The Serbian nation in Croatia, until the adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia on December 25, 1990, was sovereign and constitutional. That constitutivity was guaranteed since the middle of the 19th century, and it was confirmed several times during the 20th century. The declaration of Serbs as a national minority, among other things, created the reason for the outbreak of civil war in Croatia. After the formation of the Republic of Serbian Krajina (December 19, 1991), the Serbian people were separated from Croatia, and armed conflicts continue. Based on the Vance plan, from the beginning of 1992, this area was under the protection of the United Nations. Although it was under the protection of the United Nations, the Croatian armed forces carried out permanent attacks on the protected zone until the final operations "Flash" and "Storm" in May and August 1995. During the war and in these actions, more than 400.000 Serbs were expelled from Croatia. Thus, in the end, the strategy of that rigid policy was realized, which aimed to reduce the number of Serbs to three to four percent. The best confirmation for this statement is provided by the last population census conducted by Croatia in 2011. According to that census, there were 186.633 Serbs with a tendency of constant decline, as they are mostly elderly returnees.
Since the end of the civil war in Croatia, even though the government has changed in elections, the attitude towards the Serbs has not changed. On the basis of discriminatory laws passed by the Croatian Parliament, they were forcibly deprived of their property and all other civil rights and turned into second-class citizens. Although Croatia signed several international and bilateral agreements in which it undertook to respect the civil rights of its fellow citizens of Serbian nationality, it did not adhere to it. Instead of being punished, she was rewarded by becoming a full member of the EU. The protests and petitions of more than half a million refugees and exiled Serbs from Croatia did not meet with the understanding of the international community. The return of the Serbs did not happen because he was selective and did not allow all those who had that desire to return. Mostly the older population has returned, whose mortality in difficult living conditions has become more pronounced, and recently the tendency is for Serbs to return to Serbia in greater numbers from Croatia than vice versa.
This initiative recently received the support of the UNHCR, which was another cold shower for the refugee population.
PROBLEMS: Croatia is the only one of the former republics of the SFRY to abolish the tenancy right, thus damaging more than 30.000 tenancy right holders. In 2003, it passed the Housing Care Program, which cannot in any way be a substitution for deprived tenancy rights because it is a humanitarian and not a legal category.
NO VISIBLE RESULTS: Milojko Budimir
The disposal of property has been called into question because around 1000 property owners cannot freely dispose of their houses where temporary users have moved in. As far as the renovation itself is concerned, against those who for economic reasons are not yet able to return to the renovated houses, the courts initiate proceedings for the return of the funds, and that with late interest and reimbursement of litigation costs.
More than 50.000 pensioners who fled Croatia are still waiting for the payment of their due and unpaid pensions for the period in which they did not receive any pensions on any basis. Many pensioners have been harmed because evidence of contribution payments or work experience has been destroyed, so now their pensions have been significantly reduced.
The issue of dinar and foreign currency savings for about 10.000 depositors whose savings deposits were in Jugobanca is unresolved. All citizens - except refugee Serbs - are allowed to withdraw savings deposits.
The return of agricultural land for refugees and exiled Serbs represents a significant problem. Based on the decision of the courts, the state of Croatia is registered as the owner and the previous owners are deleted. In addition, municipalities and cities lease land even though it is illegal.
War crimes indictments and secret indictments are ethnically motivated and biased, as are frequent individual attacks on Serbs, which prevents return and creates insecurity among those living in Croatia.
The most painful problem is the slow exhumation and identification of missing persons. It is unacceptable that, after 19 years, there are still 16 locations in Croatia that were created by clearing the ground after operations "Bljesak" and "Storm", during which 238 victims were buried. A special problem is the slow identification of the remains, which have been at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Zagreb for years.
Recently, a problem has also been the adoption of the Law on Residence, according to which all those who have taken the citizenship of another country lose their previous residence, which will lead to even greater confusion and create new problems.
AGREEMENT ON THE NORMALIZATION OF RELATIONS: For years, the Republic of Croatia has been consciously obstructing the implementation of the signed Agreement on the Normalization of Relations between Croatia and the FR Yugoslavia of August 23, 1996. This Agreement is defined in 14 points, of which three points - 7, 8 and 9 - refer to the status issues of refugees and exiled Serbs from Croatia, i.e. Krajina, in order to speed up their return to their homeland. Although it was precisely specified that a safe return to the homeland would be ensured, then that fair compensation would be made for destroyed and looted private property, a general amnesty would be declared for participants in armed conflicts from 1991 to 1995, disability-health and pension insurance would be resolved, that did not happen, which is the main reason for the very difficult position of refugees and exiled Serbs from Croatia.
Serbia was also involved in solving these problems, along with other countries in the region that were created after the breakup of the SFRY. This resulted in the adoption of the Vienna Agreement on Succession from 2001, which was ratified by the Croatian Parliament in 2004. Annex G of that agreement states that all citizens will be protected, restored or compensated for their rights that they had on December 31, 1990. Unfortunately, this document, like the Sarajevo Declaration from 2005, remained a dead letter. Although this problem was present at the two ministerial conferences held in 2010 and 2011, nothing was accomplished when it comes to our rights.
Recently, the situation has been further complicated by Croatia's lawsuit against Serbia for genocide and Serbia's counterclaim before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. All this creates a justified fear among the refugee population that Serbia, on its way to the EU, will put these problems aside in order to win the favor of Croatia, which closed Chapter 23 "Judiciary and fundamental human rights" without even respecting the Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities, which brought it herself.
Therefore, unfortunately, there is still no permanent appropriate state body that would deal with the implementation of the Succession Agreement and the protection of the interests of our rights. Without Serbia's help, it is impossible to get the original property or to ensure at least fair compensation. Serbia should have raised the issue at the level of the United Nations because property rights are guaranteed by numerous international documents to which Serbia is also a signatory, and Croatia, as a member of the EU, is obliged to respect private property, which it constantly avoids.
SUPPORT FROM SERBIA: If we are talking about the debate in the National Assembly of Serbia on the issue of the status of refugees and exiled Serbs from Croatia, first of all, a resolution should be passed that would present the very difficult position of refugees and exiled Serbs from Croatia, i.e. from Krajina, whose status issues the Republic of Croatia did not even 19 years later did not solve their expulsion from the age-old hearths. In that resolution, status issues related to Serbs in Croatia should be defined and sent to the European Parliament and the European Union.
The first issue related to the Serbs from Croatia is certainly the return of their historical rights, which is the status of the constituent people that the Serbs had in all the adopted constitutions of Croatia after the Second World War, and based on the decision of ZAVNOH as the largest legislative body of Croatia in Topuski from May 8 and 9, 1944, when the Resolution equalizing the rights of the Croatian and Serbian people was adopted. Along with the return of the historic right of Serbs in Croatia to constitutionality and statehood, Serbs in the western parts of Krajina also have the right to political autonomy, because in that area Krajina Serbs are not only the majority population, but also the owners of 1/3 of the land of the current territory of the Republic of Croatia.
The second, also important issue related to the Krajina Serbs is that the Parliamentary Resolution strongly condemns the Croatian military operations "Bljesak" and "Storm" from 1995, which carried out ethnic cleansing. At the time of those actions, terrible crimes were committed against Serbs from Krajina. At that time, more than 2000 civilians were killed and around 40.000 Serbian houses were destroyed, 380 Serbian villages were completely burned, and almost the largest part of private property was looted and destroyed. The value of destroyed property and other claims exceeds 30 billion euros.
Thirdly, the resolution should invalidate several thousand verdicts against Serbs from Krajina that Croatian judicial authorities have condemned in absentia without material evidence. In addition, today, based on the request of the Croatian judiciary, around 960 Krajina Serbs and former JNA leaders are on international Interpol warrants as war criminals, and this is one of the important reasons why there is no greater interest in returning to their homeland.
Fourth, in the resolution of the Assembly of Serbia, it is necessary to emphasize the fact that during the civil war in Croatia, about 7000 Krajina Serbs lost their lives, of which about 3000 were liquidated in the most monstrous way, and that about 2000 of them are still missing. Because of this fact, the European Parliament and the European Union must be asked an open question: why do not the prosecution and judicial authorities of Croatia prosecute the perpetrators of war crimes against Serbs in Croatia?
All the mentioned problems were discussed by the representatives of the Association of Refugees and other associations of Serbs from Croatia in Zagreb on January 15, 2014 in the Office for Human Rights and the Rights of National Minorities with representatives of the relevant state institutions of the Republic of Croatia. The meeting was attended by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs, Ranko Ostojiฤ, who answered most of the questions. The following should be highlighted from his discussion: The Government of Croatia is understanding and is making efforts to solve the problems. It will take a long time for this process to be completed. He believes that the tenancy right is a political issue that needs to be resolved. He stated that 102.542 people returned to Croatia and that many returnees took only documents. That is why it is advocated to apply the Law on Residence in order to finally determine how many voters Croatia has. The government will try to find a solution so that all those living outside Croatia will be satisfied. It was concluded that such meetings are useful and that this practice should be continued, and if necessary, representatives of state institutions should visit refugees in Serbia.
After that, two meetings were held in Belgrade organized by the Serbian People's Council from Zagreb, which were attended by representatives from Croatian institutions in charge of this issue.
In the end, we can conclude that, unfortunately, despite all our efforts, there were no more visible results and that all our expectations were disappointed. What is particularly worrying is the fact that time is passing, so that no significant return can be spoken of at this moment.
The author is the president of the Association of Refugees and other Associations of Serbs from Croatia
