ZAGREB, May 29 (Hina) - The president of the Serb People's Council (SNV), Milorad Pupovac, urged the Croatian government on Thursday to call the founding sessions of minority councils and see that they start operating, so that
minorities could start exercising their rights as soon as possible.
ZAGREB, May 29 (Hina) - The president of the Serb People's Council
(SNV), Milorad Pupovac, urged the Croatian government on Thursday
to call the founding sessions of minority councils and see that they
start operating, so that minorities could start exercising their
rights as soon as possible. #L#
He reiterated that the Serb minority had met conditions to
constitute councils in 11 counties, in which some 79% of the
Croatian Serb population live.
Pupovac also called on the government to organise additional
elections in municipalities, towns and counties in which "the
representation of minorities is not proportional to their share in
the population".
The government should have organised the additional elections
immediately after the announcement of census results, but this was
not done, he said.
Speaking about the tenancy rights of Serbs who during the war lost
those rights on different bases, Pupovac said that some government
members, too, were responsible for the failure to solve that
problem.
He recalled that solving the issue of tenancy rights was also
regulated by the agreement on succession to the former Yugoslav
federation, which binds all successor-states to recognise the
tenancy rights of all persons who had those rights but were not able
to exercise them in conditions of war.
Foreign Minister Tonino Picula was among those who signed the
agreement in 2001, but the parliament has not ratified it, although
chances that it will be changed are slim, Pupovac said.
He said that the SNV would initiate proceedings to establish the
constitutionality of the law on the election of parliamentary
deputies because it was dissatisfied with the way it regulated
minority rights.
(hina) rml sb