SABOR OFFICIALS MEET REPS OF MAIN HEADQUARTERS FOR PROTECTION OF DIGNITY OF HOMELAND WAR

ZAGREB, Sept 26 (Hina) - Croatian Sabor Vice-President Zdravko Tomac and House of Counties' President Katica Ivanisevic met representatives of the Main Headquarters for the Protection of Dignity of the Homeland War, who handed them a petition with 88,000 signatures urging the protection of dignity of the Homeland War, gathered throughout Croatia. After the meeting, which was held behind closed doors, the headquarters' president Mirko Condic told reporters the purpose of the meeting was to "resolve burning issues in high state institutions, primarily the Croatian National Sabor." The headquarters' members said the signing of the petition continued. The Headquarters has achieved certain goals, the language of the media has changed and the Croatian Bishops' Conference has reacted as well, said Condic. He expressed dissatisfaction with the media treatment of the headquarters' activities, adding the headquarters was under a kind of media blockade. Condic said he was satisfied with the fact that the headquarters' representatives would attend today's parliamentary session. Parliament Vice-President Zdravko Tomac said that "people from the Headquarters have proven that they care about Croatia as a law- based and democratic state and that they will defend it today, in changed circumstances, the way they defended it with arms during the Homeland War." There can be no Croatia without the protection of dignity of the Homeland War, Tomac said. "Croatia was not established in terror but in the struggle against the Great-Serbian terror. Those who defended Croatia are now raising their voice because they know that if we changed the past we would jeopardise the present and the future," Tomac said. House of Counties' President Ivanisevic agreed with Tomac's view. Asked whether the House of Representatives would include in its agenda changes to the Constitutional Law on Cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on the non-recognition of the commanding responsibility for alleged war crimes, Tomac said "all items suggested by deputies are included in the Sabor's agenda," and he believed "that Sabor President Zlatko Tomcic would find a way to include the item in the agenda." Tomac estimated that "indictments cannot be issued lightly on the basis of a broadly interpreted term of commanding authority." Tomac's personal opinion is that "there is no need to change the current Law on Cooperation with the ICTY," and that "the authorities are determined to defend the dignity of the Homeland War in concrete cases." (hina) rml