INT HIGH REPRESENTATIVE FOR BOSNIA IMPOSES LAW ON BORDER POLICE

SARAJEVO, Jan 13 (Hina) - The international community's high representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina has decided to impose a law on state border police following the failure of parliament's House of Representatives to enact a law motioned by the state Presidency. High representative Wolfgang Petrisch is deeply dissatisfied with the unwillingness of Serb representatives in the Bosnian parliament to act in the interest of all people and enact a law on border police, James Ferguson, spokesman for Petrisch's Office, said in Sarajevo on Thursday. According to Petrisch, border police are the basis for preventing smuggling, all forms of crime, and illegal immigration, are all major problems in Bosnia. The members of Bosnia's collective Presidency reached an agreement on the establishment of border police last November, with mediation from United States Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke. The Bosnian parliament's House of Representatives twice discussed a border police bill drafted by the Presidency, but without any results due to opposition from most Serb MPs. The head of the UN Mission to Bosnia, Jacques Paul Klein, who welcomed Petrisch's decision, earlier said there were more than 430 border crossings in Bosnia, many of them illegal and used only for smuggling. (hina) ha mm