ACTIVISTS URGE PRIME MINISTER, SABOR HEAD TO HELP REMOVE MONUMENT TO WAR CRIMINAL

ZAGREB, May 8 (Hina) - A committee for the removal of the monument to Jure Francetic, erected in the town of Slunj, has sent a letter to Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and Parliament's head, Vladimir Seks, asking them to help remove immediately the monument erected to this high-ranking Ustasha commander and a war criminal in Second World War.#L# The committee, which gathers activists from several associations for the protection of human and individual rights, promotion of democracy and representatives of anti-Fascist war veterans' association, held a news conference in Zagreb on Saturday informing the public that it urged the top officials to help remove the monument. The head of the centre for peace studies, Vesna Terselic, said that tomorrow (9 May) would be the Day of Europe and the Victory Day marking the defeat of Fascism, and that the removal of the Francetic monument would mean that Croatia respected the achievements of anti-Fascism and human rights which are incorporated in the national Constitution. "We expect Prime Minister and Sabor President to make this move," Terselic said. She recalled that the monument to Francetic had been erected four years ago in Slunj (some 90 kilometres south of Zagreb) and that in the meantime there was no political will to remove it although its building was condemned by almost everybody from President Stjepan Mesic to local leaders of Karlovac County. Zoran Pusic of the Citizens' Committee for Human Rights (GOLJP) said that it was hard to imagine the erection of a monument to a war criminal in a country which would like to become a European Union member. Jelka Glumicic from the Karlovac-based committee for human rights said that over 800 citizens had signed a petition for the removal of the Francetic monument in 2001. (Hina) ms