storm - Hrvatski memorijalno-dokumentacijski centar Domovinskog ...

1992, September
Knin
Basic programmatic principles and goals of the Serbian Democratic Party
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SERBIAN DEMOCRATIC PARTY
REPUBLIC OF SERBIAN KRAAJINA
Executive Committee
7
BASIC PROGRAMMATIC PRINCIPLES AND GOALS OF THE PARTY
Th e Serbian Democratic Party (Srpska demokratska stranka, SDS) of Krajina, 7 as the
political organization of the Serbian people which rallies members and fellow-travellers in
the Republic of Serbian Krajina, has particularly ... (...)
... and always advocated the unifi cation of the Republic of Serbian Krajina with other
Serbian lands, primarily Republika Srpska, from which it was separated in the recent past
by unnatural administrative boundaries.
Since the Serbian people also took part, as a constitutive nation, in the establishment
of Yugoslavia in 1918 as well as in the creation of Federal Yugoslavia and, as a people
fully equal with the Croatian people, in the creation of the federal unit of the Republic of
Croatia (Art., 1 of the ZAVNOH Declaration, Art. 1 of the Constitution of Croatia of 1947,
1963, 1974), 8 the current international conferences on the former Yugoslavia without the
equal participation of the Serbian people are a violation of international conventions.
7 Th e Serbian Democratic Party was founded in Knin on 17 February 1990. Jovan Rašković was elected
president. At the fi rst democratic multi-party elections in Croatia the party won 5 seats in the Parliament of
the Republic of Croatia. At the same time it seized power at the local level in Knin, Gračac and Donji Lapac,
the very places where armed rebellion of the Serbs started in August 1990.
8 Th e Historical Foundations of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia of 22 December 1990 state that
“the Republic of Croatia is hereby established as the national state of the Croatian nation and the state of
members of other nations and minorities who are its citizens: Serbs, Muslims, Slovenes, Czechs, Slovaks,
Italians, Hungarians, Jews and others, who are guaranteed equality with citizens of Croatian nationality and
the realization of ethnic rights in accordance with the democratic norms of the United Nations Organization
and the free world countries”. In commenting the claims of some authors that the Constitution in question
was the fi rst “to remove overtones of dual sovereignty and unequivocally proclaimed the Croatian nation as
the holder of the sovereignty of Croatia”. Z. Radelić notes that already the wording of the 1974 Constitution
of the Socialist Republic of Croatia - “the Socialist Republic of Croatia is the national state of the Croatian
nation, the state of the Serbian nation in Croatia and the state of other nations and minorities living in it”
does not permit the unequivocal interpretation that the Serbs were elevated to the status of a constituent
nation in Croatia, and that it is obvious “only that they were recognized a special status in relation to other
nations and minorities”. Cf. Zdenko Radelić, Davor Marijan, Nikica Barić, Albert Bing and Dražen Živić,
“Stvaranje hrvatske države i Domovinski rat” (Th e Creation of the Croatian State and the Homeland War),
Školska knjiga, Hrvatski institut za povijest, Zagreb, 2006, 94.
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