ZAGREB, Feb 13 (Hina) - The former assistant to the Croatian Homeland War Veterans' Minister, Blazenka Gogic, on Thursday forwarded an open letter to Prime Minister Ivica Racan, claiming that she was dismissed at last week's
government session because of a verbal offence and for being on the side of the veterans.
ZAGREB, Feb 13 (Hina) - The former assistant to the Croatian
Homeland War Veterans' Minister, Blazenka Gogic, on Thursday
forwarded an open letter to Prime Minister Ivica Racan, claiming
that she was dismissed at last week's government session because of
a verbal offence and for being on the side of the veterans. #L#
The government dismissed her at the suggestion of Vetarans'
Minister Ivica Pancic. The chief argument for her dismissal, she
said, was an interview to a daily in which, as a clinical
psychiatrist, she opposed an American test used to test veterans
for post-traumatic stress disorder.
In the interview, she mentioned that veterans feared that the test
could be used for issuing indictments against them by the U.N. war
crimes tribunal.
In her letter to Racan, Gogic says that Minister Pancic "is
continuously acting against the veterans" and the ministry
"implementing a policy of suspecting all veterans because it is
demanding that veterans constantly prove, through various tests
and revisions, that they are not corrupt and deceiving".
Nothing in this country is being tracked as persistently and
consistently as "fake invalids and fake Homeland War veterans,"
which perfidiously negates the basic values of the Homeland War,
Gogic wrote in her letter.
The president of the Croatian Association of Homeland War Military
Invalids (HVIDRA), Damir Varazdinac, and Gogic at today's news
conference accused the ministry and Minister Pancic of working
against the veterans' interests. They cited the American test MMPI-
2 as an example of the rights of veterans being threatened,
especially of those with PTSD.
Varazdinac said that using this test was an example of political
dictatorship aimed at reducing the rights of veterans.
Pancic told reporters today that the American test had been used in
Croatia for years, that it was not intended for discovering false
invalids and was not the basic instrument in diagnosing PTSD.
A team of experts at the ministry assessed the use of the MMPI-2 test
as "ethically and professionally fully adequate," said Pancic.
The steering board of the Croatian Psychology Society (HPD) has
suggested to the veterans' ministry to amend errors in the
preparation and establishment of the extent of damage to the
organisms of Croatian invalids of war, stating that this had not
always gone hand in hand with the basic principles of psychiatry and
psychology.
The HPD, however, claims that the test is, both in Croatia and
abroad, one of the best means of diagnosing various psychiatric
disturbances soldiers might experience after numerous war
traumas.
(hina) lml sb