ZAGREB, June 21 (Hina) - The chairwoman of the European Parliament's committee on South-eastern Europe, Doris Pack, on Saturday voiced hope Croatian runaway General Ante Gotovina would surrender and face the Hague's war crimes
tribunal.
ZAGREB, June 21 (Hina) - The chairwoman of the European
Parliament's committee on South-eastern Europe, Doris Pack, on
Saturday voiced hope Croatian runaway General Ante Gotovina would
surrender and face the Hague's war crimes tribunal. #L#
Pack said at the Croatian Democratic Union's (HDZ) Eighth General
Assembly she hoped Gotovina would go to The Hague and so serve
Croatia in peace-time as well, for which she was booed.
Pack voiced satisfaction that all those who had devastated
Croatia's eastern city of Vukovar were now in The Hague. Crimes
committed in the Homeland War must be processed so as to remove any
doubts about the cause of the war, she added.
Assessing that the HDZ's time in opposition had been well-spent and
the party today had people who could take Croatia to Europe, Pack
warned that returning to nationalism would be fatal, since the
international community connected the HDZ with mistakes from the
final period of its rule. She told HDZ members that they should
prove those who think so wrong.
Envoys at the assembly were also addressed by other international
guests -- representatives of the German CSU and CDU parties, CDU
president Angela Merkl's personal envoy, retired US Ambassador
Thomas Patrick Melady and the president of the Slovene Social
Democratic Party, Janez Jansa.
The envoys commented that the HDZ had not had such high positioned
guests from abroad for a long time and added that Croatian political
parties had mostly not been represented by their leaders at the
assembly.
According to information from the HDZ, the assembly is attended by
representatives of the Croatian Party of Rights, the Croatian
Social Liberal Party and the Democratic Centre, but not the
Croatian Peasant Party (HSS), which had announced it would not send
representatives to the meeting.
Commenting on the absence of HSS representatives, HDZ president Ivo
Sanader told reporters this meant nothing, since "cards are
stacked" after elections.
The envoys were also addressed by a US congressman, Republican Guy
Wander Jagt, who enumerated five mistakes by the current
authorities because of which, he said, basketball players would be
cast out of the game. Among them are the growth of unemployment,
all-present corruption, and the forgetting of brave heroes of war,
he said.
(hina) lml sb