The Scars of the Erasure_web

Erasure_4a 10.1.11 20:29 Page 11THE ERASED PEOPLE YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW11the settlement of this issue. Almost 79 percent of respondents agreed with theissuing of the remaining decisions to the erased people. This indicates thatMini ster Kresal, who vowed that “this sad chapter in Slovenian history will beconcluded once and for all, even if my ratings drop to zero,” should not be worriedabout her image. The minister and the state secretary at the Ministry ofthe Interior, Goran Klemenčič, immediately got down to fulfilling this promise.During the first year of their term in office (2009), the Ministry issued all remainingsupplementary decisions recognizing permanent residence retroactivelyto all the erased people who had obtained permanent residence permitsin the meantime. 6 Their second move was a bill proposing that, under certainconditions, those erased people who for various reasons cannot prove that theyhave lived continuously in Slovenia since the erasure, which is a condition requiredby the currently valid legislation, can also obtain permanent residencepermits. 7 The government has already endorsed this proposal, and it is currentlywaiting for approval in the National Assembly. These two steps are a prerequisitefor the settlement of the erased people’s status and for the preparation of furthermeasures aimed at redressing injustice.This suggests that we are at the point of no return, since it is no longerpossible to say that it remains unclear what the erasure was, what happenedduring the time after Slovenia became a sovereign country, or what happenedon the day of the erasure, 26 February 1992, and during the years that followed.Pretense is no longer possible. It is now generally known and recognized thatvio lations did occur; after all, this book is further proof thereof.The data from the Ministry of the Interior on the status of the erased peopleas per 24 January 2009 show that, of 25,671 erased persons altogether, 1302died in the meantime; 10,943 settled their status; of these, 7,313 persons obtainedcitizenship, while 13,426 persons have not settled their status in the Republicof Slovenia. 8 It is not known how many of these live in Slovenia and howmany in other countries, but it is indisputable that quite a number of them stilllive in Slovenia without legal status. The members of our project team have metmany such persons and held conversations with them.Many people deserve credit for bringing the erasure to the public eye andalerting the public to its consequences and to the need to rectify injustice. Amongthem, let us mention the journalists Borut Mekina and Igor Mekina, the erasedpeople themselves, the Association of the Erased People of Slovenia (DIPS) andits legal representative, the former judge of the Constitutional Court, Matevž6 The decisions were not issued for people who obtained Slovenian citizenship without obtaining a permanent residencepermit prior to citizenship. The viewpoint that prevailed at the Ministry of the Interior was that a legal basis for thiswas first needed. The opposite viewpoint was that the Constitutional Court Ruling could be interpreted in accordancewith the a fortiori principle and that if those who had acquired permanent residence permits were entitled to receivesupplementary decisions, those who had acquired citizenship were even more entitled to it.7 Primarily the Act Regulating the Legal Status of Citizens of Former Yugoslavia Living in the Republic of Slovenia.8 This figure is the result of the internal examination of databases conducted in January 2009 by the Ministry of theInterior.