SUBOTICA, Feb 15 (Hina) - The Croat community in Serbia's northern region of Vojvodina sees a recent indictment filed against Serb radical leader Vojislav Seselj for crimes against humanity and breaches of the laws and customs of war
as consolation for the fear and terror they were subjected to during the 1990s.
SUBOTICA, Feb 15 (Hina) - The Croat community in Serbia's northern
region of Vojvodina sees a recent indictment filed against Serb
radical leader Vojislav Seselj for crimes against humanity and
breaches of the laws and customs of war as consolation for the fear
and terror they were subjected to during the 1990s. #L#
Tomislav Zigmanov, an eminent Vojvodina Croat publicist, said on
Saturday the indictment was a big step in the serving of justice,
which he said had just started happening there. He hoped it would
console all who had been the victims of violence and more radical
forms of human rights violations at the hands of Seselj and his
followers.
According to data of the Democratic Alliance of Croats in Vojvodina
(DSHV), about 45,000 have been expelled from Serbia since 1990, of
whom about 40,000 now live in Croatia and the rest elsewhere.
This party also has documents about more than 100 bombings carried
out between 1991 and 1995 whose targets were Croat houses, as well
as data about missing persons and the killing, torture, and
expulsion of Croats from Beska, Sonta, Hrtkovci, Novi Slankamen,
Sombor, Vajska, and other places in Vojvodina.
There are also many papers describing cases of arson, the seizing of
Catholic churches and other sacral facilities in Vojvodina's
Srijem and West Backa regions.
DSHV president Bela Tonkovic said the time had come to talk about
these things. "We do not accept the collective guilt of any one
people, but those who obstructed co-existence have to be brought to
justice."
Vice president Josip Gabric maintains that Seselj, as the leader of
Serbian extremists, should be held individually responsible for
the crimes that were part of a systematic attack on Croats.
He spoke of cases which instilled fear in Vojvodina's non-Serbs,
including one in the early 1990s when Seselj, in a war uniform,
raided a hospital in Srijemska Kamenica and expelled the entire
staff and all Croatian patients.
(hina) ha