WREATHLAYING CEREMONY AT MEMORIAL TO SISAK PARTISAN DETACHMENT

SISAK, June 22 (Hina) - A Croatian Parliament delegation, led by Gen. Janko Bobetko, on Saturday laid wreaths at a memorial site in the Brezovica Forest, commemorating the founding of the Sisak Partisan Detachment as the first anti-fascist unit in Europe. Gen. Bobetko, Member of Parliament and chairman of the lower house veterans committee, is one of the few surviving members of the Sisak Detachment. "The Croatian nation can be proud of its anti-fascist movement and tradition. We were the first in Europe to rise in arms against fascism and join the anti-Hitler coalition," Bobetko said. "On this day 55 years ago, fifty Croatian antifascists and patriots, led by Vlado Janic Capa, gathered in the Brezovica Forest to found the 1st Sisak Partisan Detachment, the first organised and armed anti-fascist unit in enslaved Europe," Bobetko said. "Fifty years after that historic event which we celebrate as Antifascism Day, in June 1991, another fifty Croats gathered in Komarevo (near Sisak) to defend their town, homeland, nation and state against the Serbian aggressor," Bobetko said. "In the Homeland War, the Croatian nation has established its own internationally recognised state and created a respectable armed force which has won the war and vanquished the well-organised Yugoslav army whose main goal was to destroy the Crotian nation," he said. The parliamentary delegation also included Bozidar Pogelnik and Martin Katicic. Wreaths were also laid by representatives of the Association of Antifascist War Veterans, the Croatian Homeland War Veterans and the Sisak City Council. (hina) as 221730 MET jun 96