SIBENIK, Oct 1 (Hina) - The Association of Demobilised Homeland War Veterans (HURBDR) has requested the UN criminal tribunal in The Hague to withdraw all indictments against Croatian war crimes suspects charged on the basis of command
responsibility and to indict people who held posts in government bodies during the war.
SIBENIK, Oct 1 (Hina) - The Association of Demobilised Homeland War
Veterans (HURBDR) has requested the UN criminal tribunal in The
Hague to withdraw all indictments against Croatian war crimes
suspects charged on the basis of command responsibility and to
indict people who held posts in government bodies during the war.
#L#
Speaking at a press conference in the central Adriatic city of
Sibenik on Wednesday, HURBDR president Vladimir Gojanovic said
that the request had already been sent to the tribunal and that his
organisation was expecting an urgent response.
At the same time, the HURBDR also filed a request with the Croatian
Constitutional Court to re-examine the competences and
responsibilities of legislative, executive and legal authorities
in Croatia during the armed conflict in the first half of the
1990s.
The organisation expressed suspicion that Croatian soldiers were
unjustly and erroneously accused in order to avoid the actual
responsibility of legislative, executive and legal authorities who
"violated and restricted freedoms and rights of man by issuing
orders against the Constitution."
"Our request is based on the well-known fact that the Republic of
Croatia never declared war or proclaimed a state of war," Gojanovic
said, adding that it was not a war but an armed conflict between a
portion of the Serb minority backed by Yugoslavia and Croatian
citizens who defended the sovereignty and integrity of Croatia.
"Since war was not declared, the armed conflict was an internal
problem of the Republic of Croatia, so the parliament, government,
president of the republic and judiciary were not in any way
restricted in performing their duties, or rather all civilian
institutions functioned normally," Gojanovic said.
He said that all those institutions spread a fear of war in the
Croatian public, thus consciously deceiving it.
"It is therefore crystal clear who is responsible for all that
happened during the armed conflict between 1991 and 1995, and even a
few years after it ended," Gojanovic said.
(hina) vm sb