ZAGREB, May 16 (Hina) - Croatian President Stipe Mesic's Office on Tuesday released a statement saying "Baltazar Jalsovec's speech on the Bleiburg field was surprising to say the least. Someone going to a commemoration as a
representative of the Croatian National Parliament should take the utmost care as to what he is saying." Croatia belongs to the honoured circle of those who defeated fascism, the statement says. The Constitution's preamble states that present-day Croatia is a successor to ZAVNOH, a World War Two anti-fascist parliament, and that no one must bring that into question without accountability, especially not an MP. Throughout its history, the Croatian people experienced major suffering and many of its sons died for freedom, but they never engaged in digging up bones, or in claims that Croatia was conceived there where Croatian graves are located, the statement says.
ZAGREB, May 16 (Hina) - Croatian President Stipe Mesic's Office on
Tuesday released a statement saying "Baltazar Jalsovec's speech on
the Bleiburg field was surprising to say the least. Someone going to
a commemoration as a representative of the Croatian National
Parliament should take the utmost care as to what he is saying."
Croatia belongs to the honoured circle of those who defeated
fascism, the statement says. The Constitution's preamble states
that present-day Croatia is a successor to ZAVNOH, a World War Two
anti-fascist parliament, and that no one must bring that into
question without accountability, especially not an MP.
Throughout its history, the Croatian people experienced major
suffering and many of its sons died for freedom, but they never
engaged in digging up bones, or in claims that Croatia was conceived
there where Croatian graves are located, the statement says.
Not long ago we were told "There where Serb graves are is where
Serbia is", and similar claims, the statement says, led to the
killing of young Croats who defended the homeland.
A deep respect for all victims of the horrendous wars and suffering
which took place on our territory calls for our tolerance and
measured words full of reverence for the victims, regardless of
whose they are, President Mesic's concludes.
Bleiburg is a field in southern Austria and the site of mass
killings of Croats immediately at the end of WW2.
Jalsovec, parliament's vice president and the parliament
president's envoy at the marking of the 55th anniversary of the
killings, told Sunday's commemoration that 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 had
said.
According to some estimates, close to half a million Croatian
soldiers and civilians were killed by partisans in the Bleiburg
field in May 1945, after they had surrendered to British Allies in
fear of retaliation from the partisan army. Some 200,000 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.
Jalsovec today released a statement saying his Bleiburg speech had
been a free interpretation of parts of a declaration the Croatian
Social Liberal Party (HSLS) adopted at its eighth assembly.
To quotes from the declaration on Croatia's ideological and
political distancing from the two totalitarian systems of the 20th
Century, Jalsovec added his personal opinion that the Bleiburg
massacre had demonstrated the true character of the new state
created in 1945 and its communist authorities.
In today's statement, Jalsovec quotes the HSLS declaration,
including the part which says that "the majority of the Croatian
people did not see the victory of the partisan movement as its own
liberation, because of (the movement's) communist and Yugoslav
orientation. Yugoslavia's communist rule began with reprisals and
terror on a mass scale, and Croats were the most numerous victims."
Jalsovec agreed today that his Bleiburg speech had elicited
numerous public reactions, which ranged from approval to harsh
objections.
(hina) ha mm