Valjevo: Tales From A Wood

Nezir Omerovic (1963) has been a woodsman in the service of the state since 1986 in the Valjevo area. He worked in Rebelj on Medvednik up to 1991 when he was transferred to Mravinjce under Povlen to take care of 3,000 hectares of state owned forest. He comes from Srebrenica: he called his family to come to Serbia when the war was starting but they thought nothing would happen. Now his brother and father are in Srebrenica, his mother is in Tuzla, his sister is a refugee in Boljevac. He decided to stay in Serbia with his wife and two girls, but just barely made it after assurances in the Valjevo forestry commission that he just has to do his job. And he did. He is considered a capable worker, the local farmers accepted him as a neighbor who's there in sickness and in health.

This spring Nezir got a larger area to take care of, including the areas around the villages of Leskovice, Lelic, Susica and Bogatic. The forestry commission decided that Nezir, who lives in the immediate area, would do a better job than Milan Jovanovic who lives in Valjevo.

But, the local villagers didn't like the change of woodsman. They "discovered" they are Serbs and Nezir is Muslim and they signed a petition (900 names) asking the forestry commission to move Nezir "in the interest of the safety of the village".

Forestry Commission director Dragic Tomic tore up the petition and told the villagers they couldn't appoint woodsmen and that he doesn't see Nezir as a Muslim, only an employee.

The petition reached the Valjevo local council thanks to councilor Radisav Trpkovic. Tomic backed Nezir saying he was doing a good job in suppressing frequent thefts of trees.

The villagers didn't keep quiet. They hounded the local council in an effort to prove that Nezir is dangerous to them.

VREME found Nezir in the woodsman's cottage in Mravinjci. It's crowded, villagers keep coming and going. Nezir pointed to a map on the wall showing his area. There was a radio under the TV to keep him in touch with the commission. Several of the villagers, including Milinko Milivojevic whose son is Nezir's apprentice, said they backed their woodsman and added that the people who opposed him were friends of the former woodsman who allowed up to 100 cubic meters of wood a day to be cut down.

Nezir said he inherited a lot of unmarked tree stumps and added: "Let the people who are against me prove they want to do more for Serbia as Serbs, than I do as a Muslim". He said he's a little afraid for his children but if they try to chase him away he'll stay. And if they replace him? He'll ask his superiors why.

Forestry Commission director Dragic Tomic (he's waiting for Mira Markovic to come to Valjevo to join JUL), who declared the local council incompetent to appoint woodsmen, backs Nezir. He said this is an example of robbery with a political dimension.

Croatia:

The establishment of an independent state in Croatia also meant the creation of a new web of state holidays to suit the new ideology and party. The only holidays they kept are New Year and May 1 the difference being that now just one day is celebrated not two. November 1 is also a holiday (the day of the dead) which was celebrated only in Slovenia and Croatia in former Yugoslavia. Easter has also become a new holiday and Christmas with two days of holiday. The law on holidays says Orthodox Christians have the right to a free day on Christmas and Easter Monday and the holidays of Muslims and Jews are also respected. The difference is that Catholic holidays are state holidays.

May 30 is also a new holiday, officially called Croatian Statehood Day on the date the first multi-party parliament met in 1990. Croatia is one of the few, perhaps the only country in the world, that proclaimed its state holiday as the day the ruling party won the elections. There are some arguments over that date but nowhere as much as arguments over June 22. That day is anti-fascist day in memory of the Sisak company, the first military formation Croatia's communists formed in W.W.II.

That decision, taken by parliament in 1991, abolished the Popular Uprising Day commemorating a partisan attack on a police station in Srb in 1941. There were arguments over that date in the former Yugoslavia as well as in today's Croatia. No one denied that the Sisak company (39 communists) went into action the day after Germany attacked the Soviet Union. But even if you ignore the importance of the Sisak company, Lika and other (mainly Serb populated) parts of Croatia saw similar activities before the Sisak partisans.

Anti-fascist day has been marginalized in practice and there are debates on whether it's needed at all. Some Croatian politicians are persistently imposing Pavelic's nazi puppet NDH and April 10 as an important date. Even some parliament deputies violated the constitution to advocate that date including members of the ruling HDZ. No doubt the HDZ right-wingers favor the Ustashis which President Tudjman persistently tolerated for years. He didn't move a finger when partisan monuments were massively destroyed in Croatia even by the Croatian army. Tudjman was the author of the project to rename streets and squares. Everything that smacked of the W.W.II partisans was removed. The only thing Tudjman did not allow was a change in the name of one of Zagreb's nicest squares which was named for Josip Broz Tito.

Slovenia: A Celebration Apart

The central festivities on the fourth anniversary of Slovenia's independence were held on Sunday and Monday, June 25-26. Unlike neighboring Croatia, Slovenia did not go for pomp. To the horror of all patriots, the largest hall of the Cankarjev Dom building in Ljubljana (1,400 seats) was only one third full on Sunday.

The image improved later in the day when the festivities continued on Congress Square where several thousand people gathered.

Commentators saw that as a normal reaction by people who are more interested in everyday life, but some said interpreted it as infantility and state immaturity. Delo daily said all the fuss raised over the celebration just showed that the Cankarjev Dom hall is too big for a state holiday and that the true measure is a 400 seat hall.

Constant inter-party bickering is also to blame.

Ljubljana Mayor Dimitrije Rupelj protested to celebration organizers because Slovenian President Milan Kucan was scheduled to speak fifth. Things got even more complicated when the organizers refused to allow Jelko Kacin (defence minister when Slovenia broke away from former Yugoslavia) to speak. The numerous separate party celebrations stressed the rifts.

Some of the liberal press had a different view of the celebration. Ljubljana weekly Mladina published recollections by former US ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmerman drawing a growing number of comments and warnings that Slovenia should take responsibility for its part in the break-up of former Yugoslavia.