PRESIDENT TUDJMAN VISITS SOUTHERNMOST CROATIA

( Editorial: --> 7255 ) DUBROVNIK, Oct 9 (Hina) - Croatian President Franjo Tudjman on Friday visited Cilipi and Pridvorje, villages in the southernmost Croatian region of Konavle. Addressing the gathered in Pridvorje, President Tudjman said speaking about Croatia's international position that there were attempts nowadays to impose on Croatia solutions contrary to the Washington and Dayton peace agreements. With our victory we have proved to international factors that Croatia cannot be counted on as some sort of pawn and that the will of others cannot be imposed on us, the President said, but added that some had still not given up on these notions. In Cilipi, a village destroyed during the Serbian aggression on Croatia, President Tudjman talked to local residents and viewed an exhibition of Konavle embroidery. In Pridvorje the President visited the reconstructed St. Vlach's monastery, where in October 1971 he held a speech to celebrate a plate which the Matica Hrvatska cultural association placed on the monastery on the 100th anniversary of Stjepan Radic's birth. Speaking to the gathered in front of the monastery, President Tudjman said he was satisfied with his visit to the Konavle area. For centuries subjected to spiritual and physical aggression, it has remained one of the strongest Croatian areas, he pointed out. The Croatian people have survived because they have been strong and have defended their Croathood and Catholicism and western Europe, he said. "A western Europe which now says we should come closer even though we have both culture and monuments and more lasting values than many peoples in western Europe", the President said. Recalling the past period, he pointed out as a great success the fact that Croatia had achieved independence and democracy, the fact that it has an army which won a great victory over the Yugo- communist army and the Serbian-Montenegrin aggressor. Many, said Tudjman, including Croatia's few friends, believed that Croatia would not make it, that it would be defeated, believed even after "Flash", a 1995 liberation operation, that Croatia must not go to liberate Knin, freed in 1995's "Storm", for fear of causing a world war. Only after Croatia's victory did international factors conclude that they could stay in Bosnia-Herzegovina which they were willing to abandon, he added. Thanks to its people's conscience and resoluteness, also shown by the southernmost residents, Croatia has become an international factor and subject without which problems on the neighbouring Balkans cannot be solved. "Regardless of the fact that some would like a different Croatia, they won't have it, because the Croatian people know very well under whose leadership we have created this Croatia and know that we must keep it", the President added. He recalled that Stjepan Radic said on the same spot in 1926 that all the evils the Croatian people were going through were not the fault of foreigners alone, but that the problem lay within Croats themselves. In this respect, Tudjman emphasised that the Croatian man nowadays knows very well who is willing to serve foreigners and who is to be given credit for our free and democratic state. (hina) ha 091920 MET oct 98