Plundering of the Old

The Croatian authorities have resolved 2,058 of the 14,000 requests for the return of Serbs to Croatia. How many Serbs really have returned is unknown, since the Croatian authorities do not publish accurate figures.

We went to Knin to find out about the people who returned and to look them up at the Dalmatian Solidarity Committee (DOS) office which opened on 15 October 1995. DOS now functions as part of OXFAM programme, financed by the British Oxford University.

We asked DOS leader Olga Simic about the major tasks of the committee:

Our major task is to help people who remained here or who are coming back, the Croats and Serbs alike. The greatest problem is the people who remained in the villages. They are mostly old people, between 65 and 95 years old, abandoned, alone, whose houses were raided and everything taken away or burned.

How do you help people, how many have been taken care of, what problems are you dealing with?

No one is hungry, which is very important. We visit all the villages around Knin and offer humanitarian aid. People are visited and given food, so that they have the basics. We have about 300 people in our evidence whom we have helped in one way or another.

The greatest problems are those of plundering and robbing people which no one seems to be able to stop.

Give us an example, although the stories are difficult to check.

Houses are attacked mostly at night. Bed linen, humanitarian aid and money are taken. The cattle were stolen mostly while people were in camps at the beginning of operation Tempest. Most cases occur in the villages where people are few and alone, where there are old women who cannot offer resistance. People are frightened, they do not want to speak, to report theft. They say: we dare not, we are afraid it would get even worse.

What is the situation like in Knin itself?

It has calmed down a bit. People have moved in, but there are heaps of rubbish that no one is cleaning. They say there is no transportation. People moved into other people's apartments, brought things and threw out what was in them. Valuable things were destroyed which could have been used by someone.

Why did people go away and leave everything behind?

In most cases people fled in fear. They thought they would find shelter somewhere close by only temporarily and that they would return. However, when the mass moved, it pulled them away too. Some people left with practically no clothes or shoes, they took nothing with them. Now they would like to come back. I know a woman who is not married, has no children or relatives. She arrived in Belgrade and she doesn't know what she is doing there. She has acquaintances in Knin, friends, she used to work as a nurse, she would gladly return, but there is no one to guarantee for her.

How many people have returned?

According to unofficial information, 200 people have returned to Knin, but there are more coming. Some of them are disappointed. They expected more. However, they believe it is important that they have returned to their home-town. It is difficult for the working-age people because there are no jobs for them here.

 

Lotto-man Mirage

The lottery prize has become an obsession of the Yugoslavs. They would know what to do with the money: leave the country, buy two lorries of chewing gum, open up a restaurant, plant palm trees... The only thing they don't know is how to get away from the criminals.

Fever in the lotto queue; a quarrel with a mother who has come with her child, asking to be allowed to stand in the front of the queue. People no longer give their seats in buses to mothers with children, so why should they in the queue for luck. Besides, a lotto-man in the queue noticed that the mother had already been in the same queue. Mothers and children queued up for milk, so why shouldn't they for lotto. We are equal in lines for happiness and necessity. We have become bitter, petty and greedy.

"Vreme's" mini-survey shows that the first problem of the winner would be to keep his identity secret. No one should know it's you. First, you have to hide from thieves and even murderers. Second, you would become the favourite friend and relative. Two men in Trstenik came up with the idea to say they got the "seven" in lotto. All their acquaintances from the Morava river valley visited them. When they got tired of receiving all those people, they said it was only a joke.

People bought houses, opened up restaurants, smashed cars.

The slogan of the Yugoslav Lottery says: Send your mother-in-law on a trip around the world, your wife on holiday, buy your children all they ask for and you will still have enough for all your dreams.

Why let the mother-in-law have the best time? Lotto players play the game so they could go away, or so that they could behave as if they came from somewhere else.

 

Private Business of Public Officials

The Democratic Party MP group in the Serbian Parliament on 21 February demanded that the Parliament form a committee to examine the work of public companies, federal reserves and companies owned by Serbian ministers. The committee, which will comprise 14 members - two from each MP group, should examine the business the public companies and federal reserves have dealt with the companies owned by Serbian Ministers.

The Democratic Party (DS) has asked the government what companies bought wheat a short while ago, at what price and at what price they exported it afterwards. The Democratic Party asked the question after the public prosecutor had brought charges against editor-in-chief of the Belgrade weekly "Telegraf" Dragan Belic. Belic was charged for publishing a letter by the Democratic Party which accused Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic of exporting wheat through a private company. DS vice-president Gavrilovic told a news conference that the letter was based on documents which "prove that Marjanovic and some of the ministers in his cabinet, who are also the managers of some companies, used the monopoly and their positions to gain illegal profit by re-selling not only wheat but also sugar, oil, gas, cement and other goods."

In some countries, when issues like these are raised, the government either falls or shatters seriously. Here, the opposition or a journalist might expect to fall. Socialist Party of Serbia spokesman Ivica Dacic and Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister Ratko Markovic attacked DS President Zoran Djindjic concerning the affair - the former in a news conference and the latter in a comment published by the state-controlled media. A year ago, the Democratic Party proposed a law on the evidence of the personal property of the officials of the Republic of Serbia. According to the proposed law, within thirty days of taking the office, the officials would have to report their property and the property of their family members - real estate, vehicles, copyrights and other rights, property of substantial value, pieces of art, money, bonds. The property would be checked once again when they are leaving the office. It was Deputy Prime Minister Markovic, the proud professor of the Police Academy, who signed the document with which the Government opposed the proposal.

According to the DS proposal, the president of the Republic, the president and vice-presidents of the Parliament and MPs, presidents and judges of the Constitutional, Supreme and Higher Commercial Courts and the presidents of the parties which have deputies in the Serbian Parliament would be subject to as many as three years in prison for embezzling their property.

The Government, that is Professor Markovic, rejected the proposal with the explanation that it was the duty of all the citizens to report their property for taxes, anyway, and that "anyone could have an insight in the registers and find out about the property of the officials," and that therefore the publishing of information on the safes and registers of the officials and their accounts at local and foreign banks was out of question because it was contrary to the federal law on banks.