ZAGREB, March 5 (Hina) - The leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Ivica Racan, on Friday urged the government to voice its position in parliament on reports that it had received more indictments from the U.N. war crimes
tribunal in The Hague.
ZAGREB, March 5 (Hina) - The leader of the Social Democratic Party
(SDP), Ivica Racan, on Friday urged the government to voice its
position in parliament on reports that it had received more
indictments from the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.#L#
Speaking at a news conference, Racan said it was paradoxical that
indictments were the main topic of the public, media and back-corridor
talk. "By avoiding to state its official position on this situation,
the government is demonstrating lack of responsibility towards
citizens and the highest state institution - the Sabor," Racan said.
He accused government members of "having run out of parliament last
night, instead of providing MPs with at least basic information". He
added that this was yet another case of "corruption of democratic
standards and marginalisation of parliament".
The parliamentary opposition last night requested that the government
urgently state its position on the alleged indictments, but its
request was not met.
Racan, a former PM, recalled that the former government had come to
parliament on several occasions to inform MPs, at the opposition's
request, of its relations with the tribunal.
Commenting on last night's statement by Sabor vice-president Luka
Bebic that the former government had kept the Gotovina indictment
secret, Racan said that Bebic's claim could be interpreted as the
confirmation of the reports on more indictments.
The SDP leader said that "the SDP is not running away from a
discussion on what the former government did and how it acted with
regard to cooperation (with the tribunal)", recalling that the day
after the indictment against Gotovina was received he sent a letter to
the tribunal requesting that it remove the part of the indictment with
unacceptable political assessments.
"First we tried to do what we could through contacts with the
tribunal, and when that did not yield any results, we decided to go
public with the indictment," Racan said.
He said that the former government had problems with credibility
because of the opposition's resistance to cooperation with the
tribunal, adding that the incumbent government would have the same
problem if it failed to make it clear that cooperation with The Hague
was not only a tactical goal but a strategic one as well.
The SDP will continue to advocate cooperation with the tribunal, thus
helping the government to protect national interests at a delicate
time, when Croatia is expecting the European Commission to voice its
opinion on its membership application.
Racan said he still hoped for a positive assessment from the
prosecution of the Hague tribunal, but added that the assessment would
depend "on our conduct, which must be transparent".
(Hina) rml sb