LOCAL PRESS

 

Dacic invites ECOSOC members to donors’ conference (Tanjug)

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic informed in New York members of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) about the extent of the damage caused by the May floods in Serbia and invited them to take part in the international donors’ conference in Brussels on 16 July. He told the ECOSOC Political Forum the success of the donors’ conference would be very important to Serbia, the Foreign Ministry stated. Serbia appreciates deeply the willingness of the international community to organize the conference at the request of the European Commission, France and Slovenia, he noted, adding that the event would be used to present the donors with a report on the damage caused by the floods in Serbia and B&H in May, which would be based on analyses by the EU, UN and World Bank. According to preliminary estimates, the damage from the floods that recently hit a part of Serbia is 1.5 billion Euros, he remarked. When it comes to poverty, Dacic says Serbia has hit its main target regarding the Millenium Development Goals and halved the number of poor among its citizens by 2008, but as a country with a medium level of personal income, it faces special development challenges in eradicating poverty. The difficult economic situation is made worse because of the large number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the country, and these vulnerable groups are one of the biggest problems in Serbia, which has the biggest population of refugees and internally displaced persons in Europe, he pointed out. Finding a lasting and sustainable solution for these groups remains one of the chief tasks for the government, but there are still significant obstacles to the refugees’ return to the country of origin, especially considering the increased frequency of incidents with ethnic background and hate speech, Dacic stated. That is why Serbia is deeply concerned over the premature adoption of the UNHCR recommendation in April this year to terminate the refugee status of all the people who were driven out of Croatia between 1990 and 1995, says Dacic, adding that out of the 200,000 internally displaced persons from Kosovo, less than 5 percent have returned to the homes they left in 1999. He commented on the talks on formulating the goals of sustainable development post 2015 by saying that Serbia was an active participant as a member of the Open Working Group. Serbia is also an active participant of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing and acknowledges in full the principle that the foremost responsibility of each country is its own development and that it needs to conduct the reforms necessary to establish an efficient tax system and good management and to eradicate the illegal financial flows, Dacic remarked. The Serbian government is taking serious steps in this direction when it comes to reforms, but official development assistance remains a very important instrument, particularly for the least developed countries, he noted. Dacic stated he was pleased to take part in the ECOSOC High-level Segment, which Serbia had joined after more than two decades, adding that, as a new member of the UN’s most important body on economic, social and environmental protection, his country wanted to make an active contribution to its work. Dacic met UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Development Program Administrator Helen Clark in New York. Clarke will represent the UN at the international donor conference in Brussels on 16 July and she will visit Serbia on 14 July to learn about the damage caused by the floods.
Vucic: We wish to join the EU, but not to the detriment of our relations with Moscow (Politika)

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said that Serbia would wish to join the EU, but not to the detriment of its relations with Russia. After talks with Russian Prime Minister Dmitrii Medvedev in Moscow, Vucic said that, regarding the South Stream gas line project, only technical issues had remained, which, as he stressed, are closing very quickly. He stressed that Serbia had had four requests regarding that project and that the Russian side had met all of them. Medvedev stressed that the two countries were ready to sign an agreement on the South Stream gas line soon, which is to raise the bilateral relations to an even further level. He believes that the project, which is mutual benefit, but also to the benefit of Europe, must not be put into a political context. Russia has shown full understanding for Serbia and all the energy projects are going according to plan, but this project is a priority one for Russia, which has also become obvious in the context of the recent situation in Ukraine, said Medvedev. Stressing that Serbia supports all the peace initiatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding Ukraine, Vucic said that Serbia also supported Germany’s stand on that issue. I have never hidden the fact that Serbia wants to join the EU, but not to the detriment of its friendly relations with Russia, said Vucic, while Medvedev said that he and Vucic had discussed the situation in Ukraine in an open manner. As for the modernization of railways, Vucic assessed the issue as the one in which Serbia has created problems which it will have to deal with on its own, while Medvedev assessed that the project will show the good relations between the two countries and increase Serbia’s export potentials. The two Prime Ministers agreed that bilateral trade was good and that it had increased by 15 percent last year and by 9 percent in the first trimester of this year. Vucic and Medvedev also discussed expansion of the free trade zone and a possibility of Russia’s allowing Serbia to export some more products and hiring more Serbian building companies. After one hour of tete-a-tete talks, Dimitrii Medvedev and Aleksandar Vucic had talks with the two countries’ state delegation members.

 

Odalovic: Excavations in Rudnica should continue next week (Tanjug)

“Excavations should continue next week at two slopes of a hill near the Rudnica quarry in southern Serbia, a site suspected of holding bodies of ethnic Albanians missing from the 1999 Kosovo conflict. Three sites to excavate have been identified in the area of Rudnica, near Raska. Two have already been searched – a site where a house had to be removed to carry out excavations and another above it,” Chairman of the Serbian government’s commission on missing persons Veljko Odalovic has said. “The search of the third site, two slopes of a nearby hill, will begin as early as late next week,” Odalovic said on the sidelines of a conference on consequences of the 1990’s wars from the angle of victims’ families organized by the Coordination of the Serbian Associations of Families of Missing Persons from the Territory of Former Yugoslavia. He pointed out that the excavations had been financed by the Serbian government, and it had consumed enormous resources because the government’s commission on missing persons had been receiving inaccurate or unreliable information. Odalovic said that “credible evidence and serious witnesses” would have to be provided in the future, as the Serbian taxpayers’ money should not be wasted just because “someone comes to the site and burdens the investigating team with unchecked assumptions.” Serbian Deputy War Crimes Prosecutor Bruno Vekaric stressed that “Serbia has approached the surveys of the sites at Rudnica most responsibly and in a most efficient manner,” recalling that the first site had held remains of 50 people, while the other hid none.

 

Vekaric: Important to establish a court to investigate into KLA war crimes (Politika)

Serbian Deputy War Crimes Prosecutor Bruno Vekaric believes that the establishment of a special court to investigate into KLA war crimes will be very important in terms of establishing the truth and reaching justice. At a gathering on the consequences of the 1990’s wars from the angle of victims’ families, he said that the formation of that court would confirm that the international community is ready to investigate into organ trafficking, kidnappings and murder in Kosovo.

 

Kosovo Serb representatives examining tactics for Kosovo Assembly constitutive session (Novosti)

Atifete Jahjaga’s cabinet has announced that the constitutive session of the Kosovo Assembly will be held on 17 July, but it is still uncertain whether the Serb MPs will be present. Serb representatives have two big reasons to start a boycott: distribution of mandates following the elections, and the increasingly more open seizure of property. Leposavic Mayor Dragan Jablanovic tells Novosti that the Kosovo Privatization Agency continues with illegal moves, especially in the Serb regions: “Apart from the Serb majority municipality of Strpce, where numerous companies have been seized and employees left on the streets over the past months, they also started the privatization in the north of the province. Gracanica Mayor Branimir Stojanovic says that the Serb (Srpska) list will use all possible mechanisms in order to achieve rights that belong to it.

 

Donors’ conference for Serbia and B&H on 16 July (RTS)

A big donors’ conference, aimed at helping Serbia and B&H overcome the consequences of the recent severe floods, is due on Wednesday, 16 July, in Brussels and will be attended by numerous politicians, officials and representatives of international organizations and companies. The Serbian delegation will be led by President Tomislav Nikolic. The conference’s venue will be the Charlemagne building in the European Quarter and the largest conference hall, which can admit more than 400 people, has been booked.

 

REGIONAL PRESS

 

Izetbegovic to be SDA candidate for B&H Presidency, Salkic candidate for RS President (Fena)

The SDA leader Bakir Izetbegovic will be this party’s candidate for the Bosniak Member of the B&H Presidency at this year’s general elections, while the candidate for the position of the RS President/Vice-President will be Ramiz Salkic, the SDA Presidency has decided.

 

INTERNATIONAL PRESS

 

The big Serbian information shutdown (New Internationalist, by Alexia Kalaitzi, 7 July 2014)

Are we losing Serbia?

That was a question that Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic did not expect to hear during a joint press conference he gave with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin last month.

‘Will the affairs related to media censorship in Serbia stand in the country’s way to the EU integration processes?’ asked Natalija Miletic, a Serbian journalist who lives and works in Germany. A proper response wasn’t given, and after the press conference Natalija was told by the Serbian embassy never to contact the embassy or dare to cover any similar event again. The next day, back in Serbia, Natalija was targeted by the tabloids, which referred to her as the ‘Mystical Tits’ (after her Twitter nickname) who attacked the Prime Minister.

‘For me as a journalist, the question of censorship was THE question. Although they try to deny its existence, censorship is so present in Serbia,’ Natalija says.

Natalija’s story is one of the many examples of media censorship in Serbia. The shutdown of news websites, the removal of articles and blog posts, and cyber-attacks against journalists and bloggers have become an everyday reality. Dunja Mijatovic, who is the representative for freedom of the media at the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has already expressed her concerns about a worrying trend of online censorship during a week when the country was hit by severe and disastrous floods. During that week, censorship reached its peak. The government declared a ‘state of emergency’, which gave the authorities the opportunity to censor media and arrest citizens accused of ‘inciting panic during a state of emergency’ – merely because they were using Facebook to criticize the government’s inefficiency in dealing with the floods. An article arguing that Vucic should resign has been removed, without any explanation, from the blog section of one of the most important daily newspapers, Blic. Other websites, such as Teleprompter, featuring similar content have been also blocked.

It is no secret that Vucic served as Minister of Information under Slobodan Miloševic’s regime in the late 1990s, nor that he led the implementation of the infamous Information Law, according to which the editors of all opposition media had to get their content approved by him before publication. ‘Now he is smarter than that,’ says journalist, blogger and co-founder of the independent media Balkanist, Srecko Šekeljic. ‘What we have now is informal groups that impose pressure on independent authors and media. They are actually groups of “cyber-criminals” who organize DDoS [Distributed Denial of Service] attacks to shutdown websites, hack journalists’ and authors’ emails or troll internet users. It is exactly what happened to me.’

Srecko had been involved in research carried out by Serbian academics based in London, proving that fake doctorates had been awarded to public figures, including the current Minister of Internal Affairs. The researchers worked through his dissertation and revealed that his work was ‘heavily plagiarized and for this and other reasons fails to meet the criteria for a successful PhD’. The research team offered the story to many respectable online and print media in Serbia. Most editors refused to publish it, claiming that it didn’t fit in with their editorial agenda or that their management had refused to publish the content. The only media that initially accepted the story was an independent news website named Pescanic. When the post was put online, Pescanic was attacked by hackers and remained unavailable for 10 days. One hacker created a fake email account in Srecko’s name and sent messages to one of the researchers, asking to meet him in person in order to give him ‘some valuable files’.

According to Srecko, this case is characteristic of the self-censorship of editors who are fearful of publishing any sensitive anti-government material. He underlines that the biggest problem for the Serbian media is their financial dependency on the state. In addition, many of the big advertisers are linked to the ruling party.

According to a recent report published by the Center for International Media Assistance, the state funding of media, estimated at between 23 and 40 per cent, is unregulated, unmonitored and non-transparent. The same report states that advertising contracts offered by Serbian state bodies often require that the media outlets broadcast or publish interviews with state officials or print as news PR articles on the work of state organs or public enterprises. A typical example is TV Studio B, funded by Belgrade City Council to the tune of around 2.5 million euros last year. Monitoring of 10 of its news bulletins revealed that 47 per cent of the information sources of were municipality leaders and 16 per cent were citizens. The strongest opposition party was not mentioned in any of them. With the advertising sector shrinking in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, Serbian media has become even more vulnerable to state financial support.

 

Russia Rushes To Seal Ukraine-Bypassing Gas Pipeline: Lavrov Pays Bulgaria A Visit (Zero Hedge, by Tyler Durden, 7 July 2014)

As we remarked two weeks ago [15], when observing the recent developments surrounding the suddenly all-important South Stream gas pipeline bypassing Ukraine entirely, and instead traversing the Black Sea before crossing Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and terminating in the Austrian central European gas hub of Baumgarten, we said that all of Europe is suddenly focused on if and how Russia will make headway with a project that may be the most important one for not only Europe's energy future but the impact Russia will continue to have over Germany et al. And of course, Ukraine. Because should Russia find a way to completely bypass Kiev as a traditional transit hub for Russian gas, it would make the country, and its ongoing civil war, completely irrelevant not only for Russia, but worse, for Europe, the IMF, and Ukraine's staunch western "supporters and allies" as well.

Showing just how Europe perceives the Russian "South Stream" threat was a comment from a recent NYT article [17], in which Günther Oettinger, Europe’s top energy official, was quoted as saying that the Ukraine crisis “has slowed down our progress on South Stream considerably... We can’t just give in to the Russians every time.” Alas, since the Russians control the all important gas, Europe has zero choice.

This explains why even as the western media finally remembered over the weekend there was a Ukraine civil war going on following an advance by the Kiev army to retake some rebel strongholds in the Donbas region, with some wondering what if anything Putin would do in retaliation, what Putin, or rather his envoy Sergei Lavrov were actually doing, was completely ignoring the Ukraine situation (where the West has long since conceded the loss of Crimea to the Kremlin) and instead focusing on securing the successful launch of the South Stream (remember: the second South Stream goes online, Ukraine becomes irrelevant). And since Russia already signed another historic agreement with Austria in June, which positioned the AAA-country (with some surprising emerging bank troubles subsequently) squarely against its fellow European peers, it was the turn of the other South Stream countries, namely Bulgaria.

As Reuters reported [18], all construction timelines for the South Stream pipeline are on track and the European Union should restart talks about the project, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on a visit to Bulgaria on Monday.  

Bulgaria has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Russian-backed project, whose construction has stoked tensions between the West and Moscow, especially in the wake of Russia's annexation of Crimea.

But Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski's government suspended work last month on its section of the pipeline at the behest of Brussels, pending a ruling on whether the project violates EU law.

Which maybe sheds some light on why in June Bulgaria also experienced the biggest bank run in 17 years, culminating with the nationalization of the 4th largest bank, and also led to the president announcing his early resignation.

So in the Bulgarian power vacuum, the domestic foreign minister Kristian Vigenin said that the "pipeline is of interest to EU, its construction must comply with European laws" during a briefing with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. He also said that Bulgaria seeks a quick resumption of South Stream, something which means Europe will have to try harder in its try to prevent a pipeline bypassing its now very substantial Ukraine investment.  

Lavrov added that South Stream agreements were signed long ago, before EU adopted unbundling legislation; such laws can’t be retroactively applied. The Russian foreign minister said Russia expects EU to apply single standards to all pipelines.

And since it is not just Bulgaria but Serbia, we also got this:

•RUSSIA, SERBIA MAY SIGN SOUTH STREAM PACT IN DAYS: MEDVEDEV

And from Itar-Tass [19]:

Gas can run through Kosovo by the South Stream pipeline, according to materials, timed to Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic’s visit to Russia.

“An issue is being studied to create a network in Kosovo based on long-term contracts on Russian natural gas supplies,” the materials say.

Two branches are planning to be built - to Serbian Republic and Croatia, the materials say.

At present, Russia’s-led South Stream gas branch is expected to run through Macedonia. The Serbian leadership upheld this idea.

South Stream is Gazprom’s global infrastructure project for the construction of a gas pipeline that will run via the bottom of the Black Sea to the countries of Southern and Central Europe with an aim to diversify routes for exporting natural gas and exclude transit risks. The ground section of the South Stream pipeline will run across Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Austria. The designed capacity of the pipeline is 63 billion cubic metres. The pipeline is planned to be commissioned in late 2015.

In other words, the great cold war 2.0 fight for Russian sphere of influence in Eastern Europe is on. Because while on one hand we reported that during the weekend, it was none other than France which vocally came out against US Dollar hegemony and thus was forced to gravitate toward the Eurasian (China/Russian) camp, it is the events in Eastern Europe in the next several months that will define European energy geopolitics for the decades to come.

Look for many more fireworks in Bulgaria and the other South Stream countries over the coming weeks as the fate of the South Stream is determined behind the scenes.

 

Izetbegovic to re-run in Bosnian presidential election (www.aa.com.tr, 7 July 2014)
Bakir Izetbegovic was firstly elected as the Bosnian representative on Bosnia and Herzegovina's power-sharing presidency in 2010.
The Bosnian representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina's three-man presidency will stand for re-election in October, it has been announced.

Bakir Izetbegovic’s Party of Democratic Action declared on Monday that he will be the Bosnian candidate. Ramiz Salkic, vice-president of the Republic of Srpska National Assembly, will be the party's nominee for the presidency of the Republic of Srpska, a party statement said.

The four-year presidency of Bosnia is shared by three representatives from the country's ethnic groups – a Bosnian and a Croat are elected from the Federation of Bosnia Herzegovina and a Serb from the Republic of Srpska.

Bakir, the son of the late president and party founder Alija Izetbegovic, was first elected to the presidency in 2010.

Salkic has been a Srpska assembly member since 2007 and was re-elected in 2010 before becoming the assembly's vice-president.

The system of power-sharing has operated since 1996, a year after the Dayton peace agreement ended the conflict in Bosnia.

 

Bosnia Raises New Indictments Against Wartime Fighters (BIRN, by Denis Dzidic, 7 July 2014)

The state prosecution filed indictments against a Bosnian Army soldier accused of shooting several Croats and a Serb serviceman who allegedly killed two Bosniak women and their three children.

The prosecution said on Monday that it had charged Jasmin Coloman, a former member of the Reconnaissance Squad of the Bosnian Army’s Seventh Muslim Brigade, attacked Croat civilians who were being detained at the Youth Centre in the village of Poculice near Vitez in central Bosnia on April 24, 1993.

“When the facility guard refused to unlock the door and let the indictee enter the building, he opened fire from an automatic gun through the closed door. Three Croats were killed and nine wounded in that shooting,” the prosecution said.

Coloman was arrested on June 25 and the court remanded him in custody for a month due to the possibility that he might flee and influence witnesses or accomplices.

The Bosnian prosecution also filed an indictment on Monday against Dragan Maksimovic, a former member of the First Bircanska Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army

Maksimovic is charged with going to a house in the village of Caparde near Kalesija in 1992 aiming to find and kill Bosniaks.
The indictment alleges that Maksimovic entered the house and used an automatic rifle to kill five civilians - two women and their three children, the youngest of whom was only three years old.

Both indictments have been forwarded to the Bosnian state court for confirmation.

 

Bosnian Serb Soldier Acquitted of Kljuc Killings (BIRN, 8 July 2014)

Ex-soldier Ratko Lavrnic was acquitted for a second time of killing three civilians in the Kljuc municipality in 1993 because of a lack of evidence against him.

The presiding judge at the cantonal court in Bihac said on Monday that the prosecution did not succeed in proving at Lavrnic's retrial that he killed the civilians in the village of Reizovici on February 10, 1993.
"During the retrial, the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt allegations from the indictment and everything was circumstantial evidence," said judge Jasminka Karabegovic.
Lavrnic, a former serviceman with the 17th Kljuc Brigade of the Bosnian Serb Army, was acquitted of charges for killing Fatima and Hata Risovic and Ramiza Adzemovic and wounding Ejub Cenanovic.
His retrial started last March, after the supreme court of the Bosnian Federation entity quashed the previous verdict handed down by the cantonal court in Bihac, which also acquitted Lavrnic.
The verdict can be appealed.

 

Reeling from the floods, Bosnians' anger surfaces (DW, 8 July 2014)

In the aftermath of the worst floods in more than a century in Bosnia and Herzegovina, authorities have been slow and inadept in providing help to families who lost their livelihoods.

It's been a month and a half since the mud swallowed Idanavic Sadeta's house. Her home used to be a three-story dwelling in this once picturesque valley of raspberry farmers. But in the middle of May, the tiny nearby river began to swell after days of torrential rain. It grew until it resembled a tidal wave filled with mud, rocks and debris. The mud poured into her house, and around it, and kept pouring into the valley until the ground level had risen to the third story of her house. It destroyed her brother's nearby home. It pushed another brother's home 1,200 meters down the valley.

She, her parents, and her brothers are living in a tent pitched on the now-expansive mud flat next to what remains of her home. Most of her possessions are destroyed. They have no electricity, and no running water except the river.

Now they're wondering where they go from here, and why their government seems to be doing little to help them. Last week, along with many of their neighbors from the village, they began protesting in the nearby town where the local government is situated, asking, at the least, for a place to live until they can rebuild their lives.

"So far nobody actually helped us," says Sadeta, a 38-year-old mother of two. "We made our living from agriculture, and we had a decent life before this. Now we have nothing, and we're praying to God for someone to help us. I have no idea how to continue my life."

Trying to rebuild

The slow response to the worst floods in more than a century in Bosnia and Herzegovina illustrate the dysfunction of the government here, where the complicated state structure provides a convenient excuse for inaction. In the village of Zeljezno Polje, local officials say they are waiting on action from higher levels of government. Officials of the state's two entities, the Serb-majority Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, populated by Bosniak Muslims and Croats, have bickered over how to divide funds donated for the recovery. Many Bosnians believe the donations will disappear to corruption and cronyism. Meanwhile, Sadeta and others in her village live in tents, wondering when help will come.

When it rains it pours

"The floods are, once again, evidence of institutional failure of government in Bosnia," said Jasmin Mujanovic, a visiting scholar at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University who studies Bosnia. He notes that volunteers and civic organizations sprang into action to help those affected by the landslides and floods in the days and weeks after the disaster. "But at some point people realized that the government should be doing this," he said. In coming weeks, "I think we'll start to see more and more anger about the total lack of response by government institutions."

The floods devastated parts of northeast Bosnia - one fifth of the country was flooded, and one fourth of the country's population was affected, according to the state government's Deputy Security Minister Mladen Cavar. Around 100,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed, including 700 houses belonging to refugees from the civil war nearly two decades ago. More than 55,000 people were initially displaced by the disaster, said Cavar, and thousands are still without a home. Twenty-one people were killed and two are still considered missing, he said.

The government has been slow to respond

That would be a devastating disaster in almost any country. But in Bosnia, a disjointed and decentralized state structure means gaps in responses and plenty of opportunities to pass the blame. Officials in the Republika Serpska waited one week before asking for help from the state government, a delay that caused increased injury, says Cavar.

Arrogant authorities

In Zepce, where Sadeta and her neighbors from Zeljezno Polje protested outside the mayor's office, deputy mayor Brigita Lovric dismissed the protesters gathered outside with a condescending smile. "One third of Bosnia and Herzegovina is affected by floods and landslides, and people aren't protesting anywhere else," she said. "My mother's house was flooded and my mother is not here protesting."

She says the municipality has already done what it could, by sending machinery to clear roads blocked by landslides and flood debris and restoring electricity in most towns. There was little more the local government could do, she said, and it's now waiting on the Federation government to pass a law providing for the recovery effort. "There will be some kind of solution for these people, but they must be calm and patient," said Lovric.

Cavar says the government organized the removal of 100 tons of dead animal carcasses, that 700 tons of food has been distributed, and that shelters have been set up for the displaced. He said the government would rebuild the homes that were destroyed before winter - an easier promise to utter than to fulfill. A donors conference for Bosnia and Serbia to be hosted in Brussels by the European Commission this month will mobilize more funds for recovery.

"We know that people after more than a month want to get back to their lives, they want to get their houses back," said Cavar. "We're doing our best to redirect the budget to rebuild these houses. … but we assume it will take years to recover from this."

'Water, water everywhere...'

aiting for a miracle?

But the residents of Zeljezno Polje are tired of being patient. The torrent of mud that now fills the valley and covers dozens of houses also covers many of the raspberry plants on which the residents made their living. Elvir Asceric, 39, whose forearms are covered with scratches from harvesting the berries, is camped next to his parents' home. The house was two levels, but now only the roof rises above the mud. His parents are hospitalized, and he's not sure how to begin rebuilding. "We can't do anything. We're just waiting for the response from the government," he said.

Sadeta's brother Asmer Tutnjic, 31, says he met with the mayor to plead for help. "He said he's not powerful enough to make a solution," said Tutnjic. "But what the municipality should do is find a safe place for us to live to get us out of the tent. What will we do when winter comes?"

Those in the village who live on the hillside instead of in the valley were luckier. But officials have warned many of them that even their homes may not be safe, because geologists fear the ground underneath may give way in more landslides. Town residents say people panic every time it rains, afraid their homes will crumble beneath them. Many speak about leaving the village for good, fearing they can no longer feel safe there.

Tutnjic and his family believe that if they had been connected politically, they would have received help already. "I know we are a very complicated country," said Tutnjic as his elderly mother leaned on his arm. "But the only thing we ask at this moment is that they deal with us as human beings, who should have a decent life. So many days have passed and nothing has been done. It's not just about money, it's about safety. It's about a local hand of friendship."

 

‘Fascist’ Croatian Flag ‘Sparked Clashes with Serbs’ (BIRN, by Marija Ristic, 7 July 2014)

Former Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic, on trial for war crimes, said that attempts by the Zagreb authorities to get rid of the Yugoslav flag sparked armed conflict in 1991.

Hadzic told his war crimes trial at the Hague Tribunal that serious clashes between the Croatian authorities and local Serbs erupted when the flag of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was removed from buildings in Serb-majority areas of the country in 1991 and replaced with the Croatian flag.

Testifying in his own defence, Hadzic said that Serbs became angry because the new Croatian flag resembled the one used by the Ustasa government which led Croatia during WWII as a puppet state of Nazi Germany.

“Most of the Serbs had a problem with that. But I think their problem was that the [Yugoslav] flag was removed, not so much that they put up the Croatian,” Hadzic told the court on Friday.

“When I look back, this should not have been a reason for starting a war, and this is maybe also my fault [as Croatian Serb leader],” he added.

Hadzic, the former president of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, a self-proclaimed Serb statelet in Croatia during wartime, is accused of a series of crimes including the deportation of tens of thousands of non-Serbs and the murders of hundreds more from June 1991 to December 1993.

At the beginning of the war, in 1991, Hadzic was part of the Serb Democratic Party, which brought together Serbs from Croatia who opposed the country’s independence from Yugoslavia.

According to Hadzic, the party was split between a radical wing and a more ‘peaceful’ one.

“The Serbs from [the town of] Knin were more radical, while we in Slavonija were ‘peaceful’… I was part of that peaceful group. We wanted to negotiate with the Croats, we wanted co-existence with them,” he said. During the previous trial sessions however, several witnesses have claimed that Hadzic was part of the radical wing and closely cooperated with Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

Hadzic said that Serbs in Croatia wanted to be equal to Croats as an ethnic group under the constitution, to have newspapers that used the Cyrillic script and cultural autonomy, but were rebuffed by the Zagreb authorities.

“[First Croatian President Franjo] Tudjman was fair and said he could not give us that because he would have problems with his right wing in the party,” Hadzic said.

On Monday, Hadzic also told the court that armed conflict between Croats and Serbs broke out in the village of Borovo Selo in May 1991 - one of the first serious clashes of the war - when the authorities attempted to put up a Croatian flag instead of the Yugoslav one.

“The Croatian media portrayed this as an ambush [by Serbs], but I can say 100 per cent that it was not,” he said.

The trial continues on Tuesday.