Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) leader Milorad Pupovac said at a special news conference on Thursday, called after an attack on two young Serb men in Vukovar, that it was not his job to tell others how to do their job but to warn about continuing ethnic conflicts.

The two young Serbs were attacked in the eastern town of Vukovar late on Wednesday night.

“We have decided to call this press conference both beacuse of an attack of three days ago and last night’s attack, as well as because of an attempted attack this morning which was prevented by police,” Pupovac said.

He added that attacks by organised groups of young people of Croat ethnic background on young people of Serb ethnicity in Vukovar and its environs had been going on for more than a year, and that there had been attempts to escalate them across the country.

Violence has political background, politically sponsored

“Someone seems to be trying to provoke inter-ethnic conflicts in the war-ravaged city, whose residents are deeply traumatised by the war suffering. While in Knin and elsewhere a policy of reconciliation is being built, here in Vukovar attempts are being made to destroy the policy of reconciliation that had been built for the past 24 years,” Pupovac said, noting that this was to the detriment of Vukovar, Knin and the entire country.

Pupovac went on to say that one failed to realise on time what this was about and that it was “violence with political background and political sponsorship.”

“This is about violence that is aimed at suspending or restricting both Croatia’s constitutional order and the norms of international order which have made Croatia, after it adopted them, part of the international order of peace, rule of law and inter-ethnic tolerance and equality,” Pupovac said.

He said that those who were doing it, knowingly or unknowingly, were trying to turn Vukovar from a place of special tribute into a place of inter-ethnic and political confrontations.

That is why he believes that this is no longer a matter for police but for all those who protect constitutional order and norms of international order that Croatia has embraced as its own.

SDSS expresses full solidarity with all Vukovar residents

Pupovac said SDSS leaders had come to Vukovar to show full solidarity with all its residents, both Serbs and Croats, and all those who want the city to live in peace.

In a message to Croat residents of Vukovar, he said that members of the Serb community would not do anything to make them feel unsafe and he called for creating conditions for young people of Serb ethnicity to have the right to peace, security, freedom of movement and elections.

Asked who was behind the attacks, Pupovac said that “whoever is has now pushed things too far, and they will know who I am speaking about.”

SDSS MP Dragana Jeckov, who also addressed reporters, said that her party bench would use its position to launch amendments to the Act on Misdemeanors against Public Order and Peace to introduce stricter penalties and thus prevent similar situations.

Vukovar County police said that an investigation into the incident was underway and that two persons involved in it had been arrested.