Zagreb protest 'Walk for Lika' demands Gospic cleanup
Thousands traveled by bus from Lika and Split to Zagreb for the Walk for Lika protest, where a list of seven demands was handed to the Croatian government calling for the removal of waste from Gospic.
Thousands of people traveled to Zagreb by bus and by car on Saturday, September 5, from Gospic, Otocac and Split for the “Walk for Lika, Walk for Croatia” protest, organized over illegally dumped waste in the Gospic area. At first glance the issue looks like a purely Croatian matter, but the problem of waste imports and unlawful dumping has long since crossed borders. Serbia has faced similar cases of illegal landfills in recent years, and both Belgrade and Zagreb, each at its own stage of the path toward European Union membership, are required to bring their waste management in line with the European standards Brussels uses as a benchmark in accession talks.
Participants gathered at 11 a.m. at Zagreb’s King Tomislav Square, from where the march moved toward Ban Josip Jelacic Square, where the central part of the program began at noon. The rally was registered with police for the period from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., with the announced route running through Josip Juraj Strossmayer Square, Nikola Subic Zrinski Square and Praska Street before reaching Jelacic Square. The event was organized by the civic initiative “Gospic is Our Home,” with support from veterans from Gospic.
The logistics behind the gathering illustrate its scale. Seven buses left Gospic at 7 a.m., buses from Otocac departed at 7:30 a.m., while three full buses from Split set out as early as 5 a.m. and reached Zagreb around 10:30 a.m. Many participants also joined in their own cars, arriving from towns across Croatia.
Seven demands to the government
Ahead of the rally, the civic initiative sent the Croatian government a list of seven concrete demands:
- that the government present the full remediation program to the public within 20 days, with binding deadlines
- removal of the buried waste within three months
- inclusion of the “Rakitovac” landfill in the national waste management plan
- introduction of long-term, independent monitoring with an expert risk assessment
- introduction of collective environmental protection into law
- a registry of all known “black spots” across Croatia, with deadlines and a financial framework
- a temporary ban on waste imports, to take effect immediately
How much waste is actually in Gospic?
Sources diverge on this point. Kurir cites 33,000 tons of waste in Gospic, describing it in different parts of its report both as buried and as hazardous waste. Tanjug does not give a specific figure, instead referring to “tens of thousands of tons” of illegally dumped waste in the Gospic area. Index.hr, whose reporter was on the ground, cites two different numbers: 37,000 tons of illegally dumped waste in total, of which 33,000 tons is buried waste that the initiative’s demand calls for removing within three months. Official estimates from the Croatian government, based on available sources, have not yet been made public.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection and Green Transition has previously stated that Croatia does not allow unlimited imports of all types of waste and that it is not true that hazardous waste can be freely imported into the country. According to figures cited by Index.hr, Croatia takes in 871,000 tons of waste per year.
Organizers announced in advance that the program would not be political. “We will not give the microphone to politicians,” the “Gospic is Our Home” initiative said in its program announcement, which included planned testimonies from residents, among them an account of living “50 meters from the Silos,” as well as appearances by representatives of the initiative “People of Sisak don’t want to be a dumping ground.”
Backing from unions and hundreds of public figures
The rally has been endorsed by more than 200 public figures and associations so far. Support also came from three trade union federations, the Union of Autonomous Trade Unions of Croatia, the Independent Croatian Trade Unions and the Matica of Croatian Trade Unions, which said in a joint statement that “the people of Lika have the right to demand protection of their health, environmental safety, and their homes.”
Representatives of both the left and right opposition in the Croatian parliament announced they would attend the rally. Croatian President Zoran Milanovic publicly backed the protest, though he did not attend in person, while his chief of staff, Orsat Miljenic, announced he would be there on the president’s behalf. Milanovic said he sees the protest as “a call on institutions to start resolving that problem faster and more efficiently” in Gospic and elsewhere, but also as a call to establish accountability for everyone who allowed the waste to be imported and illegally dumped.
The deadline the initiative set for the government, 20 days to present a remediation plan, runs out at the end of September. Whether the Croatian government will respond to all seven demands by then, and whether the competing estimates of how much waste actually sits in Gospic will finally align, remains an open question for a region watching closely how Zagreb handles a problem that, under a different name, could confront any neighboring capital as well.
