HELSINSKI COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN BOSNIA

SARAJEVO, July 2 (Hina) - In the first six months of 2001 Bosnia- Herzegovina saw organised nationalist attacks on the country's constitutional order and the Dayton peace agreement and the forces behind those terrorist activities directed against basic human rights and freedoms wanted to create the same inter-ethnic atmosphere that preceded the 1992 war. This assessment was given by Srdjan Dizdarevic, president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Bosnia-Herzegovina, who presented a report on the human rights situation in the country between January and June this year, in Sarajevo on Monday. The Committee's analysis points that the same type of human rights violations as occurred in previous years has continued. The situation is additionally aggravated by the fact that the ruling Alliance for Changes, which has set up the executive authority, is actually not controlling a significant part of the country. Particularly worrying are the "unconstitutional and anti-Dayton" activities of the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina, aimed at preserving the single-party political and economic status of national political parties in the country, which leads to its division into three parts, Dizdarevic said. "These illegal activities are coordinated by the Croatian Democratic Union headquarters in Croatia, which also wants to destabilise the incumbent authorities in Zagreb," he said. The Helsinki Committee for Human Rights is also concerned about the fact that with some statements some Croatian state officials have been playing in the hands of Bosnian Croat nationalists. Similar behaviour can be noticed as regards the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), which are trying to obstruct the functioning of the ruling Alliance at any cost. Drawbacks in the alliance of ten political parties - primarily different political objectives as well as careerism and incompetence - additionally complicate the situation in the country, says the Committee. "It is inadmissible that the BH Parliament did not adopt the electoral law and it is known that the law is this country's ticket to Europe. If such irresponsible behaviour continues, the High Representative should dissolve the parliament and establish technocratic government," Dizdarevic said. The Committee has addressed the slow return of refugees as a special problem. In the first three months of this year, about 15,000 of about 630,000 refugees have returned to their homes, however, in some parts of the country the return process is hopelessly slow. Dizdarevic warns about the problem of the country's northern Posavina region, where pre-war Croat population is not returning at all. In Modrica for example, only about ten Croat families have remained and all the others have sold their property and moved. The Committee claims this situation is the result of a tacit agreement between Milosevic and Tudjman under which Posavina should be ceded to the Bosnian Serbs. A large number of war crime indictees are still at large, ethnic discrimination and an extremely difficult social and economic situation are additional elements which make Bosnia-Herzegovina a country with a very low level of respect for human rights. The Committee also believes the basic precondition for eliminating any form of discrimination is the implementation of the BH Constitutional Court's decision on all three peoples being equal throughout the country's territory. (hina) sb rml