Comments from the Croatian Returnee Association claims that although Croatia has done a lot when it comes to reconstruction, economic revival is another story…
The Croatian Returnee Association (ZPH) organised a round table in Osijek on Monday on the 20th anniversary of the peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danube River Region into Croatia’s constitutional and legal order, which heard that the state had done a lot in the reconstruction of formerly occupied parts of eastern Slavonia, Baranja and western Srijem, but not much to revive the economy.
ZPH president Josip Kompanović said the ZPH had drawn up a bill on formerly war-affected areas with measures aimed at reviving the economy and stopping young people from emigrating.
He said the APN real estate agency had played a big role in returns to formerly occupied areas by buying houses from Serbs who wanted to move to other countries.
Kompanovic said the key impulse for the start of the peaceful reintegration occurred in early July 1994, when the ZPH organised a blockade of UNPROFOR peace troops because it could no longer look at the “Cyprusization” of then occupied areas.
“Naturally, even more important was the message which the (military) operations Flash (Operacija Bljesak) and Storm (Operacija Oluja) sent the occupying authorities because they would never have accepted a peaceful solution had they not feared that some storm would blow them too over the Danube,” he said.
Nada Arbanas, who at that time headed the Osijek regional office for the displaced and refugees, recalled their first meeting with UN transitional administrator Jacques Paul Klein and his message, “Forget the past, think about the future”. Her office and the ZPH did the toughest part of the process, the reintegration of people, she added.
The round table heard that the peaceful reintegration was the UN’s most successful peace mission as 90% percent of the displaced had returned to their former homes.
The ZPH called out the government on not referring to the agreement on normalisation of relations with Serbia which envisages the payment of war reparations. This should be a requirement for Serbia’s European Union accession, it said.
