U.S. PROPAGANDA SERVICE "RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY", NORMALLY A CHEERLEADER FOR ANTI-SERB FORCES IN YUGOSLAVIA, TRIES TO PUT BEST POSSIBLE SPIN ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN CROATIA IN 1997
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Croatia : Human Rights
The economy is slowly changing to a market-based free enterprise system...industry is still largely state controlled. The Government's privatization program came under increasing criticism for allotting shares in prime enterprises to those loyal to the ruling party....
The Government's human rights record remained poor, although significant improvement was seen in certain areas. It continued to allow serious abuses, particularly regarding the treatment of ethnic Serbs. The Government has still not established adequate civil authority in the former occupied areas (the Krajina and Western Slavonia), and the police were unwilling or unable to take effective action against criminal activity against ethnic Serbs. Looting and threats were common. Beatings and murders still occur, although less frequently than in the past. The response by police was often apathetic, and the Government made little or no effort to seek out, investigate, and punish those responsible for such abuses. Cases of abuse from 1995, the victims of which were almost exclusively ethnic Serbs, remained mostly unresolved.
According to credible reports, the police occasionally beat persons. The Government does not always respect due process provisions for arrest and detention. The judicial system is subject to executive influence, and the Government carried out a purge of judges and state attorneys that further called into question the independence of the judiciary. The courts are burdened by a huge case backlog and sometimes deny citizens fair trials.
While in general the Constitution and laws provide for a broad range of human rights, in practice the Government continued to implement the law in a discriminatory fashion. The Government infringed on press freedom and used the courts and administrative bodies selectively to shut down or restrain newspapers and radio stations that criticized the Government. Government intimidation induced self-censorship by journalists. The Government exercised provisions of the Criminal Code that allowed it to prosecute those who insult high officials in the press or who make statements which might cause public instability (at times subjectively defined to allow judicial action against opinions contrary to the ruling party). The right of association was circumscribed by a new law in June. In two sets of elections, the Government seriously infringed upon the right of citizens to change their government freely by its almost total control of the electronic media. It also used manipulation of laws, harassment, and economic pressure to control the political process.
Although significant progress was made in the provision of citizenship documents to ethnic Serbs in Eastern Slavonia, the last remaining Serb-held enclave, the Government refused to allow ethnic Serbs who had fled Croatia during the military conflict in 1995 to return or vote, effectively exiling and disenfranchising at least 180,000 people. Military and police forces, contrary to officially stated government policy, continued to carry out forced evictions, although fewer than in previous years. Local officials also allowed ethnic Croat refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia-Montenegro to dispossess ethnic Serb property owners. The record of cooperation by government authorities with international human rights and monitoring organizations was mixed. Violence and discrimination against women remained problems. Discrimination in the administration of justice, housing, and jobs against ethnic Serbs and against those who were not members of the ruling party was common. Isolated incidents of ethnically motivated killings and mob violence occurred. Roma also faced discrimination.
The United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia (UNTAES) maintained executive authority for the region through January 15, 1998, when the United Nations Security Council concluded that sufficient progress toward reintegration had been made and ended UNTAES mandate. By August the Government had provided citizenship documents to over 145,000 ethnic Serbs in the region, a significant number of whom were Croatian Serbs, now refugees in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ("FRY") and Bosnia and Herzegovina, who came across the porous border with Yugoslavia to apply. The Government issued employment contracts for Serbs working in enterprises and public offices that were reintegrated into the Croatian system, thereby boosting local Serbs' confidence in their future in the region. Elections for local governments and the upper house of Parliament were held in April and presidential elections were held in June, simultaneously in the region and in the rest of Croatia. A significant number of ethnic Serb representatives were elected to local government bodies. While police remained under the control of UNTAES, they were increasingly brought into alignment with the Ministry of Interior.
Following the April elections, an ethnic Serb assistant minister of interior was appointed. Most significantly, by September some 8,000 Croatian Serbs had left UNTAES region for their homes in other parts of Croatia, and approximately 1,500 Croats had returned to their homes in Eastern Slavonia. Overall freedom of movement into and out of UNTAES region increased significantly.
While senior government leaders were cooperative, some government officials and local offices often refused to carry out central government directives. Increased access to the Danubian region led to a growing number of incidents of harassment of the ethnic Serbs living in the region by ethnic Croats, although these incidents are small in number compared to the large numbers of people moving back and forth. A significant number of these incidents of harassment were carried out by Croatian members of the Transitional Police Force or local Croatian officials. Ethnic Croat police officers at times were biased in their treatment of ethnic Serbs in the region.
Croatia
Republika Hrvatska
Until 1991 Socialist republic of Croatia within the
"Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia" (SFRY).
On 25 June 1991 Declaration of Independence of Croatia (Republika Hrvatska) compiled by Inke Arns Last census 1991: 4,784,265 inhabitants. 78,1% Croats; 12,2% Serbs (estimate 1995: under 8%); 43,500 ethnic Muslims; 22,400 Slovens; 22,400 Hungarians; 21,300 Italians; 13,100 Czechs; 12,000 Albanians et. al. ? Refugees end of 1996: 185,000 internal refugees; 300,000 in the FRY; 160,300 from Bosnia-Herzegovina; 6700 from FRY.
19894 May 1995: The UN Security Council criticizes Croation actions against Serb citizens in Pakrac and condems the Croatian Serbs for attacking Zagreb.
4 August 1995: The Croatian Army lauches an offensive (operation ?Oluja" [storm]) against the ?Serb Republic of Krajina" and takes over the city of Knin. It occupies all Serb-held territories in Croatia except Eastern Slavonia. At least 120,000 Serbs flee to the Serb-held territories in northern Bosnia (around Banja Luka), to Eastern Slavonia or to Serbia.
9 September 1995: The Croatian Army joins the offensive of army of the Bosnian-Croat Federation against Serb-controlled territories in northern and western Bosnia. After the 10 October armistice in Bosnia-Herzegovina the Croatian army pulls out of Bosnia.
14 December 1995: After 3,5 years the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina is officially ended by the Dayton Peace Agreement in Paris. It is signed by the presidents of Bosnia, FRY and Croatia. The state leaders of the Contact Group for Bosnia ? The United States, France, Russia, Great Britain and Germany sign the document as witnesses.
19969 January 1996: The UN Security Council criticizes Croatia for human rights violations, demands the protection of human rights of the Serbs in Krajina and demands the extradition of alleged Croatian war criminals to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
15 January 1996: The UN Security Council sends approx. 5000 soldiers and civilian monitors to the former Serb Republic of Krajina to control the transition of the area into Croat administration. Demilitarization of Krajina is completed by 20 June.
14 March 1996: The Council of Europe's Political Committee sends Croatia a 21-item list of admission criteria that is to be signed by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Croatia's parliamentary chairman by 19 March if Croatia is to enter the organization in April. The list is detailed and specific, including references to freedom of the media and democracy in electing the mayor of Zagreb.
7 April 1996: Tax authorities have presented the country's only independent daily, Rijeka's Novi list -- Croatia's third-largest and only independent daily paper, with a bill for DM 4 million. Opposition groups charge that the move is an attempt to crush what little press freedom there is in Croatia. The tax bill recall the earlier attempt to drive the independent weekly Feral Tribune out of business with a pornography tax. The measures come on the heels of two new major restrictive pieces of legislation and the impending closure of the independent Zagreb radio station "101."
25 April 1996: Croatia's application to become a member of the Council of Europe is approved by the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe. International journalists nonetheless call attention to the government's hounding of the independent media.
3 May 1996: Croatian police interrogates Viktor Ivancic -- editor of the satirical weekly Feral Tribune, one of the few independent mass circulation periodicals in Croatia. The move appears to be yet another effort by President Franjo Tudjman and his governing Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ) to silence criticism. The authorities earlier tried to shut down Feral Tribune by imposing a "pornography tax," which they were later forced to drop under international pressure.
14 May 1996: Foreign ministers of the 39-member Council of Europe vote to delay action until the end this month on Croatia's application for membership. They cite Zagreb's failure to act on a 21-point program on democracy and human rights that it had agreed on with the council in April. Spokesmen add that specific issues included press freedom, the status of the Zagreb city council, cooperation with the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, and the reunification of Mostar. Croatia's application had already been approved, first by a committee and then on 24 April by the parliamentary assembly. Many in Strasbourg are angry with the Croatian government's moves since 24 April against the independent media and the opposition-dominated Zagreb council.
11 June 1996: Representatives of the Croatian Helsinki Committee (HHO) inform the public that the conference "Serbs in Croatia--yesterday, today, tomorrow," which was scheduled for the end of June, will be canceled due to the campaign against it by the Croatian state-run media. The conference was labeled by the media as anti-Croatian and boycotted by the state authorities, the opposition, and the church, who share the government's negative attitude regarding the return of Serbs to Croatia.
25 June 1996: UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali submits a report to the Security Council that criticizes the human rights situation in Croatia. Since the UN's last critical report on the situation in Croatia, published in February, Ghali says that there has been no improvement either in investigating numerous human rights violations, particularly in sectors formerly held by Serbs, or in the repatriation of the 200,000 Croatian Serbs who fled to rump Yugoslavia after the Croat offensive in Krajina in summer 1995
25 September 1996: Proceedings begin again in Zagreb against Viktor Ivancic, the editor in chief of Feral Tribune, and Marinko Culic, who writes for the same outspoken satirical weekly. The trial resumes after a three-month break in what is widely seen as a test for the new press law, which allows the government to silence and jail journalists by claiming that they slandered high officials or revealed "state secrets." The two men are accused of defaming President Franjo Tudjman, international media noted. Croatia has been warned by the Council of Europe and other international bodies that the new law is unacceptable if that country wants to join European institutions.
6 November 1996: Croatia becomes the 40th member of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Membership was first approved in April, then delayed in May in an unprecedented decision over misgivings about Croatia at home and abroad. In October, the Council agreed to admit Croatia, citing its cooperation with Bosnia's peace accord, improvement of human rights and a "satisfactory" record of cooperation with the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia.
November 1996: The Croatian government gives Radio 101's broadcasting concession to the rival station but later backtracks on the move after 100,000 people demonstrate against it in Zagreb.
12 December 1996: The European Parliament passes a resolution expressing deep concern at the government's treatment of the independent Zagreb radio station Radio 101. The resolution calls on Croatia to "renew Radio 101's permit to broadcast before it runs out on 15 January 1997."
199715 May 1997: US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sharply criticizes Croatia's policies toward returning Serb refugees at her meeting in Washington with Foreign Minister Mate Granic. She stresses that Croatia will not be accepted into Western political and other institutions unless it fulfills its obligations under the Dayton accord.
25 May 1997: President Franjo Tudjman tells state-owned media in Zagreb that his country promises to reintegrate the Serbs of eastern Slavonia. He adds, however, that it is "unreasonable" for foreigners to insist that all Serbs who fled Croatia be allowed to go home. On 23 May, ambassadors from the Contact Group countries delivered a formal protest in Zagreb over Croatia's treatment of its ethnic Serbs.
15 June 1997: Tudjman is re-elected president. OSCE charges that the presidential vote day is "fundamentally flawed."
27 June 1997: An alleged war criminal is arrested in eastern Slavonia by researchers of the ITCY who are supported by the UN transitory administration. Slavko Dokmanoviæ, former mayor of Vukovar, is said to be responsible for the killing of 261 people in November 1991.
June 1997: Croatia is represented in the Venice Biennial by Dalibor Martinis (commissioner: Berislav Valu?ek).
15 July 1997: Croatian control is restored in Eastern Slavonia. One day earlier, the UN Security Council voted in New York to extend the mandate for the United Nations Transitional Administration in Eastern Slavonia (UNTAES) for six months. The mandate was slated to end on 15 July, when full Croatian control was to have been restored.
18 September 1997: The UN Security Council expresses concern at the Croatian government's "lack of substantial progress" toward creating conditions for the repatriation of Serbian and other refugees to Eastern Slavonia and the devolution of executive authority to the region. The Security Council calls on Zagreb to remove administrative and legal obstacles to repatriation and take measures to integrate repatriates into economic and social life. The statement also calls on Croatia "to cooperate fully" with the international tribunal investigating war crimes in former Yugoslavia.
14 - 18 October 1997: ?Public Body ? a Week of Performance" takes place in Zagreb. It is organized by the Soros Center for Contemporary Art - Zagreb in collaboration with A Casa / At Home / Doma - Independent Art Project, Zagreb.
23 October 1997: Stipe Suvar, a former leader of the League of Communists of Croatia, says in Zagreb that he has founded the Socialist Workers Party of Croatia (SRPH) and that the party will hold its founding congress on 25 October.
12 December 1997: The lower house of the Croatian parliament passes a package of constitutional amendments that Tudjman proposed in November. But the final version of the law names some 10 ethnic minorities, which Tudjman's proposal did not. Slovenes, however, are not included among those named. According to official Croatian statistics, some 54,000 ethnic Slovenes live in Croatia. The new amendments do not mention Muslims or Albanians by name, either. Slovenia calls the exclusion of the Slovenian minority unexpected and disturbing and says Zagreb's move will prompt Ljubljana to reconsider its support for Croatian membership in European bodies.
11 November 1997: Local trains begin running between the two former Yugoslav republics for the first time since 1991. The line connects Vinkovci with Sid. Direct trains between Zagreb and Belgrade will start in May 1998
19986 January 1998: Bosnian government officials say in Sarajevo on 6 January that Croatian officials have said a reference to a Muslim minority was dropped from recent amendments to the Croatian Constitution because Muslims are not "native" to Croatia but have migrated there in recent times. The amendments also dropped any reference to a Slovenian minority, presumably on the same grounds. Representatives of Croatia's large Muslim and Slovenian minorities argue that those populations have long lived in Croatia. They fear that the constitutional change means the minorities will lose cultural and other rights.
15 January 1998: Full Croatian control is restored in eastern Slavonia.
16 February 1998: The 11 ambassadors monitoring the reintegration of eastern Slavonia into Croatia issue a statement in Vukovar in which they note "the growing feelings of insecurity in the Serbian community" since the region formally reverted to Croatian control last month. The ambassadors add that Croatia has not made noticeable progress in correcting that problem. Local Serbs have charged that Croatian former residents of the area often return and intimidate Serbs who live in the Croats' former homes.
24 February 1998: Milorad Pupovac, Vojislav Stanimirovic and Milos Vojnovic, who are leaders of Croatia's Serbian minority, say in statement that they will leave joint bodies aimed at promoting the reintegration of eastern Slavonia into Croatia unless Serbs stop fleeing the region and unless incidents that the Serbs regard as provocative cease.
2 July 1998: The Security Council says that "ethnically related incidents, evictions, and housing intimidation cases" have been on the rise recently in eastern Slavonia, which returned to Croatian administration in January. "A continuation of this trend could have a seriously negative effect on the restoration of a multi-ethnic society in the Republic of Croatia," the text concludes
14 September 1998: The office of the OSCE in Zagreb says in a report to the Croatian government that Croatia has not met its international commitments aimed at winning the confidence of the ethnic Serbian minority and encouraging Serbian refugees to return home. The text adds that Croatia must take "urgent measures" aimed at encouraging pluralism in the media and reforming its electoral laws if it is to achieve further integration into Euro-Atlantic structures.
199925 March 1999: Prime Minister Zlatko Matesa tells the government that Croatia supports the NATO air strikes but wants guarantees for its security from NATO and the U.S.
8 April 1999: The Croatian government says in a statement that it is concerned that NATO's attacks on Serbian targets will damage the Croatian economy by discouraging tourists from visiting the region. Tourism and shipping are key earners of hard-currency for Croatia. Tourism Minister Ivan Herak says in Zagreb on 26 April that the government will spend an additional $10 million to help the tourist industry minimize its losses stemming from the reluctance of many tourists to travel to Croatia on account of the Kosova crisis. Herak says that the tourist industry expects losses of up to 50 percent compared with 1998.
10 April 1999: The government approves a $2.6 million humanitarian aid package for Kosovar refugees in Albania and Macedonia. Prime Minister Zlatko Matesa says that his country already provides a home for 5,000 Kosovar refugees and can only take in an additional "limited number." He stresses that Croatia still houses 90,000 refugees and displaced persons from the Croatian and Bosnian wars of 1991-1995.
20 April 1999: Croatian police arrests Dragisa Cancarevic in Vukovar. He is the head of the local police in Borovo Naselje. The ethnic Serbian police officer is suspected of committing war crimes in Vukovar during the 1991-1995 war.