APPOINTMENT OF INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS CAUSES CRISIS IN BH COALITION

SARAJEVO, Oct 31 (Hina) - The Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina on Wednesday appointed heads of two intelligence services operating in the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina but the decision has jeopardised the survival of the country's ruling coalition, which is headed by the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Munir Alibabic was appointed head of the Investigation and Documentation Agency (AID), while Ivica Vuksic was appointed director of the National Security Service (SNS) at the proposal of the Croat and Bosnian state presidency members, Jozo Krizanovic and Beriz Belkic, respectively. Krizanovic and Belkic said the two officials had been appointed in line with existing regulations and due to the need to bridge the gap until the adoption of a new law on a single intelligence service of the Croat-Muslim federation. Alibabic has been a professional police officer for almost 30 years. In the former Yugoslavia, he was an inspector in the State Security Service and during the war in Bosnia, he was Sarajevo police superintendent, until replacement in 1994. The only information on Ivica Vuksic is that he was born in 1966 in Ljubuski and has worked for the SNS for some time. Immediately after the end of today's session of the state presidency, the speaker of the parliament's House of Peoples and vice-president of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Ivo Komsic, called an extraordinary news conference at which he said that the appointment of the two officials challenged the principles on which the ruling Alliance for Changes was functioning. "This means a crisis of the Alliance," Komsic said, adding the ruling parties had agreed to dismantle and not strengthen illegal paralel institutions. Komsic believes the law on the federal intelligence service could be adopted in some 10 days and that the appointment of Alibabic and Vuksic only strengthened the secret services, which were serving only specific parties and their own ethnic groups - Bosniaks and Croats. The two intelligence services should have been simply dismantled because legal authorities in the federation did not have any control over them anyway, he said. The SDP official claims there was never any political agreement on Alibabic's and Vuksic's appointment. Komsic concluded the issue would have to be considered by all political factors and that a request would be made that the decision be withdrawn. (hina) rml