BELGRADE – A Croatian parliamentary delegation cut off a visit to neighboring Serbia on Wednesday after a far-right leader convicted of war crimes allegedly stamped the Croatian national flag and shouted insults.
The delegation said it had decided to return home after the incident in the Serbian parliament, in which the leader of the Serbian Radical Party, Vojislav Seselj, was involved. The visit was originally planned for two days.
“This is a line that we cannot cross because it is unacceptable,” said Croatian parliament speaker Goran Jandrokovic. “We’re leaving Belgrade.”
The radicals said in a statement that Seselj pulled down the flag at the entrance to parliament and trampled it with another party member before yelling at the Croatian delegation inside.
“We didn’t know what happened, but we could hear Seselj screaming at us,” said Jandrokovic after his return to Zagreb.
A UN war crimes court sentenced Seselj last week to 10 years in prison for instigating crimes against ethnic Croats, partially overturning his earlier acquittal of atrocities during the Balkan conflict in the 1990s.
Seselj, a lawmaker in the Serbian parliament, remains free as he had already served almost 12 years in jail during his trial before the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.
Relations between Serbia and Croatia are still tense years after the outbreak of the Serbian-Croatian war in 1992-95, when Croatia declared independence from the former Yugoslavia.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, an ally of Seselj during the war but who now says he wants Serbia to join the European Union and forge regional cooperation, said Seselj’s behavior was “inadmissible” and “sends a bad message”.
The Croatian President described Seselj’s actions as “a war criminal who has been sentenced to run amok”, while the government in Zagreb described it as “uncivilized and inadmissible”.
Liberal lawmakers in the Serbian parliament have called for the authorities to remove Seselj from his parliamentary seat on conviction for war crimes, which has sparked threats and insults from the far-right Serbian leader.
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