VUKOVAR VUKOVAR, May 31 (Hina) - About 2,000 Croatian Homeland War veterans, volunteers and invalids held a protest rally in Vukovar Tuesday to express support to the protection of the Homeland War and its values, at the end of which
they adopted a declaration. President of the Homeland War Soldiers' Associations' Alliance, which organised the rally, Velimir Kvesic, addressed the protesters stressing that by organising the rally on Independence Day, Croatian soldiers wished to warn against the "criminalisation and satanisation of the Homeland War". According to him, "Croatian authorities are turning victory in the Homeland War into defeat with a number of criminal laws, which is something Croatian volunteers and veterans will not accept." Speaking at the rally were also leading people of several veterans' and volunteers' associations. The rally ended with the adoption of a declaration with requests to the Croatian Governme
VUKOVAR, May 31 (Hina) - About 2,000 Croatian Homeland War
veterans, volunteers and invalids held a protest rally in Vukovar
Tuesday to express support to the protection of the Homeland War and
its values, at the end of which they adopted a declaration.
President of the Homeland War Soldiers' Associations' Alliance,
which organised the rally, Velimir Kvesic, addressed the
protesters stressing that by organising the rally on Independence
Day, Croatian soldiers wished to warn against the "criminalisation
and satanisation of the Homeland War".
According to him, "Croatian authorities are turning victory in the
Homeland War into defeat with a number of criminal laws, which is
something Croatian volunteers and veterans will not accept."
Speaking at the rally were also leading people of several veterans'
and volunteers' associations.
The rally ended with the adoption of a declaration with requests to
the Croatian Government and media "to immediately cease
pronouncing any expression of patriotism as extremism," and a
"consistent and efficient implementation of the Law on the Rights
of Croatian Veterans".
The declaration warned that volunteers "do not accept equalising
Croatian soldiers with the fighters of the so-called People's
Liberation War (during W.W.II), even less with Chetniks and
Yugoslav People's Army soldiers in the name of an alleged
establishment of a civil society".
Croatian authorities are requested to behave as the authorities of
a sovereign country in the protection of national interests in
relations with the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
"We are embittered with the stance of the Croatian authorities
which is, by accepting any demand and wish of the Hague Tribunal,
cooperating in the criminalisation of the Homeland War," the
declaration states.
It also includes a request for a general amnesty for all Croatian
veterans, for rescinding the Amnesty Act, Law Adjustment Act, the
Law on Reconstruction and the Law on Areas of Special Government
Care, as they are "harmful for the Croatian state, they are not an
expression of the free will of the Croatian people, and are in
contrast to the achieved results of the Homeland War".
The veterans are expecting and demanding the punishing of "all Serb
criminals who carried out genocide against Croats", and publicly
stated that Croatian Homeland War volunteers would not forgive,
forget or reconcile with criminals-
After the declaration on the protection of values of the Homeland
War was read, a message was forwarded to President Stipe Mesic,
Prime Minister Ivica Racan and president of the Croatian National
Parliament, Zlatko Tomcic, asserting "Croatian volunteers and
veterans will never give up the fight for our own dignity and
maintaining national values of the Homeland War".
(hina) lml