MPS REMEMBER VUKOVAR & SKABRNJA VICTIMS WITH MINUTE OF SILENCE

ZAGREB, Nov 18 (Hina) - Croatian MPs on Wednesday paid homage to all victims from Vukovar and Skabrnja with a minute of silence. On November 18, 1991, the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), assisted by paramilitary Serbian units, entered the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar after a three-month siege, during which time the town had been literally razed to the ground. After entering the town, the occupying forces killed 270 prisoners, civilians, and wounded people, while deporting non-Serbian residents. On the same day, 300km to the south-west, on the coast, the JNA and Serbian paramilitary units massacred the residents of Skabrnja, a village near Zadar, having previously destroyed the village with tank fire. "Vukovar paid a huge price in the Homeland War, a price built in the creation of independent Croatia," parliament president Vlatko Pavletic told the beginning of the 35th Lower House session, recalling the tragedy. We must remember the heroic defence of Vukovar and the fight for independent Croatia, he said. Without hatred, and without intending to impose collective guilt, we must not forget what the Serbs responsible for those crimes did, because individuals committed the worst atrocities of this century in Vukovar, Pavletic added. Twenty percent of Vukovar's working population was killed. Victims included a six-month-old baby and a 104-year-old man. Pavletic recalled that the atrocities committed by Serbian rebels were further exacerbated by their revenge over unarmed civilians and wounded people after the organised defence of the town had been discontinued. A testimony to that was the rape of a five-year-old girl and an 80-year-old woman. These crimes turned Vukovar into Croatia's Hiroshima, he said. Parliament delegations will lay wreaths in Vukovar and Skabrnja. (hina) ha jn