SERB NATIONAL COUNCIL HOLDS SESSION

ZAGREB, Oct 14 (Hina) - The Presidency of the Serb National Council (SNV) and the Committee for the Return of Serb Refugees held a session in Zagreb on Tuesday. The first part of the meeting was attended by Vesna Skare- Ozbolt, president of the National Committee in charge of implementing the government programme aimed at restoring inter- ethnic trust, accelerating the return of displaced persons and refugees and normalising life in the war-affected areas of Croatia, and her deputy, Ivica Vrkic. Skare-Ozbolt informed the participants about today's session of the National Committee. Offering the SNV full cooperation, she called on all Croatian citizens of Serb nationality to solve problems relating to their rights and obligations in direct contacts with Croatian authorities. Expressing fear that the National Committee had been established only as a nominal political body, members of the SNV from all over the county informed Skare-Ozbolt about a number of problems faced by Serbs who had returned to the liberated areas and about cases of obstruction in obtaining documents for return. They also had objections regarding the composition of the National Committee. Responding to their remarks, Skare-Ozbolt said she was aware of the problems, but stressed that one should not labour under the delusion that all the difficulties would be solved immediately. "There are some things in which you will have to share the fate of displaced Croats, and the removal of difficulties of both (Serbs and Croats) will largely depend on the general economic situation in Croatia," she said. In the second part of the session, the SNV Presidency discussed the government programme on the restoration of trust. They basically accepted it, but expressed dissatisfaction with its preamble which they said described the Serbs in the Danube region as aggressors. Although there were demands that the introductory part of the programme be condemned and rejected, SNV president Milorad Pupovac said that they would request that the government modify the preamble. The SNV Presidency concluded that progress had been made in terms of the number of Serbs who had returned to Croatia but that there had been no progress in terms of the quality of their life. SNV Presidency member Milenko Vucetic said that of over 13,000 registered families in the Danube region, 6,610 had expressed their wish to return, 4,925 did not want to return, while 309 families were still undecided. Vucetic said that 1,924 persons had so far returned in an organised way to other areas of Croatia, while about 7,000 had returned spontaneously. He added that more than 21,000 requests for return to the Danube region had been filed by Croats. Vucetic said that, judging by the figures, one could get a wrong picture that Serbs, unlike Croats, were returning on a mass scale. "The thing is that Croats don't want to return if their houses are not completely repaired, while Serbs are returning to damaged houses, basements, attics, without basic living conditions," he said. (hina) vm jn 142329 MET oct 97