Members of the Croatian parliament on Thursday endorsed a bill on persons gone missing in the 1991-95 Homeland War and demanded that Serbia finally give Croatia all information on missing persons and mass grave sites as results of the Great Serbia aggression.

In addition, members of the Bridge party asked the government to make the continuation of Serbia’s EU entry talks conditional on that demand.

Ines Strenja of Bridge said that the bill put special emphasis on persons whose place of burial was unknown, stressing that Croatia needed a single law that would define terms, procedures, rules and rights related to the 28-year-long search for persons gone missing in the Homeland War, which so far had been defined by different regulations.

“The families have the right to know what happened to their dearest ones,” said Strenja, recalling that several thousand people disappeared in Croatia in the 1991-95 war.

“In line with the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, a law should have been adopted to determine that all persons gone missing in an armed conflict should be treated as victims of a criminal act, and that their rights, notably the right to information on the stage of criminal proceedings and the search for their remains, should be guaranteed accordingly,” she said.

Strenja: Serbia has information, doesn’t want to abolish quasi-universal jurisdiction

She said that Croatia should demand that Serbia provide information on missing persons and expressed confidence that Serbia did have the information in question.

“Our relationship with Serbia should be clear – it should first reveal the full truth and information on mass grave sites and the whereabouts of our missing persons, after which we can discuss its accession to the EU,” said the Bridge MP.

Pupovac: SDSS could support bill if it referred to all who used to live in Croatia’s territory

Milorad Pupovac of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) said that his party could support the bill if it were expanded to refer not only to Croatian nationals but also those who at the time in question were not Croatian nationals or whose status was not defined and who lived in Croatia’s territory or happened to be in its territory at the time of the war.

“I think that it is very important for Croatia and Serbia to try to harmonise the information and discrepancies regarding the number (of missing persons) as well as the way those disappearances should be registered,” said Pupovac.

Predrag Matic of the Social Democratic Party said his party would support the bill out of respect for missing persons and their families, underlining that in the search for the missing “the key to the solution lies in Serbia, and partly in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”