By Géza Jeszenszky Géza

The Washington Post, Outlook
Sunday, June 6, 1999; Page B03

Securing the peace is often as difficult as waging the war. While there are encouraging signs that NATO has won its campaign to stop the brutal mistreatment of the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, a lasting peace cannot come to the Balkans unless all interested parties take steps to prevent new ethnic conflicts from erupting. Kosovo is not the only place where such a threat exists; as the only NATO country that has a border with Yugoslavia, perhaps no member of the alliance understands this threat better than Hungary does.

On the Yugoslav side of our common border, in the Serbian province of Vojvodina, nearly 350,000 ethnic Hungarians have been virtual hostages for the past several months–as both the Yugoslav authorities and some local Serbs have constantly reminded them. As a "NATO minority," these Hungarians are a defenseless and easy target for Serbian anger over the NATO bombing and the likely setback in Kosovo. Seeing the plight of Kosovar Albanians, the
Hungarians and other non-Serbs living in the Vojvodina understandably fear that they might be the next victims. History provides justification for their worries.

Yugoslavia, cobbled together at the end of World War I, has always included a large variety of nationalities that spoke several languages, used two alphabets and adhered to various religious faiths. Its centralized government, dominated by Serbs, failed to win the loyalty of the citizens.
The country's post-1945 Communist dictator, Tito, apparently learned from the mistakes of his predecessors and reconstructed Yugoslavia along federal lines. Sensitive to Serb national sentiment, he did not make Kosovo a
separate republic, but instead granted it wide autonomy, a kind of home rule. A similar status was created in the north for the Vojvodina, which prior to 1918 was part of the 1,000-year-old kingdom of Hungary.

The Vojvodina suffered a kind of "ethnic cleansing" between 1456 and 1718, when it was a war zone in which Hungary fought the invading Ottoman Empire and most of the Hungarian population was killed or deported to be sold as slaves. Liberated from the Ottoman Turks, southern Hungary (today's
Vojvodina) underwent a repopulation that made it the most colorful ethnic mosaic of Europe. In 1910, its 1.3 million inhabitants included 30.2 percent
Hungarians, 25.2 percent Greek Orthodox Serbs, 23 percent Germans
("Swabians"), about 10 percent Roman Catholic South Slavs (Croats, Bunjevci)
and the rest other nationalities (Slovaks, Romanians, Rusyns).

But 70 years of deliberate colonization drives, expulsions and even mass
killings (in 1944, during World War II) significantly changed the Vojvodina's
ethnic composition. By 1991 the proportion of Hungarians had been reduced to
16.9 percent, the Serb population had increased to 56.8 percent and the
Germans had been completely "cleansed." In the past few years, another
250,000 Serbs (refugees from Croatia and Bosnia) were settled in the province
and 50,000 Hungarians have left, making today's Serb percentage even greater.

It is unrealistic to expect the victims of war crimes and reprisals to live
happily with the perpetrators of those crimes. But if the international
community does not want to redraw borders and create ethnically homogeneous
states through massive population transfers, it is necessary to find ways for
the continued peaceful co-existence of the various ethnic communities. That
can be achieved only by decentralization–giving extensive administrative
self-government to smaller units having a special geographic, ethnic and
economic character, based on the Swiss model of national cantons.

Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban pointed out during the recent NATO
summit in Washington that NATO's military intervention in Kosovo was meant to
prevent the conflict from spreading further. So if and when military actions
stop, a Balkans conference should be convened to discuss the widest possible
range of regional issues, including the security of the Vojvodina.

We in Hungary are confident that the Vojvodina will not become the next scene
of mass violence. Serbia has a strong interest to remain on speaking terms
with Hungary, its window to the outside world, through which essential lines
of communication and access routes run. But there is also a very real danger
that, if and when a settlement is reached over Kosovo, the multiethnic
Vojvodina may be forgotten–just as no one thought about Kosovo when the
Dayton accord ended the hostilities in Bosnia.

What are the ironclad guarantees needed in the Vojvodina? All non-Serbs, as
well as many Serbs who live in that province, want the restoration of the
autonomy that was abolished 10 years ago along with Kosovo's. Under a system
of cultural autonomy, non-Serbs would regain the right to use their native
language and alphabet in public life, as well as in schools and institutions
of higher education. Most importantly, if these measures are to remain more
than empty promises, the non-Serbs need guarantees in the form of an
international presence, such as an observer mission from the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe. With such a presence, the tragedies of
Bosnia and Kosovo might have been avoided.

After the war in Croatia eight years ago, when I was Hungary's foreign
minister, I offered suggestions about how to address some of the problems in
the Balkans. In one of my letters, dated Dec. 8, 1991, I made the following
appeal to the European Community and to Cyrus Vance, then representing the
secretary-general of the United Nations: "The U.N. should immediately try to
send peacekeeping forces not only to the territory of Croatia but also to
those areas of Yugoslavia where there is still a fragile peace: to Bosnia and
to the two formerly autonomous provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo. Without that,
a wholesale massacre may occur."

As of now, even with the Yugoslav parliament's vote to accept NATO's
conditions for ending the bombing, we are far from discussing the best
post-war legal arrangements for the Balkans. Hungary, although one of NATO's
newest members, has proved a loyal ally in NATO's fight. Twenty-four F-18
Hornets have been flying sorties from the Taszar air base in southern
Hungary, and a number of tankers have been deployed at Budapest's civilian
airport. We sent a medical team and military personnel to help the refugees
in Albania. We have done all this because we are fully aware of the dangers
represented by the policies of the present Belgrade government.

But a democratic Yugoslavia is not a distant dream. By complying with the
demands of the international community, the Serbs can ensure that peace can
return to the entire country and that reconstruction can start immediately.
Both the European Union and the United States have outlined plans for the
economic stabilization of southeastern Europe, from the Black Sea to the
Adriatic. Serbian democrats in Montenegro, in the Vojvodina, in exile and
also in Belgrade are eager to rejoin a cooperative Europe and to help heal
the wounds. Let us hope all Serbs recognize that the door is open, and walk
through.

Geza Jeszenszky is the Hungarian ambassador to the United States. A historian, he was the country's minister for foreign affairs from 1990 to 1994.

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