SLOVENIAN OMBUDSMAN PROPOSES TO ABOLISH DEFINITION OF AUTOCHTHONOUS MINORITY

MARIBOR, May 8 (Hina) - The notion of autochthonous national minorities currently listed in the Slovenian Constitution has no basis in expert literature and this category should be changed prior to accessing the European Union, Slovenia's Ombudsman Matjaz Hanzek said at a conference on minorities entitled "Between Assimilation and Cultural Pluralism", which began on Wednesday in Maribor. #L# Slovenia's 1992 constitution recognises the right of "autochthonous minorities", which entails the right to education and cultural institutions for the Italian and Hungarian communities but not for minorities from the former Yugoslavia which they consider the result of recent migrations. "When relations between Slovenia and Croatia are settled then the Croatian community in Slovenia will feel a great deal better and we hope that Slovenia will treat Croatians in Slovenia the same way as Croatia does Slovenians in Croatia," dr. Sime Ivanjko of the Croatian Cultural Society in Maribor said at the conference. Ivanjko is a professor at the Economic-Business Faculty in Maribor and Croatia's honorary consul to that town. He stressed that Croats in Slovenia are well integrated and they were not considered a problem for Slovenia. According to the 1991 Census, there were 55,000 Croats in Slovenia making them the largest national minority. Serb representatives living in Slovenia stated that their community was burdened with feelings of collective guilt as well as being stigmatised in communities they are currently living in. Bosnian Muslim representatives estimated that their status in public had become worse since last year's terrorist attack on the USA and that relations by the Slovenian media towards them were "paternalistic and humiliating". The conference was also attended by representatives of the Macedonian community and Albanians from Kosovo. (hina) sp sb