ROUND TABLE ON POSITION OF BH CROATS HELD IN NEUM

( Editorial: --> 8310 ) NEUM, July 17 (Hina) - The Croat Community of Herceg-Bosna (HZHB) on Friday organised a one-day round table "The Future of Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina" in Neum, a town on the central Adriatic coast, in the Croat-Muslim Federation. The meeting was attended by around 70 public figures from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, people with different political and party views. Croatian guests included HDZ vice president Ivic Pasalic, Social Democratic Party (SDP) vice president Zdravko Tomac, academician Dalibor Brozovic and Croatia's Ambassador to Sarajevo, Darinko Bago. The HZHB main council president Vladimir Soljic warned about the difficult status of Bosnian Croats and added that more than 50% of BH Croats from the 1991 Census were expelled. "We cannot blame only the international community and the other two sides for the current status of the Croat people in Bosnia- Herzegovina. We have to look for the causes among ourselves," Soljic said. "It is obvious that the Dayton agreement is being tacitly changed and this is confirmed with the situation in the school system, police organisation, security services and the issuing of personal documents," Soljic said. One must prevent attempts at establishing Republika Srpska as an independent state, SDP representative Zdravko Tomac said. For the Croat people, there is nothing as dangerous as the process of separation of Republika Srpska from Bosnia-Herzegovina, in which the international community is involved as well, Tomac said. "Should this continue, united Serb states will be established to Sisak and Karlovac," Tomac added. The Bosniaks (Muslims) will start considering the Croat-Muslim Federation as Bosnia-Herzegovina, not an entity. This could also contribute to the division of the country into Serb and Bosniak sections with a Croat minority. "The future of Bosnia-Herzegovina lies in the establishment of cantons, where there will be neither Republika Srpska nor the Croat-Muslim Federation," Tomac said. Ante Jelavic, president of the Croatian Democratic Union of Bosnia- Herzegovina (HDZ BiH) supported the idea of the country's cantonisation, "an integral and democratic Bosnia-Herzegovina without entity organisation". Jelavic warned about the danger of a citizenship law which is being prepared by High Representative Carlos Westendorp. According to the law, Bosnian Croats will have to choose between Bosnia-Herzegovina citizenship and that of Croatia. If the majority of Croats choose the Croatian citizenship, only four to five per cent of Croats would remain in Bosnia-Herzegovina and that would also change their constitutional position, Jelavic said. A Bosnian Presidency candidate from the BH Republican Party Senka Nozica said that the Dayton agreement was a "framework for the survival of Croats in Bosnia". The idea of the Croat policy in Bosnia-Herzegovina should be genuinely Bosnian, Nozica said adding that the policy up to date had relied too much on Croatia and resulted in the current difficult position of Bosnian Croats. Bosnian Croats live in the least developed areas and they were expelled by the Serbs from the most developed regions such as the Sava River Valley, northern Bosnia, she said. In 1995, the Dayton agreement was the least evil and in 1998 it becomes the last barricade for the survival of Bosnian Croats, said Ivic Pasalic. To speak about the revision of the peace agreement under the current circumstances is dangerous, he added. Pessimistic thinking could prompt the emigration of Croats from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Croatia and other countries, he said adding that the Croat people was undoubtedly interested in consistent implementation of the Dayton agreement. (hina) jn rml 171904 MET jul 98