Zagreb, (IKA) – In an open letter dated January 1, the prelate Msgr. Vladimir Stanković has requested the President of the Republic of Croatia, Stjepan Mesić, to protest to the Austrian authorities that there was no mention of Vukovar or Croatia in the Austrian television script read during the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day Concert regarding the course of the Danube River, as transmitted by tportal. “I request and seek from you as the President of the Republic of Croatia to protest immediately via diplomatic channels to the Austrian authorities because of the stated intentional or unintentional diversion of the organizer of the New Year’s Concert in Vienna,” wrote Msgr. Stanković in a letter to President Mesić, who was a guest of the President of Austria, Heinz Fischer, at the concert.

Msgr. Stanković explained that, “together with Strauss’ lovely, beautifully incorporated music” the course of the Danube River was followed from its source in Donaueschingen to its mouth in Rumania as it passed through five countries: Germany, Austria, Hungary, Serbia and Rumania but it was not mentioned that the river also flows through Croatia. The audience must have asked “how is it that the Danube flows directly from Hungary to Serbia, because there was no mention of Vukovar and Croatia,” wrote Msgr. Stanković. Noting that he immediately stopped watching the concert “in indignation,” Msgr. Stanković assumed that the invited guests at the concert were not able to follow everything that the television audience saw and therefore President Mesić “could not have witnessed there that he was not representing anyone because for Austria, i.e., for the organizers of the New Year’s Day concert in Vienna, Croatia does not exist.” Therefore, “as a citizen of Croatia and as the head of the foreign pastoral mission for many years,” Msgr. Stanković urged President Mesić to lodge the “most decisive protest.”