The State as a Prison

The results of Yugoslavia's disintegration are not just wars, refugees and new states, but also thousands of "new" foreigners, "double" citizens and stateless persons. This is the result of the fact that the new states on the territory of former Yugoslavia set the criteria for citizenship in an arbitrary and uncoordinated way, without abiding by European standards, and even clearly expressing the wish for the state to be "cleaned" from ethnically unsuitable citizens. Since every state has the right to regulate the regime according to which foreigners can enter and circulate on its territory, for many of them this, practically, means that, because of their ethnic origin and their status as foreigners-intruders, they will lose the right to reside in the new states and they will be compelled to move. And thus, far from the attention of the media, which focus on the war atrocities on the fronts, ethnic cleansing is being carried out effectively every day in the young national states in almost all parts of former Yugoslavia, with the help of quiet but efficient bureaucratic procedures set and approved by the newly established state authorities.

Of course, there are numerous differences between the states created on the territory of former Yugoslavia in regard to granting citizenship. Slovenia is, perhaps, proof that even when citizenship is determined unilaterally and in a non-coordinated manner, it is possible to resolve this question in a relatively humane and tolerant way. On the basis of the Declaration on good intentions, which was adopted by the Slovenian Assembly before Slovenia became independent, the Law on citizenship of the Republic of Slovenia (adopted on June 25th 1991) also includes article 40 which says that citizens of other republics who had permanent residence in Slovenia on the day of the plebiscite on independence, and who really did live there, can unconditionally acquire citizenship of the Republic of Slovenia. On the basis of the mentioned law, 160 560 citizens people of an origin from other Yugoslav republics got Slovenian citizenship. In other words, around 75 percent of people from other republics who had permanent residence in Slovenia got Slovenian citizenship. At the same time, around 50,000 out of 1,962,606 inhabitants of Slovenia who did not request or were not granted Slovenian citizenship agreed to the role of "foreigners"; apart from this, Slovenia has also "adopted" around 25,000 new citizens who had emigrated. In short, today Slovenia has a smaller number of citizens than was registered during the last population census - around 1,947,452. These figures point to the fact that a veritable "ethnic cleansing" has been carried out and that the structure of the population has changed, despite Slovenia's liberal law on citizenship. Simply, all those who did not get permanent residence in Slovenia in good time, or didn't even think about Slovenian citizenship, found themselves in the role of "foreigners". That political circumstances had an impact on the requests for citizenship is also attested to by the fact that 70 percent of all the applications were submitted in the last month before the deadline, when the disintegration of Yugoslavia had already become a reality. According to the latest information already around 178,000 people from other republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have acquired Slovenian citizenship on the basis of article 40 of law on Slovenian citizenship alone. For the purpose of determining citizenship, the Slovenian Interior Ministry engaged 103 people who worked approximately 17 hours a day; they put in 57,709 additional hours of work and used about 2,700 kilograms of paper. The whole project cost around a million Deutsche marks. Today Slovenian citizenship can be obtained (the deadline for using article 40 expired in the meantime) also on the basis of some other articles of the same law. Apart from the provisions on ways for emigrants and their descendents to get citizenship, for citizens of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia who want to become Slovenian citizens most important are articles 10 and 12 of the Slovenian Law on citizenship. The former determines regular naturalization; under this article, Slovenian citizenship can be granted to everyone who submits a request (if he is 18 years of age or more) if he also submits a certificate denouncing his previous citizenship, if he has really lived in Slovenia for 10 years (the five last of which without any breaks), if he has a sure place to live, social security, means to live off, if he "knows the Slovenian language enough to be able to communicate", has not been sentenced to more than a year of imprisonment and does not represent a threat "to order, security and the defense of the state". It is easier to get citizenship under article 12: if you are married to a Slovenian citizen, you need to have lived a year there, to have enough money to live, an apartment and to know the Slovenian language. In this case the applicant does not have to denounce his previous citizenship, so that he is, in fact, a dual national. Knowledge of the language is tested by a commission which requests that the future citizens are only familiar with the spoken language and that they have a basic understanding of Slovenian. In practice, the commission consisting of three members (representatives of the government, the ministry of education and the interior ministry) talks a few minutes with the applicant. So far there have been only a few negative decisions, and everyone has the right to another chance - to show once again his or her knowledge of the language.

In Croatia, however, the situation concerning citizenship is totally different. The Interior Ministry, headed by minister Jarnjak and Stjepan Ivanda, in charge of issuing identity cards, has, so far, presented no more detailed information about the number of citizens from other republics of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia who have, in fact, gotten identity cards and Croatian citizenship on the basis of the Law on Croatian citizenship, adopted on October 8th 1991. On the other hand, the official figures of around 7,500 rejected requests are large, and after the latest wave of negative decisions, the estimates of about 10,000 to 15,000 rejected requests for citizenship are certainly closest to the truth. Apart from that, the Croatian law on citizenship for people from other republics of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is much more unfavorable than, for instance, the Slovenian one. Regardless of how long these people have lived in Croatia, they must all submit a request for citizenship in accordance with the provisions determining "regular" or "extraordinary" naturalization. Simply speaking, if the Slovenian law only requests that all the people from former Yugoslav republics have permanent residence until a certain date and promises them citizenship in advance, the Croatian law in advance proclaims foreigners all the inhabitants of Croatia without original Croatian citizenship and makes it possible for them to gain citizenship only in accordance with procedural provisions which are very strict in every country. This means that the applicant for Croatian citizenship must, under article 8 of the mentioned law ("regular naturalization"), be at least 18 years of age, get a certificate denouncing the previous citizenship, to have been registered as a permanent resident in Croatia for at least five years, to know "the Croatian language and the Latin script" and to behave in such a way so that on the basis of his "conduct it can be concluded that he respects the legal order and customs of the Republic of Croatia and that he accepts the Croatian culture". If the applicant is lucky enough to be married to a Croatian citizen, born on the territory of Croatia, or an emigrant, the procedure is considerably shortened, while the procedure is not shortened at all for other people from some other former Yugoslav republic who are not that fortunate, no matter whether they have been living in Croatia for five, ten, twenty years or all their life.

Regulations based on flexible and vague notions best prove that there exist states-terrorists. Up to now many states used flexible legal definitions mostly in the field of penal law, and the disintegration of Yugoslavia obviously also served excellently for the use of this method with the aim of nationally cleansing the new national states. In any case, what are, in fact, the "customs of Croatia" ? Is a word pronounced incorrectly, that is according to the "eastern version", at the "informative conversation" at the police station already a sufficient indicator for the request for citizenship to be turned down? Because of uncertain answers to all these questions, around 200,000 permanent residents of Croatia with "ethnically improper" roots, cannot get Croatian citizenship or a job, they have lost their social rights and they are also not able to travel abroad... Because of the mentioned law and practice, attorney offices in Croatia are overloaded with requests for legal help with problems concerning citizenship. However, despite lawyers' efforts, the chances of the "ethnically unsuitable" getting Croatian citizenship remain small, so that, as lawyers openly say, probably "all former army personnel, members of their families and various immigrants who have come to Croatia in the past ten years and do not have their own apartment, or are subtenants, or have no larger property will probably lose their citizenship. They will probably not get citizenship so that they wouldn't return..." Or stay. Therefore, for many of them to move out is the only remaining possibility.

That bad regulations concerning citizenship can have a direct effect on the state is not attested to only by Croatia's suspension from certain international organizations and programs. Even officials of the World bank, said Slavko Debelak, inquired in detail in Slovenia about the law on citizenship and explained that it is precisely this law that is a very important indicator of democracy and legal order in a country. There will be stateless persons on the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia because of bizarre reasons. Those about whom all national laws on citizenship will forget will become stateless persons without their guilt. By comparing different laws, we could now already predict those "cases": a child born in Croatia to a Muslim father from Bosnia-Herzegovina and a Serbian mother can have neither Croatian, nor Yugoslav, nor Bosnian citizenship by origin. The only thing left is naturalization, but if he does not have registered residence in any of the new states within the set time limit, he will be left without any citizenship...

It is also not difficult to determine the risk category of people whom all the states on the territory of former Yugoslavia will gladly denounce. They will be the ones born in mixed marriages on the territory of some (today) third state of former Yugoslavia, those who travelled a lot and changed places of permanent residence, those who did not believe in the "sacredness of matrimony" and did not get married or who, for some other, completely different reason are not especially important for a new state. With Yugoslavia's disintegration they have all lost their only home country so that they will need very much the arbitration and help of international organizations.

The best way for resolving all the problems concerning the citizenship of people on the territory of former Yugoslavia would certainly be an agreement on the succession of all the newly created state. Well known Slovenian jurist Dr.Ljubo Bavcon has also assessed that "it would be in accordance with general legal principles and the principle of the respect and protection of human rights if the states, created on the ruins of former Yugoslavia, wouldn't unilaterally decide on the status and fate of people. Apart from certain measures for their own security, they would have to wait for the final resolution of these questions on the basis of some agreement on succession". In that regard, the delegations of Serbia and Montenegro are advocating a liberal solution at the talks on succession in Geneva, proposing that it be organized for all the citizens of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to voluntarily declare which citizenship of the newly created states on the territory of former Yugoslavia they want. There is no doubt that both because of the war and the objections of the Croatian, and even the Slovenian delegation, the chances are slim of this proposal being accepted and of the newly created states voluntarily denouncing the already acquired sovereign rights and of being exposed to new migrational pressure. However, it is precisely because of certain openly inhumane acts by the new states towards unwanted citizens that the insistence on modern and tolerant standards when determining citizenship is fully justified. This also entails the obligation of the new Yugoslav law on citizenship to make it possible and to guarantee citizenship to the inhabitants of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia without discrimination and the accompanying, and already announced expulsion of the "ethnically unsuitable".