FORMER SLOVENE SPECIAL POLICE COMMANDER: YU TRAINED TERRORISTS

LJUBLJANA, Oct 11 (Hina) - The former Yugoslavia trained foreign citizens at a centre for intelligence and commando operations in Pancevo, claims a former commander of a special Slovene police unit, Vinko Beznik, who took a year-long course in the centre himself. "At the time, hundreds of Iraqis, Libyans, members of the POLISARIO liberation movement, Tanzanians and others were trained at the centre and I know that the group which carried out the coup d'etat in Ethiopia and toppled emperor Haile Selassie included somebody who spent a lot of time in Pancevo," Beznik told the commercial TV station POP-TV. "The difference between commando activities and terrorism is the target - while commando operations are carried out against a military facility or civilian infrastructure, terrorists attack everything," Beznik said. Confrontations between the former Yugoslavia and the West about the sensitive issue of difference between terrorism and the fight for freedom is described in a book by the then and current Slovene premier Janez Drnovsek, called "My Truth". Drnovsek claims that in 1989 - after he took over the post of the federal rotating president and president of the service for the protection of the constitutional order - the army had asked him about his opinion about western criticisms that Yugoslavia was protecting terrorists. According to the book, Drnovsek got out by saying one should take a stand which would suit the Yugoslav constitutional order and Yugoslavia's stand in principle that it does not support terrorism. (hina) rml