ILOK, July 29 (Hina) - Nikola Safer, a member of the Croatian Borders Council and Vukovar-Srijem County Prefect, on Monday stated that Croatia was asking for about 10 thousand hectares of land which had been under Yugoslav control
since 1991. There is about three thousand hectares located on the Croatian side of the Danube which in fact belongs to Yugoslavia.
ILOK, July 29 (Hina) - Nikola Safer, a member of the Croatian
Borders Council and Vukovar-Srijem County Prefect, on Monday
stated that Croatia was asking for about 10 thousand hectares of
land which had been under Yugoslav control since 1991. There is
about three thousand hectares located on the Croatian side of the
Danube which in fact belongs to Yugoslavia. #L#
"At negotiations with Yugoslavia there are about 10 to 15
contentious spots of which the largest, regarding the space, would
be the Sarengrad and Vukovar river islets," Safer told Hina.
On Sunday he headed a group of Sarengrad's representatives on a tour
to Sarengrad's islet on the Danube, when they were stopped with
gunfire by the Yugoslav army, taken to the jail in Backa Palanka and
detained there for several hours.
Safer expressed his belief that Sunday's armed incident would not
negatively affect regional co-operation which has just begun
between Vukovar-Srijem County and the Autonomous Region of
Vojvodina, northern Yugoslavia.
The Croatian Border Council has proposed to the State Border
Commission that during negotiations with Yugoslavia it should
refer to valid Croatian laws and the Constitution which protects
the continuation of Croatia's borders defined during the Croats'
anti-fascist rebellion 1941-1945 (the so-called AVNOJ borders)
that were international recognised border-lines.
Safer believes that negotiations with Yugoslavia can determine
some territorial corrections but only when these are in the state's
interest and in the interest of Croatian citizens.
Zeljko Sladetic, the deputy mayor of Ilok, another east Croatian
town, said that since the establishment of Croatian independence,
the Sarengrad river islet had not been accessible to Croatian
citizens and that each time anyone approached the islet they were
arrested by the Yugoslav army.
We have no life without the islet. If we do not gain access to it, our
people will not have anything to live off, Sladetic said. He added
that prior to the Homeland War, there were 29 registered fisherman
in Sarengrad while today there are only two or three.
During his visit to Sarengrad on Sunday, Prime Minister designate
Ivica Racan was warned by Sarengrad citizens that the problem of
border conflict with Yugoslavia needs to be resolved as soon as
possible.
The river islet on the Danube is about 900 hectares in size and even
though the Cadastre registers it as Croatian land, since 1991 it has
been supervised by the Yugoslav army.
Prior to the Homeland War, Sarengrad residents used to breed
several hundred cattle and horses and several thousand pigs which,
in addition to fishery, were the only means of survival for the
local population along the Danube.
(hina) sp ms