Splitting The Property

Despite fierce arguments, an agreement on sharing out the property of the former Yugoslavia has been deadlocked for three years. All the suggested methods of determining the legacy and its division have been annulled by "joint action" by Serbian and Croatian experts. The only evaluation method left is the IMF key which was accepted by the Milan Panic government agreed in 1992: the founding assets in the IMF will be shared out so that the FRY (Serbia and Montenegro) get 36.52%, Croatia 28.49%, Slovenia 16.39%, Bosnia 13.2% and Macedonia 5.4% of all rights and obligations.

That method is just provisional and that is shown by the fact that Slovenia has agreed to repay 18% of the former Yugoslavia's commercial debt on the condition that the Paris Club frees it of the clause on solidarity under which debtors can claim payments for the entire debt from the party that is liquid (and that is only Slovenia at present). But if debtors agree to that condition the other inheritors won't.

Kosta Mihajlovic, member of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Science and Milosevic's economy advisor, explained that disagreement saying all issues have to be resolved as a whole. Mihajlovic heads the FRY delegation at the commission for succession in the International Conference on Former Yugoslavia in Geneva.

In an interview to Ljubljana-based independent weekly "Mladina" he said that the FRY delegation submitted a collection of 9,000 methods of determining succession based on the general principle that the former Yugoslavia did not break up but that some of its republics broke away (four out from six republics) and added that the property has to include everything that was state owned in the former state. He also noted that even the Conference secretariat caved in to pressure from the breakaway republics and secretly adopted a document on division which would give the FRY just 5% of the legacy and 62% of the debt. That is worse than what the Slovenians and Croats are demanding in public: 36% of the property and debts for the FRY.

Ten days ago Slovenian finance minister Mitja Gaspari said the former Yugoslavia's property stood at a total of around 100 billion dollars in late 1990 and that the most difficult part to cover in the division is the clearing account.

Bozo Marendic, head of Croatia's delegation in Geneva, said that property stood slightly lower at 60 billion dollars with 75% of it being army property. Slobodna Dalmacija daily in Split speculated that an agreement has already been reached on sharing out the property and claimed that Serbia will get 30%, Croatia 20%, Bosnia 20%, Slovenia and Macedonia 10% each. The daily said Croatia is also demanding 60 M-84 tanks, three MiG 29 fighters, 24 combat helicopters etc. Croatia is also demanding a division of National bank foreign currency reserves and gold which are estimated to have been at close to one billion dollars.

Some experts in Yugoslavia believe that Croatia has assessed that it has grabbed a lot and added that Tudjman will now concentrate only on the private property of Serbian citizens in Croatia. i.e. that Croatia will propose that the FRY takes on debts to its own citizens for that property which they can't reclaim.

The FRY faces the worst situation since it failed to come up with a method that would place debts on the breakaway republics (a conclusion reached because the delegation is spending more time hiding documents from its public than from the international mediators). The only point in its favor is the fact that is has no money, having spent even what it managed to hide during the breakup.

All the parties involved in the split have hired specialized agencies and lawyers. Allegedly, FR Yugoslavia's consultants discovered a 30 billion dollar error in the other side's documents at first glance.

 

Trade

There is no statistics office that could calculate the level of trade that continued among the former Yugoslav republics during the war. It's impossible to estimate the trade between the FRY and Macedonia or between the FRY and Croatia and Bosnia in the form of secreted imports from third countries and openly illegal trade. The only orientation is the fact that the market in former Yugoslavia was not as broken up as it was assessed to be and the former Yugoslav republics trade among themselves accounted for between 20 and 40% of their social product.

That trade was not abolished completely but it was certainly reduced and it can be expected to get better.

The Serbian economic chamber recently reacted nervously to reimposed customs duties on goods from Macedonia and asked for trade with that republic to continue without those duties. Car dealers from Ljubljana has recently visited to Serbian car factory in Kragujevac to negotiate the purchase of an initial 2,000 "Yugo" cars and spare parts and there was talk of a mixed company in Slovenia. Chiefs of the "A Bank" in Ljubljana were seen recently at a celebration in "Jugobanka" in Belgrade. The contract between Jugopetrol (Yugoslavia) and INA (Croatia) oil industries on reactiviting the oil pipeline was reported on TV.

All that does not mean trade will get back to previous levels. Everything has changed. The main Serbian partners in Slovenia, Iskra electronics and TAM (long vehicles and trucks) either no longer exist or are closing down and their partners in the FRY have turned elsewhere.

 

Diplomatic Legacy

Seventy years of life together and common diplomatic history left a rich diplomatic legacy to the successors of the former Yugoslavia. That fund of embassies, residences, consulates, apartments covers 125 buildings of an estimated value (including the land they stand on) of 500 million dollars.

Apart from a few unsuccessful attempts to take over embassies based on the fact that the current ambassador opted for his newly proclaimed state (that happened in Chile and Argentina - Croatia) all the other embassies belong to FR Yugoslavia which has pretensions of continuity with the former Yugoslavia.

No one can say for sure what criteria will be used to share out the diplomatic legacy.

All the state property abroad was either built or bought over the 72 years of life together. The oldest (date of purchase age) is the building in Calea Dorobaktilor in Bucharest which was bought in 1919. Although it was registered as property of the then newly-formed kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, there is basis to believe that Serbia bought it before the union was declared and brought it into the union along with all the rest of its property abroad. The missions have all been fundamentally changed in the meantime but their sales meant purchases of other buildings which will secure some rights for Serbia in the final analysis certainly stronger than moral rights.

The division will be additionally hampered by the unclear circumstances in which some of the buildings were bought, informed sources believe.

Statistically, the most of the diplomatic missions and residences were bought during the "second history" of Yugoslavia. Non-alignment as the longest foreign policy orientation of Tito's Yugoslavia left a truly rich legacy in third world countries. Embassies and residences, as a rule in luxurious villas with large parks, were built from the late 1950s to the early 1980s in Lusaka, Dar Es Salaam, Pnom Penh, Harare, Nairobi, New Delhi, Jakarta, Brasilia.

Apart from the buildings and grounds, the diplomatic legacy should also include the rich art collection of 2,600 pieces, most of them paintings. Those paintings along with sculptures, vases, furniture and dishware were decorations in Yugoslav diplomatic missions abroad. although the federal registry covers all art objects, the question is whether the inheritors (except the FRY) will be able to hold pretensions for them. Namely, according to some information, most of the art objects were transported to Belgrade through special channels (which was probably not registered anywhere).

 

Telephones

The head of Croatia's bureau in Belgrade Zvonimir Markovic told Nasa Borba daily that "half an hour after the Paris agreement is signed all the big systems that were disconnected over the past few years will resume operations" and added that that "was solely a political decision". Markovic said phone services were the easiest to restore and predicted that the lines could be reopened on December 15 or 16. The Serbian post office talked of the same dates.

If that happens, people in the FRY and Croatia will be able to talk over the phone after dialing international call signs; 385 for Croatia and 381 for the FRY.

Who is going to call who?

Relatives who phoned each other through third countries will now call direct. Friendships that survived the war will be resumed. There will also be business contacts. In private conversations people will ask about their health, business, schedule visits, comment the war... They will also joke: members of the Croatian volunteer association will be able to call Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan's Serb Volunteer Guard and vice versa...

The phone lines will also be richer by another form of communication. Refugees from Krajina will be able to phone the homes they left and talk to the Croats who moved in. They will also call the local authorities in Croatia to find out if and when they can go home.

Those calls, and the status of Eastern Slavonia, could delay the restoration of phone lines indefinitely. Erdut, Vukovar and Beli Manastir could then only be called through the international operator from Belgrade.

 

Traveling

Last week a statement said the Yugoslav airlines (JAT) would soon open a Belgrade-Trieste line with outgoing flights in the morning and incoming flights in the evening and the plane spending the day at Trieste airport.

That report leads to the conclusion that once FR Yugoslavia and Croatia recognize each other, there won't be long lines of cars heading for that Italian town to go shopping.

We've gotten used to internal travel in the past four years where a trip from Belgrade to Tuzla takes three days through several states instead of three hours by car. The trip from Trebinje to Dubrovnik, two towns linked by 20 kilometers of road, took 48 hours via Niksic, Podgorica, Belgrade, Hungary, Austria and Croatia to Split and Dubrovnik. Families rallied and fell apart in provincial Hungary. The trip to Ljubljana (at least 16 hours by bus) takes a visa which costs 70 DEM in Budapest. Croatia and the FRY do not have visa regulations. Instead, the Yugoslav police removes Croatian passports license plates and issues receipts while the Croatian police leaves passports put takes license plates and decides on the spot whether someone is suitable to be allowed into Croatia.

The state of the roads between Belgrade and Zagreb is mainly OK (small repairs are needed on the railroad between Sid and Vinkovci) which is not the case between Croatia and Bosnia since all the bridges across the Sava river (except the one at Orasje) have been destroyed.

Optimists say traffic won't be hard to restore in former Yugoslavia; realists say that will depend on the wisdom of the political leaders; pessimists have their own opinion of that wisdom.

Another kind of difficulty is expected in restoring traffic with the rest of the world, especially towards the EU since the visa regime is not up to individual countries any longer but the entire EU. The FRY introduced visas for all countries that demand them for its citizens in the past five years. Therefore the indications that Greece could abolish visas for FRY citizens in the New Year are more a wish than a precedent which could draw the rest of western Europe.

For a start, Montenegro's tourism minister voiced expectations that the federal government will unilaterally abolish visas for the rest of the world. That would be important not only as a gesture of good will but also as the only way to get foreigners to return to the country.