Anti-Serb sentiment

BELGRADE - Supporters of national teams of so-called Kosovo and Croatia, instead of chanting to their players ahead of an evening match in Skadar, gave their attention to the Serbs.

That hatred is not unfamiliar to them shows the following footage in which can clearly be heard shouts "Kill the Serb!" and "Hang the Serbs!".

Orthodox priest Sasa Mitrovic and his wife Marija are the first Serbs to return to the southern part of Kosovska Mitrovica after 11 years.

The Serbs were driven out of the southern Mitrovica, inhabited by ethnic Albanians, in 1999, and the few that remained were expelled during the anti-Serb pogrom in the March of 2004.

Representatives of the Serb community in Croatia said that the ongoing dispute between Belgrade and Zagreb over the increased flow of refugees could have worrying consequences for the minority.

Serbia is closely watching which countries will send their soldiers to a parade in Croatia on August 5 that will celebrate Operation Storm.

Serbia will interpret their participation in the event that will mark the 20th anniversary of the operation as an anti-Serb stand, Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said on Tuesday.

BELGRADE - Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic met on Monday with a delegation of Serb youths from Croatia and said it was time for him to discuss with Croatia all of the agreements and obligations that country had towards the Serbs.

"Serbia will maintain good relations with Croatia believing that it is the only way to solve all issues," Nikolic stated.

BELGRADE - The Serbian Liberal Council (SLS) proposed to the authorities on Tuesday that a Serbian consulate should be opened in Knin, Croatia.

There are two consulates and the Embassy of Serbia in Croatia but the diplomatic representative offices are too far for Serbs living in the Kninska Krajina and places in the vicinity of Split, Zadar and Sibenik, SLS said in the proposition.

BELGRADE - President of the Serbian parliament Committee on the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region Janko Veselinovic stated that now that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has adopted the ruling to drop mutual genocide suits filed by Serbia and Croatia, all open issues concerning the rights of Serb refugees and banished Serbs from Croatia need to be taken care of.

BELGRADE - Head of the Coalition of Refugee Associations Miodrag Linta wants the Croatian authorities to publicly condemn the Ustasha graffiti painted of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) parish centre in Vinkovci and do everything in their power to arrest and punish the culprits of that and a number of other ani-Serb incidents.

The head of the Serb National Council in Croatia accused the country’s courts of handing down ethnically-biased justice after a decision to auction a Serb wartime refugee’s house.

BELGRADE - The Coalition of Refugee Association stated on Saturday it was not true that Serbia had committed a genocide in Croatia or that a genocide had been committed in its name, which is what head of the Croatian legal team had said before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).