YU Merry-Go-Round

JOSIP MANOLIC, the Deputy-President of HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union, the ruling party in Croatia) and the head of the Constitution Enforcement Bureau, said the following regarding the opposition's behavior during the war: "While WE were bleeding on the battlefields, THEY were wandering around the world, accusing the government, and subsequently helping the enemy." Commenting on these accusations, Mr. Goranko Fizulic, a member of the opposition HSLS (Croatian Social-Liberal Association) said: "This malicious campaign is being led by those who up until recently roared that they would raise the [Croatian] flag on the Romanija mountain (near Sarajevo), but managed to post it within the second zone of Zagreb Public Transportation."

Dr. ANKICA SMOLJANOVIC, the head of the Social Medicine Department at the Split Health Care Institute, says: "According to the World Health Organization's definition of health, nobody around here is healthy."

MOMCILO PERISIC, a Major-General and the Commander of Bileca Army Corps, also known as the "Knight of Mostar" amongst his admirers, recounts in the ILUSTROVANA POLITIKA weekly magazine:

"In the Neretva river valley, around Mostar, live 25,000 Serbs. I am here to protect these people who are threatened with genocide or forced evacuation to other places. And I will be there as long as this danger exists. We never attack, but we resolutely strike back when attacked. Nobody can criticize us for this, especially as it is well-known that the Croatian army is protecting 95% of its population in this region."

Answering the question whether Mostar had to be demolished in such extent, General Perisic says: "Believe me, I would have never fired a single shot if they had once accepted a cease-fire, if they had stopped attacking us. (...) They are firing from cultural and sacral buildings, so that, when we return the fire, they can say that the Army is firing at these places. They also have the "Walking Charley", i.e. a mortar mounted on a truck, from which they fire several shells and then move to another part of town. They know what I have told them: that I will respond to all their provocation ten times stronger, so let them move "Charley" around the town. Therefore, they are to be blamed for the destruction of Mostar, for if they didn't open fire, neither would I."

In his address at the Vavedenje monastery, ATANASIJE JEVTIC, the Bishop (Orthodox) of Banat, gave the following comment on the "UFO flashes over Sumadija" (central Serbia): "Celestial signs are showing that God is with us, but they are also warning us to repent our sins."

Pick of the Week

"Enough oil, sugar and flour till the end of the week"

(A headline from the "Politika" daily, Tuesday, May 19, 1992)