Croatia will not stop search for disappeared

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said in Glina on Monday that Croatia would not stop the search for the disappeared,and it would insist on cooperation with Serbia so that information from their archives wouldn't only be recycled knowledge, but fresh information to ease the issue of the disappeared.

In Glina at the event marking the International Day of the Disappeared and Remembrance Day for persons gone missing in the Homeland War, Plenković recalled Vlado Gotovac's historic speech 30 years ago in front the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) 5th Military District Command in Zagreb, when he said that "the aggressor generals will die in the desolation of their dead hearts and their families will be ashamed of them".

In this regard, the prime minister said today could be called "the day of the call of conscience" and that in that sense Gotovac's words sounded even stronger today.

"There's no faltering, we won't stop searching for the 1,858 disappeared and killed persons," the prime minister said.

On behalf of the federation of associations of families whose members disappeared in the 1991-1995 Homeland War, the federation's leader Ljiljana Alvir said some had been looking for their family members for 26 years, some for 30, many had died and some had no more strength and were tormented they would have to pass the search on to their children or grandchildren. She addressed the EU saying: Protect us, we are part of the European family, do not let this issue be overlooked.

She asked Croatian institutions to be tougher with Serbia, because as she said, "there are no concessions until this issue is resolved, there is no excuse for Serbia joining the European Union".

She told everyone who has information about the suffering of the disappeared, about individual graves, mass graves, relocated graves to contact institutions and share the information.

"If you're concerned about your own and the safety of your family, if someone is threatening you, there are ways to deliver the information," Alvir said.

FM: Revealing truth about 1,858 disappeared precondition for progress in relations with Serbia

Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman laid a wreath on behalf of the government at the Suza (Tear) monument in Glina ahead of the meeting.

He told Hina there was evidence of murders, war crimes, perpetrators had to be held accountable, there were archives of detainees and the disappeared and mass graves and they should be available to the Croatian judiciary.

"Revealing the truth about the 1,858 disappeared and punishing the perpetrators of crimes against them is a precondition for progress in relations with Serbia," Grlić Radman said.

He said that as the minister of foreign affairs he was using every opportunity of the forum on human rights and with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and at the human rights committees of the United Nations, as the universal guardian of international order and peace, "to let it be heard that Serbia was a country which bears the guilt and responsibility of Milošević's regime and that it should cooperate".

He stressed that it wasn't only a bilateral issues but an issue of the EU acquis, that it was difficult to encourage Serbia's activity, that they didn't want that and that in fact, "Serbia should face the past also in the interest of its future, to free future generations from that guilt, so that the burden of resolving the issue of the disappeared and compensating detainees is not left to them, but that they open their archives and thus achieve justice and facilitate our relations".

Text: Hina

News