INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION FOR MISSING PERSONS HOLDS 4TH SESSION IN BELGRADE

BELGRADE BELGRADE, June 20 (Hina) - The International Commission for Missing Persons held its fourth regular session chaired by Cyrus Vance in Belgrade on Friday. A statement issued to the media said that members of the commission today visited eastern Slavonia in order to learn about the process of the region's reintegration. The commission has ascertained that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia gave Croatia 700 autopsy reports on persons gone missing in the Vukovar area in 1991. The reports were compiled by physicians of the former Yugoslav People's Army and forensic medicine experts, who entered Vukovar in November 1991 immediately after the town was occupied by Serbs. To date FRY has not delivered all reports, about 1,000 of them. The commission's today's statement said that FRY President Slobodan Milosevic, who today had a meeting with Vance, has promised to deliver the remaining reports to the Croatian Government. The statement further said that the commission confirmed that the Croatian Government has released two of 18 Serb prisoners of war, detained near the Croatian port of Split. At today's meeting Croatian representatives said that some of the remaining 16 prisoners would be released by Thursday next week. The commission pointed out in the statement that all sides have the obligation to unconditionally release all prisoners of war. Representatives of Bosnia-Herzegovina today committed themselves to facilitate and accelerate exhumation, of extreme importance to settle issues concerning missing persons. The International Commission for Missing Persons is implementing several projects in BH, the statement said, including mine-clearing in possible exhumation areas, the financing and creation of a data base for the identification of the remains of persons disappeared in the Srebrenica area in 1995. Considering requests by families of the missing to continue with the tracing of members of their families who are allegedly in secret prisons, representatives of the International Red Cross agreed to visit unannounced sites of supposed secret prisons, with the consent of government bodies of the interested sides. At today's meeting, the head of the Croatian delegation, Assistant Foreign Minister Neven Madej, assessed that the international commission has made "a modest step forward". He told Croatian reporters that the Croatian side demanded that the missing persons issue be discussed in the whole, and not just concerning the situation in the Danube region, as previously suggested. He recalled that Croatia is tracing data for yet 2,294 persons, and that the Serb side only last year began issuing protocols for the identification of missing persons. According to Madej, Croatia requested that all those indited for spying for Croatia in FRY in 1995 and 1996 be set free (this refers to 16 persons currently in Yugoslav prisons). Croatia had indications about unregistered convicts in Republika Srpska prisons, Madej said. He also stressed that after signing the Dayton accord and on the basis of the Amnesty Act, Croatia has released a high number of persons, an example not followed by the other sides. Madej confirmed that Croatia was ready to release the prisoners in the "Lora" military base near Split, but demands that Croatian prisoners be released within two weeks as well. He also stressed that Croatia demanded financial assistance for the exhumation of 6,000 to 7,000 graves in Croatia. To the Yugoslav delegation headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Radoslav Bulajic he objected in relation to their attempt to bring political elements, like a discussion on the UNTAES mandate in the Croatian Danube region, into today's meeting. The president of the Croatian Commission for Missing and Imprisoned Persons, Ivan Grujic, warned that the Serbs side is still not ready to submit all protocols for the identification of missing persons or the remains of those buried on Yugoslav territory. (hina) ha 202335 MET jun 97