OSCE HOLDS CROATIA POORLY FULFILLING ITS INTERNATIONAL OBLIGATIONS

( Editorial: --> 5293 ) ZAGREB, May 20 (Hina) - The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) believes Croatia is poorly carrying out the international obligations it has accepted, especially regarding the return of Serb refugees and reforms to election laws and media freedom, OSCE mission to Croatia spokesman Mark Thompson said on Wednesday. The OSCE mission to Croatia on Tuesday completed a report on how Croatia had fulfilled its international obligations during the past four months. The report assessed that during this period many positive steps had been announced, and some had been carried out, but unfortunately only a few of them, Thompson told a press conference in Zagreb. The process of two-way return inside Croatia is in paralysis and the report calls on the Croatian Government to make a resolute effort to improve the efficiency of current return mechanisms, Thompson said. He warned it was important to quickly implement the binding instructions for the return of refugees, which the Croatian Government delivered on May 14. The binding instructions considerably simplify procedures for receiving Croatian citizenship for people who had left Croatia. Representatives of the international community really want to see changes on the ground to be certain the improvements are real, Thompson said. The OSCE mission spokesman said the report argues that without media freedom it would be difficult to think about a process of reconciliation. He said Article 11 Commission members, who were following the implementation of a reintegration agreement, visited the Vukovar cemetery on Wednesday as a sign of respect. They were present during the exhumation of the bodies of victims of Serbian aggression. The OSCE hoped the visit would encourage members of the Serb community in the Croatian Danube River region to be more resolute in giving respect to victims of the horrific siege of Vukovar and the crimes which were committed following the siege. This would help establish trust, he said. UN civil police support group representative Kirsten Haupt said there had been an increase in the number of ethnically motivated incidents in the Croatian Danube region. As a good example of police activities in preventing such events, she mentioned an incident last Wednesday in which Vukovar police returned a group of 26 young people from Zagreb who had tried to attend a football match and were acting provocatively. (Hina) jn mb /ha 201719 MET may 98