SERBIA SHOULD FIGHT FOR TRUTH ABOUT WAR NATURE AND SERB CIVILIANS' SUFFERINGS IN VUKOVAR

BELGRADE, NOVEMBER 17 /SRNA/ – Serbia should raise the issue of prosecuting the crimes committed against more than 200 Serb civilians in Vukovar from early May to November 18, 1991, and insist that a monument bearing the names of the murdered Serbs be erected there, said Miodrag Linta, the head of the Association of Serbs from the Region, on the occasion of the 34th anniversary of the liberation of that city in Croatia.

He emphasized that Serbia must actively fight for the truth - that the war in Vukovar was initiated by the pro-Ustasha regime of Franjo Tuđman.

Linta recalled that, after May 3, 1991, Croatian paramilitary formations occupied Vukovar and, until the city was taken, killed more than 200 Serb civilians, reads a statement from the Association of Serbs from the Region.

"Only in the period between November 1 and 18, Ustasha forces massacred 52 Serb civilians. The largest crime occurred on November 16, 1991, when 24 civilians were brutally killed, including nine women and four children," Linta specified.

He stressed that no one has been held accountable to this day for the mass crimes against Serb civilians in Vukovar, and that for many years the Croatian authorities in the city have rejected any idea of erecting a memorial to the Serb civilians killed before and during the war.

"In Croatia, the mass crimes against Serbs in Vukovar are denied because raising that issue would expose the false myth of the `Homeland War`. Admitting the mass killings of Serb civilians would make it clear that there was no so-called `Greater Serb aggression` in Vukovar, but rather that Croatian paramilitary formations, acting on Tuđman's orders, intended to start a war and ethnically cleanse Vukovar of Serbs," Linta said.

Linta pointed out that the decision to start the war in Vukovar was made by Tuđman's pro-Ustasha regime because it was clear that only through war could the city and municipality be ethnically cleansed of Serbs.

Croatian paramilitary formations, led by Tomislav Merčep, began targeting Serbs in Vukovar in early 1991, when Serb-owned cafés and Borba kiosks started being bombed.