ZAGREB, February 13, 2018 – Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić’s visit to Croatia on Tuesday elicited numerous comments and political assessments by members of parliament already at the start of the parliament’s sitting, with Social Democrat (SDP) Bojan Glavašević saying that “Croatia was humiliated yesterday” while Miro Kovač of the ruling HDZ party recalled that Vučić was a legally elected president but noted that “our neighbour will not be able to join the European family” before all outstanding issues between the two countries were solved.
“Croatia was humiliated yesterday. Aleksandar Vučić, a man who has proven not to be our friend and who has no good intentions towards Croatia, a man whose only true intentions are those from his warmongering speech in the occupied Glina in 1995, a man who spoke in the Serbian parliament in 2000 about his wish to change Croatia’s internationally recognised borders to suit his Great Serbian fantasies, is on a visit to Croatia,” Glavašević said.
The MP went on to say that Vučić had never retracted his remarks and continued to be friends with and defend Veselin Šljivančanin, a Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) officer convicted of the Vukovar atrocity. “Our president invited such a man to Croatia, without the consent of the prime minister, gave him VIP treatment. That is what’s humiliating,” Glavašević said, objecting that Grabar-Kitarović was putting the interests of the international community and its pressure before Croatia’s interests.
“It was Croatia’s president who yesterday banned reporters from asking Vučić about his Great Serbian warmongering speeches, and by doing so she has humiliated and spat in the face of every Homeland War victim,” said the MP.
Recalling that Grabar-Kitarović described Vučić ‘s bringing back to Croatia registers of births, deaths and marriages taken from Dvor na Uni by withdrawing Croatian Serb rebel forces in 1995 as major progress in relations between the two countries, Glavašević wondered about protocols from the Vukovar Hospital and about information on locations of mass graves that were documented and in possession of Serbian intelligence services.
He said that there was a path to reconciliation but that neither Vučić nor Grabar-Kitarović could lead people on that path as that could be done “by good people who prove their goodness with their lives.”
“The president of Serbia may not be Croatia’s friend but Serbia definitely is a friendly country today, and friendships must be strong enough to survive attempts by people like Grabar-Kitarović and Vučić who would want to undermine that friendship and instrumentalise it for their political goals.” Reconciliation can be started by those hungry for peace and friendship and not those hungry for power, Glavašević said.
Glavašević’s father was a journalist in Vukovar and was killed after the town fell.
Miro Kovač of the HDZ said that Vucic was a legally elected president but that his country would not be able to join the European family of countries before outstanding issues in Croatia-Serbia relations were settled. “He was elected by Serbian citizens and we must talk with Serbia’s legally elected president if we want to resolve the legacy of the war against Croatia,” said Kovač.
“Other countries’ officials meet with Vučić, too… if we want to settle outstanding issues regarding the legacy of the war and aggression against Croatia, we can do it only with him,” said Kovač, confident that all outstanding issues would be resolved in relations between Zagreb and Belgrade and the EU and Serbia.
MOST party MP Miro Bulj said that a legal protest by veterans’ widows was banned yesterday, wondering why that was so. “Shame on her (Grabar-Kitarović) for describing those who gave their lives as politically marginal, shame on her and the entire system for making a decision to ban the widows’ protest,” said Bulj, among other things.
Bulj insisted that Vučić should have gone also to Glina, where he delivered a war-mongering speech in 1995, to offer his apology to local Serbs whom he “forced to do evil.”
