HOMELAND WAR SOLDIERS SEEK HOMELAND WAR REPUTATION PROTECTION

VUKOVAR, April 20 (Hina) - Some seventy members of the Croatian association of Vukovar soldiers from the Homeland War "Vukovar '91" requested at a regular annual session held in this eastern Croatian town on Thursday that the Government and Parliament protect the reputation and values of the Homeland War. During the discussion the soldiers warned about attempts to criminalise the Homeland War, saying that exhumations being carried out by investigators of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) were a strike to the honour of defenders of whom many had given their lives for the homeland. The Homeland War soldiers also forwarded a call for the organisation of a protest rally in Vukovar to express and once again confirm the unity of defenders and patriots. Warning about still many unsolved issues of the status of Homeland War soldiers, Association president Mile Dedakovic-Jastreb stressed the need for the state's greater involvement in the process. Croatian President's envoy Lieutenant General Franjo Feldi called on the soldiers to not allow anybody manipulate them and use them for "suspicious goals". "The President of the Republic wishes you to know that we must at any price conserve the dignity of the Homeland War, as well as the honour, honesty, truthfulness of the soldiers and knights of the Homeland War," Feldi stressed, adding any "meddling into Vukovar and its defenders must be considered defiling". (hina) lml jn