ZAGREB, Sept 20 (Hina) - Croatian Homeland War veterans' organisations on Friday voiced their full support to General Janko Bobetko, indicted of war crimes by the international tribunal in The Hague. "If the general decides to refuse
to surrender and to oppose his arrest, from that moment we will be under his command," the associations said.
ZAGREB, Sept 20 (Hina) - Croatian Homeland War veterans'
organisations on Friday voiced their full support to General Janko
Bobetko, indicted of war crimes by the international tribunal in
The Hague. "If the general decides to refuse to surrender and to
oppose his arrest, from that moment we will be under his command,"
the associations said. #L#
The veterans stressed it was unimaginable that the "Hague tribunal
is so politically exclusive as to issue an indictment against the
highest ranking commander of the victorious army of the Homeland
War, by which it is accusing all defenders, invalids and killed
participants of the Homeland War of war crimes".
The association called on all politicians and political parties to
"be unified in the defence of every Croatian general and all other
veterans because only then can we show that Croatia was not created
on war crime".
The associations called on the parliament, government and the
entire Croatian public to review and change provisions of the
Constitutional Law on cooperation with the international tribunal
which, they said, "extradites Croatian veterans based on political
indictments".
They also stressed that the indictment against Bobetko was a
political act which equated the victim and the aggressor.
A coordinating body of Homeland War veterans' organisations began
collecting signatures in Sisak for a petition seeking the
rescinding of the Constitutional Law on cooperation with The
Hague.
The Sisak town committee of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)
also organised the signing of a petition to support General
Bobetko.
Eight of eleven political parties in Sisak-Moslavina County voiced
their support to Bobetko at today's extraordinary joint session.
The joint statement was not signed by representatives of the
Croatian Peasants' Party, the Croatian People's Party and the
Liberal Party, who did not turn up for the meeting.
The president of the Croatian True Revival (HIP), Miroslav Tudjman,
commended the government's decision to return the indictment to the
tribunal, saying that this was a move which should be applauded
because "any political blind man can see that General Bobetko did
not commit a crime, nor did he order it".
Tudjman supports a suggestion that a referendum should be carried
out based on results of which the Constitutional Law on cooperation
with the tribunal would be formulated.
The Croatian Democratic Christian Party (HKDU) sees in the
indictment "a so far undoubtedly the most severe attack on the
Homeland War as a key foundation of the Croatian state".
The party believes the indictment should not be looked at only in
the light of relations between Croatia and The Hague, since it did
have internal political roots and consequences.
HKDU president Anto Kovacevic said that "the Hague tribunal, as a
political court, not a court of justice, was striking into the heart
of the Croatian state".
Kovacevic said the indictment against Bobetko meant that "the
tribunal is trying to equate the victim with the aggressor and
pronounce everything that has been going on for the past ten years a
war crime."
(hina) lml