BACIN/HRVATSKA DUBICA, Oct 21 (Hina) - A monument honouring 56 victims killed by the Serb aggressor in 1991 was unveiled on Saturday on the site of the second largest mass grave discovered in Croatia in Bacin, a village by the border
on Bosnia and Herzegovina, some 100 km south-east of Zagreb. The monument was unveiled by Veterans' Minister Ivica Pancic, as a government envoy, and Djurdja Gmaz, president of the Homeland Defence War Civilian Victims Association of Sisak-Moslavina County. Also in attendance were envoys of the president of the republic and parliament, local officials, the victims' family members, and local residents. Fifty-six bodies were exhumed in Bacin during March and April 1997. The victims, from Hrvatska Dubica and nearby Cerovljani, were shot dead on Oct. 21, 1991. Thirty-seven were identified and buried in a common grave at the cemetery in Hrvatska Dubica, while 19 have
BACIN/HRVATSKA DUBICA, Oct 21 (Hina) - A monument honouring 56
victims killed by the Serb aggressor in 1991 was unveiled on
Saturday on the site of the second largest mass grave discovered in
Croatia in Bacin, a village by the border on Bosnia and Herzegovina,
some 100 km south-east of Zagreb.
The monument was unveiled by Veterans' Minister Ivica Pancic, as a
government envoy, and Djurdja Gmaz, president of the Homeland
Defence War Civilian Victims Association of Sisak-Moslavina
County. Also in attendance were envoys of the president of the
republic and parliament, local officials, the victims' family
members, and local residents.
Fifty-six bodies were exhumed in Bacin during March and April 1997.
The victims, from Hrvatska Dubica and nearby Cerovljani, were shot
dead on Oct. 21, 1991. Thirty-seven were identified and buried in a
common grave at the cemetery in Hrvatska Dubica, while 19 have yet
to be identified.
Minister Pancic said the monument was being unveiled on behalf of
the government, to remind future generations of a massacre whose
victims had been elderly people, the youngest 41, the oldest 90, and
most older than 70.
"That crime, as numerous other crimes committed in the Greater
Serbia aggression on... Croatia, showed the genocide aspect of the
Greater Serbia policy which rested on ethnic cleansing in which
everything was allowed, even big crimes like the one in Bacin,"
Pancic said.
"There is no forgiveness for war crimes, war crimes cannot be
amnestied," he stressed, adding he was confident those responsible
would be called to account.
"Croatia's institutions must say the truth about the Homeland
Defence War, we have to know the truth about the crimes. This
government, as any other Croatian authorities, have to shed light
on the missing... on the identity of the 19 victims exhumed in
Bacin, and all other unidentified Homeland Defence War victims,
because many families rightfully expect it," said Pancic.
Unveiling monuments to the victims must be the survivors' vow that
they will direct their strength and skills "to the building of a
democratic, law-based, economically prosperous and socially fair
state in which all will live in peace, safe, well and happy, because
only such a Croatia will be a strong Croatia," he asserted.
"That is the best way to protect the Homeland Defence War, as the
most honourable part of recent Croatian history which is embedded
in the foundations of this state. I believe such a Croatia must be in
the interest of all, regardless of political, ideological and other
differences, because it is the only way the Croatian state can
survive," the veterans' minister said.
On behalf of President Stipe Mesic, his military cabinet chief
Major General Kresimir Kaspar conveyed the deepest condolences.
"We can forgive, but we must and will not forget, and all who
committed crimes have to account for them. Out of obligation to
those who are no longer here, to ourselves and to those who will come
after us, we must also be supportive of shedding light on our own
stains," he said.
"Nobody has the right to either tarnish or condemn the Homeland
Defence War, but the protection of (its) dignity does and must not
serve to protect or cover up misdeeds. To establish who abused
confidence and power for personal vendettas or... some sort of
personal gain, to prosecute abuse will be our greatest contribution
to the preservation of the dignity of the Homeland Defence War and
the moral purity of the huge majority of the Croatian people who
either with arms of otherwise contributed... to the creation of
their own state," said Kaspar.
Parliamentary envoy Stjepan Dehin recalled Croatia was still
looking for 1,600 missing persons, and said the Bacin monument
should remind us that "concord is necessary in the building of
democratic Croatia. We owe it to the killed Croatian soldiers and
the people who were brutally tortured and brutally buried."
(hina) ha