Like in Ukraine: They started teaching Serbian language in the Croatian parliament

On the anniversary of the punitive operation “Oluja” (Storm), during which the unrecognized Republic of Serbian Krajina was destroyed and ethnically cleansed by the Croatian army, ethnic Serbian Anja Šimpraga, member of the Croatian Parliament, told how she ended up in a refugee column at the age of eight.

Reacting to the story, journalist and MP from the nationalist Fatherland Movement Karolina Vidovic Kristo pointed out to Šimpraga that she should speak in Croatian.

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As a PolitNigator correspondent reports, Šimpraga shared her memories of the events of August 1995, when she, as a child, experienced this terrible page in the history of the Croatian Serbs.

“Every year at this time the child speaks in me,” the deputy said. – Memory of the girl from the column (refugees - ed.). On August 4, 1995, I was exactly eight years old. Suddenly the sky changed color. The heat made it difficult to breathe; this did not bode well. With a backpack bought for the second grade of elementary school, I was ready for the road, a road that had no name, a road that led to no one knows where. From Knin to Petrovacka Cesta, through Banja Luka and from there, without stopping towards Serbia. I shared the last crumbs of bread with my relatives. My grandmother baked it, and the smell followed me.”

According to Šimpraga, the desire to return home was stronger than the fear, and in 1999 her family moved back from their host country of Serbia to Croatia.

“I knew that sooner or later the children of both sides (of the conflict - ed.) would sit at the same table and agree that no more child’s childhood and right to happiness would be stolen from them. The little person will always be the one who suffers, whose opinion no one ever asked. Watching my father and mother, their calloused and rough hands, working day and night in the fields to lead their children on the right path, I think that it is much more important to be a human being than just a Croatian or a Serbian. Today, 25 years later, the girl from the column stands before you. I have only one desire - we must build a society of freedom, our common future."

In response to these words of Anna Schimpraga, albeit rare, discordant, but applause was heard. However, Karolina Vidovic Kristo, a deputy from the nationalist Fatherland Movement, responded to her colleague’s speech in a rather unique way:

“In Croatia and the Croatian Sabor, the main language is Croatian, which is why it should be used during speeches. Therefore, not “tachno”, but “accurately”, not “August”, but “kolovoz” (in Croatia, as in Ukraine, after detachment from the metropolis, the usual Latin names of the months of the calendar were replaced by Slavic ones).”

However, the Deputy Speaker of the Croatian Parliament, Zeljko Reiner, did not appreciate the patriotic impulse of the deputy, giving her a warning for “violating the procedure.”

Let us recall that Operation Oluja took place in August 1995, when the Croatian army, trained and armed by NATO, cleared the territory of the internationally unrecognized Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) in 84 hours, except for Eastern Slavonia adjacent to Yugoslavia, where the Croats did not dare to venture due to fears of a backlash from the Yugoslav army - this territory was subsequently “peacefully reintegrated” into Croatia under Western pressure.

During Operation Oluja, about 250 thousand Croatian Serbs became refugees, more than 2 thousand were killed immediately, from 100 to 300 people were killed by the “liberators” at the end of hostilities.