The Authorities and Minorities

Relations between the state and national minorities are burdened by mutual mistrust. During the Josip Broz Tito epoch national minorities were nurtured as a "bridge of cooperation among nations" but when the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia fell apart the minorities fell into the ensuing abyss. Their status and positions now depend on relations with their native countries and their efforts to build new bridges are a difficult task.

With the breakup of the former Yugoslavia its constitutive nations living in the new states became minorities. That happened to the Moslems and Croats in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY).

Zoran Lutovac, a researcher in the politics department of the Belgrade Social Sciences Institute says "old minorities" are in a better position in the new states than the "new minorities" (like Serbs in Croatia, and Moslems and Croats in Serbia).

When it does deal with solving minority issues, and it does so very cautiously, the FRY is forced to talk to collective representatives. In a situation when there are no standards to resolve national minority problems in a mood burdened by mistrust, national minorities become a problem, the more so the larger they are.

"We encounter special problems in relations with the Albanian and Hungarian national minorities," federal minorities minister Margit Savovic told VREME. "The fact is that those two minorities are the largest and that both draw their demands from that fact, and the fact that their members live mainly in nationally compact environments or a large percentage of the population in certain parts."

Lutovac's study of minorities shows that most ethnic Albanians are the majority population where they live. In Kosovo and Metohija they make up 82.6% of the overall population, i.e. 25 of 31 municipalities have Albanian majorities. Serbs are a majority in just five municipalities, i.e. in 16.1% of Kosovo's territory.

In Vojvodina, where the Hungarian minority lives, the situation is now quite the same. Serbs with a population of 1,143,723 account for 56.8% of the population. Hungarians with 339,491 are 16.9% of the population and 174,225 Yugoslavs are 8.7%. Territorially the greatest concentration of ethnic Hungarians is in seven municipalities in northern Backa where they have absolute majorities. Serbs are a majority in 77.8% of Vojvodina, Hungarians in 17.8%.

Savovic said the problems the state has in communicating with the Hungarians are not on the same level as problems with the ethnic Albanians. The problem with the Hungarians is completely different "although there are indications that some representatives of the minority have the same goals as the Albanians". She said, in a detailed written reply to VREME, that "most members of the Hungarian minority are loyal FRY citizens, vote in elections at both local and federal levels. They have deputies in parliament and in some municipalities their parties are the ruling party.

Laslo Joza, a Subotica lawyer and aide to minister Momcilo Grubac who was Savovic's predecessor in the Panic government, spoke to VREME and denied any charges of Hungarian separatist tendencies.

The Hungarian community, i.e. the Democratic Community of Vojvodina Hungarians (DZVM) created the concept of autonomy, limited sovereignty, known as "the three step concept of autonomy" in the spring of 1992 when it was "the sole legitimate representative" of the minority.

It is a concept of mutually unopposed autonomies: personal, territorial and local self-rule.

Savovic said that concept stemmed from Hungary's engagement, and added that it is unacceptable constitutionally and politically since its implementation would mean that some citizens "would be more equal than others in territories which would become an autonomy within an autonomy".

The Kosovo Albanians opened a new chapter if not by opening then by indicating the coming big Yugoslav crisis.

The 1974 constitution gave the Albanians much more than the Hungarians are asking for now. Unable to bridge their conflict with the Serbian authorities and having promised their population the maximalist project of an independent Kosovo, ethnic Albanian leaders created a parallel state which is being successfully represented, but whose vital elements (economy, finances) are deep in the Serbian state. Any Albanian-Serb contact, and they were always informal, is still a sensation. A meeting attended by Albanian intellectuals Gazmend Pula and Veton Surroi with Socialist Party of Serbia vice-president Mihailo Markovic in the Swiss embassy in Belgrade echoed everywhere, but this meeting could not be considered as dialogue.

Ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova and the Serbian president are prisoners of maximalist promises, mutually exclusive, on an independent Kosovo and unified Serbia.

Some sources speculate that the Albanians are counting on US senator Robert Dole (their chief lobbyist) to win the coming US presidential elections.

The leading Sandzak Moslem party (the SDA) got quiet approval for negotiations from its party headquarters in Sarajevo but even they are aware that they can do little for each other at present. Faced with the specific situation after becoming one of the new minorities, party leaders abandoned their "readiness to cooperate with all Serbian civil parties" and decided that the only people who could give them what they want are the authorities. Their next step could be participation in parliamentary elections.

In proportion to the number of Moslems in Sandzak, the SDA (a Sandzak Moslem party) could win four or five parliament seats and voice their problems there.

The other new minority, the Croats with a population of 110,000 mainly in Vojvodina, does not have that opportunity. When the minority's only parliament deputy Ivan Poljakovic asked parliament when the minority's problems would be dealt with, he was told that would happen when Serbia and Croatia solve their relations. "We are hostages to two states' relations," Poljakovic told VREME.