Breakup and Migration

Milos Crnjanski, Migrations

Tens of thousands of Krajina refugees are traveling through the Bosnian Serb Republic (RS) on tractors, in trucks, in crowded cars, on trailers, on foot. They're sleeping in sports stadiums, in schools, with relatives, outdoors. They lack everything: bread, water, baby milk, medical supplies.

A Daily Telegraph reporter said a Krajina soldier, waiting in line for fuel, opened fire on his wife and children then killed himself.

Thousands are still surrounded and under fire, they've been shelled several times and the World War II massacre on the Petrovac road has been repeated. Over 30,000 exhausted refugees from Banija, finally allowed to leave by the Croatian Army (HV) along the highway to Belgrade were stoned heavily in Sisak with the silent approval of the Croatian police.

Roughly that is the end of the Republic of Serb Krajina (RSK), the first Serb state west of the Drina. During its five year life, it became almost pure ethnically with almost no non-Serbs only for the Serbs to be completely ethnically cleansed from the areas where they were a majority for centuries in just a few days.

The national opposition is blaming Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic. They accused him of treason and secret deals with Tudjman. The authorities blame the leaders in Pale and Knin of rejecting "honorable" peace agreements which official Belgrade negotiated and causing the tragedy for the people.

Everyone who advocated peace from 1991 onwards blames the policies of Milosevic, Karadzic and Martic and add that nothing else could have happened but this catastrophe.

The Krajina Serbs have not got around to thinking things through and voicing accusations. Those accusations will show how manipulated they were and how right they were to take up arms so easily.

It's hard to say what Milosevic wanted to achieve with the Krajina. Preserve Yugoslavia in a way that would give him the power Josip Broz Tito had? Was there a reserve option in the game, to frighten Macedonia and Bosnia through the Krajina and achieve a smaller Yugoslavia? Or was it really a case of creating the greatest possible Greater Serbia? Finally, was this an agreement with Tudjman on carving up Bosnia with the Krajina as an important bargaining chip.

It seems that all of his followers believed the version that suited them best. The national-communist believed the first, liberal-democrat nationalists the second, hard-liners the third, and pragmatic realists the fourth.

The war in Bosnia and sanctions added weight to official Belgrade's belief that Knin was not so important; still it was a powerful tool in Milosevic's hands to blackmail the Croatians and international community. Milosevic's inability to end the war favorably for himself, i.e. the deal with Tudjman as a minimum goal, sealed the fate of the Krajina and caused the situation that its population now faces. Seemingly, even Martic realized that and he surrendered himself to Karadzic in the same way he once surrendered himself to Milosevic.

Although they knew Belgrade gave up on them long ago, RSK leaders were no ready to compromise till the last moment. Many assessments said they had enough time to negotiate a maximum of autonomy within Croatia as a federal unit under the protection of the international community. The last opportunity was missed when they rejected the Z-4 plan. Their inflexibility, stubbornness and arrogance just allowed Tudjman to strengthen his authoritarian regime and weaken his democratic opponents in Croatia. Simply said, the Krajina leaders could not pluck up the elementary human courage to face reality and the consequences of their policies.

Then on August 4, after the Croatian army spent five years systematically growing stronger and the Krajina had practically returned to the stone ages, they were left surrounded and without any allies. Even then when the population was attacked, all the leaders who swore their defenses would stand to the last man couldn't find the courage to organize a defence. They knew that they could hold out for a time with heavy casualties including their nearest and dearest but would inevitably lose in the end. Perhaps that was their wisest decision.

The breakup and migration ensued. The Serbian president went to Russia. Sad columns of refugees arrived in Serbia from the Krajina. Milosevic, who never saw those people as more than a temporary political tool, will try to manipulate the tragedy of the ethnically cleansed people. His nationalist opponents will try to do the same.

The only salvation for the people of the Krajina and all the other victims of the war in former Yugoslavia is to seek their human and civil rights in courts and forums across the world whether in Zagreb, Belgrade, Knin, Moscow or Washington: from guarantees of a safe return home, damages for the looting and destruction, and damages for their suffering. That is the only way they can avoid more manipulation. And another thing. They must never again allow themselves to be led by minstrels, national myth makers, political hypocrites, weaklings, illiterates or professional patriots like they were for the past five years.