WAR CRIMINALS MUST BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE - MARGARET THATCHER

( Editorial: --> 1173 ) VUKOVAR/ILOK, September 17 (Hina) - Those who committed crimes in Vukovar must be brought to justice, Baroness Margaret Thatcher said on Thursday while visiting the eastern Croatian Vukovar-Srijem County. Thatcher was informed about the situation in the Croatian Danube River region by the president and deputy presidents of the Croatian National Trust Establishment Committee, Vesna Skare-Ozbolt, Josko Moric and Vojislav Stanimirovic. On a round through the Vukovar hospital, Thatcher spoke with Dr. Vesna Bosanac and other personnel about the war ravaging. she expressed her awe at their effort and courage they had displayed under the war circumstances. After visiting the hospital and Vukovar's most devastated neighbourhood of Mitnice, Margaret Thatcher laid a wreath, lit a candle and bowed before the Central Cross at the city's New Cemetery, where victims of the Homeland War have been buried. Thatcher also held talks with the chairman of the Croatian government Commission for Missing and Imprisoned Persons, Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Grujic, and representatives of families of the missing. President of the centre for the rights of missing and imprisoned persons "Apel", Zdenka Farkas, gave Thatcher a white brick, a plea to the international community for a speedier and more efficient discovery of the whereabouts of missing persons. Thatcher pledged to continue doing everything in her power to help the families of missing and imprisoned people. She added that the perpetrators of war crimes in Vukovar must be brought to justice. The Baroness also visited the site of a mass grave on Ovcara, a farm near Vukovar, at which the Serb aggressor dragged away 200 people from the Vukovar hospital and executed them in 1991. After Vukovar, Thatcher visited Ilok, a town on the border with Serbia which was also under occupation during the war. She was given by the residents two bottles of Ilok's famous wine which was also drunk at the crowning of Queen Elisabeth II in 1953. They asked her to give one bottle to the Queen as a present from the residents of Ilok. (hina) lml 171857 MET sep 98