$ Y VUKOVAR, Oct 4 (Hina) - The Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) forwarded a letter to Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, calling him to "influence state media" to stop "stirring up a feeling of intolerance and mistrust" in
Croats towards Serbs in the Croatian Danube river region.
MALICIOUSL
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VUKOVAR, Oct 4 (Hina) - The Independent Democratic Serb Party
(SDSS) forwarded a letter to Croatian President Franjo Tudjman,
calling him to "influence state media" to stop "stirring up a
feeling of intolerance and mistrust" in Croats towards Serbs in
the Croatian Danube river region. #L#
The letter was a reaction to a statement of 2 October in
which five associations of Vukovar victims of the Homeland War
reacted with bitterness to a statement of the SDSS president and
MP at the Croatian Parliament House of Counties, Vojislav
Stanimirovic, about victims from the Vukovar hospital during the
Serb occupation of Vukovar in 1991, which he had given to German
reporters in Vukovar last Monday, the local Serb radio in Vukovar
said on Friday.
The statement of the five Vukovar associations said that
Stanimirovic had said, "We know what happened with the people
from the hospital, and they are not patients, but some other
people".
Reacting to these words, the five associations asked that
Stanimirovic be suspended, apprehended and sent to The Hague
Tribunal.
Stanimirovic told the Vukovar radio and television that his
words had been relayed incorrectly and interpreted maliciously,
adding that he had replied to a reporter's question about mass
crimes on Ovcara (near Vukovar),
"I said then that Ovcara is a reality, that Ovcara exists,
that war crime was committed there and that we condemn it in any
case, Stanimirovic said"
"However, I also said that it is yet unknown who the
victims of Ovcara are and that I do not agree that patients were
taken to Ovcara. Many people were arrested at the hospital, but
there were many soldiers there. I also said that, as I am a
doctor, I am familiar with the Geneva convention, that it is not
the same war crime whether the crime was committed against a
helpless man, an ill person, a wounded person or a soldier.
Although both are war crimes, they do not carry the same weight.
So, Croatian newspapers and reporters practically took advantage
of my statement.
And, unfortunately, they took advantage of the most tragic
population - a population whose loved ones had been killed or are
missing - to use my statement, to ask for my suspension from the
Parliament and my deferral to The Hague, because they obviously
believe that I know something more," Stanimirovic said.
(hina) lm
041052 MET oct 97