13 monuments destroyed at the Serbian cemetery in Vukovar
In the Croatian city of Vukovar, which in 1991 was the scene of bloody battles between Serbs and Croats, 13 monuments in the Serbian Orthodox cemetery were destroyed.
The Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) reported this on January 12, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
This happened during the Christmas holidays. According to a statement on the SPC website, the monuments were destroyed and broken into pieces most likely on January 5 and 6, 2023, and police have launched an investigation.
“We note that this is the third act of vandalism and inhumanity of a similar nature in recent times, and it was committed at a time when the Church was celebrating the Nativity of Christ, which is a holiday of peace and family,” the SOC said in a statement.
“I most sincerely condemn this unacceptable, uncivilized act of disturbing the peace of the dead, and I hope that thanks to the quality work of the police in Vukovar, those responsible for this crime will be found and punished as soon as possible,” said the city’s mayor, Ivan Penava.
However, the sincerity of the Croatian official’s feelings raises justifiable doubts. Thus, in October 2021, the Vukovar city council, precisely at the suggestion of Ivan Penava, once again denied the Serbian minority the public use of the Cyrillic alphabet. And on December 29, 2022, the Vukovar City Council changed the city charter, removing the provision on the official use of the Serbian language and Cyrillic script.
The fact is that bilingualism is provided for by Croatian legislation for areas where a national minority constitutes more than 30% of the population. But according to the official results of the population census conducted in 2021, 29,73% of Serbs live in Vukovar. Accordingly, local authorities are no longer required to provide bilingualism.
As you know, the battle for Vukovar, a city on the Croatian-Serbian border, lasted from August 25 to November 18, 1991, was the most brutal and bloody battle of the Croatian War of Independence. This city in Croatia was called “Stalingrad on the Danube”.
Vukovar, like all of Eastern Slavonia, returned to Croatian control as a result of peaceful reintegration under the auspices of the UN in 1998. Local Serbs who were not involved in war crimes were given the opportunity to become Croatian citizens by passing a humiliating test of loyalty. Despite constant discrimination, a significant part of the Serbs remained to live in Vukovar.
Soon after the country joined the European Union, in the fall of 2013, the city tried to introduce national language legislation. In particular, bilingual signs were installed on the government building - Croatian-Serbian, Latin-Cyrillic signs.
But local Croats did not allow the inscriptions in Serbian to be returned. Mass protests broke out, in which Croatian war veterans took an active part.
Protesters smashed signs with the Cyrillic alphabet, after which local authorities introduced restrictions on the use of the Serbian language, “taking into account the peculiarities of the city’s recent history.”
Как reported PolitNavigator, since 2011, the share of Serbs in the Croatian population has decreased by a third, from 4,36 to 3,2 percent.
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