SEMINAR "VUKOVAR - SEVEN YEARS LATER" HELD IN ZAGREB

ZAGREB, Nov 17 (Hina) - The seminar "Vukovar 91 - Seven Years Later" was held at Zagreb's Institute for Social Sciences on Tuesday. The purpose of the seminar, held under the auspices of Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, was to encourage permanent gathering of facts on Vukovar's defence as well as the critical observation of the development of the new Vukovar and the post-war Croatia. It is necessary to find each person from the list of missing Vukovar residents and bring each war crime suspect before justice, participants in the conference stressed. They also noted that the suffering of Vukovar and its citizens were being forgotten and stressed the need to repeat the truth about the hero-city. Speakers at the conference recalled the superhuman efforts of Croatian soldiers, medical crews and civilians in the defence of their city from a much stronger enemy, as well as soldiers and civilians imprisoned in Serbian prison camps. They also stressed the need for care for the psychological and physical well-being of prisoners-survivors and their families, as well as for their rights, especially the right to return. A documentary on the tragic events during the three-month siege of the city by the former Yugoslav People's Army and Serbian paramilitaries was shown at the conference. The heroic resistance of poorly armed and much less manned Croatian forces was broken on November 18, 1991. After the city's fall, Croat residents were deported while the imprisoned soldiers and the wounded and civilians from the Vukovar hospital were executed. (hina) it/rml