THERE ARE STILL VUKOVAR SURVIVORS IN SERB JAILS - KOSTOVIC

ZAGREB, Feb 28 (Hina) - The House of Representatives today resumed the session adjourned on Feb 15 by remembering the 100th anniversary of the death of Croatian nineteenth-century politician, writer and Member of Parliament Ante Starcevic, "whose august words still echo in the lofty domes of Parliment Hall (...) where his spirit dwells," as Speaker Vlatko Pavletic put it. The House today passed several draft bills, including the Draft Constitutional Law on Cooperation between the Republic of Croatia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia. Deputy Prime Minister Ivica Kostovic read out the Goverment's report on missing persons and prisoners. The issue of missing persons and prisoners was the most painful humanitarian issue, but also a political one, which held the first place on any agenda for talks with the Serb side, Minister Kostovic said. The total number of the missing was 2,792, Kostovic said, adding that since the date of the report (January 20) four people have been released, 16 have been located alive in the liberated area, 1 has been found dead in the liberated area and three have been located in the occupied Danube area. Since 1991, the Government Missing Persosn Commission has succeeded in liberating 6,700 people. The Commission knew of ten Croatian defenders held prisoner in Serb jails in Bosnia. Unless they were visited and registered by the International Red Cross - which they have not been so far - they could not be released, Kostovic stressed. Croatian army officers such as Sumanovac and Air Force pilot Perisin were also among the prisoners, Kostovic said, adding that the information collected about them was very contradictory. Asked whether there were any survivors of the mass slaughter perpetrated by the JNA in Vukovar in 1991, Kostovic said the Government knew of 10 people who succeeded in escaping from Ovcara (mass grae near Vukovar). Further, the fact that Officer Sumanovac was held in prison since 1992 and not executed gave some hope. "We should not give up but persist in efforts to find out the truth," Kostovic concluded. (hina) jn as 281511 MET feb 96