U.N. MISSING PERSONS SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR CRITICIZES BELGRADE

GENEVA, Feb 25 (Hina) - The U.N. special rapporteur for missing persons in the former Yugoslavia, Manfred Nowak, blamed Federal Yugoslav (FRY) authorities for a lack of cooperation in the search for missing persons, and warned that the truth about the missing people could be no longer concealed. Nowak criticised authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia/Montenegro) in his report released in Geneva on Tuesday. Nowak also criticised the international community over insufficient financial support to procedures of searching for the missing persons. Nowak's report says that in the area of the former Yugoslavia about 200,000 people lost their lives and two million people became refugees from 1991 to 1995. According to its figures, about 25,000 people have been regarded as missing persons in territories of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. Writing about missing people in Croatia Nowak reiterated that about 3,000 of them went missing during the aggression of the Yugoslav Army (JNA) against Croatia in 1991. He said most of Croatian missing persons had been from eastern Slavonia, and particularly from the town of Vukovar and the town hospital. Nowak cited data on allegedly missing persons of the Serb nationality after the "Flash" and "Storm" actions in Croatia in 1995. The U.N. rapporteur said that by the end of 1996 no significant progress had been made in the search for missing persons. In this respect, he said that the Yugoslav government did not consent to the establishment of the truth about any of 128 cases of missing persons, on which he, as a responsible expert, insisted. In the report Nowak said that Bosnia-Herzegovina's state commission for missing persons had a list of 26,887 missing persons, 98 percent of them Bosniak (Moslem) nationality. Bosnian Croat authorities have a list of 651 Bosnian Croats whose whereabouts have remained unknown since clashes with Bosnian Serbs, and a list of 218 Bosnian Croats whose whereabouts have been unknown since clashes with Moslem forces. Finally, Bosnian Serb authorities' commission claimed that about 2,000 Bosnian Serbs had disappeared. Most of Moslems who are registered as missing persons, disappeared from May to August 1992, according to Nowak's report. According to figures of the International Red Cross, more than 20,000 persons can be regarded as missing, out of whom 80 to 90 percent is Moslems, and out of whom 90 percent refers to civilian people. According to Nowak's report, these figures confirm clearly that in Bosnia-Herzegovina Serb forces conducted operations of ethnic cleansing against the Moslem civilian population. The U.N. special rapporteur energetically demanded from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to offer all information about the fate of missing persons and asked Croatian authorities to offer information about persons who went missing during the "Flash" and "Storm" operations. (hina) mm mš 252058 MET feb 97