Swastika, Ustasha U Painted on Serb Village Signs in Otisic

Road signs in the Serb village of Otisic, in the Dalmatian hinterland near Vrlika, have been defaced with a swastika and the Ustasha letter “U”, and a hate crime report has been filed with police in Sinj. The case matters to readers in Serbia because it happened in a place that had about 1,200 residents before the war and now has only a few dozen, among them returnees of the Orthodox faith, to whom the report refers explicitly.

What exactly was painted on the signs in Otisic?

Most signs in the village carry a swastika and the Ustasha “U”, and the name of the village is crossed out on many of them. The same symbol was sprayed on the sign pointing to the hamlets of Stojsavljevici, Stojanovici and Petrovici. The word “Torcida” is written on the asphalt, the name of the supporters’ group of Hajduk Split. None of the sources we reviewed says anyone has been identified as responsible, so for now the signature remains only a signature.

According to residents, the signs were intact on October 31 at around 5 p.m., and the damage was noticed the next morning, on November 1. According to the report, nearly every traffic sign from the village entrance to its center was damaged or defaced.

What is being asked of the police?

The report against an unknown perpetrator was filed with the Sinj police station by Jovica Radjen, vice president of the Serb National Minority Council for the town of Vrlika. It concerns the repeated criminal offense of publicly inciting violence and hatred and the damaging of another person’s property, and the case is being treated as a hate crime. The report states:

Incidents like this cannot be seen as ordinary vandalism or a misdemeanor against public order and peace. This is systematic, organized and deliberate intimidation, intolerance and public incitement to hatred directed at the local population and at returnees of the Orthodox faith in this area.

The report asks police to act urgently, identify the perpetrator and pursue prosecution ex officio. The complainant also asks that the case be linked to earlier incidents in the same area, to establish whether there is a pattern, and for stepped-up patrols, especially in the late evening and at night. As of November 2, the available sources contain no statement from Croatian police about suspects.

Where is Otisic?

The village lies between Vrlika and Sinj, at the foot of the Svilaja mountain and the Peruca reservoir, and the Knin, Vrlika, Sinj, Split highway runs along its edge. Before the war, with 13 hamlets, it was the largest village in the Sinj municipality. The vandalism was first reported by “Novosti”, the portal of the Serb National Council in Croatia, and newsrooms in Serbia then picked up the story.