Agence France Presse January 12, 2006 17:46 GMT
Croatian Communist party sues Croatia, Serbia
ZAGREB, Jan 12, 2006 (AFP) -
Croatia's Communist Party president said Thursday he had filed a lawsuit against
Croatia, Serbia and its former leader Slobodan Milosevic over "starting a
fratricidal war" in the ex-Yugoslavia.
Dragan Batak said he held Croatia responsible due to policies led by its
nationalist leader Franjo Tudjman, but could not file a suit against him since
he died in 1999.
"Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo Tudjman were the main initiators of the
fratricidal wars which raged from 1991 to 2000 the territory of Josip Broz
Tito's Yugoslavia," Batak told AFP, referring to the founder of the former
communist federation.
He said he filed the suit before a court in the eastern town of Vukovar at the
end of December. The court declined to comment.
Batak, claiming his party was a successor of the Yugoslav Communist Party,
demanded in the suit that the court orders Croatia and Serbia to compensate for
sufferings to the families of war victims.
Milosevic's regime backed Serb separatists in Croatia and Bosnia, while under
Tudjman Croatia backed the secessionist aspirations of Bosnian Croats during the
1992-1995 war there.
Tudjman -- who proclaimed Croatia independent in 1991, sparking the 1991-1995
Serbo-Croatian war -- died in 1999.
Milosevic is currently on trial before the UN war crimes tribunal for his role
in the 1990s wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2006
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