Speaking at a press conference in Belgrade on Tuesday ahead of the 12th anniversary of the Croatian military operation "Storm", which crushed the Serb rebellion in Croatia in August 1995, Union leader Branislav Svonja said that "only under international pressure will Croatia do something about Serb refugees and displaced persons."
"Legitimate Serb representatives, Milorad Pupovac in particular, are doing great damage to the Serb people in Croatia, because they support the Croatian government and are doing nothing, and they are not informing the public about what is going on there," he added.
Svonja went on to say that government officials in Serbia were not responding to some of the problems faced by Serb refugees returning to Croatia, urging them to protect the Serbs in Croatia.
Svonja said that Croatia should restore to Serb returnees their tenancy rights, their property and their right to pension, and that it should ensure sustainable return for all Serb refugees and displaced persons.
Citing figures from the Serbian Commission for Refugees, Svonja said that 40,000 ethnic Serbs in Croatia had no tenancy rights and that the pension issue had not yet been dealt with for 20,000 of them.
Union leaders said they would organise a protest rally outside the Croatian Embassy in Belgrade at 0930 hours on August 4, the anniversary of Operation Storm.