TOJAGIĆ: CROATIAN GOVERNMENT STARTED SHOWDOWN WITH DEAD SERBS

BANJA LUKA, MAY 2 /SRNA/ - After adoption of the Law on Cemeteries, Croatia opened a new stage of reckoning with the wartime past, where after the exodus of the living, we are also facing the elimination of dead Serbs, political analyst Nebojša Tojagić told SRNA.

"There are almost no living Serbs in Croatia today and they no longer represent a problem. What remains is the reckoning with the dead and the elimination of Serbs from the cadastre and property books. It is questionable what else will bother the newly formed Commissions and whether the Cyrillic alphabet will be a problem for them. I hope not," said Tojagić, who has roots in Serbian regions in Croatia.

He stressed that this decision by the Parliament deserves a strong reaction. According to him, Croatia is also working on a list of cemeteries, with the aim of better organizing and collecting fees for them, which could be a new problem.

"The number of Serbs who pay maintenance is relatively small, with a tendency to be even fewer of them. This is institutional discrimination and a continuation of the policy of pressure on Serbs," Tojagić assessed.

Commenting on the adoption of the Law on Cemeteries, SDSS MP in the Croatian Parliament Anja Šimpraga stated that it "opens Pandora's box".

This considers about 40 monuments, most of which were erected during the war and post-war years by the families of the Serb victims.

His Eminence Metropolitan Photius of Zvornik-Tuzla criticized what he called the latest "underground Storm" in Croatia, whose goal is to "throw Serbian bones out of their graves".

The Croatian Parliament has adopted the Law on Cemeteries, which provides for the removal of monuments erected after May 30, 1990, if the inscriptions on them offend the religious, moral and national feelings of citizens.

Specifically, these are monuments erected to members of the former Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, which are located in cemeteries throughout Croatia.

After the law came into force, a 30-day deadline was set for the tombstones, which mostly feature photographs of fallen Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina soldiers and are written in Cyrillic, to be removed. If the owners of the graves fail to do so within the stipulated period, they will be fined between 1,000 and 5,000 euros.