ZAGREB, Aug 26, 2020 – Adults are responsible for stopping the spreading of hate produced by war which policies have continued to spread and it’s a big deal that Croatia’s state leadership and Serb community representatives have decided to change that trend, SDSS president Milorad Pupovac said on Tuesday.
Speaking on the public broadcaster HRT about a commemoration for Serb civilian war victims held in Grubori earlier in the day, he said “it’s a big deal that the Andrej Plenkovic cabinet and President Zoran Milanovic, together with us from the Serb community, have decided to change the trend and stop the spreading of hate produced by war.”
Pupovac confirmed the anchor’s statement that Croatia was still waiting for the acknowledgement of all victims and suffering from the 1990s war.
“We are doing everything for that communication to begin on as many fronts as possible and for this process to be accepted also in Serbia, as well as in other parts of the former Yugoslavia, as something that will be done together, with all the differences which will remain, while simultaneously building respect for the victims and creating a culture of peace and normal relations,” said Pupovac.
Strong messages with uniform stance
He said the Grubori commemoration had great significance as very strong messages were sent from there, different in tone and content but uniform in stance – the condemnation of crimes, sympathy and respect for the victims, sympathy for those who remembered them, and turning to the future.
The messages also refer to leaving the war and its atrocities to the best commemorative practices possible, which we saw today and will see increasingly in the future with joint gestures, so that no one is excluded or forgotten, and so that the war stops dividing people in our country as much as it did until a few weeks ago, Pupovac said.
The anchor noted that Croatia was making steps forward yet Serbia was not, and asked if it was time for Serbia’s delegation to pay its respects to the victims of Vukovar.
Pupovac said two things happened which showed that Serbia was starting to make steps or gestures.
Firstly, President Aleksandar Vucic has received representatives of Croatian institutions in Serbia for talks on vital topics for the Croatian community there, including their integration and participation in the executive authority, he said. Secondly, he added, Vucic’s special envoy for the war missing Veran Matic was in Grubori today.
Those are messages which say, let’s deal with unresolved minority issues and let’s deal with the war missing, one of the most painful topics in Croatia-Serbia relations, Pupovac said.
He noted that Matic said he was confident Vucic would also make a gesture to show respect for the Croatian war victims, saying that he shared Matic’s confidence and that it was not unrealistic to expect that to occur in the not so distant future.
SDSS has been working on the issue of the war missing for two years
Asked if the SDSS (Independent Democratic Serb Party) and he would push for resolving the issue of the war missing more quickly, Pupovac said the SDSS had been working on that for two years thanks to contacts with Croatian Veterans Minister Tomo Medved and now Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milosevic as well as thanks to everything that happened since August 5 and would happen in the months ahead.
“The SDSS cares very much about establishing the fate of the missing, both Croats and Serbs, and it’s very important to us that families find out as soon as possible what happened to their dearest ones.”
It’s time for big reforms
Asked if children were growing up with prejudices and if they bothered with who was a Serb and who a Croat, Pupovac said that, unfortunately, young people bothered about that much more than adults both in Croatia and in Serbia.
“Young people don’t know what coexistence was, they only know war experiences and war stories, messages and war divisions,” he said, adding that it was finally time to start changing that and for young people to learn how to have respect for their own and the suffering of their compatriots.
“That’s a huge demand for every society, including Croatia’s, and tomorrow for the society in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Serbia, so what we are doing and expect to be done with young people in stadiums, at concerts, in schools are huge reform steps which will happen in the near future, in which adults have a big responsibility.”
