ZAGREB, Oct 16 (Hina) - The Croatian parliament on Thursday discussed an interpellation request regarding the "Gotovina case", submitted almost six months ago by 55 deputies at the proposal of the Croatian Social Liberal Party's club
of deputies. At the time, deputies requested the government to grant General Ante Gotovina's defence team, within a week's time, access to documents it had sent to the U.N. war crimes tribunal.
ZAGREB, Oct 16 (Hina) - The Croatian parliament on Thursday
discussed an interpellation request regarding the "Gotovina case",
submitted almost six months ago by 55 deputies at the proposal of
the Croatian Social Liberal Party's club of deputies. At the time,
deputies requested the government to grant General Ante Gotovina's
defence team, within a week's time, access to documents it had sent
to the U.N. war crimes tribunal. #L#
Deputy Prime Minister Goran Granic reiterated that the government
could not make the relevant documentation available to attorneys
whose credibility had not been established and who were not
cooperating with the UN tribunal. He added that no new arguments had
been presented in today's debate on the interpellation request
regarding the government's conduct in "the Gotovina case" and that
the government would stick to its initial position.
Opposition deputies warned that the indictment against the
fugitive general was untenable, especially in parts referring to
the ethnic cleansing of 200,000 Serbs from the so-called Republic
of Serb Krajina, "the excessive use of artillery in Knin" and "the
names of persons allegedly killed in 'Storm'", who were later
proven to be alive and living in Serbia.
The MPs said that the indictment against Gotovina was an attempt to
revise the Croatian history and question the Homeland War and army-
police operations which liberated formerly occupied Croatian
territory.
Opposition deputies also said that by failing to act the government
had enabled the tribunal to take such a position. They claimed that
one of the mistakes the government made in this regard was the
resolution on cooperation with the tribunal from April 2001, which
recognised the tribunal's jurisdiction over liberation operations
"Flash" and "Storm". Following the resolution, Croatia started
receiving the first indictments from The Hague regarding the said
operations, the opposition said.
Opposition deputies dismissed as unfounded the government's
statement that the former HDZ-led government's refusal to allow
Gotovina to give a statement to tribunal investigators in 1998 had
done the general the most harm.
Deputies of the ruling coalition said that the former government
had extradited much more indictees to the tribunal than the
incumbent government, which handed over to The Hague only Mladen
Naletilic aka Tuta and Vinko Martinovic aka Stela. They also said
that the government deserved credit for the successful defence of
generals Petar Stipetic, Rahim Ademi and Janko Bobetko, instead of
being accused of currying favour with the UN tribunal.
The parliament will vote about the interpellation request on
Friday.
Tomorrow is the last session of the present parliament, when a
decision is expected to be reached on dissolving the parliament
before elections.
(hina) rml sb