ZAGREB, November 8, 2019 – Croatia on Friday protested to Serbian authorities over a monument commemorating a Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) general who led the attack on Vukovar in 1991 and called on Belgrade to stop glorifying war crimes.
The memorial plaque to Mladen Bratić, commander of JNA and Serbian para-miltiary forces during the attack on Vukovar, was unveiled in a Serbian army complex in the northern city of Novi Sad on Friday.
Bratić was killed on 2 November 1991 at Borovo Naselje, a suburb of the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar which was occupied by Serbian forces on 18 November after killing over 2,000 people there.
In a diplomatic note presented to the Serbian Embassy in Zagreb, the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs condemned this act and called on Serbian authorities to stop playing down and glorifying war crimes.
“Serbia is once again called upon to focus on the process of facing its own past and its role in the war it initiated in the 1990s,” the Croatian ministry said. Such decisions and moves by Serbian authorities go against Croatia’s efforts to build good neighbourly relations, it added.
Following criticism of Serbia’s plan to unveil a memorial plaque for Yugoslav Army Major General Mladen Bratić, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić on Friday in Geneva said that Croatia has streets named after Mile Budak, a writer who served as a minister in the NDH governments.
The unveiling of a memorial plaque in the Serbian army complex in Novi Sad to Bratić has come across criticism in Croatia but also in civil society activists in Serbia. The plaque has been described as “unacceptable and incomprehensible,” and “mocking the victims of war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide committed in the 1990s.”
“Reporters from Serbia asked me how it can be that Croatian reporters can ask that of me when there are streets named after Mile Budak in Croatia,” Vučić said. Budak was a minister in the Nazi-style Ustasha regime in Croatia from 1941 to 1945 and he is also known for his literary work.
Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenković announced that Croatia would send Serbia a protest note regarding the plaque honouring Bratić.
Earlier in the day Croatia’s Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Gordan Grlić Radman condemned Serbia’s actions.
“Unveiling a memorial plaque to a war criminal, certainly doesn’t contribute to stabilisation and good-neighbourly relations. That direction in Serbia’s foreign policy is unacceptable and incomprehensible,” Grlić Radman told reporters in Rijeka.
A coalition of non-government organisations in Vojvodina known as Civic Vojvodina described the unveiling of the plaque as “a mockery of the victims of war crimes, ethnic cleansing and genocide in the 1990s.” the “021.rs” web portal reported on Thursday.
Civic Vojvodina condemned the planned unveiling, saying in a press release that Bratić “commanded the attacks on and destruction of Vukovar, which was one of the most shameful military operations in the history of modern warfare, leaving an indelible stain on (northern Serbian province of) Vojvodina’s capital.”
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