The leader of the association of war veterans from Zagreb who defended Vukovar from the military aggression in 1991, Damir Jasarevic, said on Monday the association strongly condemned the manner of adoption and the content of the Croatian law invalidating certain legal documents of the judicial bodies of the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and Serbia.
Jasarevic told a news conference in Zagreb that he believed that this "ad hoc law" had been adopted for the purpose of electioneering ahead of parliamentary elections and that the law could not solve problems stemming from "the legislative aggression launched by Serbia against Croatia".
We will not agree to being hostages of the government and prisoners in our own homeland, and we will sue Croatia in London as we don't trust domestic courts or international courts like those in Strasbourg and The Hague, Jasarevic said.
He also announced a plan to file a lawsuit against Serbia for its having unlawfully kept in camps the captured Croatian soldiers after 15 January 1992, following Croatia's international recognition, and for not giving compensation to the formerly imprisoned soldiers.
Jasarevic also criticised the Croatian justice ministry for inactivity.
He called on the government to refrain from attempts to manipulate Homeland Defence War veterans.
On the other hand, the Vukovar-based branch of former inmates of the Serb-run concentration camps on Monday expressed regret at the fact that the said law had not been unanimously supported by all parliamentary parties during its adoption.
It also demanded that Croatian prosecutorial authorities "keep issuing indictments against Serbian citizens for war crimes committed against Croatian citizens."
