GOVT: CROATIAN SERBS HAD BEEN CONTINUALLY LEAVING "RSK" SINCE 1993

ZAGREB, June 5 (Hina) - Croatian Serbs had been leaving the country's occupied areas since 1993, and their evacuation, organised by their rebel leaders, began before the start of Operation "Storm", a senior Croatian government source said on Wednesday. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source commented on public reactions to unofficial results of a population census, which show that the number of Serbs in Croatia has fallen to around four percent. #L# Following the issuing of an indictment against Croatian general Ante Gotovina, whom the Hague war crimes tribunal has charged with the ethnic cleansing of Serbs during "Storm", the Croatian government started more systematic analyses into the Serbs' departure from Croatia. Its findings have been handed to the Hague tribunal's Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte during her last visit to Croatia a month ago, the source said. Several hundred pages of the material include information collected from Serb sources, from seized decisions by the former rebel leadership on the planning and implementation of the evacuation between 1993 and 1995, to the recordings of their meetings and test evacuations. "Since there was some doubt that the project (the Croatian Serb Republic of Srpska Krajina, "RSK") would succeed, people were continually leaving those areas, which the RSK leadership kept silent about," the source said. "On July 29, 1995, a formal decision to prepare the evacuation was adopted.... on August 4, the evacuation started," said the source, adding that the decision on the evacuation was signed by Croatian Serb leader Milan Martic. "The organised departure of civilians resulted in the disintegration of the army," the source said. The source added that Croatian Deputy Prime Minister Goran Granic and Chief State Prosecutor Mladen Bajic would meet the Chief Prosecutor of the Hague tribunal, Carla del Ponte, in The Hague on June 11. (hina) rml sb