BELGRADE: REACTIONS TO INCIDENTS IN TREBINJE, BANJA LUKA

BELGRADE, May 8 (Hina) - Two civil parties from Serbia's ruling coalition DOS, the Foundation for Peace, and the Association of Bosnians from Belgrade on Tuesday condemned incidents in Trebinje and Banja Luka requesting that the Serb Orthodox Church (SPC) voice its stand on the incidents. "We would be very glad if someone from the SPC, for example Patriarch Pavle, who has always advocated tolerance, would make a public statement and distance himself from extremists, whether they are nationalists or religious fanatics," said a vice- president of the Social Democratic Union (SDU), Ivo Viskovic, who is also Yugoslavia's future ambassador to Slovenia. Speaking at a news conference in Belgrade, Viskovic said the incidents which had prevented the laying of the foundation stones for Banja Luka's Ferhat-Pasha Mosque, a building under UNESCO's protection, and another mosque in Trebinje, "strip the Serbs of the right to seek the reconstruction of their religious buildings on the territory of the former Yugoslavia." "The feeling of shame in the moment of destruction of the Ferhat- Pasha Mosque is today augmented by the prevention of a symbolic act toward reconciliation, the beginning of mutual tolerance and respect," said the Serbian Civil Alliance, which is headed by Yugoslavia's incumbent Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic. This party demands that the Bosnian Serb authorities discover the organisers and participants in Monday's riots. The Democratic Alternative party, led by Nebojsa Covic, is the only other party from the ruling coalition to react to the incidents, however, with a completely different accent. It said that "Serbs in Republika Srpska have a feeling that the international community has not been treating them equally as the others," and that "Serbs in Republika Srpska face greater demands than the others." The Association of Bosnians in Belgrade issued a statement saying the "best contribution to reconciliation among the peoples of Bosnia-Herzegovina" would be for Patriarch Pavle, the head of Bosnia's Islamic community, and the Bosnian Catholic archbishop to together lay foundation stones fro the reconstruction of demolished Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim religious buildings. (hina) sb rml