The Croatian Government and Programmes Regarding the Return of War Migrants: between Plans and Realisations – the Experience of The Brod-Posavina County

• Main Author: Dragutin Babić
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies 2002-04-01
• Series: Migracijske i Etniĉke Teme
• Subjects: return; war migrants; programmes; the state; municipalities; the Brod-Posavina County
• Online Access: http://hrcak.srce.hr/file/158223
• ISSN: 1333-2546; 1848-9184

The paper analyses the Croatian government’s programme documents regarding the return and caring for of war migrants. Its aim is to analyse and explain documents, formulated on the national level, as well as those on various local levels in the Brod-Posavina county, and to evaluate their implementation. Return flows began in 1992, after war operations settled down in Croatia. The first returnees were persons whose settlements had not been occupied and who could move into their dwellings straightforwardly. The return of war migrants, as a state strategy, came to the forefront after conclusion of the war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and after the signing of the agreement on peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danubian lands into the Republic of Croatia’s state and legislative system. Croatia recognises the right of all war migrants to return to their homes. Return of dispersed persons and refugees involves various aspects, ranging from state-security problems to pension, economic, social and psychological aspects. The question of return, apart from issues pertaining to the renewal of material structures, includes also the (re)construction of local communities, which will probably be the most difficult problem to resolve during the process of return. The chances of co-existence of various war migrant groups, especially Croats and Serbs, remain the most important and also the most difficult problem arising in this context. Documents dealing with return are numerous, yet they have been, for the most part, formulated on the national level; much more rarely on the level of local units and return destinations, which is also the main difficulty in regard to the institutional regulation of return flows. Local units mostly act only as intermediaries between international organisations that finance return and individual returnees receiving financial aid or credit. The return of war migrants is mainly financed out of the Republic of Croatia’s budget and to a lesser extent by international organisations.