ZAGREB, March 3 (Hina) - A Deputy Speaker of the Croatian National Parliament, Zdravko Tomac (of the Social Democratic Party, SDP), viewed the sentence imposed on Tihomir Blaskic as "a crisis situation". Tomac said there was a
possibility that the Hague-based Tribunal did not try one man but it did try one wrong policy which accepted the policy of the ethnic cleansing, and the whole blame was shifted to one man or several people who were chosen as scapegoats. "I do not think that such policy of the Hague Tribunal is correct," Tomac stressed. Even if it was a court trial of the policy responsible for some crimes, then Blaskic definitely is not one of those 20 most responsible people for such policy, according to Tomac. "The cause of all what happened is actually the policy for creation of a greater Serbia, the policy of ethnic cleansing, which the international community failed
ZAGREB, March 3 (Hina) - A Deputy Speaker of the Croatian National
Parliament, Zdravko Tomac (of the Social Democratic Party, SDP),
viewed the sentence imposed on Tihomir Blaskic as "a crisis
situation".
Tomac said there was a possibility that the Hague-based Tribunal
did not try one man but it did try one wrong policy which accepted
the policy of the ethnic cleansing, and the whole blame was shifted
to one man or several people who were chosen as scapegoats. "I do not
think that such policy of the Hague Tribunal is correct," Tomac
stressed.
Even if it was a court trial of the policy responsible for some
crimes, then Blaskic definitely is not one of those 20 most
responsible people for such policy, according to Tomac.
"The cause of all what happened is actually the policy for creation
of a greater Serbia, the policy of ethnic cleansing, which the
international community failed to prevent on time," Tomac said.
A Vice President of the Liberal Party (LS), Zlatko Kramaric, said
General Tihomir Blaskic happened to be a naive scapegoat, a pawn in
a game played by culprits who are now at large. "It was known who was
pulling the strings and that the headquarters of the (Bosnian Croat
Defence Council) HVO was not operating according to military
principles but according to private connections," Kramaric added.
Vladimir Seks, an MP and the acting president of the Croatian
Democratic Union (HDZ), said he was flabbergasted with the sentence
of the Hague Tribunal. According to him, the Hague Tribunal has
become a means only to conduct politics rather than right and
justice. If we compare the verdict in the Blaskic case to some other
verdicts we can see how much it was a political message, Seks said
citing the example of Drazen Erdemovic, an indictee who admitted
having killed over 20 persons (in Srebrenica) but received a very
mild sentence.
A parliamentary deputy of the Croatian Party of Rights (HSP),
Miroslav Rozic said the 45-year imprisonment for Blaskic reflected
that the Hague-based International War Crimes Tribunal was
established to deplore the Croat people in Bosnia-Herzegovina and
the Croatian state. The other motive of the Hague Tribunal, is, for
Rozic, to enable the international community to salve its
conscience after it could peacefully observed the slaughter
launched by Serbia in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
A deputy in the upper house of the Sabor, Slobodan Lang, called on
MPs to join him in an initiative to include a debate on the
cooperation with the ICTY and the verdict in the Blaskic case in the
agenda for parliamentary sessions.
(hina) jn ms