BELGRADE, Sept 9 (Hina) - Despite the fact that the Statute of the "Hrvatska rijec" publishing company was included in the agenda of the Vojvodina Assembly, which has adopted a suggestion to again finance the company, Croatian
national institutions and organisations in Vojvodina are still functioning in "very unfavourable conditions", the chairman of the company's management board, Tomislav Zigmanov, told Novi Sad's daily "Gradjanski list".
BELGRADE, Sept 9 (Hina) - Despite the fact that the Statute of the
"Hrvatska rijec" publishing company was included in the agenda of
the Vojvodina Assembly, which has adopted a suggestion to again
finance the company, Croatian national institutions and
organisations in Vojvodina are still functioning in "very
unfavourable conditions", the chairman of the company's management
board, Tomislav Zigmanov, told Novi Sad's daily "Gradjanski list".
#L#
The Croatian community in Vojvodina (a Yugoslav province) gathers
74,808 people according to the last 1991 census, but the numbers
"are rather problematic because the census was carried out in an
atmosphere of general disacknowledgment of the Croatian national
community and in the midst of the anti-Croatian hysteria," Zigmanov
said.
He added that at the time many Croatians proclaimed themselves to be
Yugoslav, while a number of them moved out of Vojvodina due to
various pressures. Only the results of a recently carried out
census will show the number of Croatians in Vojvodina, he said.
Since Milosevic (former Yugoslav president) was replaced in 2000,
the state has not been pressurising the Croatian community, and the
attitude towards the Croatian minority is "generally positive",
but there are still problems in the "sphere of society". "There are
occurrences which are doing nobody any good", he said.
Within the Croatian community itself, certain initiatives are
being carried out "without consensus or agreement," Zigmanov
said.
(hina) lml