Csõke Lajos (HHRM): Final Solution in Place for the Dislodging of Non-Serb Population in Vojvodina. Plea for the Survival of Ethnic Hungarians and other Nationalities in Vojvodina, 1995. VIII. 18.

According to recent news reports and personal accounts reaching our Organization, the ethnic Hungarians and Croats of Vojvodina are being driven out from the towns and villages of their ancestral homeland in Vojvodina by incoming Serb refugees from Krajina. After their four years of reign and subsequent defeat in Croatia, the Krajina Serbs are arriving into Vojvodina by cars, trucks and tractors without license plates. They are aided by the local right wing forces in staking claims to homes and property of the ethnic Hungarians and Croats in Vojvodina, thus creating an additional wave of refugees of the dispossessed Hungarians and Croats of Vojvodina.

As of Wednesday, August 9, 1995 over 160,000 Krajina refugees have entered Serbia proper and according to the information released by the Red Cross of Vojvodina, by 7.00 p.m. Tuesday August 15, 1995- there were 64, 296 refugees in Vojvodina. János Vékás, Vice-President of the Democratic Community of Hungarians in Vojvodina (DCHV) has stated that by Friday, August 18, 1995 the number of refugees in Vojvodina has escalated to more than 73,000 and still rising.

The intention of the Serb government is to use the flood of refugees as a tool to disperse or annihilate the 350,000 strong ethnic Hungarian community of Vojvodina and the subsequent altering of the ethnic structure of the region.

The United States Department has already officially protested against Krajina Refugees being settled to Kosovo province, although the number of refugees destined for Kosovo was a only one tenth of the number that flooded Vojvodina. We urge the State Department to correct this inconsistency as soon as possible and speak out against the genocide in Vojvodina.

The Hungarians of Vojvodina were neither involved in the present war with Croatia, or Bosnia, nor did they side with any of the warring fractions of the region. They did not take up arms to forcibly gain their independence, yet they still find themselves on the receiving end of the Balkan tragedy as the Serb government, under the pretext of aiding the refugees from Krajina, makes an all-out effort to complete the ethnic cleansing in Vojvodina.

As we speak, the Krajina Serbs, many of them carrying arms, are cruising up and down the streets of towns and villages of Vojvodina looking for a house belonging to a Hungarian, or Croat to claim it as a bounty, or as a consolation prize for serving the cause of ethnic purification elsewhere.

The Statement of the Alliance of Hungarians in Vojvodina (AHV) resonates the gravity of the situation: "The AHV is receptive to the suffering of the homeless, and it offers to help in any way it can. However, the AHV opposes every action aimed against the forcible change of ethnic balance and altering of the existing population pattern in Vojvodina."

In support of our grave concern for Hungarians in Vojvodina allow us also to quote from Statement of the Democratic Community of Hungarians in Vojvodina (DCHV) titled: The Hungarians of Vojvodina Are Facing the Greatest Danger to their Existence Ever. Part of it reads: "behind the seemingly spontaneous flow of events there is a centrally conceived sinister plan for the final solution of purging Vojvodina of its non-Serb ethnic population. More than fifty percent of the refugees are routed to Vojvodina, where they are welcomed by relatives and friends who also came to Vojvodina as colonists in 1945 mostly from the same areas as the present refugees. The Serb government's apparent reluctance to control the course of events, is in fact its silent consent for their action. The government simply takes advantage of the momentum of the sudden influx of the refugees pouring into Vojvodina to dislodge other nationalities in Vojvodina."

As taxpaying citizens of this country, we feel that such a preferred treatment of Krajina Serbs by Serbia proper should have international consequences in recognizing their status as refugees, especially in the area of honouring their claim for international aid from various western countries, including Canada and the United States. The mission of Krajina Serbs in Vojvodina is to replay their role as the enforcers of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Before you raise your concern for our lack of understanding for the displaced and destitute, we ask you to place yourself in our predicament: As Canadian citizens we recognize the need to aid all the victims of the war, but we are horrified at the prospect of our parents, brothers and sisters, and brethren in Vojvodina, having to face the reincarnated terror of the very same groups and individuals who have committed the most horrendous crimes against humanity in the twentieth century.

The presence of Krajina Serbs in Vojvodina has nothing to do with accommodating helpless and destitute victims of the war, since the allocation of such a large number of refugees contradicts to the demographic and the economic reality in Vojvodina. The territory of Vojvodina is already the most densely populated area in Serbia proper, and it has an exceedingly high unemployment rate. In Subotica and its vicinity, for example, the unemployment runs at 43%. The streaming of Krajina refugees to Vojvodina is a calculated move by the Serb government to dislodge the remaining Hungarian and Croat population in Vojvodina. The humanitarian considerations are a mere pretext for further ethnic cleansing of Hungarians and Croats in Vojvodina.

According to P. de Azcarate, the Spanish born former director of the Minorities Question Section of the League of Nations (League of Nations and National Minorities: An Experiment (Washington, D.C., 1945, 16-17)

"Homogeneity never has been, nor ever can be, an ideal for the organization of human societies. On the contrary, diversity of mentalities, temperaments, aptitudes, ideas, beliefs, has always been rightly considered as a source of material and moral prosperity and strength in nations and states."

Vojvodina flourished for centuries as a multicultural tapestry of different nationalities and cultures. Croats, Germans, Hungarians, Serbs, Slovaks, Roma, Rumanians, Ruthenians, lived and prospered there side by side for centuries in relative peace and harmony.

We ask you in the name of civilizational values to speak out for the preservation of ethnic and cultural diversity of Vojvodina as a global and historical landmark.

Please raise your voice in the name of human dignity against this most hideous form of forcible expulsion of Hungarians, Croats and other nationalities of Vojvodina - this potential model of mutual coexistence of different cultures and nationalities.

Dated at Toronto, August 18, 1995

Lajos Csõke - HHRM