QUIET EXODUS OF SERBS CONTINUES AFTER UNTAES WITHDRAWAL - OSCE

( Editorial: --> 7150 ) ZAGREB, Mar 4 (Hina) - Forty thousand Serbs left the Danube river region of eastern Croatia during the mandate of the UN transitional administration in that area, a spokesman for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe mission in Croatia, Mark Thompson, said in Zagreb Wednesday. This "quiet exodus" has continued over the past few months, Thompson said, adding the reason for this was the fact that nobody sufficiently worked on fortifying trust in the area. According to data of the European Commission Monitoring Mission, at least 40,000 Serb refugees in eastern Croatia left the country in the last two years of the UNTAES mandate, Thompson told reporters. Out of a total of 65,000 Serb refugees who lived in the area in 1996, there are probably between 13,000 and 16,000 living there now, while 10,000 returned to other parts of Croatia. Thompson said that considering the number of people who continued to seek asylum in western Europe, the OSCE mission believed there was reason to point to a quiet exodus from eastern Croatia. The highest number of Croatian Serbs to date, about 1,000, have been trying to get asylum in Norway. In late 1997 and early this year between 40 and 50 from eastern Croatia daily requested asylum in Norway. The figure decreased to between 20 and 30, but on Tuesday it rose to more than 60 per day again. The consistency of the figures indicates that not enough has been done to fortify trust in the area, especially since the end of the UNTAES mandate on January 15. Thompson welcomed the clear announcements the Croatian Government made this week to the effect of changing legislation in a way that would support the two-way return. The OSCE spokesman was satisfied with the results of a Tuesday meeting of a joint working group for the two-way return composed of the Croatian Government, the UNHCR and the OSCE. According to a UNHCR spokesman in Zagreb, Andrej Mahecic, the UNHCR believes the Serbs' leaving eastern Croatia should not be ascribed to economic factors but to the fact, he said, that the two-way return is not functioning properly. Mahecic believed an integral plan of reconstruction of all war ravaged areas of Croatia and all communities which were affected by the war would diminish the exodus. Speaking about the Serbs who were seeking asylum in Norway, Mahecic said "granting asylum would be premature, it would incite (people to leave) and would also be unjustified by the situation on the ground". A UN civil police spokesman Jurij Cizik assessed the situation in eastern Croatia as generally stable and satisfactory. Due to several incidents however, he was dissatisfied with the cooperation of local police and its unprofessional activity. Cizik mentioned that in Mirkovci on March 3 two persons, of whom one was a Croatian policeman, stole and cut a wooden Orthodox statue. The UN civil police demanded that the policeman be fined, but the police station said it could not be done as the policeman had been completely drunk and could not remember the incident at all, Cizik said. He added that the UN civil police requested the head of police in eastern Croatia Josko Moric to fire the policeman. The Croatian police also denied UN civil police officers access to information concerning an investigation into the disappearance of a person whose wounded body was found in the Drava river on February 27, Cizik said. (hina) ha jn /mb 041937 MET mar 98