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CROATIA
Continued from Page 31A
pound, where families from Sarajevo that Harky
and Jim knew were slaying We listened to those
families' stories and tried to assess the situation
Several soldiers from a rehabilitation center
(next to Hotel Riviera) r.ame to the hotel about 3
p.m. They entered the reception and urged a recep
__ * . tl.i S«_1 ■_
UUliiatt tw mueilHl
refugee* who were staying in
that hotel Policemen came
soon, and (he soldiers left at
that moment with the list Mom
policemen came to the hotel by
fi At 7:30. about <0 people,
including soldier* with
weapons, came to the hotel and
began threatening children.
i nifv saiu inai m«y wouiu mu
all the Muslims and rape all the Muslim girls.
Policemen approached and talked with them
After a while, people, including soldiers, left, say
ing that they would come back again. About 4 the
next morning, some people were walking around
the compounds, but nothing happened. There had
been discriminations against Muslim refugees
inside the hotel Croats were blocking the cafeteria
so that Muslim refugees couldn't eat lunch. One
Bosnian Croat woman protested against them but
was surrounded by other Croats and yielded as an
"enemy of Croats." One Croat teen-ager heat up a
small Muslim child Croats who sympathized with
Muslims were scared of helping them.
On the next day. local authorities told Muslim
refugees in the Hotel Riviera to move to Obonjan
island When I visited the island, people from the
local humanitarian organization said the number
of refugees was about 970. The number increased
a bit since then, and 90 percent of the refugees
were Muslims. In Croatia, ethnic: sorting between
Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats is going on
in refugee camps. The problem is not sorting itself,
hut I suspect that there is a covert (not official)
operation of a hate campaign by Croatian authori
ties. In a country where one-third of the territory is
occupied by Croatian Serbs, its economy needs to
be improved. Still, economy is not the top agenda
for the government and its privatization policy is
half-hearted. People are dissatisfied with the cur
rent situation and getting tired of politics. Croatian
authorities are seemingly trying to shift people's
targets of complaints, and Muslims are one of the
best scapegoats. There are now intense fightings
between the BiH army and HVO. HVO, like BSA,
is conducting ethnic: cleansing in Herzegovina. But
whenever their attempt is hindered by the BiH
army. Muslims are portrayed as "aggressors " The
logic is like this: If Muslims keep fighting against
Bosnian Croats. Muslim refugees in Crootia have to
pay the price. And Croatian authorities want Mus
lims out of the country or at least from resort
places because the presence of refugees and dis
placed people is an obstacle for re-development of
the tourism industry Bosnian Croats and Croatian
displaced people cannot be removed from the
country, so the target is shifted toward Muslim
refugees
The refugee families didn't want to go to Obon
ja island There were 17 women and children in
those families. Teen-agers belonged to a children's
circus, which was introduced and formed hv a
Orman circus group when they got a permission
to go to Munich some time ago. The German group
promised to help them, and they wanted to wait
somewhere else until they could get in tout h with
the group. Muslim refugees in the hotel were to be
sent to Obonja at the next morning. Besides these
iamilies. none of the refugees wanted to go to
Obonja Harkv suspected that there was a dea1
between locai authorities and soldiers t us.
there was too much coincidence in the u.i .uen:
of the previous night. Although the official policy
of Croatia has nothing against Muslim refugees,
local authorities are not willing to help Muslims,
saying We don't want any more Muslims. We're
Catholics.' i 'NHCR no longer considers that Croa
tia is a safe haven for Bosnian Muslims. It was very
difficult to verify if there was any cooperation
between soldiers and local authorities, but we con
cluded that this thing — forcing Muslims out —
would happen all over Croatia with or without
using these suspected tactics. In this case, these
Muslims were about to be sent to already over
crowded but isolated islands with sanitation and
water problems We tried to figure out what to do.
We went outside with some refugee kids to take
a break for a moment. Soon, we got information
that someone reported about us to the police. We
asked three refugee teen-agers from the families
to come with us. and we quickly and secretly went
through the woods and got on a van, which was
parked in a closed gas station along the main road.
We went back to Split with the teen-agers (Saya,
Sasha and jasmin). In Split, there was a camping
ground for 2,500 peace activists who were plan
ning to go to Sarajevo. Since it was not well orga
nized. the departure day was delayed. We wanted
to ask them to help us because we heard that some
of them were not going to Sarajevo. We hoped they
could join a protest in front of Hotel Riviera the
next morning so Muslim refugees might not be
sent to Obonja.
Our attempt to persuade these activists turned
out to be a failure. It was around two o'clock in the
morning, and they were still having discussions in
various places. Few were interested in our stories.
The teen-agers appealed to people by singing a
song of Sarajevo, but none of them listened or even
noticed. Oily a few Italian activists responded and
said they would come to the hotel in the next
morning. They made sure they would not act as
Turn to CROATIA, Page 33A
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