TRUST RESTORATION NATIONAL COMMITTEE OPENS OFFICE IN VUKOVAR ( Editorial: --> 7769 )

( Editorial: --> 7769 ) VUKOVAR, Nov 3 (Hina) - The National Committee for the restoration of trust on Monday opened its office in Vukovar, eastern Croatia, where Committee vice-presidents Ivica Vrkic and Vojislav Stanimirovic will work daily. According to Vrkic, the Committee in Vukovar will try to make local population feel that Croatian authorities have entered the Danube river region and will work to their benefit. The Committee will also try to provide conditions for a stepped-up two-way return, he added. We want to show that co-existence is possible here even without international community supervision, Vrkic said. The Committee was established not only to help complete the UNTAES mandate in eastern Croatia, but also to achieve a real and integral normalization of living, like in other parts of Croatia, he added. Vrkic in particular thanked UNTAES, the Transitional Police Force, the displaced and all residents who contributed to a peaceful and dignified marking of All Saints' Day in the Danubian area. Local Serb representative Stanimirovic was satisfied with the opening of the National Committee office in Vukovar, and with cooperation with Vrkic to date. The Committee office staff would visit all municipalities and towns, as well as economic subjects, he said, in order to recognize concrete problems and step up their solution. Asked by a journalist about the marking of 18 November, the anniversary of the day when Vukovar was occupied, Stanimirovic assessed it was a "delicate day". In relation to an idea that 18 November be proclaimed Vukovar Victims Day or something in that vein, Stanimirovic said there was a possibility that this year cemeteries be visited on that occasion. Vrkic advocated that this "very delicate political issue (should) get a dimension which at this moment we could consider satisfactory for both sides." Commenting on the beginning of illegal classes at Yugoslav University local branches in Vukovar, Stanimirovic said the necessity to educate teachers for some subjects did exist, even though negotiations between the Croatian Science Ministry, the UNTAES and the Joint Council of (Serb) Municipalities had not come to fruition. "If Serbs have the right to cultural and educational autonomy, there must be someone here to train teachers for certain subjects", he said. According to Vrkic, the "only proper way" for students in the Croatian Danube river region to receive their education was at the University in Osijek. He assessed classes which began today as the result of a "one-sided decision" which "is not in line with what we are doing here together with the UNTAES." Serbs have the right to education, but within the Croatian educational system, he said. (hina) ha jn 031649 MET nov 97