Incomplete Integration: Ethnicity and the Refugee and Internally Displaced Person Crisis in Postwar Serbia

Thesis

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the

Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Conrad L Rinto II,

Graduate Program in Slavic and East European Studies

The Ohio State University

2017 Thesis Committee:

Theodora Dragostinova, Adviser

Andrea Sims

Copyright by

Conrad L Rinto II

2017

Abstract

The Yugoslav Wars were synonymous with ethnic conflict and infamous for ethnic cleansing. Fighting between ethnic paramilitaries and the targeting of civilians based on their ethnicity gave credence to the narrative that the wars were done so on the behalf of ethnicity and ethnic nationalism. While there is evidence to the links between ethnic nationalism and the

Yugoslav Wars, this connection is also problematic. If ethnicity, and specifically communities of mixed ethnicities, was the overarching reason for conflict, then ethnicity itself should also be able to promote a form of privileged migration and integration during and after the Yugoslav

Wars.

To study the interconnection between ethnicity and integration, I will analyze the integration of ethnic Serb refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Serbia following the Yugoslav Wars. Receiving an estimated 537,937 refugees from the wars in Bosnia and

Croatia and over 200,000 IDPs from the 1999 Kosovo War, Serbia has developed and implemented a plan for their integration. While most of these refugees and IDPs share the

“same” Serb ethnicity of Serbia, the process for their integration has been long and incomplete.

Impacted by economic considerations, the likeness of ethnicity and the role of ethnic nationalism falls to the wayside when the refugees find themselves in competition with the local Serbians for resources. Because of competition for funding and employment opportunities, the process of the refugees and IDPs integration has been drawn out and in the case of the IDPs from Kosovo unresolved. In the end, ethnicity may have provided refugees and IDPs with a country to migrate to during the wars, but ethnicity has a limited appeal when in competition for resources.

i

Dedicated

Dedicated to the students of CSEES and to those that may be able one day to prevent

conflicts that create refugees and internally displaced persons.

ii

Acknowledgments

I am grateful for the scholarship and support that I have received during my time in the Center

for Slavic and Eastern European Studies at Ohio State University. The professors and instructors

I have had the privilege to learn from and encounter have provided me with an opportunity that I

could never have imagined. Thank you to Professor Theodora Dragostinova for being my

advisor and being part of this thesis process. The value I have received from her and Professor

Andrea Sims’ courses have given me an insight that has made me a better student and a more aware individual. Finally, a special thanks to Eileen Kunkler. This whole journey within the

Center for Slavic and Eastern European Studies would not be possible without yours and

Maryann Walther-Keisel’s support and dedication to the program.

iii

Vita

May 2001...... United Local High School

2005...... B.A. Humanities, Shawnee State University

Fields of Study

Major Field: Slavic and Eastern European Studies

iv

Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………ii

Dedication………………………………………………………………………………………...iii

Acknowledgments………………………………………………………………………………..iv

Vita………………………………………………………………………………………………...v

List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………………..vi

List of Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………………viii

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Ethnicity, Migration, and Expansion during the Yugoslav Wars………...11

Chapter 2: Serb Nationalism, Yugoslavism, and Divisions within Serb Nationalism…………...20

Chapter 3: Serbia in a State of Chaos: Refugees and IDPs in Serbia……………..……………..33

Chapter 4: The Implementation of the National Strategy: Repatriation and Integration………...45

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………….62

References.……………………………………………………………………………………….67

v

List of Tables

Table 1. Housing Breakdown of Refugees and IDPs in Serbia 2002……………………43

Table 2. Collective Centers in Serbia……………………………………………………54

Table 3. Refugee Populations from 1996 to 2016……………………………………….57

Table 4. Refugee Demographics in Serbia, 2010 and 2014……………………………..58

Table 5. IDPs Populations in Serbia 2000 to 2017………………………………………59

vi

List of Figures

Figure 1: Of the 1996 Refugee Total (537,937)…………………………………………..9

vii

List of Abbreviations

CCs……………………………………………………………………...Collective Centers

EU…………………………………………………………………………European Union

FRY…………………………………………………...…..Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

ICRC…………………………………………...International Committee of the Red Cross

IDPs…………………………………………………………..Internally Displaced Persons

IGO.………………………………………………….Internal Governmental Organization

JNA………………………………………………………………Yugoslav People’s Army

KFRO……………………………………………………………...NATO’s Kosovo Force

KLA……………………………………………………………...Kosovo Liberation Army

KPC……………………………………………………………...Kosovo Protection Corps

NGO……………………………………………………..Non-Governmental Organization

RHP………………………………………………………...Regional Housing Programme

RS………………………………………………………………………..Republika Srpska

RSK……………………………………………………………..Republika Srpska Krajina

SFRY……………………………………………Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

UNHCR………………………………..United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

UNMIK……………………....United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo viii

Introduction

In June of 1999, the multinational Kosovo Force (KFOR) entered Kosovo with the mission to serve as arbitrators of the peace and to facilitate the end of the Kosovo War. This intervention was viewed by many as the conclusion of the Yugoslav Wars (1991-1999*). Ending the Yugoslav state, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), the Yugoslav Wars would also claim an estimated 140,000 lives and create almost 4 million refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs).1 These 4 million refugees and IDPs would constitute the worst refugee and IDPs crisis in Europe since the Second World War. The crisis would unfold much like the wars

The Yugoslav Wars would begin with the Yugoslav People’s Army’s (JNA) intervention into Slovenia following the Slovene declaration of independence in June of 1991. Named the

“Ten Day War” the intervention would finish in ten days with minimal casualties and the secession of Slovenia from the SFRY. Marking the beginning of the dissolution of Yugoslavia the war also brought to the forefront the extent of Serbian control over the institution of the JNA.

This relationship would soon come to a culmination with the JNA’s employment in the war in

Croatia (1991-1995). Taking place in late August of 1991 the JNA would attack Croatian security forces under the pretense of the preservation of Yugoslavia and the protection of Serbs in Croatia. In this process of protecting Serbs in Croatia, waves of ethnic Croats would begin to

* Following the Kosovo War there was the Preševo Valley Conflict, (1999-2001) border skirmishes with Kosovar separatists and Serbia and the 2001 Insurgency in Macedonian, where Macedonia also encountered ethnic Albanian and Kosovar separatists on the Macedonian-Kosovar border. 1 International Center for Transnational Justice, “Transnational Justice in the Former Yugoslavia,” 2009, https://www.ictj.org/sites/default/files/ICTJ-FormerYugoslavia-Justice-Facts-2009-English.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 1

flee from these territories to other parts of Croatia. Soon after refugees from the Bosnian War

(1992-1995) would begin crossing into Croatia, Serbia, and other European countries, creating

the war’s refugee and IDPs crisis. As the wars grew in scope and in atrocities, international mediation led to international frustration for a peace agreement to end the conflicts. A major

turning point in the wars came in the summer of 1995 with the Croatian offensive to retake the

Krajina region of the Croatian-Serbian-Bosnian border. Targeting the Serb areas that had led to

the JNA intervention in Croatia, this offensive would ultimately lead to the end of the wars in

Croatia and Bosnia. This offensive would also create one last mass expulsion of peoples, the

migration of Serbs from Croatian Krajina to Serbia. At the wars end there was an estimated 1

million Bosnian war refugees, over a third of them residing in Germany; over 800,000 IDPs

within Bosnia; and an estimated 200,000 IDPs in Croatia.2 For Serbia the subsequent 1999

NATO intervention in Kosovo would conclude their part in the Yugoslav Wars and in the process, add over 200,000 Kosovo IDPs to Serbia’s already staggering half a million Croatian

and Bosnian war refugees.

Central to these forced migrations of the wars were the people of Yugoslavia and the

lands that they lived on. The territorial ambitions of the belligerents for the former lands of

Yugoslavia would lead to national militaries and paramilitaries to use violence or the threat of

violence to remove these people from these sought-after lands. Sometimes these paramilitaries

would act in accord with national militaries and sometimes these paramilitaries would act on

their own behalf. Essential to these belligerents and their violence was the targeting and

2 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Populations of Concern to UNHCR: A Statistical Overview (1996), [Geneva: UNHCR, 1997], 20-21. www.unhcr.org/en-us/statistics/unhcrstats/3bfa328c4/populations-concern- unhcr-statistical-overview-1996.html. [accessed November 7, 2017]. 2 systematic removal of civilians from these territories. Often done so along the lines of ethnicity, the violence of the wars towards its civilians would make the Yugoslav Wars synonymous with the term ethnic cleansing (etničko čišćenje).

As the term ethnic cleansing became more prominent and pronounced to the international community, so too did its implications for defining the Yugoslav Wars. Soon in the West the wars were viewed as conflicts of mixed ethnicities fueled by ethnic nationalism and the want of ethnic nationalism for the homogenization of their lands. This simplistic explanation divided the former Yugoslavia along lines of ethnic groups; Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks), Croats, Albanians in Kosovo (Kosovars) and Serbs. Having reduced the people into ethnic groups, the next international conclusion was that a presupposed alliance to ethnicity and unity was the rationale for the wars. In this international ethnocentric view of the former Yugoslavia, agency was given to ethnicity and nationalism became the cause. While this view is not inaccurate, and paramilitaries were generally aligned ethnically with states, it did create a prevailing concept that it was ethnicity to blame for the wars. With ethnicity as the focus for Western intervention in the

Bosnian War and Kosovo War, Serbia would be viewed as the main perpetrator of the conflicts.

The continuity of ethnic Serb conflict in Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbian actions in Kosovo would give credibility to the Western narrative that Serbia was not only the main belligerent of the wars but was also responsible for the actions of Serbs in the wars.3

3 A strong representation of the role and portrayal of Serbia by the West in the Yugoslav Wars may be best viewed through that of Slobodan Milošević’s portrayal. Form the onset of the Bosnian War, the “nationalist” Milošević received the term the Butcher of the Balkans. “Stop the Butcher of the Balkans”, The New York Times, April 15, 1992. Once peace was sought, Milošević served in the role as the mediator of the Bosnian Serbs and ‘guarantor of peace in the Balkans.’ As attention shifted to Kosovo, Milošević began to receive comparisons to that of Adolf Hitler. Timothy Garton Ash “The New Adolf Hitler,” CNN, March 29, 1999. 3

While it is indisputable the role that nationalism played in the Yugoslav Wars, I argue

against the agency applied to ethnicity as an overarching explanation for the wars. I argue that if

ethnicity is the cause to conflict and its separation is the solution to conflict, then ethnicity should also create a form of privileged migration. In particular if an overarching Serb ethnic identity led to a need for Serb unity and in the process the Yugoslav Wars, then this same concept of Serb ethnic identity should be advantageous in the integration of Serb refugees and

IDPs into Serbia during and after the conflicts. To support this argumentation, I will examine the integration of Serbia’s refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and IDPs populations from Kosovo into the state of Serbia. It is in this aspect of the integration of refugees and IDPs that we should witness the strength or weakness of ethnicity. We will see whether the concept of Serb unity is a catalysis for civic inclusion or if the bond of ethnicity pales when in competition with other factors. So far, evidence suggests that refugee and IDPs integration is an ongoing process.

Economic issues have been one factor that has greatly impacted the process of integration. The hyperinflation experienced by Serbia during the wars and the post-Yugoslav economic transition have created competition for employment opportunities between Serbians, on the one hand, and refugees and IDPs, on the other. As economics have impacted the integration process, the process itself for Kosovo IDPs has been further complicated by politics. The continued use of

Serbian nationalism and its influence on a political solution to the status of Kosovo has left the

IDPs and their label of IDPs as a legacy of the war that lasts to this day. In the end, the uneven integration in Serbia of refugees and IDPs who are regarded as ethnic Serbs has complicated our understanding of the centrality of ethnicity in the post-Yugoslav period.

4

Critical for my research on the integration of refugees and IDPs are the definitions of

ethnicity, ethnic nationalism, refugees, IDPs, and integration. For ethnicity, I define it as the

shared cultural commonality of language, religion, and history for groups of people. When using

the terms Croat or Serb, I apply them to the peoples that constitute the Croat or Serb ethnicity.

For the labels of Bosnian, Croatian or Serbian, I use these in reference to citizenship and location within the countries of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia. In this respect Bosnian Serbs or Croatian

Serbs are Serbs from Bosnia or Croatia. Croatians are Croatian citizens, generally ethnic Croats,

likewise Serbians are citizens of Serbia and are generally the ethnic Serbs. As far as ethnic

nationalism, I use it along the lines of Ernest Gellner’s definition of nationalism, “primarily a

political principle, which holds that the political and national unit should be congruent,” and that

nationalism can take form as both a sentiment or a movement to which one may influence the

other.4 I see ethnic nationalism as cultural system like kinship or religion in which ethnicity can

be mobilized for allegiance or gain but is reliant on the promotion and affirmation of its

commonalities to build adherence and enlistment. For Serb nationalism, I view this as ethnic

nationalism in which ethnicity serves as a vehicle for nationalists’ goals that can include

sovereignty and expansion based on ethnicity.

Refugees are defined as persons forced to flee their country due to war, violence, or

persecution. For this paper, refugees are primarily identified as citizens from Yugoslav republics

other than Serbia that are ethnic Serbs who have settled within Serbia. IDPs are people much

like refugees in that they have fled their homes of origin but have settled within their country of

origin. This can apply to Croatians that were displaced during the Yugoslav Wars but will be

4 Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 2nd ed. [Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006], 1. 5

primarily used to describe IDPs from Kosovo that have Serbian citizenship and have fled the

Serbian autonomous province of Kosovo for Serbia.5 In this respect to Serbia and Kosovo IDPs

my research will focus on the IDPs and the Collective Centers for IDPs within Serbia, but does

not include Kosovo and Northern Kosovo.

As for the integration of the refugees and IDPs I will use the Serbian definition of

integration to analyze this process with considerations of integration proposed by Leo Lucassen

in his 2005 book The Threat of Immigration. For Serbia the concept of refugee and IDPs

integration constitutes social and economic independence and the acquisition of rights equal in

relation to those of other citizens as defined by the 2002 National Strategy for Resolving the

Problems of Refugees and Internally Displaced Person.6 Simply put Serbia has established

integration as refugees and IDPs having the same social, economic, and political rights as those

of Serbian citizens. To further examine this process, I will use the considerations of integration

by Lucassen that expands this scope into two categories of integration; structural and identification.7 Structural integration by Lucassen’s definition are objective goals like those of

Serbia’s goal for integration while identification integration is more subjective. Identification

integration analyzes how migrants and their offspring view themselves within the society they

have moved to and how that society in which they live in views them as well. Simply put, when

5 Kosovo IDPs are primarily of Serb ethnicity but there are also ethnic Roma, Egyptian, and other “minorities” that have fled Kosovo to settle in Serbia. 6 “Osnovni cilj lokalne integracije je njihovo osposobljavanje za samostalan i, u odnosu na ostale gradjane, ekonomski i socijalno ravnopravan život.” Nacionalna strategija za rešavanje pitanja izbeglih i interno raseljenih lica, Odbor vlade Republike Srbije za pripremu nacionalne strategije, [Beograd: April 2002], 2. https://www.minrzs.gov.rs/files/doc/porodica/strategije/Nacionalna%20strategija%20- %20izbegla%20i%20interno%20raseljena%20lica.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 7 Leo Lucassen, The Immigrant Threat: The Integration of Old and New Migrants in Western Europe since 1850 [Urbana IL: University of Illinois Press, 2005], 19. 6

do refugees or IDPs in Serbia cease being labelled as refugees or IDPs, by their own accord and

the accord of the Serbians that they are attempting to integrate into?

To analyze the integration of refugees and IDPs in Serbia, I will be reliant on the work of

the Commissariat for Refugees and Migration (Komecarijat za Izbeglice Migracije) (here after referred to as the Commissariat).8 The Serbian state run agency created for the refugee crisis in

1991 has worked closely from the onset of the wars with the United Nations High Commissioner

for Refugees (UNHCR) and other aid organizations in compiling refugee and IDPs statistics,

coordinating relief efforts, and providing policy recommendations and policy implementations

for Serbia. Besides the Commissariat, I will be using reports from the UN, the EU, IGOs, and

NGOs along with articles, other’s research, and personal narratives to both corroborate and

expand on the work of the Commissariat towards the integration of the Yugoslav Wars’ refugee

and IDPs population in Serbia. Critical to the paper are the numbers and statistics that I have

used for my research. In this aspect I rely on the Commissariat’s website and its databases.

Working closely with the UNHCR and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),

the Commissariat has compiled its reports and research based on the numbers and statistics

provided by both organizations.

There are a few key facts and population numbers that are important for the reader to

know beforehand. The first is the total refugee population in Serbia from the Yugoslav Wars.

The first refugee census in 1996 referred to the number 617,728 while the

Commissariat/UNHCR established a total of 537,937 refugees in 2004. The difference has to do

with the addition of the “war displaced persons” category which are Serbian citizens that became

8 The Serbian Commissariat for Refugees and Migration also goes by the Commissariat, CRRS, and KIRS. 7

war refugees. By the 2004/5 refugee census the “war displaced persons” category would be reported as not listed. For this reason – the fact that war-displaced persons were already Serbian

citizens – I will use the number 537,937 to refer to the total refugee population of the Yugoslav

Wars in Serbia.9 From this total the 537,937 refugee population is divided into six sub

categories: naturalized Serbian citizens, refugees repatriated to Bosnia, refugees repatriated to

Croatia, those who died while in refugee status, those still of refugee status, and refugees that

settled in a third country (see Chart 1). For this paper, I will primarily focus on refugees who

have either became naturalized Serbian citizens or are still of the refugee status in Serbia. I will

discuss briefly the processes for repatriation of refugees to Bosnia and Croatia and the effects

that these processes had on Serbia’s policy of refugees.10 I have excluded the refugees that died

while in refugee status due to lack of data as to why they passed away. As for the refugees that

settled in a third country, since those fall outside of the scope of integration, I have excluded

them from my paper. Additionally, the refugees that settled in a third country did so as Bosnian

or Croatian citizens. Finally, from 1992 to 2002 Serbia and Montenegro formed the Federal

Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and from 2002 to 2006 it was the State Union of Serbia and

Montenegro or Serbia and Montenegro. While Montenegro did receive refugees from the

9 In addition to the war-displaced person term, refugees in the initial years were divided into other sub-categories based on their arrival to Serbia in relation to the 1995 Croatian offensive in the Krajina. 10 While there were and still are refugees from Slovenia and Macedonia, they were and are a very small fraction of the total refugee population. In the 2001 the Commissariat census there were 629 registered refugees from Slovenia and 9 registered refugees from Macedonia. In 2010, this number was further reduced to 81 refugees from Slovenia and 1 from Macedonia and by 2014 there were 67 refugees reported from Slovenia and still 1 from Macedonia. The Republic of Serbia, “Migration Profile the Republic of Serbia for 2014,” 59. https://serbia.iom.int/sites/default/files/publications/documents/Migration_profile_of_the_Republic_of_Serbia_for_ 2014.pdf [accessed November 2017]. 8

Yugoslav Wars and Kosovo IDPs as well, unless explicitly stated all the research on refugees

and IDPs is focused on the Republic of Serbia.

Figure 1. Of the 1996 Refugee Total (537,937)

27,802 79,000

Returned to Bosnia 69,500 Returrned to Croatia Died in Refugee Status 250,000 40,000 Settled in a Third Country 46,000 Became Naturalized Serbians Still of Refugee Status (2017)

11

To analyze the integration of refugees and IDPs in Serbia I have divided the paper into

four chapters. Chapter 1 will examine the role of ethnicity and migration during the Yugoslav

Wars. Chapter 2 is a brief overview of Serb nationalism, its competition and cooperation with

Yugoslavism, and historic and contemporary examples of divisions within Serb nationalism.

11 Комесаријат за Избелице и Миграцје, “О Kомесаријату”, http://www.kirs.gov.rs/articles/onama.php?lang=SER [accessed November 7, 2017]. 9

Chapter 3 will focus on the efforts put in place to support Serbia’s refugee and IDPs population

in a time of national upheaval. This section will conclude with the creation of the 2002 National

Strategy for Resolving the Problems of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons that

established the two main policies for Serbia’s refugees and IDPs. Chapter 4 will then explore the implementation of the 2002 National Strategy, the repatriation and integration of Serbia’s refugees and IDPs. This chapter will also provide a profile of who are the refugees and IDPs that live in Serbia. To conclude the paper, I will give a summary and outlook for the integration of

refugees and IDPs in Serbia and how their experience is being used for new waves of refugees in

Serbia.

10

Chapter 1: Ethnicity, Migration, and Expansion during the Yugoslav Wars

During the Yugoslav Wars, both Serbia and Croatia used ethnicity as a tool for territorial expansion. Utilizing the concepts of ethnic nationalism and irredentism, the wars and the dissolution of the federation provided for both countries an opportunity to expand their claims in the region. At first this expansion was done through support to the self-declared ethnic republics

in ethnic enclaves of Croatia and Bosnia; the Republika Srpska Krajina (RSK), the Hrvatska

Republika Herceg-Bosna, and the Republika Srpska (RS). As the war in Croatia intensified and conflict engulfed Bosnia, migration became the next aspect to the Yugoslav Wars. For the self- proclaimed ethnic republics forced migration by way of ethnic cleansing was used to consolidate their claims for the territories they held. This action of ethnic cleansing in turn led to subsequent settlement or resettlement of co-ethnics (peoples of the same perceived ethnicity). Using both national armies and paramilitaries to clear territories of an ethnic population, once cleared these areas would be resettled with co-ethnics to cement Serb and Croat territorial ambitions or reclamations in the hope of international recognition. As the wars continued and international intervention transpired, migration became an unannounced means for the international community to secure peace in the former Yugoslavia.

Ethnicity, Expansion, and Migration in Croatia and Bosnia Wars

During the wars in Croatia and Bosnia ethnicity and migration became a state project and policy for Serbian and Croatian expansion. For Serbia the Croatian declaration of independence became casus belli for military intervention and in the process forced migration. With the JNA under command in Belgrade and acting to “preserve the federation” and “protect Serb minorities in Croatia”, Serbia would commence the Yugoslav War in the Croatian town of Kijevo on 11

August 26, 1991.12 Coordinating JNA artillery bombardments on local Croatian resistance

forces followed with a JNA and Serb paramilitary offensive, the self-declared Republika Srpska

Krajina (RSK) took form. In this offensive, Croatian civilians, ethnic Croats, of Kijevo would

flee their homes to other parts of Croatia. These actions in Kijevo would establish the modus

operandi for the conduct of the war in Croatia and Bosnia and for both Croatian, Bosnia, and

Serbian forces and their paramilitary proxies. Taking place primarily in the Krajina region of

Croatia (eastern border lands of Croatia where Serb migrants were settled by the Austrian

Empire to serve as a buffer between Austria and the Ottoman Empire), Serbia and the JNA were

in fact not preserving the federation or protecting ethnic Serb minorities but redrawing the

territorial lines of a new Yugoslavia to include the self-declared RSK. As Croats began fleeing

from the JNA and Serb paramilitary forces, Croatia began expelling Croatian Serbs from Croatia,

creating a vicious cycle of reprisal and retaliation. By the end of 1991 an estimated half million

Croatians and 230,000 Croatian Serbs had become refugees and IDPs.13 As the war came to a

stalemate along boundaries of Croatian and RSK lines, mounting tensions gave way to conflict in

Bosnia with its declaration of independence.

Just as in Croatia, the Bosnian declaration of independence on March 3, 1992 led to a

FRY intervention on behalf of the self-declared Republika Srpska (RS) in April of 1992.

Though the JNA were forced to withdrawal a month later due to international pressure, Serbia would utilize the JNA structure to augment and support Serb paramilitaries. With Serbia vying for Bosnian lands Croatia would attempt to increase its territory by supporting Croat

12 Laura Silber and Allan Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, Rev. ed [New York: Penguin Books, 1997], 172. 13 Ibid, 198. 12

paramilitaries giving way to the self-declared Hrvatska Republika Herceg-Bosna.14 With mostly

Bosnian Muslims being expelled from Serb and Croat areas of Bosnia to other parts of Bosnia

and Europe (primarily Germany), Bosnian Serbs fleeing for Serbia and the Serb republics, and

Bosnian Croats fleeing to Croatia and the Herceg-Bosna, Europe was now engulfed in its largest

refugee and IDPs crisis since the Second World War. Accompanying this refugee crisis was the

international attention given to the violence, the sieges, and the ethnic cleansings that had created

the wars’ refugees. International mediation soon followed suit to end the atrocities and the

refugee exodus. In the ensuing years peace plans would be initiated by the EU, US, and UN to cease the fighting in Croatia and Bosnia. Attempting to build consensus amongst the self- declared ethnic republics and the former Yugoslav republics, these peace plans would fail to materialize. Failing to find common ground with all parties the 1994 Washington Agreement provided a political breakthrough for the Bosnian War. Under international auspices Bosnia and

Croatia would come to an agreement on the war in Bosnia with Croatia ending territorial claims

in Bosnia for the lifting of arms embargos; in effect, this development would bring together

Croatians and Bosnia Croat paramilitaries, with the Bosnian Federation’s military against the ethnic Serb republics.15 With this alliance in place, the militaries and paramilitaries of the

Bosnian Federation would begin to make territorial gains against the Bosnian Serb forces. These

gains would be further supported with the 1995 Croatian military offensives, Operation Flash

(May 1995) and Operation Storm (August 1995), that retook the Krajina region from the RSK.

14 For a full detail of paramilitaries and state support in the wars in Bosnia and Croatia see United Nations Security Council, Annex III. A Special Forces, Final Report of the United Nations Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 (1992), ser. 674/Add.2 Vol. I, 1994. http://mcherifbassiouni.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/08/Yugoslavia-Report-Vol-1-Annex-IIIA.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 15 Gerard Toal and Carl T. Dahlman, Bosnia Remade: Ethnic Cleansing and its Reversal [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011], 129. 13

Driving away RSK forces the offensives in Krajina would also create an estimated 170,000

Croatian Serb refugees fleeing to Serbia.16

These military gains in Bosnia and Croatia would set the conditions to bring all sides of

the war to the negotiating table; a truce would be struck with the November of 1995 Dayton

Agreement. Ending the wars in Bosnia and Croatia, the Dayton Agreement would in effect end

the policy of forced migration for territorial ambitions. Now marked the beginning of state led

co-ethnic settlement and consolidation. For Croatia in the backdrop of the Krajina Serbs flight

they began implementing the settlement of 120,000 Croatian IDPs and Bosnian Croat refugees. 17

For Serbia the Krajina Serbs would be stopped at the Bosnian and Serbian border and be

officially redirected to Kosovo in an attempt to bolster the ethnic Serb population within

Kosovo.18 With the wars in Bosnia and Croatia ending, Serbia was now home to an estimated

537,937 refugees in 1996 and facing three courses of action for their refugees population; 1) repatriation to the communities from which the refugees came; 2) integration into the

communities to which the refugees settled; and 3) emigration to a third country. Critical to these

courses of action were the environments that the wars had created. On the state to state level the

wars had left residual hostilities towards interaction, obscuring the process of resettlement. On

the individual state level, the wars had greatly impacted the infrastructures and economies. This

16 The number of Croatian Serbs that fled the RSK from Operation Storm can fluctuate from 100,000 to 250,000 depending the source and which Croatian Serb refugees are included, those that left prior to the offensive and those that left due to the offensive. Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, 3rd ed. [London: Yale University Press, 2009], 2. 17 Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, “Ethnic Unmixing in the Aftermath of the Yugoslav Successor Wars: The Integration of Co-Ethnics in Former Yugoslaviain Comparative Perspective” in Co-Ethnic Migration Compared. Central and Eastern European Contests, ed. Jasna Capo Zmegac, C. Voss and K.Roth, [Munich: Kubon & Sagner, 2010], 146. https://www.academia.edu/716383/Ethnic_unmixing_in_the_Aftermath_of_the_Yugoslav_Successor_Wars_the_Int egration_of_Co-Nationals_in_former_Yugoslavia_in_Comparative_Perspective [accessed November 7, 2017]. 18Though officially redirected most of these refugees stayed in Serbia. Ibid, 145. 14

devastation in the destinations of the wars refugees would become a hindrance in their ability to

support population settlements and resettlements. On the individual level, the refugees escaping

the horrors of war were now faced with multi-dimensional problems. Uprooted from family,

community, and heritage the refugees faced the dilemma and the challenges of beginning their

lives in a new land or attempting to reclaim their former lives in their country of origin. For

Serbia the refugee situation was soon to become entangled with IDPs escaping the war in

Kosovo.

Ethnicity, Expansion, and Migration in the Kosovo War

The Kosovo War’s impact on Serbia was not only in sheer numbers of IDPs that left

Kosovo, but politically the war had impacted the sovereign status of the former Serbian autonomous province. As opposed to the exercising of constitutional secession that the socialist republics enacted leading up to the Yugoslav Wars, Kosovo’s secession was built more along the lines of population pressures. A place central in Serbian history and lore, Kosovo (in Serbian known as Kosovo and Metohija), was also a place that most Serbs were leaving. The poorest area of SFRY, Serbian economic flight had already put the Serbian contention of a “Serbian”

Kosovo at odds with the demographic makeup of Kosovo. 19 In the 1948 Yugoslavian state

census, ethnic Albanians (Kosovars) accounted for two-thirds of the population. By the 1981

census, ethnic Albanians represented three-fourths of the total Kosovo population (1,584,441).20

19 The 1960’s and 1970’s saw the first wave of substantial migration from Kosovo, either to Serbian cities or other parts of Europe for cheap labor, these waves of migrations developed a remittance culture in Kosovo. International Organization for Migration, Migration in Serbia: A Country Profile 2008, Geneva: 2008, 61. http://www.iom.hu/PDF/migration_profiles2008/Serbia_Profile2008.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 20 Judah cites both scholarly publications and official censuses from SFRY. Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, 371. 15

Higher birth rates and Serb migration to the cities in the federation led to not only population

increases of ethnic Albanians but politically to strife between the underrepresented ethnic

Albanians and the ruling Serbian government. Marginalized from their federal designation as a

“nationality”, as opposed to the republics’ peoples and their “nations” title, Kosovo was tightly

administered by Serbia and Serbian security forces under the suspicion of separatism for independence or for union with Albania.21 In this backdrop, Kosovo would serve as a flashpoint

for the state versus its people throughout the Federation era, to include the Kosovo riots of 1981.

Taking form in protests and riots, ethnic Albanian civil disobedience would be met with

Serbian crackdowns and repression. As further disobedience resulted in further suppression,

ethnic Serbs would become targets of ethnic Albanian attacks. These attacks on Serbs in Kosovo

would form a stepping stone in Slobodan Milošević’s rise to political power and reinforce the

Serbian repression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. 22 This repression founded on suspicions of

ethnic Albanian separatism that in turn further alienated the ethnic Albanians soon gave way to

the formation and mobilization of the separatist militant group the Kosovo Liberation Army

(KLA). Formed in the early 1990s, by 1997 the KLA became active against Serbian security forces, Kosovo Serbs, and ethnic Albanians that cooperated with Serbia.23 As the KLA’s

violence escalated so too did that of the Serbian state targeting both the KLA and regions of

Kosovo associated with the KLA. This cycle of violence expanded in the summer of 1998 when

Serbia attempted to clear the KLA from Kosovo and in the process created 200,000 ethnic

21 Ibid, 132. 22 Milošević’s political career would be greatly impacted by speeches given in Kosovo, launching his career in April of 1987 and cementing his role in Serbian politics in June of 1989. 23 V. P. Gagnon Jr. The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s, [Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2004], 124. 16

Albanian refugees.24 Responding to end hostilities and floods of refugees, NATO threatened

intervention that lead to the Rambouillet talks in February of 1999. As international mediation

fell through and the refugee crisis worsened, NATO began bombing both Serbian forces in

Kosovo and military and infrastructure targets within the FRY. Forcing the FRY to the

negotiating table, Serbian forces would withdrawal from Kosovo under the auspices of UN

Security Resolution 1244 in June of 1999.

Established from Resolution 1244 was the expansion of the NATO mission to serve as a

peacekeeping force to facilitate the return of all refugees from Kosovo. While NATO met its

military goals of a Serbian military withdrawal and facilitating the return of ethnic Albanian

refugees (estimated 715,000 refugees of the original 800,000 that had fled the war),25 an unexpected consequence or at least a not thoroughly planned outcome was the Kosovo IDPs crisis it would create in Serbia. Having targeted both the FRY military and the Kosovo Serb security forces NATO had created an atmosphere, both real and perceived, where Kosovo Serbs and Kosovo Roma felt unsecure against the KLA. In the first seven weeks after the FRY

military and Serb security forces withdrew and the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) entered

Kosovo the UNHCR estimated more than 197,000 Serbs fled Kosovo.26 While most fled for

Serbia other Serbs and Roma moved to ethnic enclaves under KFOR protection within Kosovo.

This area, north of the Ibar River on the Serbian border, would become known as North Kosovo.

24 Ibid, 321. 25 UNHCR, Department of Public Information, Kosovo Crisis Update, August 4, 1999. http://www.unhcr.org/en- us/news/updates/1999/8/3ae6b80f2c/kosovo-crisis-update.html [accessed November 7, 2017]. 26 UNHCR, Department of Public Information, Kosovo Terrified Serbs Fleeing, August 24, 1999. http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/briefing/1999/8/3ae6b81b68/kosovo-terrified-serbs-fleeing.html [accessed November 7, 2017]. 17

In the wake of the Serb and Roma refugees’ migration to Serbia acts of arson and looting

would take place in their former areas of residence. For the Serbs and Roma that had stayed

below the Ibar River under KFOR protection they would become targets for acts of intimation

and violence, leading to further migration.27 A year later the number of IDPs in Serbia would

crest over 200,000 persons, a level it has stayed at since. As IDPs continued to arrive in Serbia,

Kosovo was placed under the United Nation administration (United Nation Interim

Administration Mission in Kosovo/UNMIK) with security provided by KFOR and the newly

established national Kosovo security force the Kosovo Protection Force (KPF). With this setting

Serbia was in a difficult position. It could either accept the international mandate and attempt to

resettle its Kosovo IDPs under the UN administration or retain the IDPs and its stance on

Kosovo’s sovereignty. Choosing the latter, Serbia’s position became more complicated by the

acts of arson and intimidation taking place below North Kosovo, further exacerbating the

territorial/demographic shift that had taken place following the Serbian withdrawal. As the IDPs population continued to grow and the prospect of returning to Kosovo became bleaker, the

Commissariat in coordination with UNHCR began the process of IDPs registration.

As Serbia began to record more and more IDPs the situation in Kosovo began to normalize. In effect the fleeing of Serbs and Roma under the UNMIK facilitated stability in

Kosovo. Once again ethnicity, expansion, and migration were taking place in the former

Yugoslavia but this time under international auspices. As international intervention was warranted to protect ethnic minorities in Kosovo, it resulted in the displacement of Kosovo’s other inhabitants, a main theme in the wars of Bosnia and Croatia. Similarly to the wars in

27 Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, 334. 18

Bosnia and Croatia, threatened populations took to flight and left their former lands. These lands would be consolidated into a new state. Whether done maliciously or not, by destruction of property or confiscation of vacant properties, the former lands of Serbs and Roma would become part of the Kosovo state. The Yugoslav Wars would end in the same cycle that they had begun; intervention on behalf of an ethnicity, forced migration of another ethnicity, and territorial expansion from the forced migration. Though the Kosovo War had the distinction of being an international intervention, it also provided the same results of the other wars, the creation of displaced populations.

19

Chapter 2: Serb Nationalism, Yugoslavism, and Divisions within Serb Nationalism

The pervasiveness of ethnicity in the Yugoslav Wars gave credence to the narrative of the wars being one of ethnic conflict. To provide context for the ethnic strife narrative, ethnic

nationalism was used as the raison d'être. A malleable intangible that can take the value that is

bestowed on it, ethnic nationalism became a convenient term that provided rationale for the

ethnic conflict and atrocities committed during the Yugoslav Wars. To this extent there is much

that can be found on ethnic nationalism in the former Yugoslavia and the role it served as a

precursor to the wars. Generally done so along lines of the politicization and the mobilization of

ethnicity, ethnic nationalism in the Yugoslav Wars was given the agency to create common

consensus for unity with violence as an acceptable means.28 This in mind, it is important to see

how Serb nationalism was formed and the events that shaped it. By showing Serb nationalism as

a vehicle for nationalists’ goals we will witness it in its basic form rooted in politics. Just as with

most politics Serb nationalism can be as divisive as it is unifying. In this chapter I will explore

how Serb nationalism served as vehicle for the Serbian state and had a cooperative and

competitive relationship with Yugoslavism, or South Slav unity. Furthermore, I will explore the

historic and contemporary divides that have existed within Serb nationalism. By witnessing the

process in which Serb nationalism was created and utilized, and its restrictions for a common unity or consensus, we can see the limits and reach that Serb nationalism possesses.

28 For the role of Serb nationalism and its “rise” in the Yugoslav Wars it is usually attributed to Milošević’s Anti- Bureaucratic Revolution. During the revolution Milošević utilized Serb nationalism as a means for his consolidation of power inside Serbia. Successful in Serbia, Milošević attempted to spread the revolution to other Yugoslav republic’s leaders to create a pro-Milošević coalition that could re-centralize the SFRY through federal legislation.

20

Serb Nationalism and Yugoslavism

By the beginning of the new millennium Serbia was home to almost half a million

refugees and over 200,000 IDPs. In a twist of fate, the nationalistic concept of Serb unity had

been somewhat achieved by bringing “home” many Serbs, though not in the territorial expansion

to which Serb nationalists had envisioned in their unification of Serbs with Serbia. In this sense,

it is important to outline some historical notions associated with the concept of Serb nationalism

and its relationship to the development of the idea of Yugoslavism. Generally attributed to the

Serbian stateman Ilija Garašanin (1812-1874), the concept and framework for Serb nationalism

was developed with his 1844 Načertanije (Plan). Serving as an advisor to the Serbian monarchy,

Garašanin wrote the Načertanije as a policy to guide Serbia towards expanding its autonomy

from the Ottoman Empire and taking on a more influential role in the Balkans. Drawing on the

historical boundaries of the medieval Serbian Nemanjić dynasty, the Načertanije established the

concept of unification of all Serbs under the aegis of Serbia, implying a patriarchal role of Serbia to all Serbs.29 Traced back to the Načertanije, the development of Serb nationalism would come into competition and cooperation with other nationalisms.

Developed during the rise of nationalism in Europe and the crisis of the Ottoman and

Hapsburg Empires in the Balkans, the Načertanije was just one of the nationalist ideologies competing for influence and territory in the area. Appealing along emotional aspects of reclamation and redemption, nationalists sought historical narratives to help facilitate social, political, and military unity for goals of territorial expansion. For Serbian and Croatian

29 There is and still is debate as to whether Garašanin was calling for the uniting of Serbs by way of Serbian expansion or through Yugoslavism, Garašanin had been in formal contacts with Gaj and Strossmeyer. Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, 58. 21

irredentists and nationalists these territorial goals were respectively Greater Serbia (‘Velika

Srbija’)30 and Greater Croatia (‘Pravaštvo').31 Just as Garašanin saw the historical past of

Serbia as the way forward for the future of Serbia and the Serbs, the Croatian nationalist Ante

Starčević (1823-96) envisioned a similar concept. The founder of the Croatian Party of Rights

(1861) and considered as the father of the Croatian nation, Starčević’s idea of Pravaštvo based

the future Croatian nation on the past boundaries of the Croatian medieval Kingdom of the

Trpimirović dynasty (845-1091). 32 Just like Greater Serbia and Serb nationalism, the Pravaštvo

also equated Croatia as the representative and protector of Croats outside of Croatia proper.

As Croatian nationalism competed with Serbian nationalism for the “historic” lands of the Balkans, another national ideology came into being, one based on the culture and unity of

South Slavs, Yugoslavism. Originating with Croatian Ljudevit Gaj (1809-72) and the Illyrian

Movement, Gaj based the South Slavs’ language and cultural distinctness form the Austrian

Empire on the belief that South Slavs were descendants of the Illyrian peoples of ancient Greek

Western Balkans.33 Limited in its appeal Gaj’s theorizing of South Slav cultural commonalities had the most influence on the language of the Croats and Serbs, what would later become known as Serbo-Croatian. Based off of four mutually intelligible dialects, Gaj focused on the Štokavian dialect of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Dalmatia, and Serbia, theorizing that it could serve as a common literary language to foster greater political cooperation.34 Known as the Southwestern dialect the

Štokavian dialect would receive formal literary status amongst Croat and Serb statesmen in the

30 Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, 56. 31 Charles and Barbara Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804-1920, vol. 8 of A History of East Central Europe [Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977], 252. 32 Gerard Toal and Carl Dahlman. Bosnia Remade: Ethnic Cleansing and its Reversal, 61. 33 Charles and Barbara Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804-1920, 250. 34 Ibid. 22

1850 Vienna Literary Agreement. 35 This language accord would later become instrumental in the development of Yugoslavism. But just as language could be used to bond Serbo-Croatian speakers, it could also be used to serve Serbian and Croatian nationalists’ territorial aspirations.

For the influential Serbian linguist and nationalist Vuk Karadžić (1787-1864), who was present at the 1850 Vienna Agreement, the speaking of a Štokavian dialect was proof in itself of being a

“Serb” and living on “Serbian land”.36 For Starčević language was another realm of competition between Croatia and Serbia to which he felt Croatia had capitulated to an undignified language of “ploughman and cow’s herdsmen.”37

Whereas Gaj’s Illyrianism failed to materialize outside of the Croatian Kingdom, the wider concept of South Slav unity received a boost with the work of Josip Juraj Strossmayer and

Franjo Rački. Founders of the Zagreb Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Science (1866),

Strossmayer and Rački broadened Yugoslavism beyond the borders of the Austro-Hungarian

Empire attempting to create a South Slav federation based on the belief that Croats, Serbs, and

Slovenes were three tribes of one Slavic people.38 Expanding the definition of who were South

Slavs, Yugoslavism initially suffered to gain acceptance amongst the other forms of South Slav nationalism. Hindered by the divide and rule policy of Hungary in the Croatian Kingdom,

Yugoslavism was also in competition with Croatian and Serbian nationalism. One of the many competing subjects for these nationalists was the 1878 Austrian occupation of Ottoman Bosnia.

For Serbian nationalist the annexation was a blow to territorial aspirations of Greater Serbia. For

35 Robert D. Greenberg, Language and Identity in the Balkans [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004], 26. 36 Charles and Barbara Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804-1920, 251. 37 Robert D. Greenberg, Language and Identity in the Balkans, 26. 38 Gerard Toal and Carl Dahlman. Bosnia Remade: Ethnic Cleansing and its Reversal, 51. 23

Croatian nationalists the annexation brought hope of additional Croatian expansion into

“historical” Croat lands.39

But just as the Austrian occupation of Bosnia could create competition among the varying nationalisms it could also provide a cause for unity. With neither Serbia or Croatia able to confront the Austro-Hungarian Empire individually, by collaborating through Yugoslavism

each side could in the least broaden opposition to the Dual Empire. This would be

Yugoslavism’s greatest appeal. By unifying under wider commonalties Yugoslavism would be

promoted as a means beyond individual nationalists’ capabilities. The mobilization of

Yugoslavism took a formidable shape in the turn of the century. With internal disaccord in the

Austro-Hungarian Empire, Yugoslavism would receive a boost with the formation of the

Croatian-Serbian Coalition in 1905. Created by ethnic Croats and Serbs in Croatia the coalition sought political unity for greater political clout.40 At this same time Serbia promoted

Yugoslavism in part to counter the Austrian presence in Bosnia. In 1904, the Slavic South

(Slovenski Jug) society was founded in Belgrade and two years later Belgrade would host a

Yugoslavism teachers’ conference made up of the people who would later form the future

Yugoslavia.41

While Yugoslavism could provide political mobilization against the Austro-Hungarian

Empire it was still susceptible to individual nationalisms, in this case Serb nationalism. While

cooperating with the expansion of Yugoslavism, Serbia was also promoting Serb nationalism

within Bosnia. In Austrian Bosnia, Serbia sponsored both overtly Serb secret societies (National

39 Charles and Barbara Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804-1920, 254. 40 Ibid, 256. 41 Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, 91. 24

Defense/Narodna Obrana) and clandestine ones (Unity or Death/Ujedinjenje ili Smrt). These

groups were created and supported as a means to produce revolution in Bosnia as a way for

greater Serb-Serbian unification.42 Utilizing both Yugoslavism and Serb nationalism to create instability within the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Bosnia the cooperation and competition of nationalisms would come to a nexus with the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz

Ferdinand in 1914. Done so by the Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip, the killing of Archduke

Ferdinand would set in motion the First World War.43 As the assassination led to intervention,

both the Croatian-Serbian Coalition and the Serbian Monarchy fled into exile. With the Central

Powers occupying their homelands, the coalition and the monarchy would collaborate under the auspices of the Allied Powers to form the first Yugoslav state.44

Divisions within Serb Nationalism

In the ensuing decades after the formation of Yugoslavia, individual nationalisms would remain to be in competition and cooperation with each other and Yugoslav nationalism. Formed

as a political union, interwar Yugoslavia had always been susceptible for accusations of

disproportionality. These accusations would either be that one side profited more from the union

or that one side sacrificed more for the union. This problem of proportionality and equality

among the republics in the federation would eventually be part of the unmaking of Yugoslavia

during World War II. Though these divisions could be expected for a federation made up of

several different countries it would be misleading to think that the ethnicities that made up the

42 Ibid, 96. 43 There is much debate still as to the nationalist motive behind Princip’s reasoning for killing Archduke Ferdinand, to include possible indirect support received by Ujedinjenje ili Smrt. But what is known is that his trial Princip declared himself a Yugoslav nationalist. Ibid, 97. 44 Ibid, 102-03. 25

federation were without their own internal divisions. In fact, divisions within the Serb

community can be traced back to the foundation of autonomous Serbia in the early 19th century.

In 1842 the Serbian king Mihailo III of the Obrenović family was overthrown by the

Serbian political party the Defenders of the Constitution (Ustavobranitelji). Led by Ilija

Garašanin, the Defenders of the Constitution sought to strengthen the state legal system, gain greater economic freedom, and advance the Serbian education system.45 Of the many grievances

they had against the Obrenović Monarchy was the priority and positions that were given to the

Nemačkari. The Nemačkari (Serbian for “German”), also known by the slur Švabe, were Serbs that had migrated from the Hapsburg lands. 46 Generally better educated, the Nemačkari moved

to Serbia on behalf of the Serbian authorities to serve in state bureaucratic functions following

Serbian autonomy from the Ottoman Empire in 1817. With growing unrest towards the

Obrenović Monarchy, the Nemačkari – with their “German dress” and “German mannerisms” –

became resented and were political targets of the Defenders of the Constitution.47 Following the

1842 removal of Mihailo III the role of the Nemačkari declined in Serbia with their places given

to “native” born Serbians.48

At the root of the Nemačkari designation was the greater divide of the Serb identity.

Separated by kingdoms and rivers ethnic Serbs were divided into the Srbijanci (the Serbs of

45 Charles and Barbara Jelavich, The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804-1920, 63. 46 Petar V. Krestić, “Political and Social Rivalries in Nineteenth-century Serbia Švabe or Nemačkari,” From Universal Empires to Nation States. Social and Political Change in Serbia and the Balkans, [DOI:10.2298/BALC1041073K]: 73. http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0350-7653/2010/0350-76531041073K.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 47 Ibid, 91. 48Ibid. 26

Serbia) and the Prečani (Serbs across the Danube and Sava rivers).49 Besides differentiating in locations the Prečani and Srbijanci differed in their history and speech. Historically, many of the

Prečani had settled in Hapsburg territories during the Ottoman expansion into the Balkans.

Some came in the initial Ottoman conquest that settled in the Krajina region while others came during the Great Migrations of 1690 and 1737.50 By comparison the Srbijanci had stayed in

Serbia under Ottoman sovereignty and became part of the Serbian independence movement.

This different history became one factor for the Serbian backlash against the Nemačkari.

Linguistically, both the Srbijanci and the Prečani spoke the same Štokavian dialect but had different pronunciations: ekavian in Serbia and ijekavian for the Prečani.51 While this division

of the Srbijanci and the Prečani subsided with the political formations and events that would take

place in the next century and a half in the Balkans, they would become evident again during and

after the Yugoslav Wars.

During the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, the inner divisions of Serb unity and its use of

nationalism was brought to the forefront. With Serb republics declared in Croatia and in Bosnia

the international community viewed Serbia as both accountable and representative of these

republics. For its role, there is no doubt that Serbia was involved in the creation of the RSK and

the RS and partially responsible for the war crimes that the peoples of these republics committed.

Being held accountable for the actions of the ethnic republics Serbia was also representative on

49 Gerard Toal and Carl Dahlman. Bosnia Remade: Ethnic Cleansing and its Reversal, 54. 50 Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, 54. 51 The Štokavian dialect is made up of three sub-dialects; Ekavian, Ikavian, and Ijekavian. Associated with regions of the Southern Balkans, the Ekavian dialect is spoken in the East and is the predominant dialect in Serbia. The Ikavian dialect spoken in the West (western parts of Bosnia and Hercegovina, Slavonia, and Central Dalmatia) is associated with Croatia. The Ijekavian dialect is the confluence of the Ekavian and Ikavian dialects in the region, primarily in Bosnia, and has a strong connotation with Islam. Robert D. Greenberg, Language and Identity in the Balkans, 34. 27

behalf of these republics in international mediation. But the agency given to Serb ethnicity that

held Serbia responsible of the RSK and RS was a misnomer. This concept of Serbia as the

patriarch of Serbs was contradicted by the lack of consensus among Serbia and the Serb

republics witnessed internationally during the wars with the failed peace plans. This was

observed with the 1993 Vance-Owen Peace Plan, when contrary to Milošević’s pleas of

accepting the accord the Bosnian Serbs of the RS asserted their own understanding of the

“Serbian nation”, voting against the plan.52 This disaccord on who decided peace in the name of

Serbs took place once more with the RS rejecting the 1994 Contact Group Plan a decision that

would result in the establishing of a Serbian blockade on the RS.53 As disagreement on who

speaks for the Serb population was seen on the international level, division within the Serb

population was exhibited on the individual level.

These divisions within Serbs was seen through the perspectives of the Krajina Serbs that

had fled Croatia following the Croatian offensives of 1995. For those refugees that settled in

Belgrade, their ijekavian speech was considered backwards and carried the label of seljak

(villager), less cosmopolitan than that of the Serbian Belgradian resident (građanin).54 For these

“villagers”, the ekavian spoken by the local Serbians was viewed as simple and rude, echoing the

sentiments of Croatian nationalist Starčević some hundred and fifty years earlier.55 As speech gave way to rural/urban makeup and economic implications, perceived or real, it also fostered the perception of a distinct past. To the Krajina Serbs, the local Serbians were more oriental in

52 Laura Silber and Allan Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, 281. 53Ibid, 341. 54 Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, “Ethnic Unmixing in the Aftermath of the Yugoslav Successor Wars: The Integration of Co-Ethnics in Former Yugoslaviain Comparative Perspective,” 154. 55 Ibid. 28

their culture due to their Ottoman background, as compared to the Krajina Hapsburg past.56 As

the difference of speech magnified socioeconomic differences, political blame would further

exacerbate these cleavages. For influential Serbians like Mirjana Marković (Milošević’s wife),

refugees would be viewed as opportunists who left for Serbia.57 For the Krajina refugees their

ordering to Kosovo was confirmation that they were “ethnic national material” for the ambitions

of Serbia and Milošević.58 With divides in the Serb identity on the individual level, there were also internal socio-political schisms as to what and who constituted the Serb nation.

Trying to encourage cultural separation within Bosnia and unity with Serbia, in

September 1993 the first president of the RS Radovan Karadžić’s imposed a state decree that

Ekavian was to be the official pronunciation of the RS in media and news. The decree was

rescinded in November of 1994 after failing to take root amongst the Serbs of the RS.59 As state

policies of imposed Serb nationalism failed in the RS, cross-boundary ties of Serb unity also

frayed and failed. With Milošević insisting on the RS accept the Vance-Owen Peace Plan, the

RS politician and future president Biljana Plavšić presented to the RS parliament, “Who is this

Milošević, this Bulatović [Interior Minister of the FRY], this Ćosić [President of the FRY]? Did the nation elect them? No it didn’t.”60 Once the RS rejection of peace led to international

embargos on Serbia, the Serbian newspapers, mouthpieces of Slobodan Milošević, began

accusing the Prečani Serb refugees of forcing the Serbians to fight for lands that they had left.61

56 Ibid. 57 Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, 296. 58 Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, “Ethnic Unmixing in the Aftermath of the Yugoslav Successor Wars: The Integration of Co-Ethnics in Former Yugoslaviain Comparative Perspective,” 145. 59 Robert D. Greenberg, Language and Identity in the Balkans, 79. 60 Laura Sibler and Allen Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, 281. 61 Gerard Toal and Carl Dahlman. Bosnia Remade: Ethnic Cleansing and its Reversal, 59. 29

As the RS continued to defy mediation by Serbia on behalf of the international community, the

Serbian media and Serbia became more deriding to the RS. After the RS voted against the

Contact Plan in August of 1994, Milošević stated, “Nobody has the right to reject peace in the name of the Serbian people.”62 While the Yugoslav Wars showed the division within Serb unity, who spoke for the Serb peoples, and divisions within the Serb identity, who was Serb, the settlement of Serbian Kosovo IDPs would bring to the foreground the inner competitions of the

Serbian people.

As seen with the refugees, the concept of Serb was contested by the impacts of the wars in Bosnia and Croatia as well as in Serbia itself. For Serbian refugees, the wars had destroyed their way of life, while in Serbia the wars had impacted the economy and the state infrastructure.

These impacts were further amplified by population pressures in Serbia; by 2002 it was estimated that the refugees and IDPs had led to a ten percent increase in the overall Serbian population.63 In this backdrop of economic ruination, infrastructure degradation, and population pressure, the vague notion of ethnic solidarity was easily undermined by economic, social, and political aspects that make up a country and its residents. Competition for spaces and resources, like education facilities and services, could make the IDPs viewed as a burden on an already taxed system. Competing as Serbian citizens, IDPs from Kosovo could also receive identity values from Serbians other than that of Serbian. Parallels were drawn on how IDPs behaved like

Albanians; how many children they had, and how they spoke, often with a juxtaposition that they

62 Laura Sibler and Allen Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation, 341. 63 Government of the Republic of Serbia, The National Strategy for Resolving the Problems of Refugees and the Internally Displaced Persons, [Belgrade, 30 May 2002], 2. http://migracije.org/files/2001- 2003/2002%20National%20Strategy%20R&IDP.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 30

were more Albanian than Serbian. 64 When not criticized on their value or “Serbness”, Kosovo

Serbs could be further ostracized by their political association with Milošević. Having built his

career as a defender of Serbs in Kosovo and with his party almost guaranteed parliament seats

from Kosovo due to the Kosovar boycotts since 1990, Milošević and his failed policy of the wars

were superimposed on the Kosovo Serbs.65

As these individual aspects distinguished the notions of Serb/Serbian, the refugees and

the IDPs also became divided according to legal status within Serbia. Kosovo Serbs, from the

land so critical to Serbian nationalism history, were labelled ‘raseljena lica’ (Serbian for

internally displaced persons). The Bosnian and Croatian Serbs that factored heavily in the

concept of Serb unity were labelled as ‘izabeglice’ (Serbian for refugee). With the labelling of

refugees and IDPs, these Serbs took on the additional identities and social stigmas attached to

refugees and IDPs, further drawing attention from an overarching Serbian identity. As the

concept of unity of the ethnic community weakened on the quotidian level, it also waned on the

Serbia and Montenegro level.

As the wars duration took hold on the separation between Serbia and the Serb republics,

it also began to develop between Serbia and Montenegro. Tied by similar but distinct cultural

commonalities, the shared border and struggle against the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth

century brought Montenegrin and Serbian nationalists together.66 Forming the other half of rump Yugoslavia, Montenegro partook in the Yugoslav Wars on behalf of the JNA, including its

64 Asne Seierstad, With Their Backs to the World: Portraits from Serbia, [New York: Basic Books, 2005], 179. 65 Ibid, 184. 66 Besides having a separate church, the Montenegrin Orthodox Church. Montenegro also has a distinct past, the medieval Principality of Duklja, and its de-facto autonomy during the Ottoman era. Furthermore, Montenegrins are primarily Ijekavian speakers of the Štokavian dialect. 31

role in the Siege of Dubrovnik. Though the NATO targeted Montenegro, the destruction was

less substantial than that of Serbia and included far fewer refugees and IDPs, nevertheless the

wars took a toll on their partnership in the federation.67 By 2002, FRY became the joint republic

of Serbia and Montenegro and five years later Montenegro voted for independence. Formally ending the Yugoslav construct, the independence of Montenegro showed the boundaries and fragility of the imagined concept of South Slav unity. Echoing the limitations and frailty of the concept of Serb, nationalism witnessed in its inability to form for a consensual political accord.

As unanimous agreement was beyond the realm of politics via ethnicity it was also hard to capture a unanimous identity that constituted what it meant to be Serb.

67 Having closed their borders to refugees early in the conflicts, by the Yugoslav Wars end Montengro had less than 30,000 refugees and IDPs. ICRC, The Vulnerbaility Assessment of Internally Dispalced Persons in Serbia and Montenegro, Belgrade 2003, 6. https://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/other/idp_report_belgrade_07-2003.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 32

Chapter 3: Serbia in a State of Chaos: Refugees and IDPs in Serbia

With the wars concluding in Bosnia and Croatia in 1996 and three years later in Kosovo,

Serbia was left with the living legacies of the wars, their refugees and IDPs. Attempting to

support the refugees until a political solution came into effect for their return, Serbia created

legislation that would inadvertently make citizenship possible for the Yugoslav Wars’ refugees.

As the refugee situation began to settle, the Kosovo War ended with IDPs crossing into Serbia.

Faced with the decision of utilizing international support for the repatriation process with the risk

of losing its territorial claim for Kosovo, Serbia would establish a political impasse over the

status of Kosovo that would affect the Kosovo IDPs to this day. These policies that they created

towards the wars’ refugees and IDPs would come during a backdrop of great economic and

social upheaval in Serbia. As revolution gave way to the opening of international relations and

support, Serbia with the help of the ICRC would establish a national plan for the integration of

refugees and IDPs.

Serbia in a State of Chaos

As IDPs continued to settle into Serbia, Serbia itself was a state in disarray. While Serbia

had escaped the Yugoslav Wars with minimal destruction as compared to Bosnia and Croatia,

the wars effects were felt politically, socially, and financially. From the onset of the wars, the

dissolution of the federal economy had already impacted Serbia. Due to the nature of the SFRY

economy, Serbia lost its main export partners, the other republics that constituted Yugoslavia.68

This drastic shift in the economy would soon be impacted by the wars’ embargoes. These

68 Prior to the wars, an estimated 70 percent of all Serbian good were exported. Of these exports only 20 percent were actually exported to countries other than SFRY. Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, 261. 33

sanctions would range from arms embargoes, to export sanctions, to economic blocking of

access to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. With sanctions in place and the

economy completely transformed by 1994 Serbia would hit hyper-inflation rates that rivalled the

Weimer Republic of Germany. Serving as a daily reminder of the impact of the Yugoslav Wars,

support for Milošević would decline.

This decline of Milošević’s of popularity would be witnessed with the November

elections of 1996. Serving as a referendum on Milošević and the war the election saw sweeping

results for the opposition party.69 This in turn led to Milošević and his ruling party (the Socialist

Party of Serbia) to annul the elections and reschedule them for later that month. Adding to an

already tense environment, protests broke out against Milošević. Denouncing the protestors and the elections Milošević began shifting state focus to the violence in Kosovo. As focus gave to conflict and the conflict gave to the withdrawal of Serbia from Kosovo and the ensuing flood of

Kosovo IDPs to Serbia, opposition to Milošević continued to mount. This reached its tipping point with the 2000 Yugoslav presidential election. Losing once again to the opposition

Milošević denounced the election as fraudulent. Unlike in 1996 this annulment led to the “Five

October Revolution.”70

As the wars and the autocracy of the Milošević government led to his downfall, implicit

in his demise was the criminal state that formed under the Milošević era. With the economy in

ruin the Serbian black market took off. Running the black market was a hybrid of criminal

organizations merged with Yugoslav War paramilitaries that had support and placement within

69 V. P. Gagnon Jr. The Myth of Ethnic War: Serbia and Croatia in the 1990s, 121-22. 70Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, 343. 34

the federal security services. As their power grew so did their operations. Prior to the Five

October Revolution Serbia was marred with high-profile assassinations. Assassinations, ranging

from the killing of the war criminal and former leader of the Serb Volunteer Guard, Željko

Ražnatović, to the kidnapping and subsequent death of former Serbian President Ivan Stambolić,

fostered an environment of political chaos, corruption, and lawlessness. Though the criminal

elements would survive Milošević’s downfall (and may have been part of it) they would

eventually be stripped of federal support with the 2003 assassination of Serbian Prime Minister

Zoran Đinđić. With Đinđić’s death there would be a subsequent federal reorganization and a

crackdown on organizational crime that would lead the way to political reforms and

modernization, to include negotiations for EU accession.

Refugees in Serbia

At the forefront of the refugee and IDP crisis was the question how would Serbia take

care of and provide for the refugees and IDPs, especially given the economic state of Serbia and

the facts population had increased by ten percent increase. The first formulization of a state

policy was the creation of the 1992 Law of Refugees (Zakon O Izbeglicama). Outlined in the law was the definition of who were the refugees and the care and conditions that they would be afforded. Defined as Serbs and other citizens that fled from Croatia and other republics to Serbia due to the threats of genocide, persecution, and discrimination due to their religious, nationality, and political beliefs,71 the refugees were to be afforded rights of state social security,

71 “Srbima i građanima drugih nacionalnosti koji su usled pritiska hrvatske vlasti ili vlasti u drugim republikama, pretnje genocidom, kao i progona i diskriminacije zbog njihove verske i nacionalne pripadnosti ili političkog uverenja, bili prinuđeni da napuste svoja prebivališta u tim republikama i izbegnu na teritoriju Republike Srbije (u daljem tekstu: izbeglice) obezbeđuje se, u skladu s odredbama ovog zakona, zbrinjavanje radi zadovoljavanja njihovih osnovnih životnih potreba i omogućavanja socijalne sigurnosti.” Zakon O Izbeglicima," Službeni glasnik 35

employment, and education pending their return to their place of origin.72 In addition to defining

refugees and their rights, the decree also imposed state labor and military obligations for able-

bodied refugees.73 Legislating the systems and processes for administering and supporting the

refugees the 1992 law would establish the lead agency for refugees in Serbia, the Serbian

Commissariat for Refugees and Migration (the Commissariat).

Written prior to the escalation of the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, the 1992 law and its ambiguous framing of providing care for refugees until the conditions for their return were met would be critical in the execution of Serbian policy. As the wars and the wars’ refugees began to increase in intensity and scope, the Commissariat’s services became quickly overwhelmed. The first aspect to impact the 1992 law was the refugee population itself. From 1991 to July of 1995

Serbia had received over 200,000 refugees. In less than a year that number would increase by more than double due to the Croatian offensives in the Krajina. This sudden addition of a population influx stressed an already donor reliant system. With international trade embargoes halting imports and exports, Serbia and the Commissariat became reliant on the European

Community Humanitarian Office, UNHCR, ICRC, and NGOs to fulfill the basic needs of the

refugee population.74 Integral was the aid and support received by the ICRC, an entity that was

referenced in the 1992 Law of Refugees.75 Serving as a neutral party, ICRC could channel from

RS", br. 18/92, "Službeni list SRJ", br. 42/2002, 1. "Službeni glasnik RS", br. 45/2002. http://www.The Commissariat.gov.rs/docs/Zakon_o_izbeglicama.pdf [ accessed November 7, 2017]. 72 Ibid, Član 2. 73 Law on Refugee, The Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, nos. 18/92, 45/2002, 1. http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?docid=4721d4c52&page=search [accessed November 7, 2017]. 74 European Community Humanitarian Organization, “Over 140,000 people fleeing Krajina have become refugees,” European Commission Press Release Database. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-95-924_en.htm?locale=en [accessed November 7, 2017]. 75 O Zakon Izbeglicama "Službeni glasnik RS", br. 18/92 ,2. 36

donors the basic food supplies, medical aid, and basic hygiene products to the refugee populations. As the trade embargos further exacerbated the Serbian economy, the ICRC became

even more critical for Serbia.

With food, medicine, and medical services coming via the international community,

housing became another trait critical in Serbia’s care for their refugee population. For many of

the refugees the preferred option for housing, and that preferred of the state, was renting, staying

with family and friends, and if possible outright owning of housing. This type of housing

accounted for seventy three percent of the refugees.76 For those that could not find these types of

housing Serbia developed collective centers (CCs). Either created formally through planning or

informally from spontaneous settlement in vacant public facilities, CCs were devised for those

considered unable to fend for themselves; the unemployed, the invalid, the elderly, single

parents, and orphans. Mostly located in Central Serbia (to include Belgrade), at the height of the

refugee and IDP crisis Serbia would create over 700 CCs.77 Seen as temporal solutions the CCs

and the persons that stayed there were labelled as “vulnerable.” Once the refugee and IDPs

situation began to set the vulnerable populations of the CCs would become the main Serbian

focus for integration of its refugee and IDP populations.

As the economic situation overwhelmed Serbia and the Commissariat’s ability to provide

support to the refugees, another aspect that hindered Serbia’s refugee policy was the lack of a

political solution for the refugees return. From the first refugee census conducted by the

76 Snežana Vujadinović, Dejan Šabić, Sanja Stojković, and Miroljub Milinčić. Years of Refugee Life in Serbia- Challenges for a New Beginning: Stay or Return Home?” Trames 15, 3 [2011]: 237. http://www.kirj.ee/public/trames_pdf/2011/issue_3/trames-2011-3-235-258.pdf [ accessed November 7, 2017]. 77Комесаријат за Избелице и Миграцје, “Колективни центри.” http://www.The Commissariat.gov.rs/articles/centri.php?lang=SER [accessed November 7, 2017]. 37

Commissariat and the UNHCR in 1996 only forty three percent of the 537,937 registered

refugees were given the status of refugee.78 These official refugees were the ones that had arrived at Serbia prior to August 1995 before the Croatian offensive operation Storm. Persons who had come to Serbia from Croatia in August of 1995, thirty five percent of the refugee population, were labeled as exiled persons. While those who came after August of 1995 were considered persons without status. Further compounding the refugee numbers and status were an additional 79,791 persons, labeled as war-affected persons, refugees with Serbian citizenship.

While there was no difference in the treatment that refugees, exiled persons, and persons without status received, it does show Serbia’s hesitation to absorb a primary Serb population (93%) without a solution for repatriation in place.79

Critical to Serbia’s way forward for repatriation of its refugee population was the Dayton

Agreement and its conduct of the Annex 7, the right of return. Formulated in theory to allow for

refugees to return to both Bosnia and Croatia, the realities of the war effects on the former

Yugoslavia brought Annex 7 to a standstill. With Bosnia recovering from the war and Croatia

and Serbia at a political impasse from the war, Serbia began a series of revisions and expansions

to meet the refugee issue within Serbia. In 1995, Serbia passed the Law on Refugees and

Displaced Persons, granting Republic of Serbia identification cards to this population. This act

in itself had granted de-facto citizenship to refugees in Serbia and was formalized with follow-on

amendments to the 1992 Law of Citizenship for the newly created Serbian republic.80 The de-

78Snežana Vujadinović, Dejan Šabić, Sanja Stojković, and Miroljub Milinčić. Years of Refugee Life in Serbia- Challenges for a New Beginning: Stay or Return Home?” Trames 15, 3 [2011]: 238. 79 Ibid, 237. 80 UNHCR, The Status of the Croatian Serb Population in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Refugees or Citizens?, [Sarajevo, May 2003], 5. http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/3eccfafc2.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 38

facto status of the 1995 law would become official with the 1999 Law of Citizenship. In the law,

Serbia recognized that all former SFRY citizens registered with two more continuous years of

residence in both Serbia and the Republika Srpska between 6 April 1992 and 1 January 1998 could become naturalized Serbian citizens.81 Two years after passing the 1999 Law the

Commissariat reported that an estimated 100,000 of the Bosnian and Croatian Serb refugees had opted for Serbian naturalization.82 Though citizenship had become an option for refugees,

Serbia still preferred the path of repatriation for its Bosnian and Croatian Serb refugees as

outlined in the 1992 Law of Refugees.

IDPs in Serbia

As the political process for refugees and their status began to resolve internally for

Serbia, Serbia was soon faced with the population crisis of the Kosovo IDPs. Just like the refugee crisis from the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, Serbia would receive hundreds of thousands mostly ethnic Serbs fleeing from their homes. In this aspect Serbia was more prepared for the

Kosovo IDPs due to having humanitarian capabilities and support in place from the Bosnian and

Croatian refugees. Not only was the Commissariat established but the nature of how the Kosovo

War played out allowed for the ICRC to begin support to the waves of IDPs that crossed into

Serbia. While these humanitarian support capabilities had benefitted from the experience of the

refugee crisis, the political status and possible solution for the IDPs would differ greatly.

81 Ibid. 82 “Serbia currently hosts over 260K refugees and IDPs”, B92, June 20, 2013. http://www.b92.net/eng/news/society.php?yyyy=2013&mm=06&dd=20&nav_id=86697 [accessed November 7, 2017]. 39

Central to the IDPs’ status and their return to Kosovo was the UNSC Resolution 1244

and its Annex 1, the call for safe return of all refugees and displaced persons to their homes in

Kosovo. Much like Annex 7 of the Dayton Agreement, this article was seen as the way forward for the return of Kosovo IDPs under the auspices of the international community. But unlike

Bosnia and Croatia, the status of Kosovo and its sovereignty became a friction point for the implementation of Annex 1. Developed from the 1998 Rambouillet Agreement, Resolution 1244 had called for greater political representation and substantial autonomy for the Kosovar population.83 Void in the resolution and agreement was the political endgame for Kosovo,

whether Kosovo become and independent country or remain part of Serbia. In addition to

Kosovo’s relation to Serbia there was also the sub-issue of Kosovo Serbs’ political

representation and internal security given the political ambiguity of Kosovo. The issue of

Kosovo Serbs’ political and security rights was further complicated by lack of significant

Serbian mediation. Besides political gesturing for the rights of all of Kosovo Serbs, Serbs in

Kosovo and Kosovo IDPs, Serbia was in a delicate position where further Kosovo Serb

autonomy in North Kosovo could imply further Kosovo autonomy or independence.

A Way Forward for Refugees and IDPs in Serbia

Central to the way forward for the resolving of the refugee and IDPs situation in Serbia

was the withdrawal of forces from Kosovo and the dismissal of Milošević. The Kosovo

withdrawal allowed for easing of humanitarian aid while the ouster of Milošević, almost a year

83 United Nations Security Council resolution 1244, Resolution 1244, S/RES/1244, (10 June 1999). https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N99/172/89/PDF/N9917289.pdf?OpenElement [accessed November 7, 2017].

40

later, would lead to a lifting of all international sanctions and the normalization of foreign

relations. The easing of humanitarian aid would not only be critical in the services and support

provided to the estimated 377,000 refugees and 230,000 IDPs in Serbia but it would also help

form the Serbian policy of refugees and IDPs.84 Integral to this process of aid and policy was the

ICRC.

Having served already as neutral party in the coordination and distribution of relief

during the Yugoslav Wars, the ICRC was able to increase its role in Serbia following the Kosovo

War. Working as the lead agency in coordination with the UNHCR, the Commissariat, other

NGO’s in Serbia (Oxfam, Medicine sans Frontiers, etc..), the ICRC began providing services of

basic needs; food, healthcare, and shelter for the first waves of the IDPs from Kosovo. As the

IDPs situation began to normalize the ICRC in coordination with the Ministry of Social Affairs

(now the Ministry of Interior) began to compile research on two of the most prominent issues

facing IDPs in Serbia, housing and employment. With the Serbian economy still mired by the

wars and the sanctions of the wars, the prospect for employment for all of Serbia was bleak;

almost a quarter of all Serbians were registered as unemployed in 2002.85 In 2002, the ICRC

estimated that 5-15% of the IDPs population relied on social welfare and aid, 35-45% of were

solely dependent on the grey economy (petty trade, seasonal and undeclared sources of income),

15-25% of IDPs were making a livelihood from both aid and the grey economy, 10-15% of the

IDPs were in positions that afforded them a regular salary, and 15-20% relied had a mixture of

84 Nacionalna strategija za rešavanje pitanja izbeglih i interno raseljenih lica, Odbor vlade Republike Srbije za pripremu nacionalne strategije, 1. 85 ICRC, The Vulnerability Assessment of Internally Discalced Persons in Serbia and Montenegro: Final Report, Belgrade, July 2003, 39. 41

grey economy and salaried positions.86 With the refugee economic situation considered to mirror that of the IDPs in relation to livelihood and means, in 2003 Serbia reported that a quarter

of all refugees and IDPs (an estimated 120,000 people) lived below the poverty level, 87 a population two times higher than the Serbian population.88

Analyzing the employment opportunities and their impact on the refugee and IDPs situation, another focus for the ICRC and Serbia was the housing aspect of refugees and IDPs.

Much like the employment opportunities the housing situation for refugee and IDPs mirrored each other. Most refugees and IDPs were either renting or living with family and friends. In smaller cases some refugees and IDPs were homeowners, either purchasing houses or living in already owned housing summer houses. While a smaller percentage of refugees and IDPs lived in the CCs. 89 Those of the refugees and IDPs that lived in the CCs; primarily Roma, elderly,

elderly and single, disabled, single parents and large families of the unemployed were considered the most vulnerable populations.90

86 Ibid, 24. 87“The poverty line is defined as a total consumption of those households whose food consumption equals minimal consumer basket and the minimum social security level is the minimum amount of money necessary for basic subsistence, based on combined family income.” The Vulnerability Assessment of Internally Discalced Persons in Serbia and Montenegro: Final Report, ICRC, Belgrade, July 2003, 6. In 2003, the World Bank set the poverty line as 1.80 EUR per day, while the Serbian Ministry of Social Affairs set it at 72 EUR per month. In this same time the Ministry of Social Affairs valued the average monthly Serbian salary as 249 EUR, and defined the social security entitlement as 16% of this monthly average monthly, which was incremental by 6 percentage points for each additional family member (up to 5) of a social security recipient. Ibid, 20. 88 ICRC, The Vulnerbaility Assessment of Internally Dispalced Persons in Serbia and Montenegro, Belgrade 2005, 11. https://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/other/feg-hea-serbia-montenego-04-2005.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 89 Government of Republic of Serbia, National Strategy for Resolving the Problems of Refugees and Displaced Person in Serbia, 8. 90 Of these 17,100, 14,600 were registered as Roma. Ibid, 7. 42

Housing Type Rented Housing Living with Collection Property Owned

Family and Centers (CCs)

Friends

Refugees % of 44 30 8 18

377,000

IDPs % of 40.7 39.8 6.9 7.6

230,000

Table 1. Housing Breakdown of Refugees and IDPs in Serbia 2002

Based on the research of ICRC on refugees and IDPs’ employment opportunities and

housing, Serbia would formulate its first substantial policy for refugees and IDPs, the 2002

National Strategy for Resolving the Problems of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons

(Nacionalna strategija za rešavanje pitanja izbeglih i interno raseljenih lica). In the document,

Serbia outlined two courses of action for the refugees and IDPs situation in the country. The first strategy reaffirmed the Serbian preference for repatriation of refugees and IDPs, especially for the “voluntary and safe” return of the Kosovo IDPs. 91 The second course of action called for

local integration of refugees and IDPs with the main goal of achieving economic and social

sufficiency comparable to those of Serbian citizens.

91 Nacionalna strategija za rešavanje pitanja izbeglih i interno raseljenih lica, Odbor vlade Republike Srbije za pripremu nacionalne strategije, 1. 43

The National Strategy would serve to this day as the framework for the Serbian policy towards refugees and IDPs from the Yugoslav Wars. Developed with international support of the ICRC the strategy came in a time of transition for Serbia. Starting with the removal of

Serbian forces in Kosovo and the removal of the autocratic Milošević government Serbia would transition from its Yugoslav past to include its authority in Kosovo and its partnership with

Montenegro. But still left behind were the refugees and IDPs of the Yugoslav Wars. As initial policies for refugees and IDPs were developed the coming years would provide more substantial solutions to the resolving of the refugee and IDPs situation in Serbia.

44

Chapter 4: The Implementation of the National Strategy: Repatriation and Integration

To resolve the refugees and IDPs situation in Serbia the 2002 National Strategy would

provide two main policies. The first policy is repatriation. The preferred choice of Serbia this

policy was dependent on both state to state relations and international support for its

implementation. Reliant on international relations, repatriation was also dependent on refugees

wanting to leave Serbia, where they had been offered citizenship, and return to their lands of

origin six years after the Yugoslav Wars had ended. For IDPs the process of repatriation would

be hindered by Serbia’s foreign relations and the political status of Kosovo. The second policy

of integration would become the most feasible option for Serbia and its refugee and IDPs

population. Devised along the lines of the ICRC research in Kosovo, housing and employment

would be the main foci of integration. Just like repatriation, the policy of integration would also

require external support to aid implementation. To date the repatriation of refugees is more or

less complete while their integration is an ongoing process. For the Kosovo IDPs repatriation is

doubtful while integration mirrors that of the refugees.

Repatriation to Bosnia and Croatia

Integral to the return of Serbia’s refugee population was the rights and conditions that

refugees were afforded for their return to their country of origin. Though both Bosnia and

Croatia had this legislation established, each country would have distinct aspects and processes for the return of Serbia’s refugees. In Bosnia, Annex 7 of the Dayton Agreement, “Refugees and

Displaced Persons,” served as the framework for Bosnian refugees’ return. The annex outlined

rights and conditions afforded to returning refugees that were to be implemented by the

international community. As Annex 7 helped facilitate the return of Bosnia refugees from 45

Serbia, another factor that Bosnia possessed was the political entity of the RS. In this respect the

fact that the RS was a predominantly Serb-governed territory allowed for less resistance and

reluctance for Bosnia Serb refugees to return to their former home of origin where they would be

part of an ethnic majority. As the RS promoted Bosnian refugee returns, another feature for

Bosnian repatriation was the consideration of “minority returns”. Also legislated in Annex 7,

minority returns were rights guaranteed to refugees and IDPs to resettle in areas of Bosnia where

they would be an ethnic minority. With these mechanisms in place Serbia reported in 2002 that

of its original Bosnian refugee population (232,974) there was a forty-three percent reduction due to repatriation (100,179 Bosnian refugees).92 As of 2017 the Commissariat has reported that

79,000 Bosnian refugees have returned from Serbia to Bosnia.93

As the Bosnian refugee population decreased the Croatian refugee population only made

marginal reductions, about a seventeen percent decrease from 292,500 to 246,000.94 This lack of

Croatian refugee returns was due to two major factors. One factor was the creation of Serbian

naturalization. The other factor was that Croatia did not have the same situation as Bosnia, a

Serb majority political entity to entice resettlement (the RS) and international outreach for

resettlement. These factors combined were further complicated by the domestic policies of

Croatia. Following Operation Storm, Croatia began the state policy of settling Croat refugees

and Croatian IDPs in the former Serb areas of the Krajina. Known as “areas of state concern”,

Croatia advertised these areas and incentivized their settlement with no communal taxes and a

92 From my research this would have meant that by 2002 THE COMMISSARIAT estimated that 100,179 Bosnian refugees had left Serbia. As of present the total number of Bosnian Serbs repatriated to Bosnia is officially 79,000. I surmise that this discrepancy of 21,179 refugees are persons that emigrated to a third country. Nacionalna strategija za rešavanje pitanja izbeglih i interno raseljenih lica, 1. 93 Комесаријат за Избелице и Миграцје, “О Kомесаријату.” 94 Nacionalna strategija za rešavanje pitanja izbeglih i interno raseljenih lica, 1. 46

property law guaranteeing “abandoned” Serb properties to Croatian settlers.95 This property law

the transferring of former Yugoslavian tenancy rights of Croatian Serbs to Croatians would

become a hindrance to the return of Croatian Serbs. As resettlement was impacted by property

rights the lack of employment opportunities and harassment that Croatian Serbs faced

complicated an already complex situation. With these factors to in place to blocking the

resettlement of Croatian Serbs the EU reprimanded Croatia. Formally listed by the Council of

Europe in 1999,

harassment, intimidation…the lack of inhabitable housing and of alternative

accommodation for those temporarily occupying the homes of returnees;

depressed economic conditions including unemployment, together with

discrimination against job-seekers belonging to minority ethnic groups; the

difficulty, for those wishing to return, of obtaining the requisite citizenship and

travel documents from the Croatian authorities; educational curricula geared to

the needs of the majority ethnic group; threats of prosecution for supposed war

crimes; confusion surrounding the amnesty law; and a general political and

cultural climate which hinders reconciliation.96

Croatia much like Serbia was also in a political transition following the war and with the

incentive of accession to the European Union steps were taken by the Croatian government to

95 Carolin Leutloff-Grandits, “Ethnic Unmixing in the Aftermath of the Yugoslav Successor Wars: The Integration of Co-Ethnics in Former Yugoslaviain Comparative Perspective,” 146. 96 Council of Europe: Parliamentary Assembly, “Return of refugees and displaced persons to their homes in Croatia.” Recommendation 1406, April 29, 1999. http://www.assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML- en.asp?fileid=16699&lang=en [accessed November 7, 2017].

47

facilitate the resettlement and integration of Croatian Serb refugees. Primary to these steps were

the 2002 Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities; that established the

framework for minority rights and freedoms, ending discriminatory practices and allowing for

the formation of local self-government and the guarantee of parliamentary representation (with at

least 4 members of parliament).97 This ruling would strengthen minority rights leading to

marginal returns, but it would also tie tenancy rights to Croatian citizenship. As of 2017 the

Commissariat has reported that 69,500 refugees have returned from Serbia to Croatia.98

Repatriation to Kosovo

As mentioned the ambiguous status of Kosovo affected the Serbian dealings with

Kosovo. The more Serbia interacted with Kosovo state institutions or the UN acting on behalf of

a Kosovo government the further Serbia was distancing its claim on Kosovo as a province. This

stonewalling of the Kosovo status has been witnessed from the onset of the Rambouillet talks to

the 2006 Serbian Constitutional Referendum, that stated Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia. In

2008 when Kosovo declared independence Serbian contested the declaration requesting that the

International Court of Justice review of the legality of Kosovo’s independence, further disputing

the new nation’s sovereignty. While formal ties have only recently taken place with the 2013

Brussels Agreement, the issue of Kosovo’s autonomy and ability for Kosovo to provide impartial

protection for Kosovo Serbs and the return of IDPs became a point of friction for Serbia’s

willingness to meet Annex 1.

97 Constitutional Law of the Rights of National Minorities, Official Gazette 155/2002, [Zagreb: December 13, 2002] http://www.vsrh.hr/CustomPages/Static/HRV/Files/Legislation__Constitutional-Law-on-the-Rights-NM.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 98 Комесаријат за Избелице и Миграцје, “О Kомесаријату.” 48

The political ambiguity not only impacted the Serbian relations with Kosovo and

UNMIK, but it also impacted the security situation of Kosovo as well. As mentioned the

withdrawal of Serb security forces and the deployment of KFOR were integral for the UN

intervention to end hostilities. Serving as peacekeepers the multinational KFOR would partner

with the KPC to moderate peace between Kosovars and the Kosovo minorities. In this security and stabilization climate animosities soon broke out between KFOR, Kosovar separatists,

Kosovars and Kosovo’s minorities. These hostilities, to include the targeting of Serb civilians,

not only deterred the resettlement of IDPs but led to a new wave of migration. Intimidation and

skirmishes amongst Kosovars and Kosovo Serbs would eventually build up to the Kosovo riots

of March of 2004. The riots centering around a Kosovo teenage Serb’s death outside of Pristina

in combination with the arresting of 3 KLA members on war crime charges would create a chain

reaction of protests (to include anti-KFOR), riots, and ultimately deaths (31 dead and over 500

injured). The U.N. reported that most violence was being directed at the ethnic Serbs to include

the targeting and destruction of newly built homes for returning Serbs.99

With the security situation in Kosovo tenuous the return of IDPs was also burdened by

the lack of opportunity in Kosovo. The poorest region in terms of development and per-capita

during the SFRY era the prospect of employment in Serbia overpowered that of return to

Kosovo. By 2003 the ICRC was reporting that many IDPs had already moved farther away from

the Kosovo border in search for economic opportunities within Serbia.100 These economic

incentives were further weighted by the fragile peace within Kosovo. In 2005 the ICRC reported

99 “Kosovo/Serbia: Protect Minorities from Ethnic Violence”, Human Rights Watch, March 19, 2004. http://pantheon.hrw.org/legacy/english/docs/2004/03/18/serbia8129.htm [accessed November 7, 2017]. 100 ICRC, The Vulnerbaility Assessment of Internally Dispalced Persons in Serbia and Montenegro, 21. 49

the that return of IDPs in the short or medium term were unattainable and recommended that priority should be given to local integration of IDPs over finding a durable solution to their return.101

Integration of Refugees and IDPs in Serbia

As stated the 2002 National Strategy created two courses of action for the refugees and

IDPs, repatriation and integration. But by 2002 the option of repatriation was a moot choice. By the document’s own admission of the 377,000 registered refugees 227,500 had already elected for naturalization to Serbia. 102 That in mind, integration of refugees and IDPs, defined as the

basic goal of independence both socially and economically equal in relation to that of other

citizens, would become the primary course of action. To achieve this goal of integration the

strategy focused on solutions for housing and employment opportunities.

Housing

Perhaps the most tangible of the basic goal of integration, housing became a major effort

of the National Strategy due to the fact that most of the refugees and IDPs were either renting or

living with extended family or with friends. Called the “most important precondition to

integration” the strategy devised for an affordable housing program to make privately owned

housing more achievable through government subsidized loans and reduced taxes.103 By focusing on housing Serbia sought normalize the living circumstances of refugees and IDPs but

101 ICRC, The Vulnerbaility Assessment of Internally Dispalced Persons in Serbia and Montenegro, Belgrade 2005, 6. https://www.icrc.org/eng/assets/files/other/feg-hea-serbia-montenego-04-2005.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017], 1. 102 Furthermore by 2002 almost all of the repatriated refugees to Bosnia and Croatia that would be reported as of present had already repatriated. Nacionalna strategija za rešavanje pitanja izbeglih i interno raseljenih lica, 1. 103 “Sopstveni stambeni prostor je najvažniji preduslov integracije izbeglih i raseljenih lica i njihovih porodica.” Ibid, 3.1 “Stanovanje”. 50

also refine state support to focus resources on the most vulnerable populations. In this respect

social services programs of medical and welfare aid would be refocused on a more narrow but

needy population. This strategy of creating affordable housing to reduce the recipients of social

services to just the vulnerable populations would serve as the way forward for the gradual

reduction and closing of the CCs.

Broken down in types of housing that both refugees and IDPs lived in and regions that

they predominantly stayed in the National Strategy sought to target housing as means to integrate

its refugee and IDP populations. 104 With limited private funding the National Strategy provided the possibility of raising funds through state loans with favorable repayment terms, state funds, and international donations. As economic considerations impacted internal ways of sourcing housing needs Serbia turned to NGOs and the international community.

In this process of solving the housing situation for the integration of refugees and IDPs

Serbia received a boost by pursing the process of repatriation. This took formation with the normalizing of foreign relations with the former Yugoslavia in the 2005 Sarajevo Process.

Following Serbia’s own normalizing, post Đinđić assassination, the Sarajevo Process (also known as the Regional Ministerial Conference on Refugee Returns in Sarajevo) convened to create a formal commitment to solving the refugee and IDP crisis of the Yugoslav Wars.

Besides strengthening the process for “minority returns” the conference and its declaration

(Sarajevo Declaration) formulized the strategy of facilitating the return or integration of refugees

104 The majority of refugees lived in Vojvodina (50%) and Belgrade (30%), while the majority of IDPs resided in Central Serbia (94.2%), the rest in Vojvodina, Ibid, 5. 51

and IDPS.105 Reaffirmed by the 2005 Belgrade Declaration, the Sarajevo Process came to

fruition following 2011 Joint Declaration (Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia) and the

creation of the Regional Housing Programme (RHP).106

Implemented after the 2011 joint conference and subsequent EU donors conference, since

breaking ground in 2013 the RHP has provided housing for an estimated 3,000 vulnerable

persons in Bosnia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia, a number that is expected to increase to

20,000 by 2018.107 The biggest of these beneficiaries are the Yugoslav War refugees in Serbia.

Receiving 56 percent of the awarded grants by the RHP, 108 over 1,100 refugees have received

housing support by the RHP.109 Overseen in Serbia by the Commissariat, the refugee recipients

of the RHP are selected by the Commissariat who then provide project proposals to the Council

of Europe Development Bank. Once these proposals are approved by the development bank

under the framework ascribed by the RHP the Commissariat is responsible for the projects

procurements, implementation with local municipalities, and beneficiary’s reception.110 The

RHP in Serbia is divided into recipient categories; refugees who live in CCs (2% of the targeted

105 Regional Ministerial Conference on Refugee Returns, Declaration, [Sarajevo: January 2005]. http://regionalhousingprogramme.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Joint-Declaration-7-November-2011.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 106 Regional Housing Programme, “On Ending Displacement and Ensuring Durable Solutions for Vulnerable Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons,” Joint Declaration, [Belgrade: November 7, 2011] http://regionalhousingprogramme.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Joint-Declaration-7-November-2011.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 107 Regional Housing Programme, RHP Fund Annual Report 2016, April 2017, 17. http://regionalhousingprogramme.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/RHP_Annual_Report_2016.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 108 Ibid, 41. 109 Regional Housing Programme, “10th Regional Housing Programme (RHP) Steering Committee in Belgrade confirms Partner Countries’ commitment to the RHP,” June 26, 2017. http://regionalhousingprogramme.org/10th- regional-housing-programme-rhp-steering-committee-in-belgrade-confirms-partner-countries-commitment-to-the- rhp/ [accessed November 7, 2017]. 110 Regional Housing Programme, “Serbia Factsheet 2016,” http://regionalhousingprogramme.org/serbia/ [accessed November 7, 2017]. 52

population) and those with occupancy rights but are unable to return to their country of origin.

For these two types of recipients the RHP monies can be spent for the purchase of apartments,

construction of flats and pre-fabricated buildings, and the purchases of village houses and

building materials.111 Promoted by the Commissariat but also by word of mouth an estimated

13,266 refugees will become recipients of the RHP in the next five years.112

As the RHP became a focus of the housing situation for refugees, another program the

Housing Center was created to address the IDPs population and the closure of the CCs outlined in the National Strategy. Created in 2003 by the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation and UNHCR, the Housing Center coordinated by the Commissariat was established to help close down the CCs.113 Active since 2005 by 2015 the Housing Center has been able to improve the living conditions of 2000 IDPs or 642 families.114 The range of improvement to living

conditions varies from housing construction (social housing to individual homes), schools, to

research and conferences on homelessness and social inclusion in Serbia affecting both Serb and

Roma IDPs.115 With these programs in place and past actions as of June of 2017, there 13 CCs

in Serbia supporting 471 persons, 85 refugees and 386 IDPs.116

111 Regional Housing Programme, RHP Fund Annual Report 2016, 41. 112 Ibid. 113 Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit, Foster Family Accommodation Serbia, 1. http://www.shacc.ch/system/files/Factsheet%20Social%20Housing%20Serbia.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 114 Housing Center, Annual Report 2015, 3. http://www.housingcenter.org.rs/en/download/GI2015_eng.pdf 3. 115 Ibid. 116 Комесаријат за Избелице и Миграцје, “Колективни центри,” http://www.The Commissariat.gov.rs/articles/centri.php?lang=SER [accessed November 7, 2017]. 53

Date Number of CCs Refugee IDP Residents Total Residents Residents 1 Jan 2002 388 17,415 9,448 26,863 1 Jan 2004 194 8,107 7,933 16,040 1 Jan 2006 112 3,418 6,128 9.546 1 Jan 2008 80 1,702 5,046 6,748 1 Jan 2010 62 1,165 3,926 5,091 1 Jan 2012 41 607 2,869 3,476 1 Jan 2014 23 340 1,310 1.650 1 Jan 2017 13 101 429 530

117 Table 2. Collective Centers in Serbia

Employment Opportunities

As witnessed the housing solution for the refugees and IDPs integration into Serbia was both drawn out and required international support. In this respect the economic opportunities that would provide socio-economic independence on par with Serbians would be no different. In fact, it would be more complicated due to the Serbian economy. One of the first efforts in addressing the refugee and IDP economic opportunities and needs was done through the housing effort. In the process of quantifying the employment of refugees and IDPs and the types of income received, which affected their livelihood and welfare, the aspect of housing and

117 Ibid. 54

settlement became a means for identifying economic needs and support. In this process the

ICRC was able to extrapolate the economies that refugee and IDPs were reliant on for their

livelihoods by creating three zones of livelihood. Separated along lines of municipality and their

covering areas, there was Zone I for the major cities (Belgrade, Novi Sad, Niš), Zone III for rural

areas, and Zone II made up of towns demographically between metropolitan and countryside.118

Primary to these zones were the distinction that they provided; for employment opportunities

(regular and casual employment), access to the grey economy (petty trade and labor, undeclared

sources of income), and access to social services (healthcare, education, social security). Those

in Zone I had better access to these aspects while those in Zone III would require more services

and support.

Identifying the process of refugee and IDPs settlement and the livelihood and services

that supported them, Serbia began to enact legislative programs and strategies to better support their refugees and IDPs. The 2003 Poverty Reduction Strategy provide framework for the development of sector strategies for solving economic problems (the livelihood zones), 2008

National Strategy for Sustainable Development, 2005 Labor Law that created legislation for equal labor rights for refugees and IDPs, 2009 Law on Employment and Unemployment

Insurance with the National Employment Action Plan that gave priority to refugees and IDPs, and several education laws that extended education opportunity for refugees and IDPs.119

118 ICRC, The Vulnerability Assessment of Internally Discalced Persons in Serbia and Montenegro 2005, 26. 119 National Strategy for Resolving Problems of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons for the Period form 2011-2014, The Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No.55/05, 71/05-correction, 101/07 and 65/08, Belgrade March 3, 2011. http://www.The Commissariat.gov.rs//docs/National%20Strategy%20For%20Resolving%20Problems%20Of%20Refugees%20And %20Internally%20Displaced%20Persons%20For%20the%20Period%20From%202011%20To%202014.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017].

55

As these national efforts extended employment rights and opportunities to refugees and

IDPs, they also worked in tandem with international aid Serbia received to support their refugees and IDPs. Serbia was one of the first countries to take part in the UNHCR microfinancing program. Created from UNHCR donation for small loans and partnered with Oxfam, MicroFinS provides loans for vocational training, housing, and small businesses. Primarily serving IDPs the program has also helped empower women, whom make up forty percent of the recipients.120

The UN program “Promoting Peace in Southern Serbia” has provided economic, educational,

and welfare chances to refugees and IDPs. Targeting the poorer areas of Serbia, on the Kosovo

border, outcomes from this program include the creation of better representation and integration

for minorities and women, sustainable housing and improvement of access to public services, to

include immunization programs and education opportunities for an estimated 32% of the IDPs in

this region. Furthermore, the success of the program allowed for the closure of 2 CCs.121

Working in tandem with the UN the refugee and IDPs programs and legislations would

also support Serbia’s bid for EU ascension. Receiving candidacy status in 2011 these programs

helped Serbia meet judicial, human rights, and economic requirements outlined by the EU. With

candidate status Serbia has access to EU markets and financial assistance. The RHP has been

one outcome of the EU assistance and status. The initial Poverty Reduction Strategy of 2003 has

become an annual report that supports IGO and EU backed initiatives and reports their outcomes

fostering Serbia’s goal for EU membership and requirements.

120 UNHCR, “Self-Reliance Assistance Serbia.” http://www.unhcr.org/4ad732ec9.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 121 UN MDG Achievement Fund, “Final Evaluation: Promoting Peace Building in Southern Serbia,”20. http://www.mdgfund.org/sites/default/files/Serbia-%20CPPB%20-%20Final%20Evaluation%20Report.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 56

Current Refugee and IDPs Situation and Profile

With stability in place in Bosnia and relations normalized with Croatia, as of July of 2017 the Commissariat reported that of its original 537,937 refugees only 27,802 were still registered as refugees in Serbia. Of the 27,802 registered refugees, 19,038 are from Croatia and 8,764 are originally from Bosnia.122

Refugee 1996 2001 2004/5 2009/10 2012 2014 2016 Population Refugees from 232,974 133,853 27,541 21,461 16,414 11,324 9,080 Bosnia War affected 33,305 31,958 Not Not Not Not Not persons from Listed Listed Listed Listed Listed Bosnia Refugees from 290,667 242,624 76,546 64,557 49,917 32,371 20,334 Croatia War affected 39,456 41,712 Not Not Not Not Not persons from Listed Listed Listed Listed Listed Croatia Total Refugee 617,728 451,980 104,246 86,099 66,408 43,763 29,457 Population 123Table 3. Refugee Populations from 1996 to 2016

122 Комесаријат за Избелице и Миграцје, “О Kомесаријату.” 123 Комесаријат за Избелице и Миграцје ,“Podaci sa Popisa 1996, 2001, i 2004/5 GODINE i Trentni Broj,” http://www.The Commissariat.gov.rs/docs/statistika/statistika%202017.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 57

Of these refugees most live in the province of Vojvodina (13,998), while the biggest cluster of

refugees are found in Belgrade (7,075).124 According to past reports from the Migration Profile

of Serbia, this population is generally growing older. While more refugees are becoming

naturalized, over half of those who are still of refugee status are over the age of fifty. In the span

of four years from 2010 to 2104 the total amount of refugees decreased by 42,472 persons to include the reduction of all age categories. But in the same time frame the percentage of refugees over the age of 50 stayed the same and refugees 65 and older increased by 16.9%.

Age % from 2010 % from 2014 Increase/Decrease in Increase and Population Refugee Refugee % of age Decrease in Population Population population 0-14 5.1 1 -4.1 -3882 15-29 20.3 11 -8.7 -12,692 30-49 26.4 23 -3.4 -12,701 50-64 21.1 21 - -8,919 65+ 27.1 44 +16.9 -4,114 Total 86,235 43,763 N/A -42,472 Refugees

125 Table 4. Refugee Demographics in Serbia, 2010 and 2014

124 Комесаријат за Избелице и Миграцје, “Statistika.” http://www.The Commissariat.gov.rs/docs/statistika/izbirl2017.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 125 The Republic of Serbia, “Migration Profile the Republic of Serbia for 2010,” https://publications.iom.int/system/files/pdf/mp_serbia_2010e.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. and The Republic of Serbia, “Migration Profile the Republic of Serbia for 2014,” https://serbia.iom.int/sites/default/files/publications/documents/Migration_profile_of_the_Republic_of_Serbia_for_ 2014.pdf [accessed November 2017]. 58

Of these refugees it is difficult to determine their employment situation (and IDPs as

well). There is very little data present, but it can be expected that the refugee employment status reflects that of the national average in Serbian. In Serbia there is high unemployment among youth, while over half of the working population, 15-64, are engaged in some sort of employment.126 While there are reasonably high levels of employment, unemployment is at

19.7%, the UN estimates over forty percent of the national population is at risk of poverty or

lives barely above the poverty line.127 Included in this forty percent are the Kosovo IDPs.

Year 2000 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2017 IDPs 187,129 209,724 210,284 209,112 204,049 203,006 201,047 Population 128 Table 5. IDPs Populations in Serbia 2000 to 2017

As opposed to the refugee population, that is either becoming citizens or continuing to

live under refugee status for the remainder of their days, the population of IDPs in Serbia has

held the same. This is in part to two reasons. Children born in Serbia of Kosovo IDPs also

receive the IDPs status and returns to Kosovo of IDPs from Serbia have been in the low

hundreds annually. Holding steady at population levels since their initial migration to Serbia, a

126 Republic of Serbia, “Activity, Employment, Inactivity, and Unemployment Rates,” 2017. https://goo.gl/iLU4v1 [accessed November 7, 2017]. 127 UNDP, About Serbia. http://www.rs.undp.org/content/serbia/en/home/countryinfo.html [accessed November 7, 2017]. 128 Комесаријат за Избелице и Миграцје, “Statistika.” 59

majority of the IDPs live in the central or southern parts of Serbia, while the biggest enclave of

IDPs is in or near Belgrade (58,137).129 According to 2014 Migration profile, the average Serb

IDPs household is 4.16 members and the average Roma IDPs households are made up of 5.21 members.130 In 2010, when the population was estimated at 210,000 IDPs over a quarter of the

IDPs were age 15-29 and roughly 30% were over the age of 50.131 Of the 2010 IDP population,

Roma made up roughly 9% of the total IDP population. In this respect another issue of the IDPs

situation is the multiple ethnicities. In 2010 minority IDPs populations accounted for little less

than a quarter of the total IDPs population. Being both IDPs and minorities these IDPs make up

the largest portion of Serbia’s vulnerable persons and face the highest levels of discrimination in

Serbia.132 Facing higher levels of discrimination the minority Kosovo IDPs in Serbia have

benefited recently from the Serbia process towards EU ascension. This has been witnessed in

housing and social needs programs that comply with EU regulations.

The EU candidacy status for Serbia has been both a positive and a negative for the

integration of refugees and IDPs in Serbia. It has been a positive in the opportunities and future

opportunities it provides. Several laws and programs have been enacted to make ascension

possible benefiting refugees and IDPs and several programs have been created by the EU to

benefit refugees and IDPs. But EU candidacy has also reaffirmed how drawn out this process of

integration has been. The RHP is a perfect example of this process and its duration. Initiated in

2005 the RHP should come to full benefit of the vulnerable refugees and other refugees in 2018,

22 years after the Dayton Agreement. While any support is better than none EU ascension and

129 Комесаријат за Избелице и Миграцје, “Statistika.” 130 Republic of Serbia, “Migration Profile the Republic of Serbia for 2014,” 61. 131 Republic of Serbia, “Migration Profile the Republic of Serbia for 2010, 49. 132 ICRC, The Vulnerability Assessment of Internally Discalced Persons in Serbia and Montenegro 2005, 43. 60

possible membership is encouraging for the Serbian economy and the livelihoods of refugees and

IDPs. This is important because employment and a stable economy has always been at the crux

of the problem for Serbia and the absorption either long term or temporary of the refugees and

IDPs. The dissolution of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslav economy was already a negative impact

on Serbia. The Yugoslav Wars and their sanctions further worsened the maligned economy.

With this economic environment refugees and IDPs would be competing with Serbians for

employment in both formal and informal economies. As postwar economic restructuring and privatization increased unemployment in Serbia it was refugees and IDPs that would suffer from higher rates of unemployment.133

As for repatriation by the publishing of the National Strategy the process of repatriation

was almost complete. It was complete in the aspect that of the 377,000 registered refugees

227,500 had already elected for naturalization. Serbia would absorb another 25,000 of these

refugees while only 25,000 of these refugees would return to Croatia. Perhaps the policy of

repatriation was considered the preferred choice along political lines and the status of Kosovo. If

the economy has been the crux of the problem for the integration of refugees, then the national

claim to Kosovo has been that to the status of IDPs. The political impasse that Serbia has

established after the Kosovo War has resulted in the normalization and fixture of the Kosovo

IDPs population in Serbia. While internationally the independence of Kosovo is a bygone

conclusion for Kosovo IDPs their status remains tied to Serbia’s national policy of a political

stalemate.

133 In 2007, unemployment in Serbia was 21% but for Refugees it was 33% and 36% for IDPs. . National Strategy for Resolving Problems of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons for the Period form 2011-2014, 24. 61

Conclusion

While the refugee crisis of the Yugoslav Wars seems to be concluding, or phasing out,

the process for resolving the IDPs situation is still far from complete. As seen the numbers of

IDPs has held steady since the mid-2000s. Recently the 2013 EU-mediated Brussels Agreement has brought hope to IDPs situation. A quasi-establishing of a foreign relationship between

Serbia and Kosovo done via the EU, the agreement creates the framework for the “freedom of movement” of goods and services from Serbia to North Kosovo.134 Perhaps this agreement will

in turn lead to the further development of North Kosovo, allowing for some IDPs returns. But

just as the ICRC declared in 2005, the prospect for return is bleak today. Unlike Croatia (an EU

state) or even Bosnia, the financial incentives are not in place for Kosovo IDPs to leave Serbia

for Kosovo.

Though repatriation has been the preferred choice of Serbia towards its refugees and

IDPs, repatriation seems to be at odds with the preferred choice of the refugees and IDPs

themselves. The concept that people who had fled their homes in the background of war and

would be then inclined to return to these places confirms the notion that to states refugees can be

seen as “materials”. With refugees viewed as materials, their ethnicity becomes their value to

the state. In the Yugoslav Wars refugees and IDPs had either a positive or negative value. The

“sameness” of ethnicity was a positive for the wars’ belligerents in that it strengthened their

claim to territorial ambitions or holds. The “otherness” of ethnicity was a negative value that the

134 European Union External Action, “Statement by High Representative/Vice-President Federica Mogherini following the meeting of the EU-facilitated dialogue,” August 25, 2015. http://collections.internetmemory.org/haeu/content/20160313172652/http://eeas.europa.eu/statements- eeas/2015/150825_02_en.htm [accessed November 7, 2017]. 62

wars’ belligerents removed from territories to also strengthen their territorial claims or holds.

This use of refugees as ethnic national materials was used by both sides and is still used to this

day by Serbia with their Kosovo IDPs.

But this value of ethnicity for refugees and IDPs loses its meaning when ambitions for

territorial expansion or consolidation becomes non-existent. This is witnessed on both the state

and local levels. When Serbians and Serb refugees and IDPs were confronted with competition

for the same resources, the concept of Serb unity by way of ethnicity became negotiable with

each side able to find the negative value of the other. For Serbia – when confronted with Serb

refugees and Kosovo Serb IDPs dependent on the state — the strength of ethnicity became

subject to the state needs. A political solution to refugees was enacted at the benefit of the state

while for IDPs the process of integration has been complicated by the state’s use of repatriation

as leverage for the Serbia’s contention of the status of Kosovo.135

To return to the observations of Leo Lucassen advanced in the introduction, integration is

not a plan but a process, and for the refugees and IDPs of the Yugoslav Wars it has been a long

and incomplete process. Serbia’ has achieved part of its goals for integration; it has provided the

structural integration that it defined in the National Strategy. Housing, “the most important

precondition to integration”, has been achieved for most of the refugees and IDPs. Their focus

on closing the Collective Centers and empowering the vulnerable populations has made

substantial gains in recent years. Also in recent years the ascension to the EU has provided a

135 Besides international relations and inclusion that has been fostered by the process of repatriation, generally refugees from Bosnia and Croatia had higher levels of education. Refugees from Bosnia and Croatia had more possessions when they migrated and in comparison, to Kosovo IDPs, refugees were able to sell property or property rights in their country of origin for more competitive prices. ICRC, The Vulnerability Assessment of Internally Discalced Persons in Serbia and Montenegro 2005, 21. 63

boost to the Serbian economy, providing employment opportunities equal to that of all Serbians.

The naturalization and process of naturalization has provided former refugees with the same

political rights of Serbians. Amended processes for state benefits have aided Kosovo IDPs who

had lost or had documents destroyed in the migration from Kosovo, providing social security

rights equal to those of other Serbians.136 But while structural integration has been the focus of

the Serbian state, identificational integration is still to be achieved. This in itself will be a

process for both the former refugees, IDPs, and Serbians that make up Serbia. Identificational

integration will be dependent on how each of these groups and their offspring interact and

assimilate with each other. Harder to define and to conclude when achieved, the subject of

Kosovo and the Kosovo IDPs magnifies the problem. By continuing the political stalemate in

Kosovo, the Serbian citizens that hold the title of IDPs (raseljena lica) face an uncertain future.

A focal point in Serb nationalism, the Serbian dilemma of Kosovo impacts both the state

and the IDPs. The issue for Serbia is how can it negotiate between the nationalism it has derived

from Kosovo and the international benefits it can receive by renouncing claims to the Western

recognized sovereign country. Much like the use of Yugoslavism, EU membership may provide

the answer. Higher European integration may broaden the definition of what it means to be

Serbian. Being part of the EU and the Euro Zone may provide economic incentives that

outweigh the interests of nationalism. In this aspect international integration may further the

identification integration of the Kosovo IDPs and even that of the former Bosnian and Croatian

refugees.

136 National Strategy for Resolving Problems of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons for the Period form 2011-2014, 22. 64

While Kosovo and the Kosovo IDPs is still to be resolved, what has been a benefit of the

Yugoslav Wars’ refugee and IDPs crisis is the systems for refugee aid and accommodation it has

built. The internal laws and agencies, namely the Commissariat, created from the Yugoslav

Wars’ refugees and IDPs have strengthened the institution of the state. Strengthening internal

mechanisms for the care and rights of refugees and minority IDPs populations, these systems

have helped new waves of refugees. Today, Iraqi, Syrian, and Afghan refugees escaping conflict

that use Serbia as a country of transit to Europe have benefited from the processes and results created from the Yugoslav Wars’ refugees and IDPs.137 The concept of CCs have been

reinstated, now Transit Centres, with state and IGO support networks that had been previously in

place to support Bosnian and Croatian refugees. 138 Legal support, access to education, and the

asylum process have all become tools created by the refugee and IDPs crisis used by the current

refugees.139

As these new refugees’ cross into Serbia they will undoubtedly face the same needs that

the refugees and IDPs of the Yugoslav Wars faced before them, namely shelter, food, and

medicine. The same needs that cut across the lines of ethnicity. For those of the Near East

refugees that stay in Serbia they will also certainly face the same problems that Serb refugees

137 Finnian James, “Blocked in the Balkans: the refugees that Europe won't allow in,” The Guardian, August 8, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/08/eu-refugees-serbia-afghanistan-taliban [accessed November 7, 2017]. 138 UNHCR, Department of Public Information, SERBIA UPDATE, 26 June-02 July 2017 , https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/58391.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017]. 139 Much like the rest of Europe and the documented case of refugee abuse and neglect Serbia is no different. But also refugees in Serbia also face the multi-dimensional problem of staying in state run refugee shelters or attempting to live elsewhere in Serbia in hopes of reaching the EU. These shelters centralized by the state for the distribution of aid and legal support make refugees dependent on Serbia for asylum either in Serbia or other parts of Europe. Filip Rudic, “ Refugees Shunning Official Centres Face Serbia’s Winter,” Balkan Insight, November 10, 2017. http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/refugees-shunning-official-centres-face-serbia-s-grim-winter-11-09-2017 [accessed November 20, 2017].

65

and IDPs faced before them. Namely, employment opportunities and integration. Aspects that

have superseded the tie of ethnicity. But just as current refugees can benefit from the structural

systems emplace from the Yugoslav Wars’ refugees and IDPs crisis they may also benefit from

the experiences and empathies created by the crisis.140 Concepts that can transcend the

boundaries of ethnicity.

140 In 2013 and 2015, the Commissariat and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation conducted a phone survey to seek the perception of asylum seekers in Serbia. Contacting 1,201 Serbians in Central Serbia, Belgrade, and Vojvodina, the survey posed a series of questions about asylum seekers with preselected responses that the surveyed could select from to answer each question. The demographic pool of the surveyed was close to equal in the split of sexes and age. Almost two-thirds surveyed lived in cities, were/are pensioners, unemployed or housewives and a fifth were either refugees or immigrants. Generally, most of the respondents had a positive impression of asylum seekers. Almost three-fourths (72.2%) of the surveyed supported the Serbia assistance granted to asylum seekers. Almost half (47.9%) associated asylum seekers as those escaping war (8). 45.9% agreed with the statement that asylum seekers needed help. Almost 84% thought asylum seekers were coming to Serbia for a better standard of living (20). Over 70% of the respondents said they would live in the same country, same city, and would be colleagues with asylum seekers (61). The most negatively answered question pertained to marriage to an asylum seeker with 47.3% answering no. Those in and around Central Serbia and Belgrade expressed greater empathy for asylum seekers (9). Комесаријат за Избелице и Миграцје, “Stav građana Republike Srbije prema tražiocima azila,” http://www.kirs.gov.rs/docs/izvestaji/Stav%20gradana%20Republike%20Srbije%20prema%20traziocima%20azila %20jun%202015.pdf [accessed November 7, 2017].

66

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