General Ante Gotovina said in Zadar on Saturday he would not engage in politics at any level, responding to a question during an interview on Croatian Television.
"No, that's not my choice," he said.
Gotovina and General Mladen Markac were recently acquitted and released by the Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Asked how he had endured being persecuted although he was innocent, he said he had no choice. "After all, we won and this is our victory."
Earlier today, he received Zadar's Honorary Citizen Charter at a special session of the City Council convened on the city's day and the day of its patron saint. The charter was bestowed on him in 2001. He was also presented with the City of Zadar Award from 2011.
The coastal city organised a big welcome for him, with thousands of war veterans, fellow fighters and citizens from all over Croatia.
Gotovina thanked the veterans for Croatia's victory in the 1991-95 war. "Operation Storm and the entire Homeland War belong to our bright history," he said, adding that this past November 16, when he and Markac were acquitted, "the international community confirmed, through the Hague tribunal, that the Homeland War was just."
We were the victors in war and we must be the victors in peace as well, he said.
General Markac was today welcomed by about 5,000 people in his home town of Djurdjevac.
Speaking of his time in the Hague tribunal's detention unit, he said the most difficult thing was to listen to half-truths.
They tried to say that our country was criminal, as did some people in Croatia, he said, adding that those people would be ashamed forever.
