Croatia: Majority (Croat) Rights Vs. Minority (Serb) Rights

A big black spot for the conscience of the European citizen, with incomprehension for such killings, while the media watched but a insufficiently strong UN action drove an unwelcome number of victims outrageously to death.

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To remember

• November 2013: Vukovar council proclaiming Vukovar “city of special significance” exempt from Croatian minority rights legislation <= suffered when besieged + destroyed by Serbian forces in 1991.
  

  UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (centre) surrounded by Albanian refugees as he speaks with media correspondents at a refugee camp in Macedonia, 1999.

• August 2015, Vukovar changed town statute > collective rights of Serb minority [re street signs, government building signs etc.) to be ensured when conditions are met => councillors in Vukovar of Serb extraction could get documents issued in Serbian Cyrillic language/script
• 2 July 2019: Constitutional Court decision overturned some of the Vukovar Town Council statue change> Vukovar City councillors from Serb ethnic minority = same conditions as councillors of Croatian ethnicity.=> Council meeting minutes, agendas etc. official documents in their own language & available in Serbian Cyrillic script.
• Constitutional Court of Croatia misses beat of its own country’s heart > reason victory over brutal Serb aggression in Homeland War => undermining of its defining morality + character> beacons for justice + democracy.
•  minority rights taken out of context of national suffering + need to pursue justice for victims of brutal aggression=> major problems + discontent => blatant unfairness at basic human level
• Croatia battles a political crisis with overtures of restructure of its government
• Serb minority rights claims in hot seat => requires determination + resolve to end Serb provocation in Croatia
• constitutional courts’ success in protecting democracy = measured by their jurisprudential record – performance according to legal professional standards of appropriate decision-making => courts  essentially reactive institutions
• constitutional courts should be seen as political institutions with  capacity to adjust their decisions according to their likely effects.
• most judges still sitting in that court in Croatia = remnants of the Yugoslav communist minds political pull or effects of Constitutional Court judgments > Yugo-nostalgia rather than independent Croatia.=> still be gasping + pleading for justice + human fairness towards  enormous number of victims of Serb aggression.
• Friday 19 July 2019: Ivan Penava, Mayor of Vukovar,  accused sections of Croatian society of turning their heads away from the Homeland War + its victims.
• thousands of those killed + imprisoned, of hundreds that were raped +  again of thousands of displaced people, of those whose rights were denied them > unfortunately too late for any kind of justice
• Miroslav Separovic, President of the Constitutional Court >Vukovar Town Council will have to extend level of rights of the Serbian ethnic minority + court will not tolerate any delays because nothing has been done so far.
• Friday 19 July, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic points to Article 8 of the Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities = rights must be interpreted + applied with aim of respecting minorities + the Croat people, developing understanding, solidarity, tolerance and dialogue among them <>fundamental human rights neglected = necessary prerequisites for expansion of special rights = democratic standard in Croatia not been procured + bad to delay them.
• Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic called for same criteria to be applied to proceedings against war crimes suspects + declaration by appropriate authorities regarding those cannot be delayed
• inconceivable nobody been made responsible for massacre at Borovo Selo + 30,000 concentration camp detainees  missing
• call for patience + consideration = Vukovar still treating its wounds

 

 

Croatia, the War, and the Future

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, President of Croatia (L)
Ivan Penava, Mayor of Vukovar (R)
Photo: uredpredsjednice.hr

When the Constitutional Court of Croatia (of any country) evidently and blatantly misses the beat of its own country’s heart (and reason for existence – in the case of Croatia that reason is victory over brutal Serb aggression in the Homeland War) then one could justly pose the question of whether the nation should permit such undermining of its defining morality and character that are the beacons for justice and, if you like, full democracy. When minority rights are taken out of the context of national suffering and the need to pursue justice for the victims of brutal aggression, one inevitably ends up with major problems and discontent; and blatant unfairness at the basic human level. And so, while on the one hand Croatia battles a political crisis with overtures of restructure of its government, Serb…

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