ZAGREB: SEMINAR ON TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF FALL OF VUKOVAR

ZAGREB, Nov 17 (Hina) - The Zagreb institute of social sciences "Ivo Pilar" on Saturday organised a day-long seminar, "Vukovar, Ten Years Later - International Reactions 1991", on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the fall of the eastern Croatian town. Along with Croatian experts, a geopolitical analyst from the United States, Janusz Bugajski, and a British MP and former BBC war correspondent from the former Yugoslavia, Martin Bell, spoke about the suffering of Vukovar residents and international circumstances in which the tragic events took place. Bugajski said Croatia and the residents of Vukovar paid for the unwillingness of the western world to believe analysts who warned the crisis in Croatia could develop into a fierce conflict. Now that civilians in the United States have become the targets of terrorist attacks, it is obvious political reactions and mild sanctions alone cannot stop aggression and terror, he said, adding America could learn from Vukovar how to survive and go on living. Martin Bell, who witnessed the fall of Vukovar and the suffering of Croatian soldiers and civilians as a BBC reporter, said the two last weeks of the battle for Vukovar had been the worst period of his life although he had reported about 11 wars. Some JNA officers boasted that more than two million grenades had been fired at the town and destroyed graves bore witness to the fact that the dead could not be safe either, said Bell, adding Vukovar could be rightfully called Stalingrad on the Danube. "There were no winners in Vukovar in 1991. The Croats lost part of their heritage there, and the Serbs lost their good name and the right to any respect," Bell said. A professor at the Faculty of Construction and Architecture, Zlatko Karac, spoke about the culturecide in Vukovar. Of 9.5-billion-kuna damage done to the town, damage on monuments accounts for 529 million, Karac said. Participants in the seminar will tomorrow visit Vukovar and lay wreaths at the town's New Cemetery and Ovcara mass grave site in memory of the victims of the Serbian aggression. (hina) rml