Pupovac Threatens Mlinaric With Lawsuit Over Missing Serbs

Milorad Pupovac, president of the Serb Democratic Party (SDSS), has announced that his legal team is examining a possible lawsuit against Homeland Movement lawmaker Stipe Mlinaric Cipe, after Mlinaric accused him of not doing enough to clarify the fate of missing Croatian war veterans and civilians. The dispute is anything but a side issue for Croatia’s Serb community: Pupovac has led the Serb National Council for 27 years and is the longest serving Serb representative in the Croatian parliament, and the exchange of accusations turned overnight into a question of which side is actually willing to open its archives on the war’s missing.

The trigger was an appearance on August 31 on the “Novi dan” (“New Day”) show on N1 television, hosted by Nina Kljenak. There, Pupovac responded to Mlinaric’s claim that the SDSS and the Serb National Council have not done enough to find missing Croatian war veterans and civilians. He called it a serious accusation.

“Every chauvinist rabble has one reflex down pat: ‘Let’s go after Pupovac, that magic name,’” Pupovac said, describing how, in his view, statements about him routinely turn into political score settling. He stressed that accusations of acts which, as he put it, carry heavy penalties under international humanitarian and war law should not be made without evidence, and said his legal team is weighing what steps to take.

In the same appearance, Pupovac claimed that official Croatian representatives constantly cite the total number of missing Croats, but rarely mention how many of the missing are Serbs. He recalled that cooperation between Croatia and Serbia on tracing missing persons functioned reasonably well until 2023, after which it stalled. He also noted that the issue had previously been handled by Veran Matic, then serving as President Aleksandar Vucic’s special envoy, and Ivica Vrkic on the Croatian side, without visible results. “I’m not the kind of person who’d want to live off the dead,” Pupovac said, answering a question on whether he believes the missing persons issue is being used politically.

The Homeland Movement responded that same evening with a statement rejecting the claim that Mlinaric’s questions are part of a campaign against Serbs.

“The Homeland Movement rejects the attempt by SDSS president Milorad Pupovac to portray legitimate questions about missing Croatian war veterans and civilians as a campaign against Serbs, and to discredit the entire party by attacking our Sabor lawmaker, Stipe Mlinaric Cipe.”

In the statement, the party asked Pupovac what he has actually done during his decades in politics to get Serbia to open its archives and hand Croatia data on missing Croatian war veterans and civilians. “Instead of threatening lawsuits, we expect concrete answers and concrete results from Milorad Pupovac,” the Homeland Movement said.

Mlinaric then responded personally on Facebook, drawing a line, as he put it, between a Serb who respects Croatia and what he called Chetnik ideology. He asked Pupovac to name a specific person, location, witness or piece of information that would lead to the grave of a missing Croatian veteran, and noted that he himself had lived through the war in 1991. He said that if any information from Pupovac, the SDSS or the Serb National Council led to the discovery of even one missing veteran, he would be the first to take his hat off.

In the same N1 appearance, Pupovac also commented on reactions in Serbia following the death of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladic, saying that glorifying people convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity is damaging both for Serbs and for Serbia, and that it undermines interethnic and interstate trust across the former Yugoslavia.

Whether a lawsuit will actually be filed, and against whom exactly, remains an open question. Pupovac said his legal team is still studying the options, while Mlinaric has already said he will see him in court.