More than three years after the end of the war, persistent discrimination against Croatian Serbs continues to drive them from Croatia and leaves most refugees unwilling to risk returning home, according to a Human Rights Watch report Second Class Citizens: The Serbs Of Croatia .
Serbs lack access to housing and social services, have problems obtaining citizenship and documentation, and face administrative roadblocks if they are refugees wishing to return. As a result, Serbs are departing every day from Eastern Slavonia, and only around 7,000 of the more than 300,000 Croatian Serb refugees living in Bosnia and Yugoslavia returned home in 1998. Most were elderly.
"Time is running out for Serbs in Croatia," said Holly Cartner, executive director of Human Right Watch's Europe and Central Asia division. "Unless Croatian authorities take urgent steps to ensure equal treatment inside the country, most Serb refugees will never return home. Leaving hundreds of thousands of refugees in limbo is a recipe for instability."
The report, "Second Class Citizens: The Serbs of Croatia," describes how refugee and displaced Serbs often return to find their homes occupied by Bosnian Croat refugees. Authorities refuse to relocate these new residents even when other accommodation is available. By contrast, displaced Serbs temporarily occupying homes in Eastern Slavonia are forced out even if their own homes are occupied or destroyed. Long-term Serbs residents of Croatia who lack citizenship must pay a US$225 naturalization fee from which Croats, including recent immigrants, are exempt. Mechanisms designed to build post-conflict confidence have been only partially implemented, leaving Serbs unable to claim pensions and fearful of arrest on false war crimes charges.
The trends outlined by the report, which comes on the heels of critical assessments from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe, bode ill for Croatia's campaign for greater integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions. But "Second Class Citizens" also recommends a variety of measures to improve the situation of Serbs in Croatia, including: the repeal of discriminatory housing legislation; the creation of a national register of state accommodation for displaced persons and refugees; changes to naturalization procedures for long-term Serb residents; full implementation of the pension law; and increased international oversight of domestic war crimes prosecutions.
