THIS GOV'T MORE DANGEROUS FOR SERBS THAN FORMER - SERB OFFICIAL

ZAGREB, Feb 27 (Hina) - The president of the Serb People's Party (SNS), Milan Djukic, on Thursday claimed that Serb nationals consider the current government more dangerous than the previous, Croatian Democratic Union-led one because, he said, it was more perfidious. #L# The former government did not offer anything to Serb nationals as far as their minority rights wee concerned, while the current government keeps promising that it will give these rights but is not giving anything, Djukic told a press conference. He said that yesterday in parliament the president of the opposition Croatian Bloc (HB), Ivic Pasalic, uttered a "horrible lie -- that Croats in Donji Lapac are threatened because a soccer team is not allowed in and a priest has been denied the right to say mass in the local high school". Djukic said that as long as he was municipal head in Lapac, no priest would ever say either mass or liturgy at the local high school. Djukic claimed it was not true that 100,000 Serb nationals had returned to Croatia. It is true that 100,000 citizenship certificates have been issued but Serbs can only return when their property is given back to them and their homes are reconstructed, he said. He added that the issue of property returns was at a stalemate while reconstruction of homes was slow. Djukic noted that the Ministry of Public Works, Reconstruction and Construction issued a three-page questionnaire in which applicants are asked if they wish for their property to be returned or give it up. This means that the government is not backing down from its intention that this property should one day belong to the temporary occupants, he said, adding that the questionnaire should ask if the owners wish to rent out their home or apartment until it is returned to them. He concluded that the government had no political will for Serb nationals to return to this country. (hina) sp ha