HIP PARTY SUPPORTS HAGUE TRIBUNAL INDICTEES

ZAGREB, March 9 (Hina) - The Croatian True Revival (HIP) party on Tuesday voiced full support for Hague tribunal indictees Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, slamming the government and most opposition parties for accepting the political allegations of the Hague prosecution that the Croatian Homeland War army and police operations were a criminal enterprise aimed at expelling local Serbs, which was carried out by Croatian forces and generals under the leadership of the late President Franjo Tudjman.#L# In a statement signed by party leader Miroslav Tudjman, HIP criticised the government for failing to use the legal instruments envisaged by the Constitutional Law on Cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The party also claimed that the government agreed "to the aggressor being called the victim, and the right to freedom and independence being called a criminal enterprise" thus agreeing to "the revision of history and the basic values Croatia was founded on". HIP believes that the latest accusations and political allegations constitute "a continuation of the policy of the Hague prosecution about the same degree of responsibility of all sides involved in the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, (Croatian President Stjepan) Mesic's position that everybody should apologise to everybody, and the policy of the Racan government which cooperated with the prosecution violating the norms of national and international law, and which from 2000 to 2004 conducted a public campaign aimed at discrediting participants in the Homeland War". (Hina) rml sb