55TH ANNIVERSARY OF BLEIBURG TRAGEDY MARKED IN AUSTRIAN FIELD

BLEIBURG, May 14 (Hina) - Several thousand people gathered in the Bleiburg field in southern Austria on Sunday to mark the 55th anniversary of the suffering of Croatia's Bleiburg and Way of the Cross victims. Delegations of Croatia's Parliament and Government, representatives of political parties and numerous associations, survivors of the Bleiburg tragedy, and Croats from Croatia, Bosnia- Herzegovina and the Diaspora laid wreaths by a monument to the victims. A mass was also celebrated. Croatia's Ambassador to Austria Ivan Ilic also laid a wreath. The Croatian Government delegation comprised Deputy Premier Goran Granic, Defence Minister Jozo Rados, and Deputy Veterans' Minister Josip Vidovic. Croatian Parliament vice president Baltazar Jalsovec asserted the Bleiburg tragedy was one of the biggest in the history of the Croatian people. "Today we have a Croatian state, and its germ stems from Bleiburg," he said, adding we must never again keep quiet about Croatian victims, and prevent Bleiburg and Way of the Cross from ever happening again. Speaking on behalf of the Honorary Bleiburg Platoon, retired general Ante Roso said there was no reconciliation unless what happened and who was responsible was clearly stated. He called on humaneness, respect and pride for every man who gave his life for Croatia. At the end of World War Two, Croatian soldiers, fearing retaliation by the then Yugoslav army, decided to surrender to the English Allies in Austria. Their families and numerous civilians followed them. However, according to previous arrangements with the partisans, the Allies handed them over to the partisans in the Bleiburg field on 14 and 15 May 1945. According to estimates released in recent years, that exodus included about a half million Croatian soldiers and civilians, of whom many were killed in the field over those two days. In the second half of May 1945, the Yugoslav army returned columns of over 200,000 captured Croats from the Austrian border to the then Yugoslavia. Many of them died of exhaustion or were killed in the long marches, later called the Way of the Cross. Celebrating mass, military vicar Nikola Roscic called on "the preservation of the sanctity of the biggest collective memory in the conscience of the Croatian people." Wreaths were also laid by members of the Honorary Bleiburg Platoon, delegations of Bosnia's Croats, the Croatian Parliament's Commission in charge of establishing the number of WW2 and post-WW2 victims, the Croatian Political Prisoners' Society, the Croatian Victimology Society, the Croatian Association of Homeland War Military Invalids, the Croatian Emigration Institute, and others. (hina) ha