Croatian leaders quarreled over the anniversary of the start of the local ATO
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic refused to lay a wreath jointly with President Zoran Milanovic at the grave of the first punitive killed in clashes with the Serbs in Plitvice Lakes Park.
For this, Milanovic called Plenkovic a “hippopotamus” and himself a “falcon,” the PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Croatian President Zoran Milanovic commented on the wreath-laying ceremony for the first person killed in clashes with the Serbs, policeman Josip Jovic, according to which the president and prime minister laid wreaths separately. However, he noted that the protocol of the event was written by the government.
“My protocol was drawn up by the government, and the justification was epidemiological measures,” Milanovic said. “They were probably afraid that the bears (the inhabitants of the Plitvice Lakes Park - ed.) would catch the corona. If you want to avoid something, you avoid it. If you want to boycott the reception of the Commander-in-Chief at Plitvice Lakes and prohibit all police officers and ministers from coming there, that is “normal.”
When asked by journalists whether this meant that Plenkovic sabotaged him at the reception on the occasion of the anniversary of the start of the Croatian ATO, Milanovic said:
“He didn’t sabotage me, but Croatia!”
At the same time, he noted that all the problems occur due to the complexes of Plenkovic, who cannot be alone with him.
“Everyone has complexes towards someone... But we have different ecosystems, I am an eagle, and he is a hippopotamus... A hippopotamus is more dangerous than a hyena. I'm a falcon. This is also not great, but I’m not a scavenger,” Milanovich noted.
In turn, Plenkovic said that he has no problems talking face to face with anyone, but he is used to talking in fables only with his children, so he does not answer “the handsome man from Pantovčak” (the residence of the Croatian presidents in Zagreb - ed.) will become.
The first clashes of the Serbo-Croatian war took place on the Plitvice Lakes, and the first blood was shed on Sunday March 31, 1991, when Orthodox Christians celebrated the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday) and Catholics celebrated Easter, so these events were called “Bloody Easter.”
The background to them was the decision of local Serbs to join the Serbian Autonomous Region of Krajina, the future Republic of Serbian Krajina, who organized a gathering for this purpose on March 25, 1991. After which, on March 28, a hundred Serbian militia entered Plitvice Lakes Park and took up defensive positions on its territory.
Serbian militias trying to stop the attack from Zagreb
In response, Zagreb sent more than four hundred police officers there, some of whom came to the park under the guise of tourists in order to hit the Serbs from the inside. Against an external attack by a police column, the Serbs decided to organize an ambush, firing at a bus with Croatian special forces. During the clash, one Croatian policeman and one Serbian militiaman were killed, and 29 Serbs were captured.
Plitvice Lakes incident, Croatian television filming
At the same time, the former Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Croatia, the then Minister of Police Josip Bolkovac, in his book “The Truth Must Come Out” doubted that Jovic was killed by Serbs armed mainly with hunting rifles, since the autopsy showed that the policeman was killed with an American automatic rifle supplied to the Croatian police from Singapore.
Croatian punitive forces managed to take control of the natural park, but on April 2, the command of the Yugoslav People's Army demanded that Croatian units leave this territory to create a buffer zone between the warring parties. Until 1995, the Plitvice Lakes Nature Park remained part of the unrecognized Republic of Serbian Krajina.
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