*** Re-establishing Voivodina: How and What Next?
** "If You Don't Give Us Autonomy, You Will Give us a Republic"
The increasingly loud warnings are coming from the informal bloc of
Voivodina parties (led by the League of Social-Democrats of Voivodina -
LSV and Reformists of Voivodina) that centralism is now greater than it
has been under Milosevic. They got an additional impetus when the
Republican Assembly rejected the Provincial Assembly's amendments to the
Law on Privatisation.
AIM Belgrade, July 19, 2001
Currently, no one is satisfied in Voivodina: neither the
autonomy-seekers nor protectors of "national interests", nor pragmatic
reformists. But, even after the change of power, the themes have
remained the same. According to Nenad Canak, President of the Voivodina
Parliament, the sequence was the following: "We first had to bring
Milosevic down, then arrest him and send him to the Hague. We had to
ensure the essential economic base for the country and then see what
next. Now, time has come to talk again and see what shall we do and how
shall do it in Voivodina".
For the autonomists of Voivodina Milosevic's state concept of
centralistic Serbia is changing too slowly. The increasingly loud
warnings are coming from the informal bloc of Voivodina parties (led by
the League of Social-Democrats of Voivodina -LSV and Reformists of
Voivodina) that centralism is now greater than it has been under
Milosevic. They got an additional impetus when the Republican Assembly
rejected the amendments of the Provincial Assembly to the Law on
Privatisation. Essentially, the proposal was that the Province should
regulate the terms and procedure for the privatisation of Voivodina
firms. That political option insists that since Milosevic is now in the
Hague, the system on which his omnipotent power was based should be
gradually dismantled and institutions, which he systematically
destroyed, rebuilt.
By announcing its intention to set up a separate deputy group in the
Provincial Parliament, President Kostunica's party (DSS) formalised its
disagreement with the rest of the DOS in Voivodina too, but keeping all
functions in the authorities, the Government, administration and other
spheres in which party quotas instead of professional qualities are used
as a criterion. Here, DSS has demonstrated its visible reservedness or
opposition towards not only the idea of autonomy, but its general
opposition accompanied by occasional explanations that the rights of
national minorities are endangering the rights of the (national)
majority. Miroljub Lesnjak (Vice President of the Assembly of the
Autonomous Province of Voivodina - APV) gave an invaluable contribution
to the understanding of the DSS political platform with his assessment
that the exhumation of bodies that came from Kosovo and uncovering of
secrets of refrigerated trucks could have waited because at this moment
that step is not morally justified: "Had similar war crimes against the
Serbs been uncovered in Croatia or in the territory of Kosovo we could
have expected different consequences. However, now the Serbs will be
proclaimed as collective culprits". His moral bargaining did not receive
much publicity.
Followers of Djindjic's pragmatic Democratic Party (DS) are not
satisfied either. A multitude of words exchanged between Belgrade and
Novi Sad regarding the controversial and postponed sale of the Beocin
Cement Works to the French firm "Lafarge" clearly showed that Djindjic's
autonomist phase has given way to a new one - "decentralisation plus
democratisation equals the new Serbia". Regarding autonomy, his
Democrats started speaking and voting in the Voivodina Assembly with
much more control and caution than it demonstrated in its extremely loud
promises from the electoral campaign. Competition as to who is a greater
autonomist ("I am more of an autonomist than Canak" Z. Djindjic) is over
and the story on "economic autonomy", launched by Democrats, swept under
the carpet.
Several months ago, Mile Isakov's Reformists were the first to
introduce the term "internationalisation" in describing possible ways of
resolving the issue of Voivodina's future and, in all fairness, no one
paid any attention to that. The term became "scary" the moment pros and
cons were presented in the course of Canak's participation in the
discussion at the round table organised by the Washington Centre for
Strategic and International Studies. The subject was: "The Return of
Autonomy to Voivodina: Stable Multinational Model in Yugoslavia". The
opposing arguments were raised only regarding the status (whether Canak
went to Washington as President of the Voivodina Assembly and if he did,
why did he not consult the Parliament, or he was there just as the LSV
leader). Donka Stancic (DSS) raised a question in the Assembly of
Voivodina - whether the notion of "internationalisation" was linked to
post-conflict situations or not.
According to "Magyar So", Janush Bugajski, Director of the East
European Programme in the Washington Centre for Strategic and
International Studies, invited the international community to urgently
support the recovery of the economy of Voivodina, as the richest and
most productive region in the country, and thus, within the frameworks
of economic autonomy and regional integrations, assist Serbia's
integration into European processes. His idea was to establish an
international expert group that would, together with representatives of
the authorities from Novi Sad and Belgrade, elaborate solutions for the
future status of Voivodina - adding a suggestion that, with a view to
ensuring minority rights, corresponding forms of self-governance and
self-organisation should also be established. No one in Serbia found the
discussions at the Washington round table, inspiring. Not even for a
controversy.
The stage is slowly being set for some future divisions. Globally, it
is dominated by Kostunica's "legalists" and Djindjic's "pragmatists",
but apparently no so much in relation to different concepts of the
state. Namely, the warning that 102 laws, which additionally limit the
already reduced rights of the Province, are unconstitutional did not
mean much either to the legalists or the pragmatists. A "third bloc" of
expressly autonomist and civil parties of Voivodina has turned this into
a problem.
"At the next elections we shall see what will the political scene in
Serbia look like, because I do not expect some supra-national, civil and
truly reformist forces to win an overwhelming majority. That should not
be expected, the more so as even that part of DOS inclined to Vojislav
Kostunica is doing everything so that such forces would lose both power
and influence, while the part of DOS inclined to Djindjic is against
that. That is our harsh reality", said Nenad Canak for the AIM. "Until
now, things in Serbia changed in a technical and not in a strategic
sense, and these are the main coordinates of the situation here. For,
what we used to call "October 5th changes" is now euphemistically
labelled "October 5th events". This clearly shows that essentially there
has been no change; despite a great charge, great dedication of the
citizens of the entire country, what we aspired to do at that time, has
not been done - i.e. to change the system", claimed Canak.
At the celebration marking the 11th anniversary of the League of
Social-Democrats of Voivodina, Canak concluded: "This is our first
birthday we are not celebrating as an opposition and it seems that it
will be the last". Before that he warned that the removal of Slobodan
Milosevic did not mean that all evils in the country have been
eliminated. In his interview for the AIM he reminded that the Democratic
Opposition of Serbia had rallied under that name in order to bring
Milosevic down from power ("And that has been done"), but that it is not
reasonable to expect from DOS to do everything else necessary for the
democratisation of the society. Canak reminded that the DOS has ("I
wouldn't say predominantly, but...") a large number of people who had
been against Slobodan Milosevic not because they disagreed with his
objectives but because he failed to meet their expectations; people who
wanted to change certain structures of the authorities, but not the
system. Asked whether the problem of Voivodina was next on the agenda,
he replied briefly: "I am not sure that Voivodina's turn has come, but
when it does it will not be because that question will be raised on its
own, but because people from Voivodina have raised it, both in and
outside institutions, in the streets and fora, but on their own".
According to him, the question has to be raised so as to make sense:
that the problem of Voivodina is not a part of Serbia's problems, but
rather an answer to its problems. "That is why", explained Canak, "in
order to raise that question we need focused and articulated political
will of Voivodina".
"The main Voivodina's question in relation to Serbia is: hot to prevent
outvoting. We have already been outvoted at the adoption of amendments
to the Privatisation Law seven days ago. That is the main question and
threat. For, if Voivodina gets outvoted in the Serbian Parliament too
often and too many times, it will no longer seek the opinion of the
Serbian Parliament". Canak defined this idea more accurately in another
situation: "If you won't give us autonomy, you will give us the republic
and we will never again turn to those who deny us the republic".
According to the new Law on Privatisation, Voivodina will get five
percent of the value of property sold on its territory, the city or
municipality will also get five percent, while central authorities will
dispose of the remainder. Not one of all the laws the Voivodina
Parliament submitted to the Republican Assembly has been placed on the
agenda. In a "legalistic" letter the President of the Serbian
Parliament, Dragan Marsicanin (DSS), pressed by deadlines from the Rules
of Procedure, warned the DOS Presidency that although the Parliament of
Voivodina is authorised under the Constitution to submit laws and that,
in line with the procedure, he has to put them to vote it would be much
more convenient if parties would order their deputies to withdraw the
proposed bills! As a result the two Governments (Republican and
Provincial) established a Commission which would be examining these
bills indefinitely.
At the same time, although almost three fourths of citizens (70
percent) think that 70 percent and more of taxes and public revenues
collected in the territory of Voivodina should remain in its budget, and
even 15.8 percent would keep all the money in the provincial budget,
Voivodina will remain an item in the Serbian budget. Nenad Canak warned
that "the amount of money that leaves Voivodina in 36 hours is equal to
the entire budget of Voivodina for one year". The money is distributed
according to powers. And that brings us back to the beginning.
# Milena Putnik
(AIM)
Serbian News Network - SNN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.antic.org/
