SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY ESTABLISHED IN CROATIA

( Vidi vijest: 5793 ) ZAGREB, Oct 25 (Hina) - About 300 Croatian citizens established the Socialist Workers' Party (SRP) in Zagreb on Saturday, electing Stipe Suvar, a university professor and former senior official of the defunct Socialist Federal Republic Of Yugoslavia and its Communist Party, as president. The party's constituent assembly began with the playing of the Croatian national anthem and the Socialist Internationale. "We are establishing a party which will be fighting for a Socialist alternative in Croatia," Suvar said in his opening remarks, adding that "the Socialism that was built in poor countries, without the achievements of the modern civilisation and the political culture of the West, is buried." Suvar called on the members of his party to "definitively renounce dogmas such as the dictatorship of the proletariat, revolution, one-party system and state monopoly" and to champion "all political freedoms and the protection of all minorities, human rights, civic tolerance and pluralism," Noting that Croatia, as a Central European, Mediterranean and Balkan country should seek its place in the European community of nations, the SRP leader stressed "the geographical, historical and cultural interdependence of South Slavic peoples." "We oppose the politics of hatred and dissension of the present nationalist regimes in the area of former Yugoslavia and call for the return of all displaced persons and refugees," he said. Suvar said that Croatia should develop versatile cooperation with all countries, particularly with its neighbours, with which he said it should have "soft and open" borders. (hina) vm 251923 MET oct 97