PICULA AND OTHERS SHOULD SAY WHEN DISCRIMINATION AGAINST SERBS IN CROATIA WILL END

BELGRADE, JANUARY 20 /SRNA/ - The Belgrade-based Zavičaj Association of Refugees, Displaced and Settled Persons has stated that the European Parliament's rapporteur for Serbia Tonino Picula and other Members of the European Parliament who are soon arriving in Belgrade should answer a series of questions regarding decades-long discrimination by Croatia against Serbs, as well as the criminal Croatian military Operation Storm and its consequences.

The Association said that the Serbian public is primarily interested in when the EU will suspend Croatia's discriminatory laws against displaced Serbs - those related to residence, agricultural land and property ownership - given that the Croatian state has registered ownership over 800,000 cadastral parcels, often without the owners of Serbian nationality even being aware of it. They also asked why Article 180 of the Law on Obligations was abolished, thereby preventing compensation for the owners of more than 10,000 houses destroyed in terrorist actions by the Croatian army. "We also want to ask about unpaid pensions to pensioners of Serbian nationality, and about the damage caused in the criminal Operation Storm, which exceeds 40 billion dollars, as well as about the ethnic cleansing of the Serbian people in the 20th century," the statement from the Zavičaj Association said. Among the questions is why Croatian authorities do not allow Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to visit Jasenovac. One of the questions also concerns Picula's wartime role, given that he was a member of a Croatian army unit responsible for the killing of Serbian civilians in Dvor on the Una River, many of whom were seriously ill and confined to wheelchairs. The Association also sent a message to Vladimir Prebilič, a Member of the European Parliament from the Green group, who had requested to be welcomed in Serbia with bread and salt, reminding him that during World War II the Serbian people sheltered around 40,000 of his compatriots, fed them and saved them from destruction by Nazi Germany and its collaborators - only to have good repaid with evil. "They repaid us by killing young soldiers, expelling entire Serbian families, denying Serbs the right to have the status of a national minority, even though there are more than 100,000 of them in Slovenia. Let him explain why Serbs were erased from citizenship," the Association said. The Association noted that these are only some of the questions being directed at the European parliamentarians, from whom they are seeking answers, although they know they will not receive them. "We know they will not, because they know how corrupt they are. And whoever wants to talk to you may do so - sincere Serbian patriots will not," the Association stated. A delegation of European parliamentarians is scheduled to arrive in Belgrade on Thursday, January 22. Serbian officials have previously said that the visit is unannounced, as the European Parliament did not consult state institutions.