Belgrade Assembly rejects proposal to remove murals dedicated to Ratko Mladic from all public areas

The Assembly of the City of Belgrade today refused to add to the agenda of the meeting the proposal of councilor Zoran Vuletic from the Civic Democratic Forum, who asked to discuss the removal of murals to Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic from all public areas in the capital.

Vuletic said that his councilor group believes that the existence of the murals dedicated to convicted war criminals is disgraceful for the mayor, the City Council and all councilors.

"We believe that murals of this content that glorify the war, a criminal, and thus losing image of Serbia, are not and cannot be a mirror of Belgrade," said Vuletic and added that this is probably the last opportunity before the dissolution for the city parliament to "save its honor."

According to him, such murals damage the reputation and morals of Belgrade, and they make the citizens and visitors of Belgrade from the countries of the former SFRY feel uncomfortable.

Vuletic appealed on the City to initiate and enable the removal of the mural in accordance with its authorizations, and to provide all the necessary assistance to the communal services in the implementation of this decision.

Vuletic also asked where Aleksandar Sapic was, who has been nominated as future mayor, and who, as he said, "has been boycotting the City Assembly for four years."

The president of the city parliament, Nikola Nikodijevic, then turned off Vuletics's microphone and issued him with a warning because, as he said, Vuletic did not respect the work of the parliament.

"You have misused the podium, so I warned you. As for the proposal to amend the agenda, which you submitted in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, the councilors will decide on it. As for the honor of this parliament, it is a question of morality of each of us individually," said Nikodijevic.

He asked Vuletic why he only now remembered that there was a mural to Ratko Mladic and why he used the question only to "slander his country and attack his city and state" as well as whether he had been in Novi Pazar to protest against a plaque dedicated  to Acif Efendija, a convicted war criminal...

The head of the SNS group, Aleksandar Mirkovic, also took the floor, saying that Vuletic was disparaging the assembly again.

"This is another humiliation of the city parliament by a man and a group of people whose greatest success is to present a lot of untruths here and not feel any responsibility for it. If in four years, considering that this is your first addition to the agenda, the biggest problem is the mural, thank you for showing in this way how successful this government has been," said Mirkovic.

He added that Vuletic shows in this way how serious he is and how much he is essentially dealing in demagoguery.

Rade Valjanovski from the Civic Democratic Forum said that he was sorry that the ruling majority could not stand it if someone in the city parliament had a different opinion and proposals.

"Mirkovic dared to say that Vuletic is a member of a group of people who do not feel any responsibility. It reminds me of some of our earlier conversations. If we, the only councilors who stayed until the end, who do not feel any responsibility, then what can we say about the rest," said Veljanovski.

He stressed that it was not true that the group of which he is a member never initiated anything, and added that they collected signatures against the gondola and submitted a proposal for discussion, but that it was not accepted.

(Telegraf.rs)