On a bright morning in 1992, Zoran Vojinovic awoke to the jarring realization that he no longer existed.
Not on paper -- when his identity card expired, officials refused to renew it.
Not at the hospital -- when he got sick and sought treatment, he was told he had lost his health benefits.
Not in government computers -- when he asked a state agency for help in finding a job, he was turned away as an illegal alien.
Vojinovic is among 18,000 people in Slovenia known as "the erased ones" -- non-Slovene residents whose names were deleted from the population registry a year after the country declared independence from Yugoslavia.
Under mounting pressure from the EU, which Slovenia joins in May, voters will decide in a referendum next month whether to restore permanent residency and basic rights to those who suffered what critics call "administrative genocide."
"In Bosnia, fascists walked around doing horrible things with weapons. Slovenia did the same thing with paperwork," said Aleksandar Todorovic, an archaeologist born in Serbia who heads the Association of Erased Persons.
For the erased, it's a question of recovering dignity and the right to drive a car, attend a university, get health care, own property and collect pensions. Permanent residency would also carry the option of citizenship.
But the Kafkaesque dispute also underscores the murky Cold War-era pasts confronting the EU as it expands eastward to take in a part of the continent stained by nationalism and strife.
Alvaro Gil-Robles, the Council of Europe's human rights commissioner, warned Slovenia's government last month that it needs to move quickly and decisively to settle the issue and keep a lid on growing racism and xenophobia.
The debate points up the turbulent history that still taints daily life even in Slovenia, a sliver of stability and prosperity in an otherwise volatile corner of Europe.
Most of the erased were Bosnians and Serbs stripped of their rights in February 1992 after declining offers of citizenship. Many say they were hesitant and confused because of the wars brewing in Bosnia and Croatia, and thought Slobodan Milosevic might retake Slovenia.
"It was a massive illegal act of political vengeance," worthy of Hitler or Stalin, said Matevz Krivic, a former judge for Slovenia's constitutional court, which twice has ordered the government to restore rights to the erased.
Todorovic ticks off a litany of injustices.
Nearly all 18,000 lost their jobs, and at least seven people committed suicide in despair.
Some were arrested for offenses such as jaywalking and were deported for lack of documents.
Others died of illnesses that could have been treated. A young mother wasn't given her newborn until she could come up with the cash to pay for the birth. A jobless family paid US$50 a month for a visa to keep living in their own home.
Vojinovic, 29, was erased even though he was born in Slovenia to Serbian parents and has never left.
"I was terrified," he said. "Every time I saw a postman on the street, I'd look for a place to hide. When I saw a uniform, I was sure the military police were coming for me."
Deputy Interior Minister Bojan Bugaric, acknowledging that the erasure was a "mistake," said his office approved retroactive residency for 40 people this week and would issue permits to others. Parliament is expected to enact a law soon laying out guidelines for seeking damages and set a date for the referendum, probably for late March.
But the government is under fire by boisterous right-wing opposition parties who could use the dispute to make gains in October parliamentary elections.
Nationalists have whipped up anti-foreigner sentiment with warnings that compensating the erased people could cost up to US$3 billion.
Recent polls show a majority of Slovenes opposes the idea of compensation.
Ultranationalist lawmaker Zmago Jelincic contends many of the erased are war criminals, swindlers and other undesirables.
"We offered them citizenship for the price of a bad steak," he said. "Nearly 200,000 people took it. A lot of the so-called erased are Muslims from Bosnia ... You have to take care of your own country."
Vojinovic, among the few to recently gain citizenship, now has a job supervising a cleaning crew at a shopping mall.
"I was cheated, and Slovenia should be ashamed," he said. "It's impossible to forget this nightmare. But we must go on with our lives."
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese