CROAT NATIONAL CONGRESS SLAMS OPERATION BY INT. REPS. IN BOSNIA

MOSTAR, April 7 (Hina) - The Croat National Congress on Saturday condemned an operation international organisations in Bosnia launched yesterday by seizing documentation on Hercegovacka Bank in Mostar, appointing an emergency administrator, and blocking its work. The operation, carried out on Friday morning, spurred a series of clashes between Bosnian Croat civilians and members of NATO's peace-keeping Stabilisation Force (SFOR), the International Police Task Force (IPTF), and the police of Bosnia's Croat-Muslim federation. "The Croat National Congress of Bosnia and Herzegovina most harshly condemns yesterday's plundering under the auspices of High Representative Wolfgang Petritsch which members of the SFOR, the IPTF, and masked members of the federal government brutally and with unseen measures of repression carried out in Hercegovacka Bank branches in Posusje, Tomislavgrad, Grude, Orasje, Medjugorje, Siroki Brijeg, and Vitez," read a statement. It described Croat officials in federal bodies of authority as "servants to the failed policy of the incumbent administration of the international community in" Bosnia. Bosnia's Croatian Democratic Union party also slammed the operation and dismissed accusations by the United Nations Mission to Bosnia and Petritsch to the effect that it had staged the incidents against members of the SFOR and the international community. (hina) ha sb