HRW: MINORITY RIGHTS - CROATIA'S BIGGEST HUMAN RIGHTS CHALLENGE IN 2002

WASHINGTON, Jan 15 (Hina) - Ensuring minority rights remained Croatia's biggest human rights challenge in 2002, notes Human Rights Watch in its annual world report on human rights for 2002, released on Tuesday. "The government remained reluctant to lend strong support to the return of Serb refugees and backed away from its previous record of cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)," says the New York-based organisation in the section of the report dealing with the human rights situation in Croatia. The 558-page World Report 2003 addresses the human rights situation in 58 countries in 2002. "At the same time, the government was increasingly committed to pursuing domestic trials to establish accountability for abuses committed against Serbs during the 1991-95 war," it is noted. HRW also notes that the Croatian authorities have failed to adopt a long-pending law on minority rights. "Seven years after the Dayton Peace Agreement brought peace to the region, by the close of 2002 most of the 350,000 displaced Croatian Serbs had still not returned home. Between January and August, 7,800 Serbs returned (primarily elderly persons returning to villages), increasing the total number of returnees to 110,000, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)... Property issues remained the principal impediment to sustainable return, with thousands of returnees finding their pre-war homes destroyed or occupied by others. Lack of employment opportunities, often resulting from oblique discrimination, also impeded return." Although Croatia has adopted legal instruments enabling property restitution, this has proved difficult to implement due to a number of obstacles, the most important one being the regulation under which the authorities must provide adequate accommodation to temporary occupants of other people's property. "While eviction of illegal occupants of Serb properties was legally mandated, in most cases in which they refused to vacate the property, the competent housing commissions had not sought court-ordered eviction," notes the report. The situation was even more hopeless for those who had pre-war tenancy rights in apartments, HRW notes, adding that the Croatian government believes that Croatian Serbs with such tenancy rights had left their apartments voluntarily and that it had no obligation towards them. "In a step back from its previous cooperation with the ICTY, the government failed to arrest and transfer former general Ante Gotovina to the custody of the tribunal...," HRW notes and adds that the government also refused to surrender retired general Janko Bobetko. "In a welcome development, the authorities accelerated domestic prosecution of ethnic Croats suspected of war crimes committed during the 1991-95 war. Serious concerns remained about the quality of these proceedings, however. Judicial bias and witness tampering characterised some trials, including the high-profile trial in Split for crimes committed in 1992 in the Lora military prison." HRW further notes discrimination against the Romany in all fields of public life. The Romany have difficulty obtaining citizenship because they have to have five years of permanent residence in the country and excellent Croatian language skills, reads the report. It is also noted that Romany children are segregated into separate and educationally inferior Romany-only classes. "Roma in Croatia also continued to face discrimination in obtaining access to housing, health care, and employment," says the report. The Croatian government generally did not interfere with the independence of the media, HRW said. (hina) rml