At that time, Stanimirovic was deputy chairman of the national committee for the restoration of trust.
"When I visit our people in Lika and Kordun today, they tell me if only they had been wise and accepted the Z4 plan. We weren't much smarter or wiser than them, but we realised that Croatia had become recognised within its international borders and that the only thing we could do was to accept the international agreements that had been signed or move out," he said, adding that the hardest thing was to create a critical mass among the Serb population.
"There were divisions among us Serbs as well. Some wanted to stay and accept the peaceful reintegration process, others wanted to leave and move to Serbia. Such a situation caused problems and it was very difficult to create a critical mass of people to make our side prevail. So we first had to make certain changes in our party on the political front so that we could politically act among the population. Only having done that could we go to elections and make sure that members of the Serb national minority participated in government," said Stanimirovic.
He added that such attempts by the leaders of the Serb community in the Danube River Region were frequently attacked from Serbia and declared as treason. He said such assessments were inappropriate because people did not want to understand what they wanted to achieve.
Stanimirovic pointed to some as yet unsolved issues for Serbs in Vukovar, such as the purchase of flats by former tenancy rights holders and the registration of minority schools.
The peaceful reintegration is a very positive and key event for the peaceful coexistence of all people living in the Danube River Region, according to those who were involved in the process - Stanimirovic, former Vukovar and Ilok mayors Vladimir Stengl and Stipan Kraljevic, and the then chief of the government's office for the re-establishment of Croatian government in eastern Slavonia, Baranja and western Srijem, Ivica Vrkic.