CROATIAN DELEGATIONS LAY WREATHS FOR BLEIBURG VICTIMS

( Editorial: --> 4513 ) BLEIBURG, May 17 (Hina) - Delegations of the Croatian parliament, government, ministry of defence, the Croatian army and the Croatian Embassy in Austria Sunday laid wreaths in front of the monument honouring the victims killed on the Bleiburg field, Austria, to mark the 53rd anniversary since the tragic event. Recalling the Bleiburg tragedy, Croatian National Parliament speaker envoy Kazimir Sviben said in May 1945, some half a million soldiers and civilians of all ages left Croatia in the hope that the western world would protect them from Serbian-Bolshevik retaliation. Their hopes were betrayed and they were surrendered to the mercy of Serbo-Bolsheviks, he said. On May 15, 1945, British forces returned soldiers of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and civilians who fled Yugoslavia to the Yugoslav partisans. It is estimated that the partisans killed between 55,000 and 300,000 people at the Bleiburg field, Austria, and on their way back to Yugoslavia (the Way of the Cross). Sviben said a commission set up by the Croatian parliament in 1991 to determine the number of victims by the end of 1997 determined 110,000 victims and gathered data on 700 killing sites and mass graves. The greater Serbia aggression on Croatia in 1991 was jointly halted by the progeny of the Croatian homeland army and Croatian partisans who, Sviben told the gathered at today's anniversary marking, thus revenged the victims of World War Two, Bleiburg and the Way of the Cross in the noblest way. The government delegation was headed by Deputy Premier Ljerka Mintas-Hodak. (hina) ha 171537 MET may 98