Talking about health in workplaces I am reminded of a term civil death or administrative ethnic cleansing, that some characterize as soft genocide or administrative genocide (J.Fussell, 2004): In other historical contexts this kind of radical action which in and of itself is a massive violation of human rights, has been a step toward more extreme actions including mass expulsion and even genocide. In the case of Slovenia, the erased (izbrisani) were targeted for elimination solely on account of the non-Slovene groups into which they were born. Furthermore, this administrative ethnic cleansing on February 26, 1992 in Slovenia can be viewed as a contributing factor to the radicalization in former Yugoslavia which only a few months later saw violent ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The policy of mass erasure, which could also be called mass denationalization, must especially be condemned because it was a partially successful policy, causing over one-third (12,000 out of 30,000) of the targeted population to leave Slovenia. When officials asked an erased for his old Yugoslav passport the top right corner would be cut off, making the document useless and marking the bearer for further discrimination. The izbrisani (erased residents) were not forced out at gunpoint and their homes were not burned down as in Bosnia, nevertheless they lost their jobs, medical benefits and sometimes were deported for minor offenses. The multiple possible translations of the term izbrisati (erase, red pencil, rub out, score out, scratch out, delete, expunge, obliterate) shows the impact the policy might have on a person. In Slovenia, seven izbrisani committed suicide. Ultranationalist politicians characterized the izbrisani as war criminals, swindlers and undesirables. It has been twenty two years since February 26, 1992 when the newly independent state of Slovenia deleted the names of some 30,000 residents from the nations civil registries. The targeted population, which came to be known as izbrisani (erased residents) were not of Slovenian ancestry, but were so-called new minorities including ethnic Serbs, ethnic Croats and ethnic Bosnian Muslims, ethnic Albanian Kosovars and ethnic Roma which the government sought to force out of the country. (In contrast old minorities include ethnic Italians and ethnic Hungarians, specifically mentioned in the December 1991 Constitution.) Twenty two years later, in spite of two rulings of the European Court of Human Rights in favour of the erased, the Slovenian Government has still not yet acted to fully redress this massive violation of human rights.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Mar 2014 06:25:58 +0000
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