BH CROAT CONGRESS WARNS OF DANGER OF CROATS BECOMING EXTINCT

MOSTAR, Sept 14 (Hina) - Five political parties making up Bosnia's Croat National Congress (HNS BiH) have warned about the danger of Croats becoming extinct in Bosnia-Herzegovina if proposed changes to the constitution of the Bosnian Federation (the Croat-Muslim entity) are adopted. In a document-commentary released on Friday, the five parties oppose draft changes to the Federation's Constitution announced recently by the Commission on the Constitution of the Federation parliament's House of Representatives. Bosnia's Constitutional Court last year made a decision proclaiming all three Bosnian peoples constituent throughout the country. Until then, the Federation's Constitution had regulated that Croats and Bosniaks were constituent peoples in that entity, while the Republika Srpska Constitution regulated that Serbs were the constituent people in that one. HNS BiH believes the draft changes to the Federation Constitution "do not even remotely secure equal status for all three constituent peoples in the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina but are far more favourable for the largest people, the Bosniaks... This way the Federation is established not as a federation of constituent peoples but citizens and is turned into a Bosniak entity due to the Bosniak majority." "Given such solutions... and taking into account the actual situation in Republika Srpska where Croats and Bosniaks are denied all rights, it is realistic to expect equally unacceptable solutions in the Bosnian Serb entity as well. This definitely reinforces the country's division into Republika Srpska as the Serb and the Federation as the Bosniak entity," say the parties. The parties have forwarded the document to all leading state and entity institutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina and international organisations in the country. The document was also forwarded to Croatian President Stjepan Mesic, Prime Minister Ivica Racan and Parliament Speaker Zlatko Tomcic. (hina) rml