POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN BIHAC AREA INCREASES

SARAJEVO, 23 Aug (Hina) - U.N. spokesman Alexander Ivanko on Friday stated that the superintendent of Cazin police and his first aide would probably be replaced since they had done nothing to prevent numerous incidents and intimidation of supporters of opposition parties in western Bosnia. Ivanko said that the interior minister of the Una Canton, Mirsad Veladzic, had promised to international police representatives to replace the two officials. #L# Spokesman for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Kris Janowski, said that his organisation was worried about the increasing political violence in the area of Bihac. Political violence was aimed at preventing the return of refugees, Janowski said, adding the Bihac area was the site of the worst political violence on the whole Federation territory. According to UNHCR reports, the situation in the Serb entity was not improving and the maltreatment of minority members was continuing. It was obvious that the Bosnian Serb authorities were trying to turn inter-entity boundaries into real international borders. The most obvious example of this was the Bosnian Serb town of Teslic. The remaining Croats and Muslims from Teslic who want to visit someone living on the Federation territory, have to ask for a permission to return to Teslic, which, Janowski says, is a blatant violation of the Dayton agreement. Persons who live on the Federation territory and want to visit Teslic, have to ask from local police for a written permission and are allowed to stay in the town they are visiting five days at most. Janowski recalled that 11 Bosniac families who had been evicted from their homes in Banja Luka were still on the street. All their attempts to return to their homes had yielded no results, despite intercessions of UNHCR, Janowski said. (hina0 rm 231441 MET aug 96