Treatment of Minority Serbs, Crackdown on Media Reported to UN Human Rights Chief
ZAGREB, May 9 (Reuters) — Independent monitors briefed the senior U.N. human rights official on Thursday about persistent abuses in Croatia, including poor treatment of minority Serbs and a crackdown on independent media, informed sources said. Jose Ayala-Lasso, United Nations high commissioner for human rights, said he had talked to Croatian leaders and urged them to observe "a constructive policy of human rights" that would help solidify the new peace in former Yugoslavia. Ayala-Lasso, on a six-day tour of the region, told a news conference after meeting human rights groups that vigilance was needed to foster genuine democracy in Croatia.He refused to discuss alleged abuses, saying he would report his findings after returning to U.N. headquarters in New York. But sources present at the meeting said the monitors gave Ayala-Lasso a disturbing picture of human and civil rights violations and a repressive political atmosphere under Croatian President Franjo Tudjman.
Serbs living in formerly separatist zones of Croatia who were recaptured by government troops last year still had little legal or physical protection from persecution by vengeful Croats, the monitors told Ayala-Lasso. Serbs also faced daunting official obstacles to obtaining pensions, jobs or, in the case of tens of thousands who fled the army blitz, documentation needed to return to their homes ascitizens of Croatia, the sources told Reuterss.
Those Serbs seeking financial aid to rebuild homes wrecked in the 1991-95 ethnic fighting, were being given repair estimates significantly less than for Croat-owned dwellings with the same amount of damage, they said. In addition, Serbs in regions that rebelled against Croatia's 1991 secession from federal Yugoslavia were said to be facing demands for unpaid taxes during the last five years.
Other problems included a relative lack of schooling oriented to minority Serbs and Italians, loopholes in a new war amnesty bill for Serbs, politically manipulated courts and renewed harassment of the free press. Croatia's leading independent daily newspaper has been fined a crippling $2.5 million after being found guilty of evading import taxes and a weekly was shut down on legal technicalities.
The editor and lead writer of Feral Tribune, a satirical and investigative weekly, have been indicted under a new law banning "slander" of state leadership. They face up to three years in prison for an article criticising Tudjman's plan to rebury World War Two Croatian fascists next to their Serb and Jewish victims. Diplomats say the legal manoeuvres against independent media in Croatia, where television and major newspapers are tools of Tudjman's party, coincide with a steep slide in the government's popularity ahead of regional elections this year.
According to diplomats, corruption, nepotism, abuses of power and economic mismanagement by the governing HDZ party have swung popular support towards the opposition, now that Croatia's security is no longer endangered by war.
Tudjman, a former communist general, has refused to hand over the Zagreb city council to a centre-left coalition which combined to defeat his party in municipal voting last October. He has vetoed an opposition takeover of the powerful council on "national security" grounds, claiming political rivals are manipulated by "foreign circles" bent on undermining Croatian independence from Yugoslavia.
The government's swoop against free press unfolded after the Council of Europe tentatively approved Croatia's bid for membership, citing its role in peace treaties for former Yugoslavia and an improving human rights record. "But the overall image now is of a ruling party in serious electoral trouble resorting to communist-style tactics to stay in power," said a Western official familiar with Ayala-Lasso's fact-finding trip to Croatia.
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