ELECTORAL RESULTS MOTIVATED CONFISCATION OF TERRITORIAL DEFENCE WEAPONRY - RACAN TELLS INQUIRY COMMISSION

ZAGREB, Sept 27 (Hina) - Ten witnesses including Social Democratic Party president Ivica Racan were interrogated in Zagreb on Monday by a parliamentary commission of inquiry which is to establish the party responsible for the confiscation of Croatian Territorial Defence weaponry in the period up to 30 May, 1990. Racan was at the time the chairman of the Presidency of the Central Committee of the Communist Alliance of Croatia (CK SKH). In his 90-minute testimony, Racan said the weaponry was seized upon orders by the then Yugoslav People's Army General Staff. They are responsible for seizing the weaponry together with those who at that time backed the Greater Serbia policy, he asserted. According to Racan, the decision on the confiscation was secret and nobody knew about it until it came into effect. He said an official communication from the Presidency of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the Presidency of the Socialist Republic of Croatia and handed to President Franjo Tudjman on 31 May indicated the decision was reached on 14 May. Racan believes the JNA General Staff decision was motivated by the results of multi-party elections held in Croatia on 22 April and 6 May, 1990, with the intention to provoke an intervention. "There were (...) threats from the army to abandon the elections, threats of intervention," Racan said. He had told JNA General Staff generals the Croatian leadership would not back from elections and that "we were willing to use arms to defend ourselves in Croatia." "There was not one reason for an intervention," Racan said. He remembered that after learning about the weaponry confiscation decision, he had talks with then future Croatian President Tudjman, on 22 and 23 May. We agreed it was a time when our behaviour must be very responsible and at which we should give no motive for any intervention, he asserted. The parliamentary commission of inquiry's questions insisted on Racan's responsibility, given that as the then president of the Communist Alliance of Croatia he should have headed the Committee for National Defence and Social Self-Defence. Racan said he did not head that Committee and that it did not act under his guidance. "Since my arrival at the head of the CK SKH Presidency on 13 December, 1989, no motion on the appointment of a Committee for National Defence and Social Self-Defence was forwarded to parliament." Asked by Vice Vukojevic of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union why at that crucial moment he had not taken the post stipulated by the law, Racan said "the reactions of the time were aimed in a much more significant direction." Racan believes the Committee was a waste of time in circumstances which called for victory against then Yugoslav federal capital Belgrade. In his testimony, Racan claimed responsibility for all he had done at that time. "I stand behind everything I did between 13 December, 1989 and May, 1990," he said. He objected to the different criteria the inquiry commission was applying to those who had won and those who had lost the elections. The seizure of Croatian Territorial Defence weaponry did not end on 30 May, with the transfer of authority, he said, pointing out it was ongoing throughout 1990 and early 1991. Today, the inquiry commission did not learn much about the work of the Committee for National Defence and Social Self-Defence. All interrogated witnesses stressed they were unfamiliar with the passing and enforcement of the weaponry confiscation decision. (hina) ha jn