ZAGREB, Dec 3 (Hina) - Participants in Wednesday's round-table debate on the return of displaced persons and refugees assessed that despite good will on the state level, returnees encountered numerous obstacles on the local
level.
ZAGREB, Dec 3 (Hina) - Participants in Wednesday's round-table
debate on the return of displaced persons and refugees assessed
that despite good will on the state level, returnees encountered
numerous obstacles on the local level. #L#
The debate, organised by the Centre for Human Rights, was attended
by representatives of some 20 NGOs, state and international
institutions.
The participants pointed out that a government report on refugee
returns in the 2000-3 period provided summary data but no analysis,
thus failing to give a clear picture of the real problems of the so-
called sustainable return.
"Physical returns are not in question, but the question is whether
returnees are really provided for and if they are given the required
protection," said Mario Pavlovic, a representative of UNHCR
Zagreb.
There are about 210,000 Croatian refugees still in Serbia-
Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina, he said, but stressed that a
large number did not intend to come back to Croatia because they had
obtained citizenship in those countries.
The president of the Croatian Association of Settlers, Tomo Aracic,
said that neither Croatian authorities nor the international
community or NGOs were interested in settlers.
These settlers -- Croats who fled or were expelled from Bosnia-
Herzegovina and Serbia-Montenegro -- do not stand in the way of
Croatian Serb returnees, Aracic said, pointing to the
impossibility of Croats returning to those countries, especially
to Bosnia's Serb entity.
Some speakers in the debate said Croatian Serbs were prevented from
returning with administrative and technical means.
Ranko Helebrandt of the Croatian Helsinki Committee on Human Rights
said less than 20 percent of all Croatian refugees wished to
return.
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