Social Democratic Party (SDP) leader Zoran Milanovic said that the statement by President Ivo Josipovic about wrong people ending up before the Hague tribunal was abused and that the President spoke of people who should have ended up in Croatian prisons long ago, but had not because the Croatian authorities had failed to act.
"I think the statement by the President was abused the day he made it, and later on he explained what he thought, that people who should have ended up in Croatian prisons were responsible," Milanovic said in an interview with Media Servis broadcaster.
Milanovic was commenting on the talks Josipovic had with Croatian emigrants in New York on Monday, when he said that "personally, as a jurist, I am not satisfied with the results of the trials at the Hague tribunal" and that he was not sure that "the right people from Croatia are there either."
Milanovic said that Croatian politicians were responsible because they had tolerated such a situation through their inactivity. He stressed, however, that "the charge of involvement in a joint criminal enterprise is the politicisation of the tribunal."
Speaking of the accused Croats on trial in The Hague, Milanovic said that some of them "are paying off someone else's debt." "I said that a year or so ago, it was about Ante Gotovina, that he is paying off someone else's debt, and I still think that today."
Milanovic explained in what way, if he won the trust of voters at the forthcoming election, he would deal with the issue of privileged pensions, citing a German or Scandinavian model. He said that a member of Parliament would be entitled to a bonus of a couple of hundred kuna on their pension for a four-year term in Parliament, adding that the present model was irritating the entire nation.
Speaking of a possible review of veterans' pensions, Milanovic said, "If ever there was a time to review veterans' pensions, that time is gone. We can only make a mess there." He said that of the 500,000 veterans, several tens of thousands of them, disabled people, were receiving veterans' pensions. "If there were any irregularities, the time has passed to correct them," he added.
If the SDP wins voters' trust, in the first year in power it will try to reverse the current trends, regain people's trust in politics, and focus on the economy and new investors, especially those from Russia and China, Milanovic said.
