The Post-War Repatriation of Serb Minority Internally Displaced Persons and Refugees in Croatia—Between Discrimination and Political Settlement

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Notes

¹Before the war Croatia's population totalled 4,784,265. Out of this figure, 3,736,356 or 78.1% declared themselves to be ethnic Croats, while ethnic Serbs totalled 581,663 or 12.16% (Population Census 1991, Zagreb, Central Bureau of Statistics 2002, available at: www.dzs.hr, accessed 29 September 2009).

²From 1995 to 2005, the Croatian government reportedly spent for this purpose around [euro]2 billion.

³The most notorious example was mob violence against Serb returnees in the Kostajnica area in May 1997 which lasted for several days. One victim died and the perpetrators were never prosecuted (Amnesty International 1997).

⁴The UNHCR figures for Serb returnees have been consistently lower than the official data provided by the ODPR. The latest available figure from the latter stands at 143,632 in 2008 (US Department of State 2009), which gives a discrepancy of around 10,000.

⁵This figure consists of 90,909 registered returns from Serbia; 9,148 from Bosnia & Herzegovina and 23,585 IDPs from the Croatian Danube region (Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Tourism, Transportation and Development 2007, p. 1). The UNHCR's data provide a higher figure of 143,274 registered Serb returnees during the same period (UNHCR 2008). The discrepancy is usually attributed to the different counting methods applied.

⁶Another problem represents a worryingly low rate of return sustainability among Serb returnees which stood at 54% in 2009 (US Department of State 2010).

⁷The self-proclaimed Croatian Serb renegade entity adopted the name Republika Srpska Krajina in December 1991.

⁸Law on Temporary Takeover—Zakon o privremenom preuzimanju i upravljanju određenom imovinom, Narodne novine, 73/95.

⁹Also among returnees were other ethnic minority groups returning to areas of Western Slavonia and later, Eastern Slavonia. Their return was not considered problematic since the majority of Croatian minorities remained loyal to the government throughout the war.

¹⁰‘Kistanje kao metafora.’ Zagreb, Identitet, March–April, p. 26. Identitet is published by a leading Serb NGO in Croatia, the Serbian Democratic Forum (SDF) on a monthly basis. The first issue appeared in 1996.

¹¹Author's interview with Civic Committee for Human Rights, Zagreb, 25 November 2005.

¹²Law on the Status of Expellees and Refugees—Zakon o statusu prognanika i izbjeglica, Narodne novine, 96/93.

¹³The Programme of Return and Housing of Displaced Persons, Refugees and Resettled Persons—Program povratka i zbrinjavanja prognanika, izbjeglica i raseljenih osoba, Narodne novine, 92/98.

¹⁴The Programme of Return and Housing of Displaced Persons, Refugees and Resettled Persons—Program povratka i zbrinjavanja prognanika, izbjeglica i raseljenih osoba, Narodne novine, 92/98.

¹⁵Law on Areas of Special State Concern—Zakon o područjima posebne državne skrbi, Narodne novine, 88/02. In the first version of the LASSC in 1996, Narodne novine, 44/96, the distribution of abandoned Serb property was regulated by establishing a list of priority groups eligible for the housing.

¹⁶An example of such arbitration was the political crisis in Vukovar Town Council after the 1997 local elections. A slight majority of ethnic Croat parties regularly outvoted the Serb parties which caused the latter to eventually leave the council and return only after the central government (HDZ-ruled) intervened and arbitrated the conflict (Djuric 2004).

¹⁷Interestingly, a couple of years later, the same prefect was one of the first representatives of local authorities from Croatia who went to Serbia to visit the collective centres with Serb refugees in order to invite them to return to Croatia. These visits were organised by international NGOs working in Croatia in an effort to promote voluntary repatriation of Croatian Serbs.

¹⁸There were originally five political parties in the Croatian Coalition government in 2000–2003: the Social Democrat Party (Socijaldemokratska partija Hrvatske, SDP), Croatian Social Liberal Party (Hrvatska socijalno liberalna stranka, HSLS), Croatian Peasant Party (Hrvatska seljačka stranka, HSS), Croatian National Party (Hrvatska narodna stranka, HNS) and Istrian Democratic Assembly (Istarski demokratski sabor, IDS). The strongest party with the largest number of deputies was the SDP. The IDS abandoned the Coalition soon after it was formed while the HSLS left following its split and the foundation of a splinter Liberal Party (Liberalna stranka, LS) in 2002.

¹⁹The international community imposed restrictions on development assistance that were particularly tight during the Tuđman era and the time of the HDZ government in the 1990s. Only after the Coalition government came to power in 2000, was significant foreign aid diverted to Croatia (including multimillion assistance programmes for refugee repatriation).

²⁰Law on Local and Regional Self-government—Zakon o lokalnoj i područnoj (regionalnoj) samoupravi, Narodne novine, 33/01; Narodne novine, 60/01.

²¹The 2001 Law entitles the units of local self-governance to perform ‘jobs of local importance that fulfil directly citizens demands … and are especially related to the arrangement of settlements; spatial and urban planning; public utility facilities; child care; social care; primary health care; education and basic instruction; culture, physical culture and sport; consumer protection; environment protection and improvement; fire and civil protection’ (Article 19) (Narodne novine, 33/01; Narodne novine, 60/01). A similar scope of responsibilities and entitlements was granted to the counties, as stated in Article 20. However, all these newly derogated jurisdictions, as well as those that local governments would take over if the necessary conditions were secured, were to be further elaborated in special laws. In practice, this meant that many of the regulations remained unimplemented for a substantial period of time.

²²In 2003 after another round of reform of administration and ministries, this time undertaken by a new HDZ government, the Ministry for Public Works was reorganised again and merged into the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Tourism, Transportation and Development.

²³The new Serbian government was also a coalition of several parties gathered in the common platform called the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (Demokratska opozicija Srbije, DOS).

²⁴In total nearly one third or 41,199 Serb refugees returned from Serbia between 2000 and 2003 (Ministry for Public Works 2003, pp. 3–4).

²⁵Because of the ongoing war, the privatisation of flats was carried out only in those areas under government control, with the process being completed by 1993. Refugee tenants never had an opportunity to be part of this process.

²⁶The Conclusion on Housing for Returnees the Former Flat Tenancy Holders (NN 100/03)—Zaključak o načinu stambenog zbrinjavanja povratnika koji nisu vlasnici kuće ili stana, a živjeli su u stanovima u društvenom vlasništvu (bivši nositelji stanarskog prava) na područjima Republike Hrvatske, koja su izvan područja posebne državne skrbi, Narodne novine, 100/03.

²⁷Law on Local Self-administration and Administration—Zakon o lokalnoj samoupravi i upravi, Narodne novine, 90/92.

²⁸At the same time, local councillors continued to be elected at local elections.

²⁹Before the war the Serb majority population was 94.37% in Plaški and 97.49% in Donji Lapac (Hrženjak 1993, pp. 142, 402–403). Although the Serb population declined during the war, according to the 2001 population census data, after the war the Serbs regained the majority in Donji Lapac, but in Plaški many Bosnian Croats who had settled there formed a significant local minority population. Gvozd, formerly known as Vrginmost had a pre-war population of 65% Serbs, 24% Croats and 1% Muslims (Population Census 2001, Zagreb, Central Bureau of Statistics 2002, available at: www.dzs.hr, accessed 29 September 2009).

³⁰The HDZ won the 2007 election with the support of the SDSS (together with the Liberal Party and the Croatian Peasant Party and with the representatives of other ethnic minorities) which enabled it to form a new government.

³¹In an effort to provide reparation for some of the consequences of property dispossession, the state issued a regulation under which house owners whose property had not been returned by the end of 2002 received financial compensation until the property was returned. After the regulation came into effect, financial compensation was received by 1,592 house owners, out of which 500 were still receiving it in 2005 (Petrović2005, p. 15).

³²The figure for non-repossessed houses in 2005 is greater than one year before which might be due to subsequently submitted requests.

³³There were 65 attacks on Serb returnees filed with the police in 2005 (Konjikusic 2006).

³⁴In the 2003 survey, a meagre 1% of Serb refugees residing in Serbia confirmed their firm intention to return to Croatia (Brajdić Vuković & Bagić2004, p. 38).

³⁵‘Stop diskriminaciji.' Zagreb, Identitet, November, p. 15; OSCE (2001, p. 4).