The Croatian World Congress, a nongovernmental and nonparty international organization, will on Sunday conduct the campaign called "A Flame of Freedom" in support to Croatian generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac ahead of the start of the appeals hearing in their case before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), scheduled for Monday.
The congress calls on Croatians in Croatia and abroad to light candles and say prayers on Sunday in support for the two generals and as a sign of their disapproval of the ICTY's non-final guilty verdict against Gotovina and Markac for war crimes.
The association says that the purpose of the campaign is to point out the injustice in the judgement which the ICTY trial chamber handed down against the two generals on 15 April 2011 sentencing Gotovina to 24 years in prison and Markac to 18 years for war crimes committed during Operation Storm when the Croatian army and police liberated central and southern areas from rebel Serbs in August 1995.
Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany and some other European countries as well as in North and South America are called to join in the campaign on Sunday.
Mass for the homeland will be said in the Marian shrine in the southern Croatian town of Sinj and in the coastal town of Pakostane where Gotovina hails from as part of Sunday's action.
