The Croatian war of independence ended almost 30 years ago. However, EU and NATO members have estimated that certain questions resulting from the conflict had not been entirely filed.
On Wednesday, the deputies voted massively in favor of new legislation called the Law on the cemetery, replacing the policy of two decades by a new set of rules which now require the abolition of inscriptions and plates of the cemetery erected during the 1991-1995 conflict “not in accordance with the constitutional order”.
The new law, as explained in a press release published by the Ministry of Physical Planning, Construction and Assets of the State, prohibits the inscriptions carried out during “the occupation and peaceful reintegration” and contains “symbols which could offend the morals and feelings of citizens”.
The law targets in particular the tombstones carried out after May 30, 1990 – the day when the former socialist Republic of Croatia inaugurated its first multipartite parliament, a first step on its way to the independence of the rest of Yugoslavia.
His ethnic Serbian minority, supported by Belgrade and the nationalist regime of Slobodan Milošević, more and more in disagreement with the push of Croatian President Franjo Tuđman for independence.
The ethnic Serbs, which at the time were the greatest minority in Croatia and represented some 12.2% of the population according to the 1991 census, quickly declared the state of the Republika Srpska Krajina, or the Republic of Krajina Serb in the east of the country.
In April 1991, the armed rebellion turned into a full -fledged war, with the newly founded Croatian armed forces on one side and the rebels, the paramilitaries and the troops of the Yugoslav People's Army on the other.
A series of initial skirmishes and seats made it possible to lose cities like Vukovar in northeast Croatia and led to an international dead end on the community supervised by United Nations peacekeepers.
However, in 1995, the operations of the Croatian army grouped and rearmed, clarifying the war respectively by pushing the Serbian forces – and most of the ethnic Serbian population – of its territory.
Now, the new law plans to remove all the commemorative monuments glorifying either the Republika Srpska Krajina, or by celebrating enemy forces otherwise, including referring to Croatia as “Serbian lands”.
The legislation stipulates that any citizen can point out a tombstone, a plaque or another monument as potentially problematic. If it is judged at fault, owners of conspiracies or the parents of these buried will have 30 days to modify the registration. Otherwise, they would be faced with a fine of € 1,000 to € 5,000.
The decision on what could be in violation of the law will be in the hands of a local commission, made up of five independent members, including a historian, an art historian and a lawyer.
Earlier in April, the Minister of Construction, Spatial Development and Property of the Branko Bačić State declared that the modifications of the law had been caused by the fact that “after the occupation of part of Croatia during the War of the Fatherland, certain tombs, monuments and commemorative plaques remained with inappropriate names contrary to the constitutional and legal order of the Republic of Croatia”.
'We are afraid of what could disturb you then'
The representatives of the Serbian minorities had to explode the new legislation, arguing that it has transformed a community question into a political question.
The legislative Milorad Pupovac, of the SDSS party, previously criticized the law, claiming that it creates an impression that Croatia was “marked by cemeteries (Serbian nationalists)”, which, according to him, was not true.
ADVERTISEMENT“There are people who are embarrassed by symbols associated with the ideology and the idea of Ustasha, which can also be found in certain cemeteries, but also outside cemeteries on monuments, and they offer their religious and national feelings,” he declared during a session of Parliament at the end of April, referring to the Croatian Nazi colorial units and the law of the world and the law of the world and the to other memorials, which do not make the World War Act and their tombstones and other memorials.
While his party was in favor of eliminating the disturbing remains of the 1991-1995 war, Pupovac added: “We are now afraid of what could disturb you then”.
It is not the first time in recent years that the Croatian authorities have been trying to tackle this sensitive problem.
In August 2024, a judge of the city of Zadar on the Adriatic coast inflicted a fine of two Croatian citizens who are singers in a local folk group on references to the Republika Srpska Krajina and Serbian participation in war.
ADVERTISEMENTIn his justification, the judge said that “the songs with this content cause disorders among citizens, especially among citizens directly exposed to the suffering of war” and “disturb the coexistence of Croatian citizens of Croatia and the citizens of Serbian ethnicity”.
Most ethnic Serbs did not return to Croatia after the Storm operation, and the minority now represents around 3.2% of the population of Croatia, according to the 2021 census.
