OSCE ENVOY FOR MINORITY ISSUES VISITS VUKOVAR

VUKOVAR, Feb 8 (Hina) - Max van der Stoel, special envoy of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for minorities, on Monday met Serb representatives in Vukovar to discuss the status of the Serb minority in the Croatian Danubian area. Van der Stoel met with the president of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), Vojislav Stanimirovic, and president of the Joint Council of (Serb-dominated) Municipalities (ZVO), Milos Vojnovic. In a short statement after the talks, van der Stoel said he discussed various aspects of the situation in the Danubian area. He added that on Tuesday he would meet Croatian Premier Zlatko Matesa, Foreign Minister Mate Granic and the chairwoman of the National Trust Establishment Committee, Vesna Skare Ozbolt, in order to discuss the situation of ethnic minorities in other parts of Croatia. Asked to comment on the meeting with the OSCE official, ZVO president Milos Vojnovic said that he had warned van der Stoel about some incidents in the area, as well as about the situation in the media. According to SDSS president Stanimirovic, van der Stoel was interested in the human rights situation in the Danubian region. "We discussed primarily evictions from flats, which are inadmissible in winter conditions, and we pointed out the fact that courts in the Danubian area do not treat evictions the same way courts in other parts of Croatia do", Stanimirovic said adding that van der Stoel had also initiated a discussion on the work of the National Trust Establishment Committee. "I told him that meetings of the National Committee have recently become less frequent and that the Committee does not have the role it used to have at the time it was established", he added. (hina) jn rml