GOVERNMENT SPECIFIES BILL OF AMENDMENTS TO RECONSTRUCTION LAW

ZAGREB, June 1 (Hina) - Croatia's government on Thursday specified its bill of amendments to the reconstruction law, in view of preventing ill-intentioned interpretations of the bill's provisions. The amendments formulate more precisely that the right to reconstruction covers material goods demolished or damaged from the beginning of the Greater Serbia aggression on Croatia in 1991, over the course of Croatia's Homeland War, and until the end of the peaceful reintegration of Croatia's Danube River Region in January 1998. The government authorised Radimir Cacic, the minister for public works, to pass within a month of the amended law's coming into effect a rule book which, among other things, will work out priorities in the reconstruction. Minister Cacic said today that during debate on amendments to the reconstruction law, some MPs had insinuated the bill treated the Homeland War as the cause of the destruction. Speaking about the rule book, the minister said the Public Works, Reconstruction and Construction Ministry had already accepted the obligation to adopt one in the shortest time possible, thus eliminating remarks on reduced rights for categories which had enjoyed them until now. The government's amendments have clarified things, said Cacic. Prime Minister Ivica Racan said the amendments deprived even the most malicious of the possibility of manipulation. (hina) ha jn