MESIC, ADLESIC, TOMAC RESPOND TO DJUKIC'S ACCUSATIONS

ZAGREB, Aug 12 (Hina) - The assessments recently made by a Croatian Serb official on the account of the most prominent figures of Croatia's leadership elicited responses from President Stipe Mesic, HSLS vice president and MP Djurdja Adlesic, and SDP vice president and MP Zdravko Tomac. Serb People's Party president and MP Milan Djukic spoke to reporters in Rijeka on Friday about the accountability of General Petar Stipetic, the Croatian army's chief-of-staff, for what he called ugly events during Flash and Storm, 1995' military operations through which Croatia liberated parts of its territory occupied by Serb rebels. Djukic said the most prominent figures of Croatia's current leadership, including President Mesic, were among those responsible for the crimes, and that among political parties, the SDP (Social Democratic Party) and the HSLS (Croatian Social Liberal Party) were the most accountable for what failed to be done. Responding to Djukic's statement, President Mesic told Croatian Television on Friday evening he was surprised by the statement. "When I found out about the crime in Pakracka Valley I intervened with (former Croatian) President (Franjo) Tudjman. I didn't know about the other crimes, because I wasn't in the position to be able to know anything about them. I was speaker of parliament, in which Mr Djukic also had a seat. Everything Mr Djukic knew, I knew too," said President Mesic. HSLS' Adlesic assessed Djukic's statement as "really serious" coming from a member of parliament's House of Representatives who was not in his first mandate. She was also surprised Djukic failed to mention the formerly ruling Croatian Democratic Union among the culprits he named, urging him to explain how SDP, HSLS, and President Mesic were accountable. According to SDP's Tomac, Djukic is "encouraged by some tendencies (...) in a part of the international community" which "keen on resolving the issue of Serbia and overthrowing Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in any way possible," would like to relativise last decade's Greater Serbia aggression and reassess Storm, Flash, and Croatia's Homeland War as "an at least partly devised, planned action whose aim was the ethnic cleansing of Serbs." Tomac said the intention was to show that Storm was not a liberation action, moral and great in the Croats' history, but that before, during, and after Storm, Croats were doing what Serbs did in Vukovar in 1991. General Stipetic said he would not respond to the accusations "because I am a professional soldier, and not a politician." (hina) ha