EU's reaction to ban on Serbian Cyrillic "most important"

EU's reaction to ban on Serbian Cyrillic "most important"

"If the EU can allow a member country to ban the use of a nation's alphabet, to ban the memory of the Serbs who no longer exist in Croatia, or are very few, if it can allow such things, the question is, what are EU's values? Are we, in that case, ready for the EU, if the EU cannot react to a clear example of racism?"

Speaking during a career fair in the eastern town of Pozarevac, the minister told reporters that he was "unfortunately not surprised" by Monday's decision of the Vukovar city council to "banish" the use of the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet from public buildings and places.

"A year or two ago when the smashing of signs printed in Cyrillic started in Vukovar, and when this most simple and completely civilized possibility of writing and reading in one's own language was raised to the level of civil conflict in the Republic of Croatia - I said that those smashing up Cyrillic signs of a people would also be smashing the heads of the children of that people, if only they could. And if only they dared to," Vulin stressed.

He then "pleaded with relevant EU officials to think and ask themselves a simple question" - namely, what they would do and how they would react, and how long it would take them to come out with "a clear reaction and a clear statement" if this happened to a European nation other than the Serbs, "to any other skin color or religion."

"Can anyone imagine, for instance, somebody banning the use of German in Belgium. Or banning French in Belgium, or German in Italy," said Vulin and added that after the Cyrillic alphabet was banned, "all that remains is to ban the Serbian Orthodox Church."

"And then, truly, there will be no more Serbs even in memories. Memorials are already being torn down, as you know, several days ago a memorial was torn down in Nova Gradiska that was meant to represent remembrance of those killed in the last war," he stressed.

The Serbian minister then "pleaded with the Croatian government to dissolve the (Vukovar city) council whose claim to fame is singing Ustasha songs and which banned the use of the Cyrillic alphabet," urging Zagreb also to react in a way any civilized party would "to this occurrence of racism."