The Untouchable Dealers

River Glina flows between the Serb village of Gejakovac and the Muslim town of Velika Kladusa. There are trenches, machine-gun nests, mine fields, barbed wire on both river banks. Until recently Muslims and Serbs had squatted on their own territory and conducted trade. They were connected with doubled ropes, to which canisters and small rafts on automobile tires were tied. Serbs offered scarce foodstuffs, brandy, oil, cigarettes, ammunition, etc. Muslims offered TV sets, automobiles, artisans' machinery; in short, everything they weren't using for various reasons. The price expressed in local currencya German Mark was formed according to supply and demand; if small quantities were dealt with the price was negotiated by shouting, but the river had to be crossed if there was a serious deal to be discussed. Those familiar with the situation on this border claim that profits were astronomic. Allegedly, one could get a two-year-old ‘‘Golf'' with valid papers for eleven boxes containing 50 cartons of cigarettes each. As usual, several ‘‘big-time businessmen'' dominated the market, but the local population, serving as ‘‘petty dealers'' also fared well. When the big wigs stole, they would give something to the little people. After a year of trading more or less without being obstructed, Serb leaders came to a conclusion that this seriously undermined combat morale. Therefore, 201st mixed unit of the Army of Serb Krajina and the Army of the Serb Republic in Bosnia took control of the border between Kordun and Cazin Krajina on July 3rd. The goal was to stop the trade and close this unusual border crossing.

‘‘Vojska Krajine,'' which is the paper of the Army of Serb Krajina, wrote that its Headquarters spared neither people not means on the occasion. Most reliable people from all corps in Krajina, also including the Banjaluka and Drvar Corps of the Bosnian Serb Army, had been chosen.

‘‘While manning the unit our main criterion was that a person is not susceptible to bribery,'' the unit's commander, Major Mladen Rapajic, told the paper. Major Rapajic said that their biggest problem was the fact that ‘‘being insufficiently informed, the population in the villages in the bordering area had not understood what they were doing, which resulted in frequent `clashes'.'' Stevan Peric and Mile Bucan, the members of this unit, agreed with the Major and added that smuggling on this border crossing had been reduced by 70 per cent. ‘‘The percentage would be even larger, if the locals wanted to cooperate. But, they won't since a number of them have dealt for smugglers and made money,'' they said. Colonel Macesic added, ‘‘This is no longer a fair-ground, as it used to be, but a real border.'' He also added that incidents took place every day. However, everyone admits that only ‘‘the small fry'' is being hunted down, while big thieves remain ‘‘untouchable.'' In other words, common folk has to go back to war, where their place is, from the point of view of Balkan war-lords. Everything that puts them off from letting the blood of their neighbors, who, as they were made to believe, are their enemy is harmful.

According to ‘‘Vojska Krajine,'' the highest representatives of military and civilian authorities met with commanders from Knin in Glina beginning of August. Petar Opajic, the soldier from the Dalmatian front, says that ‘‘95 per cent of the people fighting on the front are actually peasants.'' He claims that they are aware that they are defending their families but are also sorry about ‘‘having to defend all those smugglers and thieves who became rich overnight.'' Dragan Cuckovic, whose nickname is Tsar, wondered how come that all private entrepreneurs from Glina are sick, so that not one of them wears uniform or is on the front. ‘‘Yet, all of them are in good enough health to conduct trade, but not to defend this country together with us,'' he said and added, ‘‘When the war broke out a myth was created about the alleged special unit. We are now paying the price. They are specialists for smuggling and crime.'' Commanders from Glina warn of ‘‘the situation in the state,'' have a number of objections and that patience can last only that long.

Some fight, the others smuggle. Some want to put an end to smuggling in the name of the holy Serbian cause, while the others need the very same smuggling because of the same thing. However, everybody agrees that something is upside down in the Krajina leadership, where crucial decisions on life and death, rotting in trenches and becoming rich overnight are made. The slogans which were accepted at the beginning of war are no longer effective. ‘‘I'm a patriot and a Serb,'' said one Krajina fighter and added, ‘‘however my three children cannot eat either patriotism or the Serbian cause.'' Foodstuffs stored over 50 years of peace have been used over two years of war. One must eat and earn money to live, and it is a common knowledge that trenches produce nothing but death. Therefore, the only thing the people of the Republic of Serb Krajina have been left to do is to smuggle on a small scale or deal for big smugglers.

Impoverishment has reached such proportions that people have started counted their meals. No one is doing anything, nothing is being produced, so that one has to rely on humanitarian aid, which is always insufficient and unfairly distributed. A kilo of flour or a liter of cooking oil in the neighbor's bag provides ground for affairs, suspicions, military rebellions, and, ultimately, for spilling of cheap, peasants's blood.

When war in Croatia broke out some foreign journalists asked the Serbs there how they thought to support themselves as their economy was based on relations with Croatia, primarily on tourism and transport. Leaders from Knin were not particularly upset and replied, ‘‘From the booty (euphemism for looting) and state-controlled smuggling.'' However, after two years of war, it turned out that everything which could have been confiscated, was confiscated, that ‘‘state officials'' benefited most from smuggling done for the good of the people. It also turned out that there was nothing and one had to carry on living. War profiteers, the kind of people who have always turned with the wind and guarded their own interests, are the only winners. Thanks to them, one can now buy toothpaste, oil and flour, which means that life is, in a way, sustained.

It follows that bare necessities have become a trump card in a struggle for power over ‘‘common Serbian population'' in the Republic of Croatia. One camp is fighting the other, using the term ‘‘war profiteer,'' regardless of what the primary motives were, in order to gain control over those things which make life possible and can be found only in the hands of war profiteers. That is raison d'etre of 201st mixed unit, comprising members who are not susceptible to bribery. This unit knows who the ‘‘untouchables'' are. Firstly, because if it weren't for them there would be no state the unit is to defend, and consequently no salaries. The Republic of Serb Krajina which was created by pillaging, cannot survive without it, so it turns on its citizens when there is no one else to be robbed.