University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, January 15, 1992
5B
Yugoslav war makes life hard on KU's Croatian, Serbian students
By Lance Hobson
Special to the Kansan
Serbian and Croatian students at the University of Kansas have not escaped the tension in the war-torn homeland of their relatives and ancestors.
Despite a Jan. 3 cease-fire, the situation remains tense between the Serbian and Croatian factions.
The European Community reportedly has agreed to recognize any Yugoslav republic as independent if it can demonstrate respect for human rights, democracy and peaceful settlement of border claims.
Robert  Andres, Croatia, Yugoslavia, senior, has parents living in Croatia. The Croatan declaration of independence has caused fighting between Croatians and the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav army.
Knight-Ridder Tribune News
Andress said he did not blame the Serbian population for the fighting but said the Serbian leadership was the problem.
"It's like asking a sheep to be in the
wall as wolves," he said.
Andres, like most Croatians, favors independence for the break-away republic. He said that he regretted war had broken out but that because of the damage caused by the Serbians, the two sides would never be able live as one country again.
"I know quite a lot of Serbians, and I just think they are headed by psychopath egomaniacs who have succeeded in inflating their eggs," he said.
He said he resented that one of the reasons Serbia was fighting was
because Croatia was an ally of Germany in World War II.
"How do they want to make up for these 45 years — in number of dead, in amount of destruction?" he said.
Robert Diminic, also a KU student from Croatia, tries to deal with college life and war in his homeland.
Diminic's parents and sister live in Croatia, but they are not close to the recent fighting, although it has been near them at times. Diminic said it was difficult to concentrate on studies when his thoughts centered on his family's safety. He is worried most about the children.
"Can you imagine those children in Dubrovnik for 50 days with no water, no electricity, no regular supplies?" he asked.
Diminic said Croatians were shocked at the reaction their declaration of independence received.
No one envisioned such a backlash from Serbians, but now Croatians are more dedicated to independence than before, he said.
The fact that Diminic's country is engaged in bitter war has not changed the way he judges Serbians.
"I would never dream of saying they are obnoxious just because they are born in Serbia," Diminic said. "I always judge a person by what he or she does, not according to where he or she was born."
Although Diminic said he hated to see priceless cultural landmarks fall in the war, he said the senseless killing was what he never would be able to accept.
"I would rather see a monument destroyed than one person wounded or killed" he said.
Svetozar Stojanovic, a visiting philosophy professor from Belgrade, is Serbian and will teach in Yugoslavia this semester.
He said he understood both sides, and although neither point of view was his own, he said the mix of Serbians in Croatia was the source of Serbia's rejection of Croatia's independence.
In some small towns and villages in Croatia, Serbians are the majority and feel that they should not have to be ruled by Croatians, he said.
Stojanovic said these same areas
were the places where Croatian Nazis killed hundreds of thousands of people. mostly Serbians.
He said it was impossible for Serbians to forget what happened. His wife escaped to Serbia when she was 10. He said she still had nightmares about the Nazis.
"I think there would have been problems independently of this, but it makes the problem not only worse, but almost impossible," he said.
Stojanovic said that it would be difficult to persuade Serbians who were survivors of World War II or people who lost relatives in the war that they had nothing to fear from Croatian rule.
He said Croatia should have offered the Serbians in Croatia territorial and political autonomy. Knowing how proud and self-conscious Serbians are, they should not have expected to declare their independence without conflict, he said.
He said the only rational solution now was to send United Nations peacekeeping forces to stop the fighting and let both sides cool down. Putting sanctions on Serbia is not the way to solve the problem, he said.
"The problem is not in Serbia, it's in Croatia," he said.
Stojanovic said he supported both sides' right to self-determination but not the way they were handling their differences.
"I surely am not for people deciding their problems by fighting, rather by negotiations. But of course, this is a very rational position," he said. "People are not, generally speaking, very rational, unfortunately."
Vatican recognizes Slovenia, Croatia
The Associated Press
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has recognized the independence of Croatia and Slovenia, saying it hopes the move will help bring peace to the Balkans.
Serbia opposes the breakup of the federation, and since Croatia and Slovenia declared independence in June, the Serb-dominated army has been backing ethnic Serbs fighting Croatian independence.
In a statement, the Holy See said it had informed authorities in Belgrade, the federal and Serbian capital, of the decision, emphasizing that it was not "in the least bit a hostile gesture toward Ugoslavia."
Fighting also broke out briefly between the army and Slovenia after the republic declared independence June 25.
Last month, the Vatican said it would grant recognition as soon as it was convinced Slovenia and Croatia.
tia had met human rights conditions set by the European Community.
The EC had agreed to recognize, by Monday, any Yugoslav republics that can demonstrate respect for human rights, democracy and peaceful settlement of border claims.
Both Croatia and Slovenia are predominantly Roman Catholic, and Serbia is mainly Orthodox. The Vatican's recognition of the republics could worsen Catholic-Orthodox tensions, which have already been strained in Eastern Europe since the collapse of communism.
On Monday, the Vatican said that it "hoped that with their entrance into the community of sovereign and independent nations, Croatia and Slovenia would know how to contribute to the pacification of the Balkan region and to the construction of a more broadly united world."
Pope John Paul II has made repeated, impassioned pleas for an end to the fighting in Yugoslavia and for reliance on negotiations to settle the dispute.
The Vatican has rejected suggestions that it has taken sides in the civil war, but it has condemned the federal army's actions.
A Vatican representative, Monsignor Piero Penacchini, said the Holy See could recognize other Yugoslav republics if they met the same criteria on human rights and other issues
"But when and how is yet to be established," he said
The Vatican, which maintains diplomatic relations with some 120 countries, gave no information about when it would send envoys to Slovenia and Croatia. The Vatican said it would maintain its representative to Belgrade.
Treasure hunters seeking Nazi plunder
The Associated Press
WEIMAR, Germany — The beam of light from Hans Stadelmann's flashlight stabs through the dank, underground corridors stretching beneath the old Nazi headquarters in Weimar.
He is tracking one of the world's great mysteries: Where did the Nazis hide the treasure known as the Amber Room, stolen by AdolH Hitler's soldiers from a Russian palace 51 years ago?
"There is a series of rooms on the other side of this wall. They were sealed off by the Nazis. Why? What did the Nazis want to hide?" asks Stadelmann, the retired head of Weimar's construction department.
The ornate room, one of the great masterpieces of pre-revolutionary Russian artisans, consisted of large wall panels and other decorations made from amber, a rare, honey-colored fossil resin. It was installed in a palace that Peter built for his wife, the future empress Catherine I.
Some people say the treasure was on a German ship sunk by Russian torpedoes. Others say it was spirited to the Soviet Union. Still others say it's in the United States. Many are convinced it's buried in Weimar or elsewhere in Thuringia, a state in eastern Germany.
Stadelman is one of dozens pursuing the prize, which some experts value at more than $150 million. The searchers were preceded by hundreds during the past four decades. All failed in their search. At least one did my-
teriously.
riously.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin triggered the latest excitement when he said on a visit to Germany in November that he knew where the Amber Room was.
A Russian newspaper then said the room might be hidden in Thuringia. That was enough to send hundreds of treasure-seekers to Thuringia with picks, shovels and climbing ropes in a replay of the California Gold Rush.
The first frantic searches were at a never-finished bunker that was being built for Hitler outside Weimar near the close of World War II. Nothing was found.
So Stadelmann's theory emerged as the latest contender in the quest. He has spent years studying documents that he maintains show the Amber Room was brought to Weimar before
the end of World War II along with other artworks stolen by Erich Koch, the ruthless Nazi commander of East Prussia.
According to Stadelmann's theory, the Nazis used slave labor from the nearby Buchenwald concentration camp to dig tunnels and hidden rooms beneath the party's district headquarters in Weimar. The room could be well concealed in there, he said.
The theory has been getting a lot of play in the mainstream news media. But it hasn't done that yet.
"The Russians and the East German Communists searched for the Amber Room after the war. If there was something here, they would have found it," said Bernd Braun, a Thuringia official who works in the former Nazi headquarters, which now houses some state offices.
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