The President of the Joint Council of Municipalities (ZVO), Dejan Drakulić, said today that the opening of the exhibition “Serbian Woman, Heroine of the Great War” has been postponed until December.
“Given the events and the request of the Mayor of Vukovar, we want to send a message of peace and mutual understanding. We have decided to postpone the opening until December,” Drakulić said in a video statement on Facebook.
He stated that they are not afraid of threats, informal groups, or of saying what they think, but that they want to “send messages of peace and understanding of the moment into which all citizens of Vukovar have been brought by the actions of factors outside Vukovar.”
The exhibition is currently displayed on social networks, and as announced, the public will be informed later about the exact date of the exhibition’s opening in Vukovar.
Croatian media reported that members of the BBB fan group had pasted posters on the ZVO building during the night with messages like “Ko o čemu, Srbi o herojima” (Who is talking about what, Serbs about heroes), along with photographs from the time after the fall of Vukovar and the entry of the JNA and Serbian paramilitary units into that Croatian city in the autumn of 1991. They were removed this morning.
Vukovar Mayor Marijan Pavliček of the right-wing party Croatian Sovereignists stated yesterday that the exhibition should be postponed because its opening was planned just before November 18, when the Day of Remembrance for the Victim of Vukovar 1991 is marked.
“As the Mayor of Vukovar, I made it clear that it is not the time for this program, given all the events in Croatia, and especially because we are entering the days of remembrance for the victims of Vukovar, and the organizers must be aware of that,” Pavliček said.
He added that “there is no inch of Croatian land in the city of Vukovar that has not been soaked with the blood of Croatian defenders.”
The photo exhibition “Serbian Woman, Heroine of the Great War,” by the Serbian Cultural Center Vukovar, the Joint Council of Municipalities, and the General Consulate of the Republic of Serbia, was planned for today, on the occasion of Armistice Day in World War I.
Minister of Culture Nina Obuljen Koržinek recently said that the exhibition is not acceptable to her at this moment, not because of the content, but because of the symbolism and context, as it is being held just before the Day of Remembrance.
“At this moment of heightened tensions, I really don’t see the point of the Consulate General of the Republic of Serbia in Vukovar, during the week when we, as Croats, remember the greatest trauma of the Homeland War and want to quietly remember the victims, organizing such events,” the minister said.
A similar stance was expressed by the Ministers of Defense and Internal Affairs, Ivan Anušić and Davor Božinović, both from the ruling Croatian Democratic Union.
Requests for postponement came after several incidents that began in Split when dozens of hooligans, mostly masked and in black clothing, prevented the opening of a cultural event of the Serbian national minority in that city on the evening of November 3.
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Source: N1; Photo: N1