Ethnic Tolerance Gains a Toehold in Heart of Croatia : Balkans: Activists urge Serbs to remain in region that has changed hands. Neighbors try peace for a change.

Amid the killing and ethnic hatred that have made the former Yugoslav federation a symbol of intolerance, a ray of hope that life might someday be different is emerging from the rubble of this town in the Croatian heartland.

The hope was born from bloodshed but may provide the only escape from even more of it. Its source is simple but, in the context of this cruel war, out of the ordinary: After four years of living as hardened enemies, a small group of Serbs and Croats are trying life as peaceful neighbors.

“The people are tired of war,” said Veljko Dzakula, a Croatian Serb leader who lives in a white stucco house pocked with bullet holes. “They are frightened of everything and everyone. But they want peace, and they miss their old neighbors and neighborhoods.”

Six weeks ago, the cease-fire line between the Croatian army and breakaway Croatian Serbs sliced through the center of Pakrac. There was no towering wall, but the division was not unlike the Cold War partition in Berlin: Serbs on one side, Croats on the other. Only hatred seeped past rival checkpoints.

Earlier this month, two young men--a Serb and a Croat--shared a cramped booth in the Pharaoh cafe, one of the few downtown establishments with a roof and four walls intact.

Krunoslav Sukic, a Croat, and Dimitrije Todoruvoc, a Serb, devoured pizza smeared with ketchup and greasy plates of cevapcici , the Balkan equivalent of meatballs. In a demonstration of how things have changed, they not only sat together but also refused to budge when an offended Croat in the next booth raised a fuss.

“We came here, in a way, as first aid,” said Sukic, co-founder of the Center for Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights, a small group of volunteers from eastern Croatia. “We knew it would be difficult for Serbs to integrate into Croatian society.”

‘A Lack of Trust’

Sukic and Todoruvoc are among a cadre of peace activists roaming the countryside trying to nurture the experiment in Pakrac and its surrounding villages. They offer free advice and counseling, from how to get Croatian citizenship to where to report a stolen pig. In one case, they intervened when Serbian villagers were forced by Croatian police to wear cowbells and parade through the streets mimicking animals.

“The main problem is a lack of trust,” said Todoruvoc, a Serb from Zagreb. “This area does not have a tradition of protecting human rights.”

The Croatian army, in a surprise attack, overran the Serbian half of Pakrac in early May and within two days took the entire region of Western Slavonia, a 200-square-mile area of wooded hills and unkempt farms that had been claimed by breakaway Croatian Serbs since 1991.

Several hundred Serbs were killed and 10,000 fled in a panic to nearby Bosnia-Herzegovina and to Serb-held areas of Croatia. More than 2,000 followed later in convoys escorted by the United Nations.

“We had a massive hemorrhage,” said Graham Day, the U.N. civil affairs chief for the region.

The frantic migration of war refugees is nothing new in the Balkans, where millions of anguished people have been moved again and again like pieces on a chessboard. In the end, the bloody grab for W e stern Slavonia may be remembered as yet another grisly example of ethnic fanaticism, in which people who were different were swept aside--even killed--by marauding soldiers and vengeful villagers who followed.

But what makes Western Slavonia unusual--and gives cause for optimism--is that the hemorrhaging has slowed to a trickle. A small group of terrified but determined Serbs have remained behind and are sharing villages with Croats. And while relations between neighbors remain tense, many Croats and Serbs are trying to lure back those who fled as well as to calm those who are nervously eyeing the next ride out of town.

U.N. officials say fewer than half of the 250 people who signed up for the last large convoy out of Western Slavonia actually showed up, and 40 of those who left last month have approached the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Bosnian Serb territory about coming back. Two weeks ago, two Serbian families hauling their kitchen stoves and refrigerators behind rumbling tractors turned up in one village after five weeks on the run.

“We’re coming back home,” one man said. “We think we can live here.”

The numbers are still very small, and nobody is expecting Western Slavonia to instantly reverse years of animosity between Serbs and Croats. The war has proved too vicious and enduring for such optimism, even among the most hopeful supporters of the experiment.

Attempt at Tolerance

But this tiny attempt at ethnic tolerance--fewer than 2,000 Serbs remain in a region of 35,000 Croats--at least has a chance for success because of the determination of some local residents and the timely coming together of several important factors:

* Western Slavonia has Serbian leaders, such as Dzakula, who are political moderates in a part of the world where moderation is considered weakness. Dzakula has been imprisoned twice by his fellow Serbs for being too conciliatory toward Croats.

Until the Croatian offensive in May, Dzakula’s voice was muted by the rhetoric of Serbian hard-liners in the breakaway Croatian region of Krajina, where Dzakula once served as a top official. Even now, his temperance carries risk. Croatian police maintain a 24-hour watch of his house from an abandoned building next door, in part to track his doings but also to ward off extremists on both sides.

* The Croatian government, eager to join European institutions, has come to realize that it must show tolerance toward minority Serbs if it wants to be taken seriously by Western democracies. The retaking of Western Slavonia, which was predominantly Serbian before the war, provides a test case for President Franjo Tudjman’s pledges of multiculturalism.

Although the sincerity of the Croatian commitment has been widely questioned, there is a belief that the government at least knows it must do the right thing. “The world is watching,” one Western diplomat said.

* The United Nations and the international community, humiliated in the peacekeeping mission here, are eager to show their prowess at peace building. Joined by several Western governments, including that of the United States, U.N. officials are pumping resources into the area and putting pressure on the Croatian government.

A string of high-level Western diplomats--most recently U.S. Ambassador Peter W. Galbraith--have paraded through Western Slavonia to demonstrate international interest. U.S. grants have helped fund many of the local peace groups. “We know that Western Slavonia is the light that we have to make work,” said Day, the U.N. official.

* The war in Bosnia has no end in sight, and the Krajina Serbs in Croatia have been in disarray since the Croatian offensive last month. Meanwhile, Serbia has had its fill of refugees. In sum, Western Slavonian Serbs have nowhere better to go, particularly if they are too exhausted to take up arms across the border.

“Anywhere I go, I will be a foreigner,” said Sofija Paripovic, a Croatian Serb who has lived for 40 years in Western Slavonia.

It is against this backdrop that Dzakula and other Western Slavonian leaders have hurriedly set out to secure the best possible deal for Croatian Serbs. They know time is short; the longer their former neighbors stay away, the less likely they are to return. And for those who have remained, the slightest sign of political instability will set off a final stampede.

Getting the Best Deal

The gravel road leading to Dzakula’s hillside house is well-traveled. Galbraith has made the trip, as have ambassadors from Britain, France and Russia. Countless U.N. and Croatian government officials also have come knocking.

Day made the journey three weeks ago with other U.N. officials. The men sat in stiff chairs around Dzakula’s dining room table and drank thick coffee and homemade plum brandy. Dzakula whirled smoke rings toward the ceiling as he worried aloud about what lay ahead:

Cattle. How will the Serbs get back animals seized during the Croatian offensive? A peasant cannot live without farm animals.

Utilities. Power and telephone service have been restored to Croatian homes; why do most Serbs remain in the dark? The United Nations should step in.

Passports. Why is it taking so long to issue identification papers to Serbs? Without the documents, Serbs will be harassed by police.

Prisoners. When will the remaining Serbs taken captive during the Croatian offensive be released? There are nearly 400 still unaccounted for.

Government. Why are there only two Serbs on a five-member committee overseeing Western Slavonia policy? There must be impartiality.

“If we are all citizens of Croatia, then we should be treated equally,” Dzakula insisted.

Croatian officials say they know about the problems and are working to resolve them. But Drago Krpina, a Croatian member of Parliament who oversees Serbian integration in Croatia, said Western Slavonia poses a difficult balancing act for the government.

If authorities push too hard on behalf of Serbs, he said, there will be a rebellion among local Croats, many of whom blame their Serbian neighbors for the war. If the government is not robust enough, it risks scaring away local Serbs. And all of this just weeks after the shooting stopped.

“It is extremely hard for these people to look each other in the eye,” Krpina said of Serbs and Croats returning to their neighborhoods. “All of us are bloody under our skin. It is something you can’t erase. People have suffered a lot these past four years.”

A few miles down the road from Pakrac, on the way to the village of Okucani, the first signs of the new Western Slavonia are emerging. The air remains thick with tension, but for each act of hatred, there seems to be one of kindness.

Members of a small Serbian family cocked their heads nervously at the roar of a passing car. Serbs have been awakened at night and “encouraged” by some Croatian neighbors to join the next convoy out of town. Others have watched Croats help themselves to barnyard tools, animals and food.

At this corner home, someone knocks at the door at least once a day, asks the address and inquires about buying the house. The family says it is not moving, but the ritual is repeated day after day.

“You don’t trust people you don’t know,” said the 51-year-old father, who asked not to be named for fear of provoking Croatian authorities. “Nothing has happened to us yet, but we don’t feel safe.”

The family’s fear was palpable as its members talked in the shade of their side porch. Their home of 25 years has had no water or electricity in more than six weeks. When they were rounded up for questioning early last month, someone fouled the well, apparently with sewage or animal waste.

The 23-year-old son lives like a caged animal, forbidden by his parents to leave the tiny corner lot. None of them have received identity papers from the Croatian government, and they fear the son will be rounded up by renegade policemen. They have had no problems with the police, but it is best not to take chances, the father said, one eye cast on the nearby road.

The mother had just returned from work. A Croatian friend in town gave her a job cleaning in a restaurant and a much-needed $75 advance. The two women used to meet for coffee before the war.

The job wasn’t the only sign of hope for this family. A Croatian soldier intervened when another began to beat the son with a rifle butt. And when the family members were released after questioning last month, they were given pocket money for cigarettes and food. None of them were mistreated.

But the mother’s eyes filled with tears when talk turned to Bosnia. Her daughter and two grandchildren fled across the border and have not been heard from in weeks.

‘Sick of War’

“At the moment, I don’t know what to do,” said the father, pacing uncomfortably as his wife collapsed in a chair and sobbed. “It is a situation where you can’t decide. If I go across to Bosnia, they will make me a soldier, but I am sick of war.”

Up the road closer to town, past rows of homes abandoned by fleeing Serbs, two newly arrived Croatian families were settling in after four years in exile. Their houses had been commandeered by rebel Serb soldiers and booby-trapped with mines. There was enough debris inside to fill six trucks, they said, and after three weeks of backbreaking work, the houses were still barely habitable.

But Zelyko Bosnyar, a telephone repairman, had a look of triumph on his face. His onetime Serbian friends, he said, turned him over to the rebel Serb army when the war broke out in 1991. He blamed that on politics and said he held no grudge.

Bosnyar was freed in a prisoner exchange and had been waiting ever since to come back home. He didn’t hesitate when asked if he wanted his Serbian neighbors to rejoin him.

“I would like them to come back and see the Croatia they were fighting against,” he said with some resentment. “More has been done here in four weeks than in the four years they were governing here.”

But, he added after a short silence, “I want them to come in peace.”