DEPUTY PREMIER GRANIC SPEAKS ON BLEIBURG TRAGEDY

BLEIBURG, May 14 (Hina) - I have come to pay homage to the victims of a war crime committed after fascism was defeated, Croatia's Deputy Premier Goran Granic told reporters in Bleiburg, southern Austria, where he headed a Government delegation which attended the marking of the 55th anniversary of the Bleiburg and Way of the Cross tragedy. Deputy premier Granic said the Bleiburg tragedy was proof that those who won World War Two had forgotten why the war had been fought and committed a crime. For Croatia it is important to build a society which will never again bring its citizens in a similar situation, he said. The Bleiburg tragedy is a big warning to all of us, an important and difficult moment, perhaps the most difficult in Croatian history, the deputy premier said. The warning, however, is evidently never enough in the present time, he asserted. The Homeland War Croatia fought in the early 1990s showed that war was a recurrent event in this region, Granic said, adding the new century should be war-free for Croatia. According to some estimates, close to half a million Croatian soldiers and civilians were killed by the partisans in the Bleiburg field in May 1945, after they had surrendered to British Allies in fear of retaliation from the partisan army. Some 200,00 were returned from the Austrian border to the then Yugoslavia. During the long marches, later known as Way of the Cross, many died of exhaustion or were killed. (hina) ha