The Master’s Picture on the Wall

VREME reporters followed up on the letter and filed a typical tale of refugees which could have been filed from any other place in Vojvodina. Everyone in the story is more or less right and they’re very worried about things to come because they live in a state used to creating problems without the habit of solving them later.

In August last year, Kupusina had a population of 2,000, 95% of them ethnic Hungarians. The local population were always vegetable farmers. In earlier years, Kupusina produced one third of the total amount of onions consumed in the former Yugoslavia.

Last August, the village population grew to 2,400 because of the Krajina Serbs. Under an agreement with the local authorities, they were temporarily settled in houses which their ethnic Hungarian owners don’t use. One of the refugees, Svetozar Sasic from Gospic now lives in a house owned by Fridrih Janos and Ana Juhas.

Svetozar’s is the first name on the list of signatories to the petition. In mid-June he was informed in writing by the authorities that he had to move out of the house he’s living in within 15 days. His problem aren’t the few things he managed to get out of Gospic but his five children, wife and disabled brother. Another 14 refugee families were told to do the same and 18 more are waiting to be told.

Svetozar Sasic: "I started the petition. The deadline to move out has passed and now I’m expecting the police at any moment to throw me and my family out on the street. I don’t know where to go if that happens. I’ll borrow a tent and raise it on the first field for my five kids. I only know that I won’t go to Kosovo, to Djakovica, as the local authorities have been offering.

I’m here in the house of a Hungarian who hasn’t lived in it for over 13 years. I cleaned it up and improved it. I didn’t touch anything else, even the owner’s picture is still on the wall. The owners aren’t in the village but I think they want to sell the house and we have to move. Some people say that it’s an agreement by the Hungarians in the village to move us out one by one. Some neighbors have been asking what I’m waiting for, why I haven’t left for Kosovo.

I know the house is theirs. I didn’t come here to steal it, only to house my kids somewhere until a solution is found. I have to live somewhere. I had my own house and now I have nothing. If I get back 20% of what I had I’ll be happy. A shed is enough so the kids won’t suffer any more.

Why does this state which pushed us into the war not have a solution now? Why didn’t they say in 1991 - whoever wants to live under the Croatians can stay. Who wants to can leave. They pushed guns into our hands. Why didn’t they at least accept the Z-4 plan? Everything would be better than today. No one is looking after us. We’re like a leaf that drops off a tree and the river takes it anywhere."

Bosko Trbojevic (Svetozar’s neighbor): "We still haven’t been told to move but our landlady told us we’ll have to move. She has another house in the village and a third in Sombor. Many of the Hungarians are nice people. Some want to help but so the others don’t see.

The local authorities have also offered us Kosovo. I’m not going there."

Milenko Kljakic (refugee official in Apatin): "In all truth, we expected an incomparably worse situation. We expected the current inhabitants of the houses to be thrown out. When the refugees arrived last August, Kupusina residents were told to help them till the spring, to let people spend the winter in houses they weren’t using. They responded very well. They helped, even feeding people. Relations were good so far and there were no incidents but it seems the time to part ways has come.

Most refugees don’t want to move from here. Some feel anywhere else is far away, others want to stay near friends and relatives. Many things work on emotional, family ties. They have their stories and they think they’ll understand each other better here than if they leave for Kosovo, for example.

Humanitarian aid is growing smaller every day. Flour is handed out increasingly rarely. There’ll be problems with heating as well. Last year, the SrbijaSume lumber company supplied firewood. This winter the situation will be incomparably worse. The food supplied by the Red Cross isn’t enough for three days a month."

Luka Sakic (refugee): "I found a new place to stay through friends in Ralja and I decided to move. The mood is probably better there, I don’t like the flatlands. I’m from Udbine. I was a driver there.

The six of us live in the house of an ethnic Hungarian who’s in Hungary. His daughter is here and she never told us to move out. We had a tenancy contract up to May. That expired but no one is evicting us. I thank them for everything. So far no one has asked me to pay water or electricity bills. I couldn’t even if they had asked."

Nikola Tatalovic (Mayor of Apatin): "I haven’t seen the petition or heard about it. But I have to admit that the people in Kupusina were the most cooperative in this municipality in helping refugees. Like all of us here they probably expected the state to find a solution for the refugees quickly. We filled all our housing capacities and we don’t have the money to build more facilities. Today when house owners request eviction or insist on a contract with the tenants we can’t do anything because that is the owner’s right. All we can do is delay the eviction until the people get other housing."

Jozef Lovas (Kupusina local authority secretary): "Our village was the last stop last August for many of the people who fled Croatia. People were forced to move as far away from the border as possible. Some came here because their friends and relatives live here, others followed. We reacted right away and formed an aid committee. The municipality authorities told us that this is all temporary, to let them spend the winter in houses that aren’t being used. We took in over 400 refugees and gathered three wagon loads of food for them very quickly. None of the people settled here are paying water or electricity bills although the village built those facilities with it's own money. Many people are helping refugee neighbors with food. The refugees include people who have money and are able, like one who has bought two houses in less than a year.

At first a committee formed by the refugees operated but they quarreled among themselves and accused each other of stealing aid. I think that committee did a good job.

We got through winter without a single conflict. The warmer weather seems to have raised tension and uncertainty on both sides. Some locals are afraid for their property and are trying to solve that problem. Some used those houses for storage but now want to sell them. On one hand they’re afraid for their property, on the other Serbs from Beli Manastir are coming in with offers to buy houses before Eastern Slavonia is handed to the Croatians.

All that seems to have shaken up both the refugees and locals and caused a situation where some refugees are expected to leave the houses they are in now.

I was a little surprised by the petition. I didn’t expect anything similar. But I understand those people. It’s not easy to loose everything you had and live in uncertainty with your children. It’s not easy for our locals either because some remember the time after World War II when they lost a lot of things. The state should find a solution."

Besides the press, Sasic sent the petition to many state bodies. The Vojvodina authorities told him they sent it on to the republican refugee Committee.