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The world sees Serbs as chief instigators of ethnic cleansing and war in the old Yugoslavia.
But two Serb politicians visiting Cleveland say their second-class status shows the West applies a double standard.
"We would be happy if they would grant to Serbs in Croatia the same rights as they've guaranteed the Albanians in Kosovo," said Mirko Sarovic, acting president of the Bosnian Serb republic.
Milan Djukic, a member of the Sabor, the Croatian parliament, said that his once all-Serb village remains a virtual ghost town four years after a military offensive chased most Serbs from Croatia.
Sarovic and Djukic are in Cleveland for the Serbian Unity Congress, a national organization of Serbian-Americans. They spoke through an interpreter.
Djukic said of 54 mostly elderly Serbs who stayed in his village of Donji Lapac, all but seven were murdered and their bodies dumped down wells or burned. No one has ever been prosecuted, he said.
Human-rights groups have been critical of Croatia for failing to go after soldiers who may have been responsible for hundreds of murders during the 1995 Croatian Army offensive. Late last month, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in the Hague sought U.N. Security Council sanctions against Croatia.
However, Ivan Nimac, spokesman for the Croatian mission to the United Nations, said justice is wanting for both sides.
Sarovic, 42, a lawyer, became acting president for Bosnia's Serbs earlier this year when the elected president was fired by the U.N. High Representative in Bosnia. The firing infuriated Serbs, led to a continuing internal political crisis and, Sarovic maintains, violated the 1995 Dayton peace agreement that ended the Bosnian war.
The president, Nikola Poplasen, has also refused to step down.
Sarovic said pragmatic politics would soon mend this aspect of the mess. "No one talks to Mr. Poplasen," he said. "He's completely isolated. Everyone comes to me, but I am still just the vice president. I just do a lot more than a normal vice president."
But, he said, the firing showed that Bosnia remains a Western "protectorate," where democracy is a meaningless word for Serbs kept in a perpetual state of poverty and political disarray.
"The West has a theory it wants to impose on the Serbs," he said. It's presumed "that we have no right to political life or political stability because we created our state in a genocidal way. We do not agree. It is a theory we do not accept," said Sarovic.
Sarovic said he welcomed this first opportunity to visit the United States but would not have any official meetings with U.S. government officials before his return to Banja Luka next week.
Djukic, 52, is one of only two elected Serbs in the 190-member Croatian parliament. Two other Serb deputies were appointed by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman.
About 300 Croatian refugees from Bosnia have moved into his old village of Donji Lapac.
But in a typical Balkan paradox, they've been able to vote in both Croatian and Bosnian elections while the Serb refugees from Donji Lapac, who mostly wound up in Yugoslavia, couldn't vote anywhere.
Nimac, the Croatian spokesman, said some of these anomalies may be changed in a pending election-reform law. But Djukic said the pending law would reduce Serb representation in Croatia's parliament to one guaranteed deputy, from three now.
"We lost our state and our national rights," said Djukic. "The Serbs in Croatia would not like anything else, but to have the same rights guaranteed by America and its allies to the Kosovo Albanians."