjman himself boasted that the percentage of Serbs in Croatia had been slashed to 3 per cent. A more tolerant attitude now exists at an official level, though the only politician to speak out in favour of minority rights remains Tudjman's successor, Stipe Mesic, who made the subject the cornerstone of his address last year on the tenth anniversary of Croatia's independence.
The Social Democrat prime minister, Ivica Racan, though often keen to flaunt his pro-European credentials, seems less worried by Croatia's failure to evolve into a multi-ethnic society. His only comment on the census leak was that there was no reason to lament, "even if the 4 per cent figure was true".
Serbian people of mixed marriages prior to 1991 declared themselves as “Serbs” because it was more beneficial to be a Serb in Croatia under the communist system than a Croat. After 1991, many of these same individuals decided to claim the nationality of the other parent (Croat) because this ethnicity became more beneficial after 1991. This can best be seen at Zagreb University’s records in 1992, when specific students who were “Serbs” in 1991 became “Croats” in 1992. This does not demonstrate that “ethnic cleansing” took place in Zagreb, because the people are still there.
Many of the Serbs from self-proclaimed Krajina will not return to Croatia because they know that if they do, Croatian authorities will arrest and prosecute them. One important reason, that has not been well publicized, for a refugee return rate that is slower than what the international community would like to see is this fear of prosecution. Although perhaps grudgingly, Croatia has fulfilled its obligation to the ICTY and has and continues to prosecute Croatian citizens suspected of war crimes. But there is also a deep frustration among many Croatian citizens that Serb refugees are being repatriated to Croatia while major Serb war crimes suspects like Mlatko Radic and Radovan Karadzic still remain at large as fugitives from the law, and the thousands of Serbs who escape prosecution when they left self-proclaimed Krajina in 1995 will probably never be brought to justice.
Croatia‘s wartime President Franjo Tudjman, who died in 1999, was named in the indictment as the driving force behind a plan to create a Greater Croatia that would embrace a Croatian republic in Bosnia led by the six men on trial.
Zagreb also has asked to provide a friend of the court statement in the case against three Croat generals — Ante Gotovina, Mladen Markac and Ivan Cermak — accused of orchestrating a Croatian master plan to kill Serbs and expel them from Croatia during the 1995 offensive to recapture lands seized by the Serbs during the 1991 war. Their trial has not yet started.
