Joe Geni

With the Erdut and Dayton accords, the war was over. Hundreds of thousands had been displaced across the former Yugoslavia, and the Croatian government had to contend with both internally and externally displaced persons. These two groups did not receive equal treatment. The government moved quickly to repatriate its internally displaced persons, who were mostly Croat, while actively discriminating against potential Serb returnees until Croat dominance over the Krajina region had been established. Not until the majority of Croats had returned home (and in many cases to former Serb homes), were significant Serb populations able to return.

Many refugees were anxious to return home, not only to reclaim their property and restore their communities, but because they often found themselves disparaged and resented by existing residents wherever they went. The problem was immense. Throughout the war, refugee estimates ranged from 430,000 to 700,000 or 9-15% of Croatia’s population, and it was closer to the higher figure in the aftermath of Operation Storm. The HDZ pressed to solve the refugee problem quickly, not only to “divest itself of the refugee burden,” but also in the belief that “repatriation would consolidate support for the HDZ,” especially among returnees. Zagreb began overseeing returns “within days” of Operation Storm, but from the beginning the process was biased in favor of internally displaced Croats over externally displaced Serbs “in the areas of property repossession, reconstruction, and access to social services and pensions.” The government passed laws forcing internally displaced Croats to return within two months or lose government assistance, while other laws simultaneously “explicitly prevent[ed]” the returns of internationally displaced minorities, particularly Serbs, often divesting them of their property. Contrary to standard international practice, the government classification system for displaced persons prioritized ethnicity over location: internally displaced Croats were “expellees,” ethnic Croats abroad were “refugees,” and Serbs, even Serb refugees abroad, were “displaced persons.” Croatia’s Law on the Status of Expellees and Refugees and the 1998 Programme of Return codified this into unequal standards for return, favoring Croats, and “the state actively pursued a policy of resettling ethnic Croats in regions formerly populated by Serbs, such as Krajina and Western Slavonia.” Local housing commissions were set up to oversee returns. Not surprisingly, these discriminated in favor of Croats. Government officials also favored temporary occupants over property owners in housing disputes, mindful that the former were disproportionately Croat and the latter disproportionately Serb.

None of this should be surprising. By ensuring a loyal Croat population had first right of return, the Tudjman government was operating from the logic of “ethnic spoils … which holds that the wartime ethnic entrepreneurs have incentives to maintain ethnically homogenous enclaves in the wake of sectarian conflict, and that co-ethnics in their patronage networks have incentives to assist them.

The effects were dramatic. Less than a year after Flash and Storm, half of Croat refugees had returned, while a normative framework for Serb returns did not even come into effect until 1998. Even after discriminatory laws were largely removed, local authorities hindered the process. Serb returns were viewed as “inappropriate,” a threat by Croats to their political and economic control and “the local social order,” and in contravention to the “state-reproduced system of values which reflected a nationalistic and exclusive attitude.”

These events hurt Serb refugees but helped the HDZ. As expected, the Croat returnees became the party’s strongest supporters. The HDZ took advantage of a popularity boost from its military victory and the absence of Serbs, moved elections up, and won them. Playing the ethnic card would help keep liberal opposition parties at bay through the end of the 1990s, and some have argued that Tudjman’s desire to annex “Herceg Bosnia,” against Croatian public opinion, stemmed from his belief that the region would deliver still more votes to the HDZ.

However, the interdependence worked both ways. As the HDZ came to depend politically on the support of Croat returnees, “it had to ensure continued resource flows” to the clientelistic networks it had created, which “fortified a high level of interdependency between the HDZ” and these returnees. The HDZ’s “war bump” was short-lived, and within months is popularity had fallen again, leaving it more electorally dependent on the Croat returnees than ever. Croat elites among the returnees protected their political power and limited how far the central government could go in allowing Serb returns, even if it wished them. The support of local institutions and authorities is critical for a successful reintegration process, and Serb returns suffered in its absence.

Events changed with the turn of the millennium. Tudjman died in December 1999, and the HDZ lost the 2000 elections to a more moderate coalition. By 2001, 88% of Croats had returned and consolidated Croat grip on the Krajina. The new President, Stjepan Mesić, authorized a US$55 million program “to assist minority returns,” which was funded by international donors under the Stability Pact, while the parliament passed a constitutional law “mandating proportional representation in the civil service.” With a more moderate government and more moderate laws came a wave of Serb returns.

“Moderate,” however, is relative. The coalition government still did not formally express support for Serb returns until 2003, and the bulk of the anti-Serb policies and rhetoric continued. Local government offices, many still under HDZ control, continued to throw up hurdles to Serb returnees, and many returnees subsequently left in frustration upon being frozen out by Croat-dominated ethnic patronage networks. When Serb officials were able to win local offices over some HDZ candidates in the former Krajina, bitter disputes over the renaming of streets ensued. Croatian political rhetoric continued to treat the Serbs as a fifth column for Belgrade, and Tudjman himself lauded the “achievement” of significantly reducing their numbers in Croatia in his 1997 annual speech. Meanwhile, “senior Croatian officials in ministries responsible for land and property made statements that blatantly discriminated against Serbs.”




Ironically, it would be the HDZ’s return to power in 2003 that would finally ease the process of returns. Lacking the ability to form a government, it partnered with the social democratic Serb party SDSS in exchange for concessions and normalization of the returns process. “Changes in administrative treatment occurred almost overnight” and formerly hostile local authorities “suddenly changed their attitudes, becoming more benevolent towards the Serb returnees.”

By this time, however, most of those who planned to return had already done so. Returns peaked in 2000 and fell every year thereafter, plunging into the hundreds by the end of the decade. By 2005, only a third of Serbs had returned, compared to nearly all Croats, and the 2001 census showed the Serbs were now only 4.5% of Croatia’s population, two thirds less than in 1991. Issues on housing ownership dragged on, with some cases still unresolved as late as 2007. All over the former Yugoslavia, the displaced found the ability to return home did not ensure an easy transition. In neighboring Bosnia, a 2009 report found that “although some communities are mixed again, this is no guarantee of interethnic harmony. In plenty of communities, returnees are reminded of their second-class status as minority returnees and not as ordinary prewar residents of their own hometowns.”

By decade’s end, most Croats had returned, and most Serbs who had not already done so had lost interest. In the end, Tudjman’s vision was realized: a decisively Croat Croatia, in full control of its territory, West-aligned and in the European Union.