Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor met members of Vukovar's coordinating body of Homeland War veterans' and victims' associations in that eastern Croatian town on Wednesday, telling the press afterwards she was glad they had supported the government's three most important projects.
"They are the completion of Croatia's accession negotiations with the European Union, the implementation of the economic recovery programme and the unsparing struggle against corruption and crime," Kosor said, adding the delegation gave her a list of nine development projects essential for Vukovar for which they expect the government's assistance.
The projects include the construction of a thermal power station, the Vukovar-Vinkovci-Zupanja expressway, a city ring-road, a river shipyard, factory sidings, wind turbines, a waste management centre, and the expansion of the river port.
Kosor said they also talked about the case of Croatian war veteran Veljko Maric, adding she informed the delegation about a recent government meeting with Croatia's leading legal experts.
She said the Croatian Academy of Legal Sciences today completed a study "on the events which have rightfully disturbed not only all veterans, but all Croatian citizens," adding the study would provide the basis for agreement on legal and political action.
Last week's government meeting with legal experts discussed a Serbian law on the organisation and jurisdiction of state bodies in war crimes proceedings, with the decision that the Croatian Academy would draw up a study within 10 days to prevent a case like that of Croatian war veteran Tihomir Purda from happening again.
Today's meeting was also attended by Vesna Bosanac, wartime and incumbent manager of Vukovar's General Hospital, who was recently deposed by the police over Serbia's accusations that she had committed a war crime.
"I knew that I was under investigation since 1994, when dr. Juraj Njavro told me so. That's something nobody likes to hear," she told reporters, adding the indictments against Croatian war veterans were "the fruit of the Greater Serbia policy".
"They demolished this city, killed people, brought their soldiers here, and then they dared to write a semiliterate warrant. That hurt me a lot," Bosanac said, adding she did not feel she needed any protection, "because I know that we did our best in those conditions."
