SERB PEOPLE'S COUNCIL HEAD WARNS OF SERB RETURNEES' PROBLEMS

( Editorial: --> 5852 ) ZAGREB, 20 Jan (Hina) - People who have returned to the areas of Croatia liberated in 1995 live in difficult conditions, Serb People's Council (SNV) president Milorad Pupovac said Tuesday, reiterating his warning to the Croatian public. He called on the Croatian state and the general public to help those people by sending them clothes, food, firewood and other basic necessities. "I call on the whole Croatian public to show solidarity toward those people," Pupovac told a press conference in Zagreb. "This is not a question of ethnicity but purely of humanity." On 17 and 18 January, Pupovac led a delegation of the SNV and the Serb Democratic Forum on a visit to Serbs living in the Karlovac and Lika-Senj Counties. Pupovac said the local offices did not have complete documents on the number of returnees and asked the Office for Displaced People and Refugees to speed up the completion of those documents. According to Pupovac, 5,000 people have returned to Karlovac County, while 2,500 people have returned to Lika-Senj County. He asked the Reconstruction and Development Ministry to be engaged more in the reconstruction of houses in the two counties. The SNV president reiterated that a large number of Serb returnees could not retake possession of their property, as their homes had been allocated to Croat refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina. In line with a decision of the Constitutional Court, some Serb parliamentary representatives would demand the annulment of the decision on temporary management of property, Pupovac said. "This does not mean that they all have to leave those houses, but that one should start a policy aimed at providing accommodation for all who need it," Pupovac said. Pupovac said he did not know how more than 8,000 families, who registered for return from the Danube River region, would be able to return to their homes in other parts of Croatia, if the state failed to immediately start solving those problems. "If that is not done, the process of reintegration of the Danube River region and the return of people to the region will be threatened," Pupovac said. (hina) jn rm 201642 MET jan 98