WAR VETERANS DISTRIBUTE LEAFLETS IN FRONT OF PARLIAMENT BUILDING

ZAGREB, July 10 (Hina) - Members of a Croatian war veterans' association called the Headquarters for the Protection of the Dignity of the Homeland War, headed by its president Mirko Condic, on Tuesday distributed leaflets at the entrance to the parliament building in Zagreb warning MPs that the adoption of a government decision on the hand-over of persons indicted by the Hague war crimes tribunal would "negate the Croatian Constitution and its definition of the Homeland War as the fundamental value of the Croatian state." The deputies are urged not to treat this problem as a competition among political parties but as "the issue which will permanently mark the current and future generations of the Croatian people." "Statements in the Hague indictments which say that the indicted generals are guilty of attacking the so-called republic of Serb Krajina with the aim of ethnic cleansing and expulsion of 150,000 persons are, along with other unacceptable and monstrous theories, an overt attempt to change the historical truth about the war in the region and stigmatise many generations of Croatian citizens as fascistic and genocidal," the leaflets read. The deputies are warned not to "close their eyes to obvious attempts to criminalise the (Croat) people and state due to current arrangements with the international community." "Only naive people and fools can believe that the trials of generals Gotovina and Ademi, with such charges, would not be the vilification of the Homeland War," the veterans say in the leaflets urging MPs to respect the parliament's Declaration on the Homeland War and the Constitution and call a referendum for which the headquarters has collected the necessary 400,000 signatures. (hina) rml