56TH ANNIVERSARY OF BLEIBURG TRAGEDY MARKED AT ZAGREB CEMETERY

ZAGREB, May 15 (Hina) - Wreaths were laid and candles lit by a monument to the victims of Bleiburg and the Way of the Cross at Zagreb's Mirogoj cemetery on Tuesday to mark the 56th anniversary of the tragedy. The wreaths were laid by delegations of the president of the republic, parliament, government, political parties, and others. Croatia needs internal peace and concord right now and the Bleiburg tragedy remembrance day could be a pledge to new national unity, said parliamentary speaker Zlatko Tomcic. Deputy Prime Minister Goran Granic said nobody had the right to kill civilians, soldiers, and prisoners-of-war in the name of big ideals like anti-fascism. He recalled the government's stance that regardless of political systems, the crime against those people had been a war crime committed after the end of the war. President Stipe Mesic's advisor on internal affairs Neven Ivak said the deepest respect should be paid to the Bleiburg victims. Respects were also paid by the Croatian Democratic Union party, the Zagreb city office for war veterans, the Hrvatski Domobran war veterans' association, and many others. A mass was also celebrated. At the end of World War Two, Croatian soldiers, fearing retaliation by the then Yugoslav federal army, decided to surrender to English Allies in Austria. They were followed by their families and numerous civilians. According, however, to previous arrangements with the partisans, the Allies surrendered them over to the partisans in the Bleiburg field on May 14-15, 1945. According to recent estimates, that exodus included about half a million Croats. Many were killed in that field over those two days. Later that May, the Yugoslav army returned over 20,000 captured Croats from the Austrian border to Yugoslavia. Many were killed or died of exhaustion during the long marches, known as the Way of the Cross. (hina) ha