Croatian Parliament Speaker Luka Bebic on Friday received a group of war veterans, who started a hunger strike in downtown Zagreb last Tuesday in protest against the verdict of the Hague war crimes tribunal against Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac.
The hunger-striking veterans informed Bebic of their requests.
After the meeting, Bebic said said he had asked the veterans to end the hunger strike which they had been on for 12 days, because it could only harm them.
We need to see what can we done in the appeals process and gather all forces and all jurists, politicians and scientists in order to file an appeal in accordance with the legal procedure," Bebic said.
I informed them of the parliament's activities regarding the appeals proceedings, notably the Homeland War Declaration and told them that I will relay their demands to the parliamentary presidency, the government and the War Veterans Committee, Bebic said adding that parliamentary procedure does not allow him to place an item on the agenda on his own.
Asked if the veterans' efforts were in vain, given that they demand that Croatia ends cooperation with the ICTY and withdraw its request for EU membership, Bebic said Croatia had adopted the constitutional law on cooperation with the Hague tribunal and that this too was discussed at the meeting.
"The constitutional law binds us to cooperate with the tribunal and they (veterans) are claiming that (Croatia) cooperated (only) with the ICTY Prosecutor's Office and that the defence and the prosecution should be equal before the tribunal," Bebic said.
On behalf of the hunger-striking veterans, Damir Jasarevic addressed the press saying that Bebic received them and asked them to end the strike, stressing however that they would continue their action indefinitely. Veteran Ivan Velicki said they would continue to be on strike until a parliamentary session was called, after which they would decide what to do next.
