TUDJMAN'S ADDRESS AT CEREMONY OF OPENING NEW POLICE BUILDING

ZAGREB, Sept 29 (Hina) - On the occasion of Police Day (September 29) and the Day of St. Michael, the saint-patron of Croatian policemen, President Franjo Tudjman gave Interior Minister Ivan Penic keys of a newly-constructed building which will be used by criminal police and other sectors of the Croatian interior ministry. On Monday's ceremony in Zagreb, Tudjman thanked policemen for their contribution to the establishment of the sovereign, independent and democratic Croatia state. The Croatian President thanked them also for efforts they make in peacetime in order to ensure safe and secure life of Croatian citizens. Tudjman voiced satisfaction with continuing trend toward decreasing the crime rate in Croatia since 1993 up to now and he was also satisfied with the fact that Croatia is more secure than most European countries. He reiterated that 38,500 policemen had been engaged in the Homeland War, 732 of them were killed and 3,797 wounded. Speaking of duties of the Interior Ministry in peacetime, President Tudjman said that policemen were expected to be efficient in the struggle against all forms of crime and that they were supposed to be consistent and uncompromising in the fight against drug-related crimes, bribery, corruption and origins of the organised crime. "Police forces have a particularly important duty to ensure normal life during and after implementation of the peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danube river area and the return of Croatian displaced people and Serb refugees," he added. This duty had special importance as war consequences for the soul were more difficult and grievous than material damage, he said and added that this fact was forgotten by those international factors who were caring now more for Serb refugees than for Croatian exiled citizens. They (international factors) did not keep in mind that Croatian people could not forget immediately that such refugees were part of the Yugo-Communist and Serbian aggression against the Croatian state and that they had caused big human and material damage and that they had occupied more than a fourth of Croatia for four years, he said. Such one-sided care led to negative tensions among common people and inevitably offered encouragement to Serb extremists among returnees, Tudjman added. This was shown in the recent horrendous killing of two Croats in the area of Korana, and biased 'guardians' in the country and abroad remained mute after that case. This presented obstacles to the effective pursuit of the state policy aimed at establishment of mutual confidence and creation of conditions for co-existence, he explained. Croatian authorities' appeals for the restraint from all forms of revenge are not sufficient, and police forces must ensure peaceful life for returnees, Tudjman added. He emphasised with pleasure a positive role of Serb ethnic community's representatives who advocated the resolution of all question of that community in Croatia in cooperation with Croatian authorities, and added that this country guaranteed all human and democratic rights to Croatian Serbs. Commenting on responsibility of Croats for crimes committed in war or after the liberation of the occupied areas, President Tudjman stressed that Croatian authorities and he in capacity of the country's president insisted and would insist on the responsibility of each individual who committed a criminal act and particularly a war crime. Investigating and judicial organs were supposed to establish the truth and take relevant decision, he added. One should bear in mind that crimes were not committed for some Croatian tradition and even less for a state policy of this democratic government, he explained and reminded that such crimes occurred in all wars and in the wake of them and cited an example of the anti-Fascist democratic coalition that caused suffering to civilian populations damaging German and Japanese cities after the Second World War. He stressed that Croatian authorities had made the greatest efforts to prevent vindictive acts even in the most difficult times in the end of 1991. (hina) jn mš 291907 MET sep 97