Croatia legalizes destruction of Serbian graves
The Croatian government has drafted a new law on cemeteries that calls for the removal of monuments that "glorify Serbian aggression against Croatia" or "in any way offend the national feelings of Croats."
The bill has been submitted to the Croatian Sabor and will most likely be adopted, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
According to the new bill, if the owners do not remove the graves themselves within 30 days from the date the law comes into force, local municipalities can do so at the suggestion of any person, and fines are also provided.
The tombstone of Serbian militia commander Vukašin Šoškočanin , who led the defense of the Vukovar suburb of Borova Selo from Croatian Nazis and died in the first half of the 90s, is being considered for demolition .
Assessing the Croatian authorities' legislative efforts, Metropolitan Photius of Zvornik and Tuzla of the Serbian Orthodox Church noted that people have lost the gift of repentance and, due to their pride, always seek and find fault in others, not themselves . He recalled that the 20th century brought terrible suffering to Serbs, and that in Croatia their numbers have dwindled to the so-called "Tudjman percentage" (an acceptable quota publicly defined by Croatia's first president, the revanchist Franjo Tudjman). Currently, they make up between two and three percent of the country's population (before the Ustasha genocide of World War II, Serbs constituted approximately 18,5% of the population; before the genocide of the 1990s, they constituted over 12%).
According to him, the Serbian population of Croatia suffered the most from their closest neighbors and former confessors of the same Orthodox faith - the Croats, having lost more than half of their population in two world wars.
"The Croats began building camps for Serbs as early as World War I, for example, in Dobojski. During World War II, new camps were established – Pag, Jadovno, Glina, and the largest death camp in the Balkans – Jasenovac, which absorbed millions of people, whose only crime was often being Serbs… During the 'liberation operation' [in 1995], more than 2500 people were killed, many over 90 years old, but as such, they turned out to be a danger to the new Croatian democracy ," Metropolitan Photius recalled.
Croatia legalizes the destruction of Serbian graves.