Social Democratic Party leader Zoran Milanovic said on Saturday that legal means should be used to challenge what he labelled the unjust non-final verdicts which the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) delivered against Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac on Friday.
The leader of the strongest opposition party said in Bjelovar today that this was a big test for Croatia which "a majority of citizens are passing successfully".
Addressing an SDP convention in Bjelovar, Milanovic said that his message to the European Union is that Croatia and its citizens have deserved to see the eventual completion of the accession negotiations, as they are showing, at these difficult moments, a great amount of maturity, capability, and patience.
"This was not fair in The Hague and legal and law-based means should be used to challenge that," Milanovic said adding that the EU should now offer support to Croatia to wrap up its accession negotiations.
"Croatia waged a defensive war and there were bad things in that war of defence. There were things which we cannot be proud of, there were murders, there were crimes... Croatia has not dealt with it appropriately and failed that test of maturity. If that had been dealt with properly, there would not have been these verdicts. The two generals are paying someone else's debt," Milanovic reiterated,
We joined the United Nations in 1992 within our internationally recognised borders and we had the right in 1992 and in 1995 to liberate our land from insurgents who did not recognise the Croatian authority, he said.
