ARTISTS-VETERANS URGE PARLIAMENT DEBATE ON COOPERATION WITH ICTY

ZAGREB, Mar 6 (Hina) - The Association of Croatian Artists-Veterans of the Homeland War (UHUDDR) on Monday urged parliament to at once discuss The Hague war crimes tribunal's sentence against general Tihomir Blaskic, as well as Croatia's future cooperation with the tribunal. "We hold the sentence unfounded in facts and irrational in the political part of its explanation, indicating a complete lack of knowledge of the war and ignorance of history," read a statement signed by UHUDDR president Hrvoje Hitrec. "We hold the sentence against general Blaskic is an introduction into the criminalisation of the military and police operations Flash and Storm (through which Croatia in 1995 liberated the largest part of its occupied territory), into the criminalisation of the Homeland War as a whole, into the criminalisation of the Croatian Army, the Croatian people, and into an impermissible reinterpretation of Croatia's struggle for survival and the establishment of an independent state," the statement said. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague on Friday sentenced Blaskic to 45 years in prison. (hina) ha jn