Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) leader Milorad Pupovac on Friday commented on the arrest of two ethnic Serbs on suspicion of complicity in war crimes committed at Vukovar in 1995.

He said that “the remaining Serbs in Croatia should not be held hostage” and that Zagreb and Belgrade should address the problem of war crimes through dialogue.

“We do not want anyone who is innocent to be declared and treated as a war criminal, and anyone for whom there exists incontrovertible evidence should face such charges,” Pupovac told a press conference during a visit to Negoslavci, eastern Croatia, where the suspects had been arrested.

He said that a public opinion was forming in Croatia that “these people are guilty and that Serbs cannot be but guilty.”

The SDSS doubts about impartiality in this case because the two men have never before tried to flee justice, unlike some Croat suspects, Pupovac said.

Pupovac said that he and SDSS MP Dragana Jeckov had not called this press conference to cover up war crimes committed by Serbs against Croatia, including war crimes committed at Ovcara, but noted that Croatian judicial authorities and politicians had tried to cover up war crimes committed against Serbs.

“We will not keep quiet about it any more, even if it upsets the efforts we have made in recent years to achieve reconciliation between Croats and Serbs in places where that is most painful,” Pupovac said. He stressed that “official processes” should not be conducted based on private investigations, adding that this was possibly the case with the two Serbs arrested in Negoslavci.

He said that the Croatian public obviously did not know that more than ten people had been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for war crimes committed at Ovcara by a special war crimes tribunal in Belgrade.

“An impression is being created here that no one has been convicted and that those responsible for everything should be arrested here in Negoslavci. That is wrong politically, journalistically, legally and judicially, that is not justice,” Pupovac said, adding that what had happened at Ovcara was also painful for the Serbs.

He wondered if any action was being taken regarding war crimes committed against Serbs. “Has anyone been held to account for killing people who were fleeing after Operation Flash near the village of Nova Varos? Nearly a hundred people, where water trucks were used to wash away the blood after that crime. Has anyone been brought to justice for attacking a refugee column on the Petrovac road on the Bosnian side of the border?”

At recent commemorations in Grubori and Varivode, Serb representatives did not ask Veterans’ Minister Tomo Medved, President Zoran Milanovic or Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic who would be brought to justice for the war crimes committed there, he said and added: “They did not point their fingers or undertook private investigations.”

Pupovac said that he had been trying for nearly 30 years to get Croatia out of the war, but that in times like this he had no partners for that.

“It is not a solution for the remaining Serbs in Croatia to be held hostage to war crimes sentences. The solution is for Zagreb and Belgrade to address the issue and find a solution through dialogue. I know that at least one of these doors is open,” he said.

Pupovac said he was not an enemy of Croatia and that he hoped that Zagreb and Belgrade would begin talks so that no one who is innocent would be found guilty.

Jeckov called on war crimes investigators to resume, with the same intensity, long-forgotten investigations into the disappearances of Serbs in Vukovar, stressing that justice should be equal for all.