"And now I look at Borovo, my native village, my brothers and sisters and Serbian fighters. My battles are fought fiercely, they proudly raise their foreheads and Serbian flags stand high and firm on Serbian land."
These words are on the mausoleum of Vukašin Šoškočanin, the organizer of the attack in which 12 Croats were killed in 1991 in Borovo Selo. Šoškočanin was an associate Vojislav Seselj, and during the war in the 1990s he boasted that he "personally killed the Ustasha".
This mausoleum is an example of a tombstone that Croatia wants to remove with the new Law on Cemeteries, which it changes after three decades. Although it is from war in Croatia passed just as long, this legal regulation not only fueled memories of war victims, but also criminals, but also new fears for today's relations between Serbs and Croats, especially in Croatia.
What is in the proposed law?
The draft law stipulates that anyone who believes that some of the monuments "offend his morals, feelings, glorifying Serbian fighters after 1990", can request that those monuments be removed. Four glasses, Serbian military insignia, war cries, are some of the elements pointed out by the proposer of the law.
The law stipulates that only monuments erected after May 30, 1990 can be considered controversial, so as not to pave the way for broader revisionism and further divisions in society. Applications for removal will be decided by commissions, which will be formed at the level of counties, that is, wider local governments in Croatia.
If the owner of the grave site does not remove the disputed memorial within the legal deadline, someone else will remove it, and the owner of the grave site faces a fine of 1.000 to 5.000 euros. At the same time, the new law on cemeteries regulates the status of memorial cemeteries for fallen Croatian veterans.
It is as if Chetnik cemeteries are scattered all over Croatia
The Homeland Movement in Croatia, which is also the proposer of the law, expressed its satisfaction that the Law on Cemeteries was referred to the parliamentary procedure in order to "remove Chetnik monuments on the territory of Croatia", Croatian Index reports.
However, Milorad Pupovac from the Independent Democratic Serbian Party said that the impression is being created that "there are Chetnik cemeteries scattered all over Croatia", which, he says, is not true.
He also mentioned that there are people who are bothered by signs that are connected to the Ustasha ideology and idea, and which can also be found in some cemeteries, but also outside the cemeteries on monuments, and which offend national and religious feelings.
"Take care not to go too far with trusts, with counties and with the cleaning of cemeteries. Whether it's about taxes or symbols," said Pupovac.
At that, Vukovar veteran of Serbian nationality Predrag Mišić (DP) told him to go to the memorial cemetery, where Croatian veterans are buried, and there he found an inscription with something offensive written on it.
"On every monument to a Chetnik, it is written that he died defending Serbian land in Croatia. You understand that very well, you just won't understand," Mišić said.
Pupovac replied that the SDSS was advocating for the conflicts not to deepen and to remove what is bothering them.
"What will still bother you is our fear. I know we are bothering you here, but we are not afraid," he said, after which the SDSS members left the assembly.
What about monuments in Cyrillic
Stipo Mlinarić from the Homeland Movement denied the fear of some Serbs in Croatia that the Cyrillic plaques with the name and surname of the deceased and the dates of birth and death would be removed, but he confirmed that the tomb and mausoleum in Borovo Selo of Vukašin Šoškočanin and other Chetnik monuments would be removed.
"We will take those down. There are hundreds of them," he said, showing photos of such monuments.
Savo Štrbac from the Veritas Information and Documentation Center told RTS that until now there has been pressure on Serbs in connection with burial sites in Croatia.
"Everything has been there until now. Let's say, in most of those cemeteries in those small towns around the Krajina, Serbs were invited to arrange the graves or pay the cemetery fee for 5, 10 or I don't know how many years. Otherwise, those graves will be plowed, dug up, given to someone else. All of this would be normal and fine if there was no war and if those Serbs had not been expelled and if they were not physically able to come for various reasons," says Štrbac.
