HOMELAND WAR ASSOCIATIONS FROM SISAK VOICE PUBLIC PROTEST

SISAK, May 12 (Hina) - A co-ordination of seven Homeland War associations from Sisak-Moslavina County, which gathers some 8,500 war victims, on Friday requested that President Stipe Mesic as well as the country's executive and judicial authorities "finally put an end to media attempts aimed at discrediting and vilifying Croatian Homeland War soldiers and victims." A statement, signed by the presidents of the seven associations, read that "Croatian Homeland War soldiers and victims are not rightists, anarchists or bandits but patriots and protectors of the homeland." The associations support the Union of County Associations of Homeland War Invalids and the president of the Homeland War Invalids (HVIDR) association, Marinko Liovic, who announced the possibility of "peaceful protests if the problems of Homeland War military invalids are not resolved immediately." The associations emphasised that "the right to peaceful protests is guaranteed by the Croatian Constitution," and that if they stage peaceful protests "they will stage them in the spirit of Croatian culture." A member of the Presidency of the Association of Homeland War Volunteers (UHDDR), retired colonel Ivica Pandza Orkan from Sisak, said "the UHDDR branch in Hrvatska Dubica has directed a public question to the local municipal and county leadership, Homeland War Soldiers' Minister Ivica Pancic and his assistant Pero Kovacevic, as to why the mass grave in Seliste in Donji Bacin near Hrvatska Dubica has not been marked." Pandza recalled that the mass grave in Bacin is Croatia's second largest mass grave (after Ovcara near Vukovar), from which the remains of 56 Croatian soldiers and civilians, killed by Serb aggressors during the Homeland War, were exhumed. (hina) mm rml