BOSNIAN REACTIONS TO INCIDENTS IN DERVENTA AND DRVAR

( Editorial: --> 9574 ) SARAJEVO, Apr 26 (Hina) - The violence which occurred in Derventa and Drvar earlier this week has met with very harsh reactions of the Bosnian public and political parties. The Party of Democratic Action (SDA) most harshly condemned the violence in the northern Bosnian town of Derventa, where a group of visiting Catholic faithful headed by Sarajevo Archbishop Vinko Puljic were besieged and stoned by an angry mob of Serbs. The SDA also condemned the Croat attacks on Serb returnees and representatives of the international community in the western town of Drvar. "We believe such acts of terrorism represent another attempt by extremists and hardliners to obstruct the implementation of the Dayton (peace) agreement (...) in the year proclaimed to be the year of the refugees' return", the SDA said Sunday. The party called on competent authorities to find and punish those responsible. Bosnian Presidency chairman Alija Izetbegovic forwarded a note of support to Archbishop Puljic following the incidents in Derventa. Izetbegovic's foreign affairs advisor Mirza Hajric called the Drvar incidents as "barbaric attacks". "This is the most violent direct attack on the international community and we expect the Office of the High Representative and the Stabilisation Force will find an effective way of confronting such anti-Dayton behaviour", Hajric told Television Bosnia- Herzegovina. The only real cure is to continue with full efforts to return refugees to their homes. The head of the Islamic community in Bosnia, Mustafa Ceric, said the Islamic faithful share the sorrow of all who had been attacked or displaced on account of a different religion. He condemned the attacks on Puljic, and innocent civilians in Drvar, and called on reason and calm. The harshest attacks came from opposition parties. What took place in Drvar was political violence for which the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia-Herzegovina is responsible because it is not willing to allow the return of refugees, said Sejfudin Tokic of the Union of Bosnian Social Democrats. The Croat Peasant Party of BH said the incidents in Derventa and Drvar were a "brusque escalation of opposition to organising BH on the bases of the Dayton agreement." The party called on the international community to take more resolute action against forces trying to divide Bosnia, and pointed out the terrorism demonstrated during the recent incidents was contrary to the interest of every people and citizen of Bosnia. (hina) ha 261335 MET apr 98