MESIC: SERB OPPOSITION ACCUSES MILOSEVIC NOT OF WAR BUT FAILURE

BELGRADE, Dec 9 (Hina) - The problem in Serbia is that a good part of the opposition did not accuse former president Slobodan Milosevic of going into war but of not succeeding in that war, Croatian President Stipe Mesic told Belgrade's NIN weekly. "We always accused (former president Franjo) Tudjman of going with Milosevic into negotiations and the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina," he said in an interview. Asked why on the eve of Zagreb's Nov. 24 summit he insisted that Yugoslavia's new President Vojislav Kostunica was not visiting Croatia but European Union politicians, Mesic said that certainly had not been a state visit, because Kostunica was coming to Zagreb as an EU guest, with Croatia acting only as host. "But that visit will take place. If the Germans and the French, who were always at war, can cooperate, why couldn't Croatia and Serbia" he wondered. Mesic said that in Croatia, "as elsewhere, there are radical groups constantly afraid of some (Yugoslav federation)." He reminded, however, that two projects intended to establish such a state in the past both ended in bloodshed. "Only those politically illiterate would launch a third project. What the radicals want actually boils down to an isolated Croatia." Asked why he did not insist that Kostunica, upon arriving in Zagreb, apologise to the Croatian people for last decade's Serb aggression as the Croats expected, Mesic said the apology was a moral category which should be left for later. "Right now one has to cooperate with the Hague tribunal, surrender war criminals and prevent the constant promotion of collective guilt. It wasn't the peoples who were at war. The leaders were the ones at war, and those who stained their hands with blood have to account," said Mesic. He added Croatia expected a catharsis in Serbia after the coming elections, a message saying Serbs outside of Serbia are a bridge of cooperation with Serbia, "and not the right to conquer other territories." "We expect to get a message that national minorities are protected as all other citizens in Serbia, that cooperation with the Hague tribunal will be complete and that all those the tribunal looks for will be surrendered," Mesic said, accentuating the significance of bringing all who committed war crimes before the tribunal. "Because it wasn't from Zagreb that tanks were seen off with flowers to Belgrade, but tanks were seen off with flowers in Belgrade. Prisoners were not captured in Serbia and brought to Croatian camps. But Croatian prisoners were taken from Croatia to camps in Serbia... Many are still lost, and we also expect a message as to where and how (they) ended. These are the messages we expect from Belgrade. After that we will certainly cooperate, but first we all have to start from the same criteria." Speaking about his 1998 testimony before the Hague tribunal in the trial of Bosnian Croat general Tihomir Blaskic, the Croatian president said that if law-based states existed, all criminals would already have been brought before the tribunal and collective accusations would not be made. "The culprits would be specific Serbs, specific Croats, and specific Bosniaks. But since we didn't have a law-based state, and still don't have it, the Hague tribunal was a gift from heaven to us which would individualise guilt and liberate us from collective liability," Mesic said, adding there was no Croatian interest which would warrant committing a war crime. (hina) ha