Written form of the speech regarding the ELF Event, June 19, Belgrade

Migrations and politics, the mutual influences - Case Study

Serbia

Jelena Grujic

Dissolution of the former Yugoslavia produced devastating atrocities, with around 150.000

people killed or dead due to wars, at least 4,3 millions of refugees and 2 millions of internally

displaced persons. Close to 30 per cent of total Yugoslav population had to move away from

home, and most of those never came back. Entire population of former Yugoslavia ethnically

regrouped, and seven new born countries were swarmed with people of same ethnic background.

For most of the people in migration those days, mother land, even if a new born "attraction", was

a queen bee that saves lives.

More than 20 years after the war break down, one of the "random" questions that could be raised

is why large number of the refugees1 is still out there, in practically all countries in the region?

Why people, even in "their own" parent states, rather choose to be in fragile and exposing

refugee status, than to reborn as citizens, and as voters?

1 The term "refugees" in this presentation refers to both refugees and internally displaced persons, and to the incomers, former refugees that choose to take a citizenship.

Statistical Snapshot UNHCR*

Countries Refugees from

Refugees in

IDPs

Bosnia and Herzegovina

58,578 6,933 113,000

Croatia 62,649 824 0

Montenegro 3,698 12,874 0

Serbia (and Kosovo; R1244)

161,671 70,707 228,215

The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

7,684 1,130 0

* As at January 2012

Table 1: A number of refugees and IDP's in the region of Former Yugoslavia in 2012.

Nevertheless, a focus of my research that will present it today was on the incomers of Serbia.

More than 20 years after dissolution of The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY),

Serbia remains as a state with one of the largest number of refugees in the Europe.i Together

with those refugees who all ready integrated into Serbian society, obtaining a citizenship in the

meantime, political parties are facing with a rather large group of present and soon-to-be voters

to work with.

Such large number of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDP's) in Serbia might be

surprise for someone, but reasons are very clear. Serbians are largest ethnical group in the region,

and their members were spread all over Yugoslavia. No any other ethnic group had so many

members outside of the motherland. Even more contributing fact is that Serbia participated in

almost all armed conflicts, from 1991. until 1995, and then again 1998/1999.

At least 700.000 people integrated in Serbia, without IDP’s. So far, it can be easily estimated that

are at least 350.000 voters with the refugee background (compared data; census 2001 and

refugee censuses).

For the record, following is a table with dynamics of refugees' arrival in still critical postwar

years. As is this obvious, number of refugees from Croatia and Bosnia are dropping down, and a

number of IDP's are growing. That does not mean first table indicates less of that category of

people in the country. On the contrary, that shows growing number of voters – more and more

people took citizenship, and simply integrated.

Refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in Serbia, 1996-2007

1996 524,000

1997 508,000

1998 473,000

1999 471,000

2000 456,000

2001 374,000

2002 332,000

2003 275,000

2004 261,000

2005 138,936

2006 98,296

2007 97,672

IDP's from Kosovo in Serbia, 1996-2007

1999 176,014

2000 197,500

2001 201,700

2002 206,000

2003 205,000

2004 208,135

2005 207,448

2006 206,859

2007 206,504

They settled in the area shown on the map:

Table 3: First map shows where are settled refugees from Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and second shows

concentration of the settled IDP's.

Interestingly enough, despite of very potential electorate it did not seemed many political parties

were addressing refugees directly in pre-electoral campaigns, actually until 2004.

Generally, in Serbia both the public and the influential members of the dominant Serbian elites

believe up to date that refugees are one of the key electoral strongholds of the nationalist and

populist political parties. For more than a decade since breakdown of Milosevic regime,

especially in the early years after his fall, refugees were seen in public as a voting force that was

keeping wartime past alive. Refugees were routinely addressed as a threat to the fragile

democratic power oriented towards European future of the country. Even though could be

expected to observe constant intentions of the democratic bloc (Democratic party, Liberals...) to

embrace a war victims as a natural alliance against nationalistic an conservative political parties

all past years, it had happen exactly the opposite: Democrats were essentially surrendered the

refugee electorate to its rivals by treating them as a monolithic, radicalized mass.

I strongly argued against such understanding of political orientation of refugee voters. As is the

case with any "other" voters in the world, political affiliation of refugees is dependable on their

respective cultural background from the place of origin, the circumstances of exile as well as

their integration into the new environment.

Most of the Radicals’ supporters are among incomers from Croatia. At the same time, they are

twice as numerous as the incomers from BIH.ii "Radicals" are former nationalist and populist

Serbian Radical Party (SRS), now “democratized” Serbian Progressive Party (SPP), last one year

in the power in Serbia. However, in my view, the refugee population in Serbia was never

politically compact. As I show in the paper published 2006iii, those differences stem from the

specific features of their respective cultures, circumstances of exile and the way they have

integrated into Serbian society.

There are several important cultural characteristics of Serbs from BIH, which I believe reveal

that they do not fit the profile of Radical voters as much as the Serbs from Croatia, despite their

shared immediate experience of war. These characteristics include education, cultural

specificities of the community in exile and the model of their integration in the community of

asylum.

The Serbs from BIH rather fit the profile of liberal voters drawn by the Centre for Free

Elections and Democracy (CESID) in its analysis on how the political parties are rooted in the

structure of society. The analysis revealed that liberally and democratically oriented political

parties are rooted among highly skilled professionals (50 %), white collar employees (45 %), and

pupils and students (32 %) while the social nationalist parties including SRS gain their ballots

from farmers (44 %) and workers with low or partial qualifications (39 %)iv.

In general, incomers are better educated than the domicile population in Serbia and

Montenegro.v However, refugees from BIH are far better educated than those from Croatia and it

is particularly obvious in the case of higher education. The 2001 census showed that in Serbia 13

percent of refugees from BIH had higher education compared to 8 percent among refugees from

Croatia. This discrepancy was even higher in Montenegro where 12 percent of BIH refugees had

a university degree or had undergone post-graduate studies while only around 5 percent of

refugees from Croatia achieved the same level of education.

The professional characteristics of the refugees from BIH are another important indicator

of their political affiliation. There are twice as many farmers in the population of refugees from

Croatia than among those from BIH (8.4 % and 4%, respectively). There are also more blue

collar workers (33.3 %) and less white collar workers (9.8 %) among refugees from Croatia than

among refugees from BIH (25.5 % blue collar workers; 13.3 % white collar workers). Finally,

there are also more highly skilled professionals in the population of refugees from BIH (4.4 %)

than among Serbs from Croatia (2.8 %).

Moreover, refugees from BIH, according to the refugee censuses, mostly descend from larger

urban areas, which is not the case with refugees from Croatia.

So, to summarize, this is the profile of refugees by origin:

The 2001 census (Bosnian : Croatian origin)

• Blue collar workers ~ 25 : 33%

• White collar workers ~ 13 : 9%

• Highly skilled professionals ~ 4 : 2%

• Farmers ~ 4 : 8%

• Higher education ~ 13 : 8%

• BH – more students, more women.

incomers are better educated than the domicile population in Serbia

Significant number of youth among refugees

The type of integration

Descend from larger urban areas

War circumstances

Past/future oriented

Mistakes made by liberal-democratic parties in the politics towards refugees/incomers are

big. They missed to focus on refugees as a source, or as a labor force. Above all, they have

tremendous lack of communication with this group. Focus of those political parties,

especially of liberals – whom kept very clear and strict towards responsibility for Milosevic

deeds - should be on a new generation of incomers, which are highly educated, and proactive

towards future.

IDP's are not addressed by politics at all. UNHCR study (March 2011) has shown there are about

22,886 households or 97,286 IDPs in need, and are mostly concentrated in Belgrade (21,9%),

Kragujevac (11,6%), Novi Sad (9%), Niš (8,2%). Good political strategy that will take into

consideration background of the IDP's should be one of the priorities of political parties as soon

as possible.

i 2012 UNHCR country operations profile – Serbia, http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e48d9f6.html. By UNHCR statistics, total number of refugees and internally displaced persons is close to 300.000. ii According to data from the 2002 census, in Serbia there were 233,125 refugees from Croatia and 131,469 from BIH; source: “Refugee Population in Serbia based on the 2002 census in Serbia,“ Ministry of Human and Minority Rights of Serbia and Montenegro. iii Ibid. iv The figure is a percentage of supporters in a specific category. See more at: http://www.cesid.org/ v Under incomers I understand those who have decided to remain in Serbia, regardless of whether they have obtained citizenship or still have refugee status, or neither of the two. The data given is from the 1996 and 2001 refugee censuses, both publications of UNHCR and the Commissariat for Refugees of Serbia and the Commissariat for Refugees of Montenegro. The most comprehensive data is contained in the 2002 population census (ibid).