BOOK BY NENAD IVANKOVIC PRESENTED IN ZAGREB

ZAGREB, Nov 20 (Hina) - The book by Nenad Ivankovic "Mesicu, Racane, zasto tako?" (unofficial translation "Mesic, Racan, Why This Way?") about the issuing of indictments against Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Janko Bobetko by the UN war crimes tribunal, was presented in a crowded conference hall of Zagreb's Sheraton hotel on Tuesday. #L# Commenting on a government statement saying the government, Prime Minister Ivica Racan and his deputy Goran Granic would sue him "for untruths and unacceptable claims presented against them in the book", Ivankovic said this showed the incumbent authorities were nearing their end because they were persecuting writers and political opponents. In the chapter entitled "Bosnia-Express or Liquidation?" Ivankovic writes, among other things, about alleged plans by Granic and Racan to make Gotovina surrender himself abroad or have him arrested and handed over outside Croatia. "The idea was, if Gotovina was arrested in Croatia, to have him secretly transferred to Bosnia- Herzegovina and handed over to the SFOR, which would transfer him to The Hague. This way, the authorities in Zagreb would dodge any responsibility for his hand-over," reads the book. Ivankovic said that the tribunal was forwarding to Croatia indictment by indictment and accusation by accusation, which did not constitute the punishment of crime but the crime of punishment. Croatian True Revival party leader Miroslav Tudjman said that by challenging untruthful statements in the indictments one was challenging the establishment of those statements as historical facts. By refusing the statements, both general Bobetko and Gotovina have shown that they support the rule of law and oppose the cowardice of the incumbent authorities, which want to hand them over to those who are pushing Croatia back to the Balkans, Tudjman said. The president of the Croatian Cultural Society, Igor Zidic, said that Ivankovic's book "speaks about the blatant lie and trick the incumbent authorities are preparing - to sell the best Croatian men, and about attempts by the tribunal to destroy everything that Croatian soldiers achieved with their victories on the battlefield". Zidic said that one had to know that Croatia was not based on crime as "we could not live in freedom and tolerate the criminalisation of those who made that freedom a reality". Social Liberal Josko Kontic believes it is high time for a referendum on cooperation with the tribunal, which he says should prosecute war criminals and not be trying to find an alibi for Milosevic. (hina) rml