BBC MONITORING INTERNATIONAL REPORTS
[Presenter] A group of hooligans yesterday attacked the consulate general of Serbia-Montenegro in Rijeka. Shouting nationalistic and threatening slogans, they broke in through the doors of the consulate and insulted the employees. At the same time, in another part of Croatia, unidentified perpetrators smashed the windows of the Prosvjeta Serbian Cultural Society in Split.
These news items from Croatia are coming on the day when the newly-appointed Serbia-Montenegro ambassador to Croatia, Radivoj Cvjeticanin, is handing his credentials to Croatian President Stjepan Mesic. In a discussion following the ceremony [of presenting credentials], it was emphasized that the relations between the two countries were developing in a good manner.
Source: BKTV, Belgrade
ZAGREB -- Four Serb returnees killed in 50 recorded assaults on Serbs in Croatia this year, Croatian Interior Ministry reports.
The police have described the killing of Dusan Vidic as the most heinous crime against members of the ethnic-Serb community in 2005, murdered in Karin in May this year. A special team assembled to investigate the crime interviewed more than a hundred people in connection to the crime, conducted polygraph tests and gathered comprehensive forensic material, but has not been able to find the perpetrator so far.
In addition to the usual attacks against returnees and problems related to reclaiming their property that they owned before the war, in 2005 Serbs in Croatia had to face attacks on their ethnic minority institutions as well. In the coastal town of Split the windows of the Serbian Cultural Society 'Prosvjeta' were smashed and similar incidents took place in the building of the Dalmatian Eparchy in Sibenik and in Dubrovnik. Most other incidents took place along the coastal region of Dalmatia. The police has solved very few of these cases.
In Croatia, people generally believe the incidents are "isolated recidivates of the past" and not some organised campaign, but they are worried about the increased attacks on institutions of the Serbian Orthodox Church. According to official Croatian records, some 119,000 ethnic-Serb citizens returned to Croatia, out of the 200,000 to quarter of a million that were exiled during the war.
