Fear, Not Trust, Marks Land Croats Took Back From Serbs

The new ghost towns of what Croats are calling liberated Croatia seem an unlikely site to build a model for this country’s future.

The government, which recaptured this Serb-held farmland after a swift and deadly military offensive, is under pressure to turn the area into a community tolerant of ethnic minorities like the Serbs. Senior Croatian officials say they want the region, known as Western Slavonia, to set the standard for re-integrating the rest of the one-third of national territory seized by Serbian separatists in a 1991 war.

But so far, empty villages speak more of fear than of trust. The 360-square-mile patch of verdant hills and wrecked farmhouses has been virtually cleared of Serbs.

Despite assurances from Croatian officials, thousands of Serbs fled ahead of the fighting, and more than a thousand of those who stayed behind--including civilians, the United Nations says--were rounded up and hauled off for interrogation. Most of the prisoners remained in detention centers Saturday.

Also Saturday, the United Nations said it now finds credible reports that the Croatian military shelled Serbian civilians who were fleeing southward over the Sava River at the start of last week’s offensive. These reports said bodies could be seen on the roadside, but that has not been independently confirmed, U.N. officials said.

Croatian soldiers blocked a 15-vehicle U.N. convoy carrying 150 tons of relief supplies Saturday to the estimated 7,000 Serbs who fled to the Bosnian city of Banja Luka, Reuters reported.

As even more dangerous fighting looms in volatile eastern Croatia, where Croatian and Serbian troops have massed in the last two days, centuries of stubborn suspicion and mistrust make it hard for the Serbs left in Western Slavonia to believe government promises.

“They (Croatian authorities) are making a miracle now--they are talking to us,” said 60-year-old Lazarka Blaskovic, her scarf pulled tightly around her head as she lowered her voice out of earshot of nearby Croatian soldiers.

“But what will come of it? Later they will kill us.”

Here in Bodegraji and other newly recaptured villages along a rural road between Pakrac, the scene of the last of the fighting, and Okucani, a former Serbian stronghold, many houses, stores and small restaurants had been ransacked or looted. Shelves were bare, and pieces of furniture littered the road.

A number of Croatian soldiers appeared to be in possession of some of the booty.

Evidence of hasty flight abounded in the area: coffee cups sitting on a dining room table and half a loaf of bread on a kitchen counter; pets and farm animals left to fend for themselves; a newly harvested pile of potatoes scattered on a lawn.

Still, the damage was less than the destruction wrought when the Serbs seized this land four years ago, driving out Croats who lived here then.

Whether Croatian authorities now can treat the Serbs fairly and build a community where the two sides can live together is the test facing the government.

Peace itself may depend on it, diplomats and other observers say. In a stern condemnation late last week, the U.N. Security Council expressed concern over the rounding up of Serbian civilians and other alleged human rights abuses.

The government of Croatian President Franjo Tudjman denied that human rights were violated and has been eager to counter the bad publicity by showing prisoners to reporters and issuing orders to troops in Western Slavonia to exercise restraint.

“(The Serbs) want to feel like nothing will happen to them,” said Vladimir Ceks, a prominent Croatian politician and staunch nationalist who toured Okucani on Friday night accompanied by a large entourage.

“I think we can convince them by our acts.”

The women whose husbands and sons were rounded up earlier by Croats were not convinced, however.

“I don’t believe anyone,” said Milosava Vidic, 30, a Serb who has been living on the Serbian side of Pakrac for about three years. Her husband was taken away Thursday.

As she sat at a table in her cluttered kitchen, her face contorted in pain when she spoke of him.

“How can you believe when they said, ‘Disarm yourselves, and you will be allowed to go?’ ” (Croatia had vowed to allow Serbs who disarmed to leave the country, but it went back on that promise.)

Vidic wants to leave, possibly for a Serb-controlled area of Bosnia-Herzegovina, even though she has no friends or relatives there.

Croatian forces took all men of military age--16 to 65--and said they would be questioned to determine whether they had committed “war crimes.” Those who are cleared will be released and allowed to go home, the army says.

The government has promised to treat the prisoners well and respect the civil rights of Serbs who choose to return to Western Slavonia.

In Rajic, a group of Croatian soldiers sat on someone’s dining room chairs, placed now on a sidewalk, and finished off a couple of beers. With their Russian-made Kalashnikov assault rifles, they guarded three bottles of whiskey.

Soldier Zlatko Bicanic said he would welcome back any civilians, regardless of their ethnic background. But his colleagues were of mixed minds.

“My brothers and half the members of my family died in this war,” Ivan Cindric said. He doubted Serbs and Croats can ever live together.