GOVT'S RETURN PLAN NEEDS TO BE MADE MORE PRECISE - SAYS OSCE

( Editorial: --> 2147 ) VUKOVAR, Aug 6 (Hina) - The international community supports the Croatian government's plan for the return of refugees and displaced persons but also believes the plan needs additional work to be more precise, representatives of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) told reporters in Vukovar on Thursday. The return plan is an outstanding step the Croatian government has made towards meeting its international obligations and its implementation is now the centre of attention and interest in the international community, said OSCE spokesman Mark Thompson. He assessed the security situation in eastern Croatia continued to be stable and satisfactory, adding police were effective in fighting crime. Police reaction in the treatment of exiled persons however is not always as efficacious, Thompson said. People can see and feel this difference which, he added, breeds insecurity and makes these people turn to the OSCE. Speaking about Serbs leaving eastern Croatia, the OSCE spokesman said that was not an international community failure. If it is anybody's failure then it is a failure of government policy, Thompson said. Speaking about tenancy rights, the head of the Vukovar-based OSCE Coordination Centre Pierr Peeters said the international community considered tenancy rights as one of the ownership rights referring to property. These rights are protected by the first European Commission protocol on human rights, of which Croatia is a signatory, he said. The war may be looked at as a higher power, Peeters said, adding that persons who lost tenancy rights as a consequence of war must get these rights back. Peeters however believed that persons who were forced to abandon their flats should not be denied tenancy rights, whereas those who left them voluntarily did not have to be given these rights back. Peeters also spoke about OSCE's take-over of the monitoring mission in eastern Croatia from the UN Civil Police Support Group. The take- over is progressing intensively and will go unnoticed until October 15. The OSCE has never been involved in these and similar tasks so far and this will therefore be a watershed in its mission in Croatia and in the organisation itself, Peeters concluded. (hina) ha 061643 MET aug 98