MUNICIPAL COUNCIL IN VOJNIC ESTABLISHED, PROTESTERS DISPERSE

VOJNIC, July 4 (Hina) - The municipal council in Vojnic, some 60 kilometres south-east of Zagreb, was formed on Wednesday in the presence of all councillors while Branko Eremic of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) was elected municipal head without Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) deputies, who left the session because Eremic failed to state in his biography what he did during the Homeland Defence War. During the first part of the session, the councillors established the Municipal Council and elected Vlasta Ljepovic (SDP) its chairwoman. However, when they were to take a vote about the municipal head, former municipal head Mirjam Slavica requested on behalf of HDZ councillors that candidate Eremic present his biography. As he failed to say what he was doing during the Homeland War, HDZ councillors left the session without participating in the vote. The votes of the other eight councillors from the SDP, Serb Democratic Independent Party (SDSS), and the Serb People's Party (SNS) were sufficient for Eremic's election as municipal head. Eremic did not leave the building for an hour after the end of the session due to several hundred protesters who gathered in front of the building this morning trying to prevent Serb councillors from entering the building and who were waited for the outcome of the session. After the police managed to persuade the protesters, who sat on the street blocking traffic, to go home, Eremic thanked the authorities in front of reporters for enabling, with the help of the police, the establishment of the council. Eremic then confirmed that he was a member of the military units of the so-called Serb Autonomous Region (SAO) of Krajina, but added this was an obligation he had to carry out. After Operation 'Storm', he lived in Belgrade and returned to Vojnic on 30 April 1997 as one of the first returnees. Speaking on behalf of the county HDZ branch and the county association of returnees and settlers, Ivan Matesa said the government and the SDP, the SDSS and the SNS should be aware that problems with the constitution of authority in Vojnic and some other municipalities were not only the responsibility of local communities but the state as well. One should not leave the disgruntled residents of those municipalities to solve them alone, Matesa said. He said the Vojnic protest was justified and called on judicial bodies to establish Eremic's role in the Homeland War. The protesters today requested that the SNS, the SDSS and the SDP not entrust the mandates they won in the May local vote to Eremic and Vlasta Ljepovic, among others. (hina) rml