SARAJEVAN HDZ DEMANDS PROTECTION OF CROATS IN BH CAPITAL

SARAJEVO, Mar 4 (Hina) - The Sarajevan City Committee of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) on Tuesday issued a statement on the violation of rights of Croats in Sarajevo. In the statement issued after a session called due to ever increasing terrorist attacks on Catholic churches and the increasingly more difficult position of Croats in Sarajevo, the city's HDZ appealed to representatives of international organizations in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BH) "to show interest for the situation in Sarajevo, because it holds the key to the Federation and to the overall relations in BH". Reminding that in the past ten days three churches had been mined, cemeteries desecrated, priests beaten and Croat- owned houses attacked, the Sarajevan HDZ pointed out that fear and insecurity had crept among the capital's Croats. The institutions which should protect their rights were in truth violating them and they were discriminatory too, since decisions were made only by members of one people, the statement added. Croat officials and common people were constantly subjected to accusations, especially through Television BH, the statement further said and pointed out that such a TV, as well as those who supported it, could be considered as the real culprits of the latest misdeeds. In Sarajevo, Croats were citizens of the second order, with no political influence, and like other non-Muslims, they were daily leaving their city, before the eyes of the international community, the statement of the Sarajevan HDZ concluded. (hina) ha jn 041722 MET mar 97