On Tuesday, the President of the Homeland Movement, Ivan Penava, condemned the incident in Split that happened during the Day of Serbian Culture program, stressing that all gatherings that are in accordance with the Constitution and laws must be allowed and enabled and that there is no place for violence of any kind.
“Both I and the Homeland Movement condemn him. We live in a democratic society, in a free Croatian state, where no one who does not directly pose a threat to the Croatian people and the citizens of the Republic of Croatia should feel exposed on any issue for the simple reason that we have our own country, our own institutions,” Penava said in a statement to the media.
He added that gatherings of any kind that are in accordance with the law, the Constitution, that do not deny the right of the Croatian people and the state to exist must be allowed and enabled “regardless of how much they agree or disagree with it”.
Asked if he felt partially responsible, as part of the opposition claims, that the Prime Minister let the “genie out of the bottle” with him because he did not want the SDSS in the Government, Penava said that they are “100 percent responsible” for the SDSS.
“That is my personal responsibility and that of the Homeland Movement, we are also responsible for the fact that within the Government, with our partners in the Government, we have ensured the atmosphere so that Marko Perković Thompson can also sing without any problems, without receiving any misdemeanor warrants”, he replied.
We are also responsible for that, he added, that finally Croatian institutions like HAZU can freely adopt their position on the historical Croatian coat of arms, which begins with a white field “so that we no longer have to speak in silence and whisper,” and that the dignity of units from the Homeland War such as HOS or Jean-Michel Nicolier, whose burial we will witness in a few days, is recognized.
Penava also said that they communicated at all times that they were against all totalitarianisms – Nazism, fascism, communism, pointing out that these were all dark periods.
Penava: Why is it that no minority in Croatia has a problem, except the Serbs?
“We condemn this incident, like every one of its kind, we really think that there is no place for violence. However, many people pretend that some kind of past did not happen, so I have to ask one question to all these people and the public: Why does no minority in Croatia have a problem, except the Serbs?”, he asked.
He reminded of several decades of “continuous Great Serbian propaganda and pretensions towards Croatian culture”, adding that it is not surprising why some people in Croatia have a huge mistrust towards Serbia, Great Serbian politics and the Serbian Orthodox Church as the protagonist of those policies.
“These are some causes that we must be aware of, but it is definitely the task of me and the DP and the Government to ensure that all citizens in Croatia can be free, that they can express their affinities in the domain of culture, religion and in all other possible domains as long as it does not enter the space of foreign freedoms and actually destroy the foundations of the Republic of Croatia,” said Penava.
Asked if the Rules of Procedure of the Croatian Parliament should be changed in order to prevent future roundtables like the one about the Jasenovac Ustasha camp, Penava said that they were against the violation of other freedoms and the expression of opinions, and added that it is up to the media and the public to judge the acceptability of different policies.
Penava did not comment on the Homeland Movement of Split and the Homeland Movement of Split-Dalmatia County, which supported the incident in which yesterdayć in Split, a group of about a hundred young people in black hoods interrupted the Serbian Culture Day program and dispersed the participants, including children and the elderly. The local DP members also expressed their “indignation” at the attempt to organize, as they stated, a “so-called evening of Serbian folklore” during the days of commemoration of the victims of Vukovar and Škabrnja.