Selaković: Brutal media and political campaign against President Vučić in Croatia

25. May 2022.
A brutal political and media campaign against President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić has been launched in the Republic of Croatia because he took the only possible position on the crimes committed against members of the Serbian population. This is primarily a universal position to defend humanity, i.e. European and Christian values, we have adopted, and only secondarily is it the Serbian position.

In relation to the unmistakable crime such as the attack of the Croatian aviation on Serbian civilians on Petrovačka cesta (Petrovačka road), there should be no Serb(ian) or Croat(ian) views or any political fervours and calculations, and the perpetrators must be prosecuted and punished if proven guilty, in the name of what should be both Serbian and Croatian values. It is worrying, however, that certain influential politicians in Croatia are not putting in efforts to create a healthy and a humane attitude in their society towards war crimes and the suffering of innocents, and that they do not understand that standing up for war criminals, which may bring them short-term political gain, is not in the interest of society.

The justification for the crimes provided by the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts is even more serious, calling one of the most monstrous and the largest mass crimes in the Second World War the “Jasenovac myth”. When the Croatian political, cultural, and intellectual elite denies or relativises crimes committed by smaller or larger groups of individuals in wars, it raises the question how the next generations of Croatian citizens could be taught and enabled to build new relations with Serbia and its citizens without the burden of crimes for which they assume no responsibility.

This also raises the question how it is possible that the European Union accepted as a full member a country in which influential parts of the social and political elite do not show elementary decency in relation to the grave and irrefutable crimes. Serbia and its President obviously do not share values with this Croatian elite, and, in the continuation of the EU-integration process, we will insist on getting a clear explanation of whether the denial of crime is an EU value. If it is, we will clearly state that it is not and will never be a value held by Serbia.