Ivan Vekic, Croatia's former minister of the interior and now leader of the "Croatian Guard" party, has dismissed as a lie the statement by former Croatian President Stjepan Mesic that he (Mesic) was present "when a government minister told (former President Franjo) Tudjman that Serb villages in western Slavonia were being set on fire in three shifts."
Addressing a news conference in Osijek on Saturday, Vekic said that by making such a statement Mesic was attacking Croatia's first president, the late Franjo Tudjman, and claiming that Croatia's former political and military leadership was aware of what was happening on the ground, but failed to prevent it.
Vekic went on to say that "some houses were set on fire, and they would again be set on fire because they were terrorist strongholds."
"No civilian was killed there, because civilians had left their villages. Those were villages with Serb populations, but those were Chetnik villages," Vekic said, adding that crimes against Croats in Cetekovac, Vocin, Mikleus and Balinci were not committed "by the JNA or volunteers from Serbia and Montenegro, but by local Chetniks, whose burned houses Mesic is now bemoaning."
Vekic also said that Tudjman did not know about any burning of the Serb villages.
