Imagine waking up tomorrow and finding that your whole identity had been deleted.
That everything that you knew, the country that you had lived in for many years, had suddenly become entirely foreign.
Well, this is the story of exactly that.
2021 marks the thirtieth anniversary of Slovenia’s declaration independence from Yugoslavia.
But while it largely missed the violence that engulfed much of the rest of the federation,
it nevertheless became the centre of a serious human rights violation when it deliberately ‘erased’ tens of thousands of Yugoslavs living in the country.
Hello and welcome. If you’re new to the channel, my name is James Ker-Lindsay
and here I take an informed look at international relations, conflict and the origins of countries.
One of the key questions in any independence process
is what happens to citizens from one part of a political union living in a part that is breaking away.
In the worst and most extreme cases, they can suddenly become targets of violence and extremism – even resulting in genocide or ethnic cleansing.
However, even in relatively peaceful processes, serious issues can arise.
People who had been full members of society with clear rights can suddenly come to be seen as unwanted foreigners with little if any protection.
One particularly good example arose with the breakup Yugoslavia at the start of the 1990s.
While many people are aware of the brutal conflicts and horrific wars that took place as the federation collapsed,
there is another chapter that is rather less known.
Slovenia’s attempt to remove the identity of large numbers of Yugoslavs living on its territory.
Slovenia lies in South East Europe.
At 20,000 square kilometres, or 7,800 square miles, it is the 150th largest of the 193 members of the United Nations.
The population is currently around 2.1 million, putting it in 149th place.
According to the last census, carried out in 2002, 83 per cent were ethnic Slovenian.
The largest minorities were ethnic Serbs, who made up around 2%, Croats who made up around 1.8%,
and Muslims, mainly Bosniaks, who made up 1.6%.
2.2 per cent were classed as others and 9 per cent were classed as unknown.
Within these figures are included Hungarians, Italians, Albanians and Roma.
Slovenia has a long history. However, for our purposes, the story really starts in the early twentieth century.
Prior to 1918, the territory had been a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
However, with the collapse of the Empire at the end of the First World War, it became part of a new political union of south Slavs,
the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929.
Following the end of the Second World War, the Kingdom came under communist rule
eventually becoming the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia;
a political union made up of six separate republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia.
As the most economically advanced part of the federation, Slovenia became a popular destination for economic migrants from the rest of Yugoslavia,
especially Croatia and Bosnia.
Indeed, around 200,000 eventually settled in the country.
In 1980, Josip Broz Tito, the leader of Yugoslavia since the end of the Second World War, died.
This in set in train a process of state collapse.
While the causes of Yugoslavia’s breakup are complex and still fiercely contested,
by the end of the decade the country was clearly coming under threat as the republics sought to go in different directions.
In December 1990, Slovenia held an independence referendum that saw 96% of this taking part opt to break away.
Six months later, on 25 June 1991, Slovenia declared independence.
In an attempt to keep the federation together, the federal government ordered troops of the Yugoslav National Army to put down the attempted secession.
However, within days, and facing a greater challenge in neighbouring Croatia,
which had also declared independence on the same day as Slovenia, the government agreed a ceasefire.
Under an internationally brokered deal, Slovenian officially agreed to continue negotiations on the future of Yugoslavia.
However, in reality, the country was allowed to go its own way.
Having broken away from Yugoslavia, Slovenia now began the process of state building.
As part of this, it passed legislation calling on all Yugoslav citizens living in the country to apply for citizenship by 26 December 1991.
While 170,000 people applied, a large majority of the Yugoslavs living in Slovenia, tens of thousands failed to meet the deadline.
In most cases, this was because they failed to realise the significance of what was happening.
However, some had their applications rejected because they had been part of the Yugoslav Army
and had taken part in an effort to prevent Slovenia’s secession.
Whatever the reasons for the failure to meet the deadline, a little under two months later, in February 1992, the Slovenian government ordered that all
those who had not applied for citizenship should be deleted from the list of permanent residents and instead be registered as foreigners.
Moreover, any Slovenian documents they held – such as an identity card or driver’s license – were to be annulled.
Indeed, there were numerous reports of people going to government offices to apply for residency or to renew their paperwork
only to see their documents shredded in front of them.
In total, 25,671 people – around one per cent of the country’s population – were affected.
The results on those involved – now widely known as “the erased” – were catastrophic.
Many suddenly found themselves deprived of any sort of access to state services.
They lost their pensions, state housing, access to health care and other social rights.
Many lost their jobs and without proof of a right to work found it impossible to gain new employment.
In some cases, this saw families reduced to poverty with no access to unemployment benefits or other state aid.
Children were even denied education.
In the most severe cases, those born in Slovenia, but not registered elsewhere in the Federation, effectively became stateless persons.
In the period that followed, many of those affected had little choice but to leave the country
– either to go back to war-torn Yugoslavia or else emigrate elsewhere in Europe.
Others were simply deported.
Those who found a way to stay, now tried to resolve the situation - but with little success.
The Slovenian Government showed no interest in dealing with a problem affecting a small and largely marginalised part of society.
In 1999, the issue finally came before the Slovenian Constitutional Court.
In a landmark ruling, it recognised that the decision to delete the records had indeed been unlawful and ordered the government address the issue.
In response, the government introduced new legislation giving those affected a further three-month window to apply for Slovenian citizenship.
Crucially, however, it didn’t address the problems the erased had faced over the previous decade.
Nor did it allow those who’d been expelled to return.
As a result, four years later, the Constitutional Court issued another ruling that the rights of those affected should be applied
to the point when their records were deleted.
Although this led to yet another window for people to apply to regularise their status,
the government still refused to put in place retrospective measures to help those affected.
Quite apart from the 6,000 or so still facing problems registering,
even those who had secured their status still faced residual problems, such as gaining access to full state pensions.
On top of this, there was still no compensation for the suffering and hardship they had endured.
Nor was there any help to meet the legal costs associated with fighting their cases.
By now the issue had been going on for well over a decade. And yet the Slovenian Government still refused to move on the main points.
If anything, it was becoming even more difficult to resolve as the issue became increasingly politicised.
In a country trying to disassociate itself from its Yugoslav past, many ordinary Slovenes had little if any sympathy for a group
largely seen as foreign economic migrants who should’ve done what they were told when they were told.
Others painted those affected as enemies of the state, who’d try to deny the existence of an independent Slovenia.
This was underscored in a referendum held in April 2004 asking whether the erased should have their rights returned.
94% of those taking part voted 'No'.
On 1 May 2004, Slovenia became the first of the former Yugoslav republics to join the European Union.
By now, the Slovenian Government was now coming under increasing pressure from various human rights organisations
as well as leading international bodies, including the United Nations and the Council of Europe.
But while there appeared to be some growing awareness of the need to deal with the issue, little was done in the years that followed.
In 2006, eleven of the Erased brought the matter before the European Court of Human Rights,
the highest legal body dealing with human rights issues in Europe.
Four years later, it ruled in their favour.
However, this was challenged by the Slovenian Government.
As a result, in 2012, the Grand Chamber of Court confirmed that Slovenia had violated Articles 8, 13 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights
- clauses guaranteeing respect for private and family life, the right to an effective remedy, and the prohibition of discrimination.
Slovenia was now given one year to set up an appropriate compensation scheme.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it failed to do so.
As a result, in 2014 the Court ordered the government to pay almost a quarter of a million euros in compensation to the applicants.
Facing a massive wave of cases, the Slovenian Government finally decided to comply with the rulings.
As well as committing to end the violations of human rights and prevent all future such violations,
it established a compensation scheme for those affected.
By February 2016, this had paid out 22 million euros to around 5,300 people.
On 25 May that year, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which had ultimate responsibility for supervising the execution
of the Court’s final judgement, declared that it was satisfied that Slovenia’s measures were satisfactory.
As far as it, and Slovenia, were concerned, the matter was now closed.
In truth, though, it continued.
Despite the rulings, many affected are still being denied justice
– finding themselves ineligible for the scheme or unable to pay the legal fees required to put in a claim.
Even now, three decades after the events, many of “The Erased” are still fighting for justice.
The question of what happens to people following the breakup of states is one of the most important issues
in any process of secession or state dissolution.
The example of Slovenia provides a fascinating insight into how complex the issue can be.
While the country didn’t witness the brutal genocides and ethnic cleansings that we saw elsewhere in Yugoslavia
– indeed, it should be stressed that the vast majority of Yugoslavs living in the country were in fact granted full citizenship –
a small number nevertheless faced extremely serious human rights violation that successive governments refused to tackle,
despite numerous national and then international court rulings.
Indeed, it was only when faced with significant financial penalties that it decided to act.
As we mark the thirtieth anniversary of the collapse of Yugoslavia, the story of "The Erased” in Slovenia sheds light on a rather different, and little known,
human rights issue that emerged from the chaos and conflict at the time.
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