BERAK RETURNEES INSIST BERAK, May 9 (Hina) - Croatian returnees staged a peaceful protest rally in the village of Berak, located in the area between Vinkovci and Vukovar, which lasted from Friday evening to 03.00 pm Saturday. Some 300
Croats staged the rally in front of houses of several Serb families in the village, whom they suspect of complicity in killings and harassment of Croatian villagers during the Serb aggression against Croatia and occupation of this eastern village. Returnees decided to protest in the wake of the recent exhumations in the village of Berak and the municipality of Tompojevci. We demand that someone will be finally held accountable for war crimes committed in Berak and the entire municipality of Tompojevci. Those who committed crimes against Croats, are today walking calmly through the village, but we cannot accept it calmly any more, protesters said. T
BERAK, May 9 (Hina) - Croatian returnees staged a peaceful protest
rally in the village of Berak, located in the area between Vinkovci
and Vukovar, which lasted from Friday evening to 03.00 pm
Saturday.
Some 300 Croats staged the rally in front of houses of several Serb
families in the village, whom they suspect of complicity in
killings and harassment of Croatian villagers during the Serb
aggression against Croatia and occupation of this eastern
village.
Returnees decided to protest in the wake of the recent exhumations
in the village of Berak and the municipality of Tompojevci.
We demand that someone will be finally held accountable for war
crimes committed in Berak and the entire municipality of
Tompojevci. Those who committed crimes against Croats, are today
walking calmly through the village, but we cannot accept it calmly
any more, protesters said.
They added that the tension between Croat returnees and local
Serbs, whom returnees suspect of having committed war crimes, has
simmered. The start of exhumations in the area has stirred up
emotions, and Croatian returnees are indignant at the fact that
criminal proceedings for war crimes have been instigated against no
Serb from Berak where a mass grave was discovered two days ago.
Berak's 28 residents are still registered as missing persons. Their
whereabouts have been unknown since the occupation of the village.
Croatia's government commission for detainees and missing people,
whose teams are exhuming dead bodies from the recently discovered
mass grave in Berak, assess that remains of some of those missing
villagers may be found in that grave.
This grave in Berak is 114th discovered such grave in Croatia. On
Thursday and Friday, remains of several people were disinterred.
Mayor of the municipality of Tompojevci, Stanko Penavic, addressed
the rally at about 02.00 pm Saturday.
Believing that they managed to draw the attention of the Croatian
public to problems which they were facing during their return,
Croatian protesters dispelled peacefully at about 03.00 pm.
There was no incident during the rally.
(hina) ms