MOSTAR, April 16 (Hina) - Representatives of Hercegovacka Banka refused an invitation for the "talks on the audit of (the bank's) operations" with Toby Robinson, whom the international community's High Representative to
Bosnia-Herzegovina appointed to be the bank's Provisional Administrator. The bank's officials have said they will meet Robinson at court. Hercegovacka Banka has temporarily been closed since 6 April when the NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) troops and international and local police raided the bank to help implement High Representative Wolfgang Petritsch's decision to set up the provisional administration. The task of the provisional administration is to audit the operations' of the bank which international diplomats view as the financial backbone of the self-styled Croat self-rule. "We have nothing to negotiate with you and your boss," the bank's suspended management, staff and share-holders said
MOSTAR, April 16 (Hina) - Representatives of Hercegovacka Banka
refused an invitation for the "talks on the audit of (the bank's)
operations" with Toby Robinson, whom the international community's
High Representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina appointed to be the
bank's Provisional Administrator.
The bank's officials have said they will meet Robinson at court.
Hercegovacka Banka has temporarily been closed since 6 April when
the NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) troops and international
and local police raided the bank to help implement High
Representative Wolfgang Petritsch's decision to set up the
provisional administration.
The task of the provisional administration is to audit the
operations' of the bank which international diplomats view as the
financial backbone of the self-styled Croat self-rule.
"We have nothing to negotiate with you and your boss," the bank's
suspended management, staff and share-holders said in an open
letter to Toby Robinson.
According the letter forwarded to Hina on Monday, a day prior to the
April 6 action, the bank's representatives called on relevant
factors to conduct the audit in a civilised manner, but the High
Representative's response was the forcible incursion, black masks
and armed SFOR and IPTF troops.
The bank's representatives insist on the unconditional revocation
of Petritsch's decision and ask that the bank and its accounts be
immediately de-blocked.
They describe the raid in the bank's administration building in
Mostar as a crime and announce they will sue the responsible for the
operation.
They also claim that they have discovered the Austrian diplomat's
"dirty scheme" on the hand-over this financial institution to a
bank in the world, but they do not say which bank it may be.
The blockade of the Hercegovacka bank has hindered the work of
public institutions, such as the Mostar hospital, in five cantons
in the Bosnian Croat-Moslem entity (Federation) where the Croat
National Congress (led by the HDZ BiH political party) proclaimed
the self-rule which the international community labelled as
illegal parallel bodies of authority.
(hina) ms