CATHOLIC WEEKLY DISSATISFIED WITH MESIC TESTIMONY AGAINST MILOSEVIC

ZAGREB, Oct 9 (Hina) - Croatia's "Glas Koncila" Catholic weekly says in its latest issue that President Stjepan Mesic, in his recent testimony against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic before the UN war crimes tribunal at The Hague, failed to take the opportunity to state the truth about what Croatia had suffered in the Serbian aggression. #L# An editorial headlined "Where Is Present-Day Croatia Going?" claims that Mesic's testimony has reinforced "Greater Serbia propagandist clich?s, to the detriment of the Croatian people and the Croatian state." Stating that the defendant reiterated all the familiar Greater Serbia theses about the Croats - the alleged 700,000 victims of the Jasenovac WWII concentration camp, their alleged fascist inclinations, the alleged crimes committed by them and their extremism - "Glas Koncila" adds that "there was no proper answer to those outrageous imputations." "Will somebody answer for that or do we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that the majority in the world continues to view the Croatian people and the Croatian state through the Serbian propagandist optic, which does not stop at any lies, forgeries and imputations?" the weekly says. It also asks who will strip bare the Greater Serbia propaganda, which the weekly says spoke through Milosevic's lips with such force, ultimately resulting in the already familiar conclusion - "They are all the same." "Glas Koncila" claims this latter point of view plays in the hands of world politicians who, the weekly says, are preparing a Western Balkans project through which, perfidiously and by crawling, they are renewing a certain form of the Yugoslav creation according to the formula - subtract Slovenia, add Albania. (hina) ha sb