Populating Knin

Shortly after operation Storm was over in Krajina (Serbs held Croatia), Croatian President Tudjman appeared in public to address his favorite topic - the resettling of diplaced Croats. He said that this meant the end of times when the Croats could be forced out of Croatia. This is the time to go back, he said and called on all Croats in diaspora to return to their fatherland. According to some estimates, the Croatian diaspora is one of the biggest in the world with over three million Croats living abroad. Prospective resettlers are offered Krajina and also other areas, primarily Istria.

ETHNO-ENGINEERING: The president's latest call is only one in a series of similar appeals. He was calling Croats from Romania to settle in Istria; he was inviting back Croats from Austria; he was offering Croatia's biggest and richest peninsula to Croats from central Bosnia.

But his wishes and promises turned out to be in strong collision with the reality: neither did Romanian Croats come to Istria, nor were the Bosnian Croats welcomed there. Returnees from Austria can be counted on the fingers of one hand - they are mostly retired Croats and (in some cases) businessmen. None of the newly-resettled groups have managed to adapt themselves into the Croatian social life. On the other hand, over 150,000 Croats left Croatia during four years of war.

The masterminds of "new realities" are (not) hiding their satisfaction at the sight of such a large number of diplaced people, being aware that this demographic mass will change the ethnic map of Croatia as a whole and some of its parts in particular. In brief, all of these people are seen as material for ethnic engineering. Calculations of various amateur demographers, on which the regime's optimism is based, stem from the following assumption: some 200,000 Serbs, who moved from Krajina in early August, have left the place for some 200,000 displaced Croats who fled to Croatia from the war-stricken areas. With the almost identical figure, they reckon, it would be easy to move Croat refugees into the Serb houses. (Croatia has also somewhat less than 200,000 Bosnian Muslim refugees).

But the actual situation in Krajina is far from promising. Krajina is a nice and attractive place, but only if observed from Zagreb and in (Croatian Radio and Television) HRT's stories. In reality today, it looks like a post-cataclysm landscape from "The Day After" or any other movie of the sort. Ratio: one of two houses remained in one piece, and both the Serb and Croat villages are deserted. The only signs of life in the area, apart from the police and army activities, are big herds of abandoned cattle wandering the roads. Hundreds of horses stray through the fields of Krajina, along with flocks of sheep guarded by dogs, the carcasses of pigs and chicken lie around. Here and there a returnee can be seen in front of his torched or partly wrecked house, setting fire to what is left of his furniture.

Towns of Krajina have suffered a different degree of damage: most of Titova Korenica remained undamaged, but the nearby villages were burned down. Plitvice and its vicinity were mostly destroyed. Slunj did not suffer heavy damage, compared to other places, and Udbina and Licki Osik also remained undamaged. Donji Lapac looks like Hiroshima, and Srb and villages near Knin are even worse.

38,000 HOUSES DESTROYED: Estimates made by European observers and human rights organizations in Zagreb say that over 38,000 houses have been destroyed in Krajina, which - assuming that an average house is worth 40,000 DM - puts the overall damage at some 1.5 million DM. This is approximately a sum Croatia can earn in two good tourist seasons. Industrial facilities have also suffered different degrees of damage: TVIK of Knin can restart production soon, and so can factories in Slunj and sawmills in Vrhovine and Licki Osik. But with the technology ruined and a serious lack of labor force, the reconstruction of the area will take large amounts of money and time. In Croatia's developed areas as well, the industry is facing a collapse, as 13,000 people are unemployed in Sibenik alone.

PRIVILEGES: Croatia's reconstruction minister, Jure Radic, thought of the idea recently that the monastery of Trappists in Banjaluka should be moved to Donji Lapac (including the monastery building itself). A bishopric was recently set up in Srb, the first one in the predominantly (almost 100%) Serb-populated town. In Vojnic, a Catholic mass was held for the first time in the one hundred year history of the area. The authorities thought that once the Church settles in these areas, the population will follow suit.

Judging from the current situation, most of Krajina will remain unpopulated. World statistics show that only one-fourth of the displaced people decide to return to their homes and Croatia will probably not be be the exception. But Knin, which did not suffer heavy damage and which lies on an important communications route and close to the seaside, stands a good chance of starting to live again very soon - with new inhabitabts, of course. Some 600 applications have been received so far for the renting of business premises in the town. Similar will happen with Petrinja, Plitvice and places in the valleys of the Kupa and Una rivers.

Unless these areas are repopulated by next spring (which is technically infeasible) or the Serb refugees return to their homes (which is politically infeasible) - grass and weeds will overgrow towns and villages in Krajina and that will be the region's second death.