Hebrang is the first political official to receive the freedom of the town of Siroki Brijeg. This was said at a session of the town council, which was convened specially for this occasion.
Town council chairman Miroslav Kraljevic praised Hebrang for his contribution to the policy of continuity "which makes no difference between the Croatian people from this and that side of the border", Kraljevic said, alluding to Croats in Bosnia and Croats in Croatia.
Hebrang told the council session that the Ivo Sanader cabinet was planning to intensify contacts with Bosnian Croats, which he said was a constitutional, moral and national obligation.
The Croatian official warned that fundamental rights of Bosnian Croats as a constituent people were being jeopardised.
"In our bid to politically support the equality of the Croat people in Bosnia, we shall lobby at all levels in the world and we shall back all solutions on which peoples in Bosnia agree," Hebrang said alluding to frequent suggestions recently made both by foreign and local politicians on amending the Dayton peace agreement.
Hebrang emphasised several times that Croatia and Bosnia were "two neighbourly and friendly countries". He refuted all accusations that Croatia had been an aggressor in the Bosnian war in the 1990s, and stressed that the biggest credit for the establishment of the Croatian state should go to the first Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and former defence minister Gojko Susak, who was born in Siroki Brijeg.