Posted on 09/17/2004 8:11:25 AM PDT by DTA
Calming the Waters
by Sasa Grubanovic 16 September 2004
Hungary's president visits Serbia in an attempt to ease tensions in the multiethnic province of Vojvodina.
BELGRADE, Serbia—For months, relations between Serbia and Hungary have been worsening amid reports of violence against Hungarians in the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina. In recent weeks, Hungary’s foreign minister has even talked of “atrocities,” and taken Hungary’s concerns to European Union institutions.
Alarmed by what it called “an unnecessary internationalization” of the issue, Belgrade has vowed to prevent or prosecute further clashes between the Serbian and Hungarian populations in Vojvodina.
After a visit this week to Belgrade by Hungarian President Ferenc Madl, relations appear to be have improved dramatically, at least for now.
TENSE BUT CALM
Two million people live in Vojvodina, around two-thirds of whom are ethnic Serbs. The province is home to 26 minority communities, especially Hungarians--who make up around 14 percent of Vojvodina’s population--but also Slovaks, Romanians, and Croats.
Vojvodina has been one of the rare regions of the former Yugoslavia to be spared major conflict in the 1990s, though acts of ethnic intimidation, violence, and expulsion have been reported during that period.
Still, tensions have been high, particularly between local Croats and Serb refugees expelled from Croatia during and after the 1991–1995 war. However, both the local communities and the authorities managed to keep the situation under control.
In 2000, the arrival of reformists to power in Serbia helped improve the situation and the press and by Hungarian leaders in Serbia reportedly only rare acts of ethnic intimidation or violence.
However, when former Serbian deputy prime minister and head of the Union of Vojvodina Hungarians, Jozef Kasa, left office following last December’s general election in Serbia, he began to complain publicly—and, particularly, to media and public institutions in Budapest—about violence against the Hungarian community.
Kasa and the Hungarian press argued that these incidents were a consequence of the good electoral showing of the populist and nationalist Serb Radical Party and of the massive anti-Serb violence in March in the southern province of Kosovo.
At the same time, right-wing groups from Hungary began visiting Vojvodina and organizing public forums. The inflammatory irredentist speeches heard on such occasions became more frequent and were often seen as a provocation by the Serbian public.
Press reports started appearing in Hungary about nationalist Serb graffiti, the desecration of ethnic-Hungarian graveyards in Serbia, other acts of vandalism, and attacks on and intimidation of Hungarians near the Serbian border city of Subotica. In addition, one Serb was severely beaten by five Hungarians in the Serbian town of Temerin.
DIPLOMATIC ROW
In early August, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Laszlo Kovacs sent a letter to Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica in which he called on Belgrade to put an end to what he called “atrocities” against the Hungarian community. The harsh language used by Budapest deeply irritated Belgrade, which saw it as a gross exaggeration of the events.
Serbian Minister of Interior Dragan Jocic held a special meeting on the security situation in Vojvodina with the heads of all security services and with Hungarian leaders from Vojvodina.
The police figures showed that since the beginning of the year, 67 incidents in Vojvodina could be qualified as interethnic, including 23 acts of vandalism against graveyards and 18 physical attacks. Jocic said six attacks had been directed against Hungarians, four each against Serbs and Roma, and four against other communities. The police charged 57 and arrested seven people in relation to the incidents, he said.
“These incidents have not damaged the good relations among the ethnic groups in the province,” Jocic said. He was seconded by Rade Bulatovic, head of Serbia’s Agency for Security and Intelligence. “We have examined each case and come to the conclusion that these were isolated incidents which were not the product of organized and planned activities aimed at threatening interethnic relations,” Bulativic said.
Kasa said that while he “trusted the report of Minister Jocic,” the report “was not complete.”
On 9 September, Prime Minister Kostunica visited places where incidents had been reported. “Incidents have taken place on different sides and they should neither be covered up nor exaggerated. If these incidents are exaggerated, there is a danger of inflaming interethnic intolerance,” Kostunica said in Temerin.
“The government of Serbia wants above all that Vojvodina, as perhaps the most multiethnic region in Europe, maintains the traditionally good relations among the different ethnic groups which live there,” he said.
But on the same day in Budapest, the Hungarian government adopted a declaration in which it called on European Union foreign ministers to address the issue in their next debate. Once again, Belgrade expressed its dissatisfaction with Budapest’s position and particularly the “internationalization” of the issue. “Incidents have taken place, but I believe there are no serious reasons that justify this move [by Budapest], and I think this will not contribute at all to calming the situation,” said Serbia’s Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus.
“Relations between Serbia and Hungary are good, there are no reasons why they should deteriorate,” he added.
Serbia-Montenegro’s foreign minister, Vuk Draskovic, also reacted by saying that he “did not see well the point of implicating Brussels in this affair.”
“We are confronted with several isolated incidents which do not have any national or religious origin,” he said.
Budapest’s stance has particularly worried Belgrade as Hungary is Serbia’s “first and only” EU neighbor and is viewed as an important factor in speeding up the country’s European integration.
CALMING DOWN
But just as things were beginning to heat up, a three-day visit to Serbia-Montenegro by Hungarian President Ferenc Madl this week brought a remarkable calming of tensions.
“I discussed with the Belgrade authorities the question of incidents and I am confident that the authorities will put an end to these events,” Madl said following meetings with the presidents of Serbia-Montenegro, Svetozar Marovic, and of Serbia, Boris Tadic, on 14 September.
“The incidents against the minority Hungarians … were certainly not caused by the state, but by the effects of the recent [Balkan] wars and the difficult economic situation,” Madl said. “The upcoming elections have also contributed to the tension,” he said, referring to the 19 September local and province assembly elections.
Serbian President Boris Tadic vowed that the Serbian police will do its best to prevent new incidents. “Serbia will continue to insist on the protection of minorities at each moment,” he said.
Madl for his part promised that his government would do what it could to prevent attacks against the Serb community in Hungary after it received a series of threatening letters. “These kinds of things are unacceptable,” Madl said.
Belgrade also called on Budapest to ratify a bilateral agreement on the protection of minorities.
EU SEEKS REPORT
On 13 September, EU foreign ministers decided not to discuss the Hungarian initiative on Vojvodina, but called on their ambassadors in Belgrade to conduct their own independent inquiry.
A Western diplomat, who requested anonymity, said he saw a draft of the ambassadors’ report and thought it was a “moderate and objective” document. “The Europeans are being cautious because Hungary had tried a similar pressure strategy on other states where a significant Hungarian population lives, such as Slovakia and Romania,” he said.
This view was echoed by analyst Dusan Janjic of the Forum of Ethnic Relations, Belgrade.
“Budapest is very interested in its kin in Serbia, Romania, and Slovakia. But in our country, the Hungarian minority is actively participating in the local government and decision-making, which considerably reduces Budapest’s possibility for pressure,” Janjic said. “That is why Ferenc Madl has to be as open as possible when he talks to Belgrade officials. This is as important as the moves that the government of Serbia must take” to protect minorities, he added.
Analyst Predrag Simic said Belgrade should now take concrete steps and form a “parliamentary commission of inquiry that would report on the situation and satisfy the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.”
He also called for the creation of a Serbian ministry for minority issues to better monitor the existing problems, a proposal which some other analysts have dubbed “unnecessary,” given that such a ministry exists at the level of the state union of Serbia-Montenegro.
Curiously, the Serbia-Montenegro minister for minorities, Rasim Ljajic, witnessed on 11 September incidents in another part of the country, the southwestern region of Sandzak, where a significant Muslim population lives.
Ahead of an electoral meeting in the town of Novi Pazar, supporters of the two main Muslim parties violently clashed and two people were wounded by firearms.
Ljajic, leader of one of the two parties, said he witnessed what he calls an attack on his party headquarters by supporters of the nationalist Party of Democratic Action (SDA) of Sulejman Ugljanin.
President Tadic of Serbia called on the two sides to calm down and asked the police to “urgently” investigate the event. “Elections are not a reason to hurt each other,” he said.
In addition to the elections for Vojvodina’s provincial parliament, Serbia is also holding municipal elections on 19 September.
So did Hitler, Hungarian WWII ally.
In other words, when Joseph Kasza was defeated in elections, he incites ethnic conflict to get back into the spotlight.
Hungary's attempt to create artificial crisis debunked
If you have no clue what it means, click here
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.