OSCE MISSION HEAD VISITS VUKOVAR

VUKOVAR/VINKOVCI, April 17 (Hina) - Despite the latest incident in Vukovar, when the leader of the Party of Danubian Serbs, Rade Leskovac, and Vukovar returnee Sasa Barisic engaged in a fight, the security situation in the town is satisfactory, OSCE Mission to Croatia Chief Peter Semneby said during a visit to Vukovar-Srijem County on Wednesday. #L# Semneby met with Mayor Vladimir Stengl and the president of the Joint Council of Municipalities (ZVO), Jovan Ajdukovic. Stengl informed Semneby of the current situation in the town, saying that there was a growing number of complaints by ethnic Serbs, who claimed back apartments they once lived in and which now were occupied by Vukovar returnees who were waiting for their homes to be reconstructed. According to Stengl, those Serbs are currently in Yugoslavia and do not intend to return to Vukovar. The OSCE believes that ownership rights should have priority over the rights of those currently using someone else's property, Semneby said, adding that he had to admit that when it came to principal solutions to residential matters, the situation in Vukovar was a little different than elsewhere in Croatia. The OSCE nevertheless demands a unified principle for property restitution for all Croatian citizens, Semneby noted. "We should not forget the past, but we also should not live in it", Jovan Ajdukovic said after his meeting with Semneby. Ajdukovic believes that the "Serb community is prepared and wishes to be offered a chance to do everything it is asked to, so that future Vukovar generations can be secured a proper future and economic progress". Semneby visited the mass grave site at Ovcara, where he laid a wreath under a monument commemorating the victims buried there. (hina) sp sb