SERBIAN, CROATIAN INTELLECTUALS END TALKS IN BELGRADE

BELGRADE, Feb 25 (Hina) - A one-day panel discussion between Serbian and Croatian writers and journalists on possible reconciliation between the two peoples ended in Belgrade on Saturday evening without joint conclusions. An assistant to Croatia's Environmental Protection Minister, Hrvoje Glavac, said in his closing statement reconciliation was a 'too strong word." The discussion, held at Belgrade's Goethe Institute, was organised by the German Institute for Foreign Relations (IFA) and the Greek Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation in South-East Europe (CDRSEE). Participating in the debate, apart from Glavac, were journalists and publicists Igor Mandic, Nenad Popovic, Sinan Gudzevic and Slobodan Snajder. According to Glavac, Serbia and Croatia would soon do 'many things' to facilitate their communication, including the establishment of a payment system and a less strict visa regime. Serbian writer Drinka Gojkovic said one should first establish who should reconcile - ordinary people, intellectuals or politicians, and wondered about reconciliation between the two political systems. Commenting on Croatia's request that Serbia apologise for the war, Gojkovic said an apology would be an 'amoral act' if addressed to people whose lives were destroyed and whose children were killed in the war. Igor Mandic believes an apology would be a "gesture of great symbolic potential." As regards Croatia, one should first establish the character of the war, namely, if it was "a civil or defence war," he believes. Nenad Popovic believes an apology is necessary because it has a 'great symbolic value' for the victim. The president of the Yugoslav commission of human rights attorneys, Biljana Kovacevic Vuco, said that prior to establishing responsibility and reconciliation, both countries should create a legal framework for first steps toward reconciliation, i.e. laws on amnesty and cooperation with the Hague war crimes tribunal. According to her, Serbia and Croatia must first hand over their war crime suspects and then form commissions for truth, "with a strong investigating team which would work similarly as the Hague tribunal." Slobodan Snajder said that prior to reconciliation one should deal with the "problem of responsibility, i.e. the real war lords" on the territory of former Yugoslavia, which, he believes, can be done best in a debate on those who benefited from the war. (hina) rml