UNIDENTIFIED MASS MURDER VICTIMS TO BE DNA TESTED

( Editorial: --> 2366 ) ZAGREB, 16 February (Hina) - Croatian Government representatives have arranged with the families of missing persons to DNA test all the bodies exhumed from mass graves in Banovina and Western Slavonia that have not been identified by the standard procedures. For the purpose of testing, blood will be taken from family members over the next ten days. Following a meeting with representatives of missing persons' families, Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Kostovic announced that any burial places and mass graves that have not been excavated yet would also be investigated. Exhumation at the new Vukovar cemetery would start in spring. The families were particularly interested in whether the Bosnian Serb authorities and the Belgrade government were likely to provide any data on missing people from the regions of Banovina, Western Slavonia, Kupres (western Bosnia) and the Sava River Valley, Kostovic elaborated. This issue was covered in Croatia's official demands to Belgrade, since the areas mentioned had been under JNA control in 1992, he replied. Families from Banovina are looking for 383 of their missing members, Croatian soldiers and civilians alike. Of all the bodies exhumed in the Banovina area, 122 have yet to be identified. Asked whether the Croatian Government would insist on the exhumation of 300 unidentified victims which are believed to have been buried on Yugoslav soil, Kostovic said the ball was in Yugoslavia's court, given its obligation under a bilateral agreement to release all information on victims. "We have given them a list of names. This is a sensitive issue, because these people have met their death in Serbian prisons - in Sremska Mitrovica, Begejci, Nis and Stajicevo," Kostovic said. Referring to an article recently published in the Croatian weekly Globus, Kostovic denied that the Croatian Government possessed any evidence that there were Croatian citizens still languishing in Serbian prisons, with the exception of 16 people whose names were known to the Government and who had been arrested on charges of espionage in 1994 and 1995. (hina) jn as mb 162150 MET feb 98