Boris Milosevic was elected new President of the Serb National Council (SNV) on Saturday, while Milorad Pupovac, who led the umbrella organisation of Serbs in Croatia for 22 years, is now chairman of the SNV Council.

Addressing the election assembly, Pupovac said the past four years were “among the most turbulent years in the post-war history of the Serb community,” the Novosti weekly reported.

Pupovac mentioned “the anti-Cyrillic campaign in 2014 and initiatives which were against tolerance and the protection of minority rights, with a constant rise in hate speech, which hasn’t decreased even today, and attempts to reduce the rights of Serbs in Croatia at referendums.”

Milosevic, the parliamentary whip of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), underlined “the culture of remembering because many execution sites have been saved from oblivion.”

“What would the commemoration at Jasenovac look like without the SNV? It would look like the state one, without dignity,” he said, referring to the site of a WWII concentration camp.

“We must fight together against those who want to do us in. We won’t bow our heads because Serbs’ contribution in Croatia is immeasurable and undeniable. We are a wounded community. We are 400,000 fewer than in 1991. We will fight for our rights, for individual and collective equality as well as for a society of equals,” Novosti quoted Milosevic as saying.