"The Croatian public is thrilled, the Serbs are shocked, and we are somewhere in the middle," he told Der Standard daily in an online interview released on Sunday.

"I am deeply concerned about the future of Serbian-Croatian relations, for the position of the Serb community in Croatia and for the democratisation of political values."

Asked if the acquittal was a step backwards in efforts towards reconciliation, Pupovac said it seemed like a return to the 1990s because after the ruling it seemed pointless to face those dark times and the policy of former President Franjo Tudjman.

"The ruling was understood as a release from guilt and a victory of the policy from which Croatia distanced itself in 2000," he said with regard to the recent acquittal of generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac and last year's acquittal of Ivan Cermak, adding that the question of who was guilty remained.

"Why would the war to restore borders be legitimate when big crimes turned it into ethnic cleansing," he wondered, adding that the Gotovina-Markac acquittal "is good for the two generals but not for the feeling of justice."

He is not too optimistic that by prosecuting the culprits, Croatia will shed light on the crimes committed after the 1995 Operation Storm.

He said the Hague tribunal's ruling "isn't the worst that has happened" to the Serb community in Croatia because after expulsion, stigmatisation and losing jobs, "the proper question isn't whether they are satisfied or not, but whether they can live without fear."

"For 20 years I believed in a different Croatia in which different people can live together and in which justice always wins," said Pupovac.

If Croatia joins the European Union with the dominant logic that the war is over and the war crimes issue solved, "then a new canon is being set," he said, adding that many would live disappointed and wonder "what to do about the fact that crimes happened and those responsible not only haven't been punished, but haven't been disgraced either."