ELLERKMANN & MOSTAR CANTON LEADERS CONDEMN FRIDAY INCIDENT

MOSTAR, Nov 7 (Hina) - An international official in Mostar and Herzegovina-Neretva Canton leaders on Saturday condemned last night's incident in Aladinici, a village in the Stolac municipality (southern Bosnia-Herzegovina), where two Muslim returnees received light injuries in a bomb explosion. This kind of violence obstructs the implementation of Annex 7 of the Dayton peace agreement, which provides for the return of all refugees to their homes, said Richard Ellerkmann, head of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) in Mostar. Local and international police forces arrived at the scene about an hour after the incident occurred and the two wounded returnees were transported to a Mostar hospital, Ellerkmann told reporters at a joint press conference. This morning, 50 Bosniak refugees returned to their homes in the village of Poprate (Stolac municipality) and 20 of them will stay there, Ellerkmann said. He added that he saw no connection between last night's explosion and today's return of Bosniak refugees to Poprate, which had been agreed on earlier by Croat and Bosniak authorities. Herzegovina-Neretva Deputy Prefect Rade Bosnjak said the return of Bosniak refugees to Poprate had not been envisaged by the canton return plan, but it had been announced. Everything had been done to prevent incidents, Bosnjak added. Bosnjak and Canton Prefect Hamo Maslesa agreed that extremists who provoked incidents could not stop the return of refugees. Prefect Maslesa called on High Representative Carlos Westendorp and international community to withhold donations for those areas where incidents were occurring. He also called for more intense presence of the Stabilisation Force and international police forces in the critical areas of the Croat-Muslim Federation. The Herzegovina-Neretva Canton and Stolac cannot be treated separately from other areas in the Federation, Deputy Prefect Bosnjak said adding that not one perpetrator involved in the killing of Croat returnees in central Bosnia had been brought to justice. Prefect Maslesa responded by saying that Stolac authorities had still not caught persons responsible for setting fire to 53 Muslim houses in the Stolac municipality this year. (hina) rml