ZAGREB, Jan 29(Hina) - Serb People's Party (SNS) leader Milan Djukic said on Thursday he would put forward a proposal to Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, which he called "a final solution to the Serb issue", to fully integrate the Serb
community into civil society on the basis of the Constitution rather than separate laws.
ZAGREB, Jan 29(Hina) - Serb People's Party (SNS) leader Milan Djukic
said on Thursday he would put forward a proposal to Prime Minister Ivo
Sanader, which he called "a final solution to the Serb issue", to
fully integrate the Serb community into civil society on the basis of
the Constitution rather than separate laws.#L#
Speaking at a press conference in Zagreb, Djukic said that the
post-election agreement between the ruling Croatian Democratic Union
(HDZ) and the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) was humiliating
to the Serb people.
Djukic, whose party failed to enter parliament in last year's
election, cited examples of the difficult position of Serbs in
Croatia, saying that in local self-administration units the HDZ had
begun replacing staff with its own people. If there are not enough HDZ
personnel, the positions are not filled by Serbs but are rather left
vacant, he added.
Djukic said that Sanader used the HDZ-SDSS agreement to convince the
international community that the HDZ had been reformed into a
democratic party under his leadership in comparison to the nationalist
HDZ that had ruled until 2000.
"Serbs do not need separate laws guaranteeing them the use of their
language, script and schools, because that is guaranteed by the
Constitution. Serbs should have equal rights as citizens of Croatia,
without additional rights to protection, and they do not need
so-called national councils that mean nothing in practice," Djukic
said.
Djukic said that his party did not support minority representatives
joining the coalition with the HDZ and the government until Croatia
was defined as a civil state.
(Hina) vm sb