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Miodrag Linta

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Miodrag Linta (Serbian Cyrillic: Миодраг Линта; born 1969) is a politician and activist in Serbia. He is the president of the Coalition of Refugee Associations in the Republic of Serbia and of the Serb Democratic Forum,[1] which represents the interests of Serbs expelled from Croatia during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. He has been a member of the National Assembly of Serbia since 2012, serving with the parliamentary group of the Serbian Progressive Party although he is not a member of the party itself.

Early life and career

Linta was born in Karlovac in what was then the Socialist Republic of Croatia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He completed undergraduate and post-graduate studies at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy and taught history in several Belgrade schools.[2]

Refugee rights and Serbia–Croatia relations

Linta has been a prominent figure in calling for the prosecution of Croatian officials guilty of war crimes against Serbs during the early 1990s conflict between Serbia and Croatia and has sought to uphold the political and property rights of Serbs displaced from their homes in Croatia during the course of the conflict.

In May 2010, Linta led the Serb Democratic Forum in filing war crime charges with the Croatian state prosecution against six persons alleged to have been responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from twenty-six villages in 1991.[3] He later welcomed the decision of Serbian prosecutors to indict Croatian officials for war crimes committed against Serbs in Vukovar during the same year.[4]

He welcomed the conviction of Croatian lieutenant general Ante Gotovina by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in April 2011, saying that the ruling acknowledged that there was ethnic cleansing perpetrated against Serbs in Croatia.[5] He subsequently led a protest march through Belgrade after Gotovina's conviction was overturned in late 2012,[6] and he condemned Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović's decision to appoint Gotovina as an advisor in 2015.[7]

Linta opposed the European Parliament's declaration on the Srebrenica massacre as an act of genocide, acknowledging that a significant war crime had taken place in Srebrenica but also arguing that to emphasize one crime over others would not contribute to reconciliation in the area. He instead urged the Serbian parliament to approve a resolution condemning all crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars and called for "all those who committed war crimes, regardless of ethnic and religious belonging [to] be brought to justice."[8]

Linta encouraged Croatian Serb refugees to participate in the 2009 Croatian local elections, so as to permit Serb representatives to serve in positions of local authority and allow for the exercise of minority rights in the country.[9] He and other Serb community leaders were subsequently prohibited from entering Croatia in November 2011 to attend an election rally for the group Our Party from Borovo in Vukovar. The Croatian ministry of the interior asserted that their presence would upset local residents and could disturb the public order. Linta protested the decision and called on the Croatian government to condemn the ministry's actions; his response was supported by the Progressive Party leadership.[10]

He submitted an open letter to the Croatian Embassy in Belgrade in May 2011, expressing "regret that the Croatian parliament has not adopted a declaration on respect for the human rights of the expelled Serbs." He was quoted at the time as saying, "Unfortunately, Serbs in Croatia are still treated as second-class citizens. Croatian authorities are not showing the will to find a comprehensive and lasting solution to the refugee issue."[11] Linta later wrote an open letter to German chancellor Angela Merkel shortly thereafter, requesting her assistance in the matter.[12]

Linta expressed concern in late 2013 that pro-Ustaša beliefs were becoming normalized in Croatia, with anti-Serb sentiments being prevalent among some social groups.[13] The following year, he criticized Croatian president Grabar-Kitarović for saying that Serbs who lived in Croatia were in fact Croats, a statement he described as chauvinist and provocative.[14] On another occasion, he described the Croatian state's actions against its Serb communities in the early 1990s as genocidal, saying, "Mass crimes against Serbs... were part of the Croatian leaders' plan aimed at eliminating Serbs so they would disappear from areas where they lived for centuries.[15]

In September 2015, Linta joined other delegates from Serbia and Croatia in commemorating the deaths of sixteen elderly Serb civilians in Varivode and Gošić in the aftermath of Operation Storm.[16]

Parliamentarian

Linta received the nineteenth position on the Progressive Party's Let's Get Serbia Moving electoral list in the 2012 Serbian parliamentary election; during the campaign, he said that he joined the Progressive coalition because of his dissatisfaction with the Boris Tadić government's handling of refugee issues.[17] The Progressive-led list won seventy-three mandates and became the dominant presence in a new coalition government after the election; Linta was elected and served with the government's parliamentary majority.[18]

He was re-elected in the parliamentary elections of 2014[19] and 2016.[20] The Serbian parliamentary website indicates that he served as a member of the Coalition of Refugee Associations in the Republic of Serbia in his first term[21] but that he has served as an non-party member of the assembly since then.[22] It is reasonable to assume that the coalition is no longer considered as a political party.

During his second term in parliament, Linta chaired the assembly committee on the diaspora and Serbs in the region.[23] He is currently the deputy chair of that committee; a member of the foreign affairs committee and of the committee on Kosovo-Metohija; and a member of the parliamentary friendship groups with Belarus, China, India, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Russia, and Spain.[24]

References

  1. ^ The group led by Linta is not to be confused with another organization of the same name based in Zagreb.
  2. ^ MIODRAG LINTA, Otvoreni Parlament, accessed 31 October 2017.
  3. ^ "Serbia-based NGO charges ex-Croatian officials with war crimes against civilians," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 12 May 2010 (Source: FoNet news agency, Belgrade, in Serbian 1139gmt 12 May 10).
  4. ^ "Serbian refugees welcome indictments against Croatian officials, veterans," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 22 September 2001 (Source: HINA news agency, Zagreb, in English 1506 gmt 22 Sep 11).
  5. ^ "Gotovina – zbrodniarz czy bohater," Rzeczpospolita, 16 April 2011.
  6. ^ "Serbia: Refugee organisations demand resolution on their rights," HINA, 23 November 2012; "Service held in Belgrade for Serb victims of 1990s wars," HINA, 25 November 2012.
  7. ^ "Croatian President To Appoint Ante Gotovina, Mladen Markac As Advisors," Kuwait News Agency, 6 April 2015.
  8. ^ "Refugee bodies urge Serbian Assembly to condemn "all war crimes" in Yugoslavia," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 14 January 2010 (Source: FoNet news agency, Belgrade, in Serbian 1729gmt 14 Jan 10).
  9. ^ "Serb refugees urged to vote in Croatia's local elections," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 29 April 2009 (Source: HINA news agency, Zagreb, in English 1356 gmt 29 Apr 09).
  10. ^ "Croatian Serb refugee associations request explanation from Croatian interior minister," HINA, 26 November 2011.
  11. ^ "Croatian Serbs send open letter to premier on refugees issue," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 4 August 2011 (Source: HINA news agency, Zagreb, in English 1223 gmt 4 Aug 11).
  12. ^ "SERBIA: PROFUGHI DA CROAZIA CHIEDONO SOSTEGNO ANGELA MERKEL," ANSA - Foreign Affairs News Service, 23 August 2011.
  13. ^ "Croatian experts view "anti-Serb sentiments" in country," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 13 January 2014 (Source: Politika website, Belgrade, in Serbian 3 Dec 13).
  14. ^ "Serbian officials condemn Croatian president-elect's statement," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 20 January 2015 (Source: Vecernje novosti website, Belgrade, in Serbian 0000 gmt 17 Jan 1).
  15. ^ Lajla Veselica, "'No reconciliation' after UN court rejects Balkan war claims," Agence France Presse, 3 February 2015.
  16. ^ "Commemorations held in two villages in tribute to Serb civilians killed in war," HINA, 28 September 2015.
  17. ^ "Highlights from Serbian press 3 Feb 12," British Broadcasting Corporation Monitoring European, 3 February 2012.
  18. ^ Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине, 6. мај 2012. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (POKRENIMO SRBIJU - TOMISLAV NIKOLIĆ), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 26 January 2017.
  19. ^ He received the forty-third position on the list, which won 158 mandates. See Избори за народне посланике Народне скупштине одржани 16. и 23. марта 2014. године, ИЗБОРНЕ ЛИСТЕ (ALEKSANDAR VUČIĆ - BUDUĆNOST U KOJU VERUJEMO), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 26 January 2017.
  20. ^ Linta received the thirty-fifth position on the list, which won 131 mandates. See Избори за народне посланике 2016. године » Изборне листе (АЛЕКСАНДАР ВУЧИЋ - СРБИЈА ПОБЕЂУЈЕ), Republika Srbija - Republička izborna komisija, accessed 17 February 2017.
  21. ^ 31 May 2012 legislature, National Assembly of Serbia, accessed 31 October 2017.
  22. ^ 16 April 2014 legislature, National Assembly of Serbia, accessed 31 October 2017; Current Legislature, National Assembly of Serbia, accessed 31 October 2017.
  23. ^ "President says education system doesn't encourage initiative," HINA, 25 October 2014.
  24. ^ MIODRAG LINTA, National Assembly of Serbia, accessed 31 October 2017.
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