VUKOVAR REMEMBRANCE DAY MARKED IN EASTERN CROATIAN TOWN - EXTENDED

VUKOVAR, Nov 18 (Hina) - A memorial plaque was placed at the main entrance of a hospital in the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar on Thursday to mark 18 November, Vukovar Remembrance Day. On 18 November 1991, units of the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), backed by Serb paramilitary formations, entered Vukovar after three months of siege and constant shelling. Immediately upon entering the demolished town, they took from the general hospital's basement, a frequent shelling target, 261 wounded soldiers and civilians, killing 200. The memorial plaque reminds of the horrendous crime. #L# After unveiling the plaque, some 5,000 participants in the marking of Vukovar Remembrance Day, headed by town mayor Vladimir Stengl, headed in silence towards the building of Velepromet, which after the fall of Vukovar the JNA used as a concentration centre, whence prisoners were brought for interrogation, tortured, killed, and taken to execution grounds. On the way to the Velepromet building, Vukovar residents lit lanterns in memory of 3,000 killed Vukovar soldiers and civilians. The president of the Association of Serb Concentration Camp Prisoners, Danijel Rehak, and a former prisoner Janja Sekulic unveiled a plaque at the Velepromet building in the presence of Vesna Skare-Ozbolt, envoy of the President of the Republic, Parliament and Government representatives and many other state and local officials. State and county delegations, a delegation of the Town of Vukovar and victims' associations laid wreaths by a monument at Ovcara, a site near Vukovar where the hospital patients were killed and buried in a mass grave. Skare Ozbolt said eight years had passed since the Vukovar tragedy and "Vukovar executioners Sljivancanin, Mrksic, and Radic" had still not been brought to justice. "I am not advocating hatred, but there can be no peace without justice", she said, adding the Croat people nevertheless had to turn to their own future. A Parliament Vice-President Vladimir Seks said Vukovar Remembrance Day did not mark Vukovar's defeat but its sacrifice for the freedom and belonging to the Croatian state. "Vukovar Remembrance Day is also a day when we renew our vows to the homeland. It is a day when we can tell Europe again that it had not been up to the task of protecting the defenceless Croatian people", Reconstruction Minister Jure Radic said. Vukovar Mayor Vladimir Stengl said he believed in the return of all displaced Vukovar residents, as well as in reconstruction and the Government's assistance to "Vukovar in reclaiming its lost soul". On behalf of Vukovar residents, Stengl prayed to God that Croatian President Franjo Tudjman may recover. The delegations also laid a wreath by the central cross at Vukovar's Croatian Homeland War Soldiers Cemetery, and by a cross on the mouth of the Vuka into the Danube river, erected for all victims who died for Croatia's freedom. A mass was later served at St. Philip and Jacob's Church for all Croatian Homeland War victims. According to some sources, about 1,000 Croatian soldiers died while defending Vukovar, and as many were killed in battles around Vinkovci and Osijek, nearby towns which sent assistance when Vukovar was under siege. After breaking Vukovar's poorly armed defence, the captures and mass murders, the JNA and Serb paramilitary units deported the remaining non-Serb population from Vukovar - 21,700 people were forced to leave their town. More than 7,000 Vukovar residents were imprisoned in Serb concentration camps. The largest mass grave in Europe since World War II was discovered in Vukovar. In summer 1998, 938 victims of the Serb aggression were exhumed from the grave. There are almost no surviving residents whose family members or relatives have not been either killed or gone missing in the Serb aggression. Of the 15,000 housing units this Baroque town had before the war, 14,000 were damaged in the war. Of about 22,000 displaced Vukovar residents, some 5,000 have returned to their town. Regardless of the peace-time surrounding in and outside Croatia, Vukovar will remain some kind of dungeon of its own suffering in which peace is not the same as elsewhere. (hina) jn ha rml