OSCE REP. CONDEMNS THE KILLING OF TWO CROATS IN TRAVNIK AREA

TRAVNIK, Sept 1 (Hina) - The Mostar-based OSCE regional office's head, Edward Joseph, on Monday expressed his and international community's indignation at a cruel crime that happened on August 30 in the Travnik area (central Bosnia) when two Croat returnees had been killed. At a meeting with authorities of the Central Bosnian Canton in Travnik, Joseph said that good examples of the return of refugees to this municipality, recorded until now, were overshadowed by this and other previous terrorist attacks against Croat who had come back. He said that he demanded an effective investigation, and voiced satisfaction that for the first time since the war a joint team of Moslems and Croats within cantonal police was conducting the probe into the case. A representative of Croat refugees from the Travnik area, Tomislav Rajic, said that "the crime would slow the return of Croats to Travnik, but would not halt it." The head of the regional branch of the Moslem-led SDA party, Dzevad Mlaco, urged on cantonal police to discover very soon who were perpetrators. The OSCE official Joseph portrayed as very important the fact that all Moslem (Bosniak) participants in Monday's meeting condemned the crime. He asked authorities to influence positively the public and demanded Mlaco to carry out agreement reached with Gerd Wagner, a deputy to the international High Representative to Bosnia- Herzegovina, on the return of Croats to Bugojno. He also asked that Croats be allowed to use the Croatian centre ('Hrvatski dom') in that central Bosnian town. The OSCE representative also asked Moslem leaders in Travnik to prevent the signing of abusive graffiti in town which insult Croats, and asked Zoran Maric, the leader of a regional branch of the Croat HDZ BiH (Croatian Democratic Union) party, to use his influence in order that posters of two Bosnian Croats, Tihomir Blaskic and Dario Kordic, accused by the Hague-based Tribunal of war crimes, be removed from streets of the central Bosnian town of Busovaca. (hina) jn mš 012158 MET sep 97