CROATIA SUPPORTS IDEA THAT GOLD SHOULD BE GIVEN TO NAZI VICTIMS

( Editorial: --> 5536 ) LONDON, Dec 3 (Hina) - A Croatian delegation on Wednesday informed the Nazi Gold Conference in London of the official position of Croatia concerning the establishment of facts about the origins of gold taken from Nazi victims and concerning the future distribution of the remaining gold from the reserves of the Tripartite Commission for Restitution of Monetary Gold. The Commission was established by Great Britain, the United States and France. The Croatian delegations said in a report that "Republic of Croatia attaches special importance to history research related to World war II events, including the fate of the Nazi victims. This, of course, comprises the issues concerning the restitution of seized property." The report forwarded by the Croatian delegation said that "the degree in which the Croatia Government is aware of this problem is illustrated by the fact that a special commission has been set up to investigate historic facts about the property of Nazi victims. (...) The commission's work will be facilitated by the fact that the 1941-1945 archives have been largely preserved." The archive materials in Croatia regarding this matter are wholly accessible to scientific research. "However, a part of these archives are still not available to us (Croatian researchers) as they are stored in Belgrade as files of the former federal bodies. This particularly applies to the documents related to war reparations and compensations after World War II, including funds already received from the Tripartite Commission for compensation to Nazi victims, as well as funds related to the gold which wound up in the treasury vaults of the then National Bank of Yugoslavia," the report said adding that complete gold held by NDH (1941-1945 Independent State of Croatia), "with the exception of 13 cases taken abroad on 7 May 1945, was taken Tito's Yugoslavia. "These facts repudiate all the untrue stories spread in international and Croatian press in late July and early August 1997 about some Croatian gold stored in Vatican. Rumours like this could have emerged only because there were no explored and published documents about the Croatian Treasure and the Croatian State Bank covering the 1941-1945 period," it added. "According to documents in the archive of the Jewish Community of Zagreb as well as those kept elsewhere in Croatia, the gold and other jewelry taken from Jews by as early as 31 October 1941 amounted to 1,065,339 kg. It is reasonable to suppose that a part of this gold is kept with the fund of the Tripartite Commission for Restitution of Monetary Gold. The distribution of it is also on the agenda of this Conference," it said. "The Croatian Government supports the idea that the remaining funds of the Tripartite Commission should be exclusively used for compensations to Nazi victims. Consequently, the Croatian Government has decided, as reported to the Tripartite Commission, to renounce its share in the distribution of the remaining funds in favour of the Jewish victims of Nazi persecutions," the report said. "As for the share in the remaining funds of the Tripartite Commission due to the former Yugoslavia, our position is that one should not wait for the final outcome of the current succession procedure to determine the portion of the funds due to individual successor states of the former Yugoslavia," it said adding that these funds should be immediately given to those Nazi victims entitled to compensation. "Any arguments for a deferred distribution on the grounds that the succession procedure has not been completed with regard to the assets and archives of the former Yugoslavia are wholly unjustified. At this stage already there are criteria accepted by the international community (including IMF) for distribution of assets among successor states of the former Yugoslavia and applicable to this specific case. Moreover, in the last analysis the funds will go not to the states, but to the individuals, the actual Nazi victims," the Croatian delegation said in the report. (hina) jn mš 031323 MET dec 97