Citizenship Reform – 1996
1996
The Government of Croatia passes legislation and makes announcements that incite Croatians to migrate to the former Serb controlled territory in hopes of gaining property. A Joint Implementation Committee on Civilian Administration was established and reached an agreement on the centralized issuance of essential identity documents by Croatian officials for a period of 2 months, to begin in August 1996 in three locales.1 By the end of August 1996, UNTAES reports advances in the centralized issuance of Croatian legal documents such as citizenship papers, birth certificates, identity cards and passports, however, the process is slow because the Croatian police want to interview all those seeking new papers. A review of the document processing centers opened by UNTAES at Ilok, Vukovar, Batina and Lua, reveals that they are falling far short of meeting the demand for identity documents. It is reported that roughly one-third of the applicants were Serbs at this point in the process.2 On 19 September, the Transitional Administrator and the Prime Minister of Croatia had a meeting to discuss “disturbing cases of inadequate cooperation, including undue delays in processing applications for Croatian citizenship and other documents.”3 Towards the end of September 1996, UNTAES reports that out of more than 11,500 applicants that submitted an application for a Croatian identity document, only 2,768 documents had been received by the applicants. Thus, 75 percent of citizenship documents were not processed for the applicants who needed them to return by the end of the first year following the peace agreement. Meanwhile, in 1995 and 1996, the GoC passes legislation that puts a time limit on returning refugees to reclaim their property and encourages the occupation of Serb homes by Croatians.4