Serb Refugees From Croatia Petition for Rights

Serbian parliament speaker Slavica Djukic Dejanovic has received a petition with 45,000 signatures and a draft resolution on the rights of refugees and displaced Serbs from Croatia.

The resolution asks the Serbian parliament to conclude that Croatia violated the rights of Serbs who fled Croatia during the conflict in the 1990s and all Serbs who owned property in the country.

Thousands of Croatian Serbs fled Croatia when conflict broke out in the early 1990s, and like displaced persons throughout the region, continue to fight to regain rights to properties that they left when they fled the violence.

The petioners ask Serbian lawmakers to actively participate in solving the problems facing this group of displaced persons, and to establish a platform for talks with Croatia about resolving the financial status of Serbs who fled Croatia during the war.

The draft resolution has been sent to the parliamentary groups.

"We ask all institutions that handle Serbia's accession process to the European Union to halt their work until the settlement of all issues facing refugees and refugee Serbs," said the president of the association Coalition of Refugees, Miodrag Linta.

Meanwhile, Croatian President Ivo Josipovic answered questions about the petition in Zagreb on Tuesday. He acknowledge that there have been problems in addressing the rights and needs of displaced persons.

"However, I think that Croatia has shown good progress in resolving this problem, and we shouldn't, as we say, put a stone under the wheel," Josipovic told reporters.

The petition initiative was launched by 103 refugee associations, and collected the 45,000 signatures between December 15 and January 31.

Copies of the petition have also been given to Serbian President Boris Tadic, and will be handed over to Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic and representatives of European institutions.