DUŠAN TRIVUNČIĆ'S REMAINS EXHUMED AND REBURIED IN NOVI SAD

NOVI SAD, NOVEMBER 7 /SRNA/ - The remains of MP Dušan Trivunčić, who was abducted and killed by members of Croatian paramilitary formations 35 years ago, have been buried in Novi Sad, Miodrag Linta, President of the Alliance of Serbs from the Region, said.

The funeral was held yesterday, after his family decided to have his remains exhumed in Jasenovac and transferred to Novi Sad because they did not feel welcome or safe in Croatia. Linta said that Trivunčić was forcibly taken from his family home in Jasenovac on September 17, 1991, and that his body was found two days later near Novska, bearing multiple gunshot wounds. According to the testimony of his wife and daughter, four men in uniform arrived outside his family home in a white van on September 17, 1991. After searching the house, they handcuffed him and drove him away to an unknown destination. According to information obtained by the family, members of the Croatian Defense Forces /HOS/ were involved in his abduction and murder. “He was killed simply because he was a Serb and one of the most respected people in his area. No one has been held accountable for this heinous crime to this day, even though the names of those involved in his abduction and murder are known,” Linta said. He said that only a few people attended Trivunčić's funeral in his hometown of Jasenovac in 1991, while his wife and children did not attend for security reasons. “One of the key reasons for this decision was the fact that the family has not seen justice for his murder in all these years. This sends a devastating message about the situation of Serb families who have lost loved ones and whose suffering has been ignored by Croatian institutions for decades,” Linta said. He said that the Croatian judiciary had neither identified nor, let alone, convicted those who ordered and carried out the crime, according to a statement issued by the Alliance of Serbs from the Region. He stressed that the Croatian State Prosecutor's Office still considers the case to be under investigation, which he said was one of many indications that Croatia was failing to meet its basic obligations regarding the rule of law, one of the fundamental values of the EU. He said that many other Serb families whose members were killed during the war in Croatian towns and in the territory of the former Republic of Serbian Krajina had also, unfortunately, been denied justice in Croatia. Trivunčić was elected to the Croatian Parliament in the first multi-party elections in the spring of 1990, as a candidate on the SKH-SDP list. He was a respected agronomist and esteemed resident of Jasenovac. As a child, he survived the Jasenovac concentration camp, where his mother was killed.