SKABRNJA HEADS: ICTY INVESTIGATORS SENT TO EASE PUBLIC OUTRAGE

SKABRNJA, Sept 16 (Hina) - Local authorities in the southern Croatian village of Skabrnja (the Zadar hinterland) on Saturday issued a statement commenting on the recent arrival of two International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) investigators whose task is to probe into war crimes committed against Croatian villagers in Skabrnja and Nadin in 1991. The local authorities viewed the arrival of the ICTY investigators as an attempt "to alleviate the Croatian public's indignation at the co-ordinated policy of the Tribunal and the incumbent Croatian authorities." They recalled that nine years had passed since the Skabrnja tragedy. "All events were documented and data processed in a thorough manner, and the evidence and witnesses were available. We can understand the bid to launch or renew a probe at the moment only as a play for the current-politics purposes," read the statement. "The pompous start of the investigation at the same time when many Croatian war veterans are being brutally arrested is just a futile effort to present the fairness of the Tribunal and to alleviate the Croatian public's indignation at the co-ordinated policy of the Tribunal and the incumbent Croatian authorities," it added. Skabrnja authorities said that the beginning of the work of the Hague-based Tribunal was applauded and that "we all naively believed in its fairness." Following its activities in recent years we have become disillusioned and begun to doubt about the objectivity, fairness and ultimate objectives of the Tribunal. "The manner and the context of the Hague Tribunal investigators' arrival in Skabrnja has confirmed our doubt," the Skabrnja heads said. The statement was signed by Skabrnja Mayor Mladen Skara and the municipal council's chairman Nediljko Bubnjar. The two added that they felt called upon to give their own attitude on the arrival of the ICTY investigators in their hometown not for the purpose of politicising but because of the protection of the dignity of the Homeland War and because of the memory of the murdered villagers. Two investigators of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) arrived in the Zadar area (southern Croatia) on Wednesday (September 13). The village of Skabrnja case is known as one of the worst atrocities committed in the war in Croatia in 1991. On November 18, 1991, the former Yugoslav National Army (JNA), allied with the local Serb rebels, attacked the village with several thousand troops and some 30 tanks. After entering the village soldiers dragged the local civilians out from the house cellars and killed some of them. Some villagers where beaten and tortured, while an elderly woman was ran over by a tank. In the wake of the occupation the aggressors killed 86 people, 60 of whom were civilians. (hina) ms