SUCCESSION OF FORMER YUGOSLAVIA POSSIBLE ONLY THROUGH PRESSURE ON BELGRADE

BELGRADE ZAGREB, Sept 13 (Hina - by Slavoljub Leko) - The resolution to the problem of succession of the former Yugoslavia is possible only by pressure from the international community on Belgrade, so that the stalemate in negotiations which have lasted for four years could be broken, head of the Croatian government Office for the succession project, Bozo Marendic, said. "Until the international community gets involved through the feeling of justice and uses its mechanisms to pressure the side which does not yield," the problem of succession would not be resolved, Marendic told Hina on Friday. That side was Yugoslavia, he added. The negotiator for the Croatian side, Marendic, on Monday held a meeting in Brussels with a special negotiator for succession with the office of the international high representative Carl Bildt, Sir Arthur Watts. The problem is that Watts, that is, the international community, wants the sides to arrive at an agreement by consensus, which is impossible, because Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, on the one side, and Yugoslavia on the other, have clashing viewpoints. Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Macedonia base their viewpoints on a draft agreement which was drawn up by the Geneva Conference on the former Yugoslavia. Watts's suggestion, however, shows that the international community got out of the spirit of the Geneva conference, Marendic said resignedly. Even Watts's proposal that the issue of succession be resolved by arbitration if negotiations did not take place, does not resolve the problem because a consensus is also needed for initiating arbitration, Marendic said. The crux of conflict between the two sides crystallized when the state property which should be apportioned was being defined. According to the point of view of the four states, the state succession is property which used to belong to and was administered by the former Federation at the moment of its breakdown. This view is supported by the opinion of the Badinter Commission (a body of the Geneva Conference), and Vienna conventions on succession. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia firmly sticks to the opinion that the state property consists of all the property which was "partially or wholly" financed by the former Yugoslavia from federal sources (funds, budget and even federal banks). Croatia and the other three countries hold that FRY's proposal does not correspond with the system of former Yugoslavia, where the assets of the former Federation were secured by the republics. Moreover, the federal property was divided in 1971. According to the standpoint of the four states, the property to be apportioned would consist of real estate (for example buildings of federal institutions in the country and abroad), all the property of the former Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), financial assets such as foreign exchange reserves and gold, the former state's claims from other countries such as Russia (former Soviet Union), Algeria, Iraq, Iran... The group insists that the succession also includes the profit which Serbs had gained through their incursion into the monetary system in 1990. The four states hold that, according to rough estimates, the value of the mass for succession amounts to about 100 billion dollars, and according to FRY's suggestion, the property's value amounts to some 200 billion dollars. The general criterion for the distribution of property and debts of the former Yugoslavia was already defined by the International Monetary Fund so that the distribution is based on the contribution of the republics to the national income of the former Yugoslavia. For Croatia this means some 28.5 percent of property and debts of the former Yugoslavia. By signing agreements with the Paris and London clubs, Croatia has already claimed its part of the debt. As far as property is concerned, apportionment is nowhere in sight. The foreign exchange reserves of the former Yugoslavia whose exact amount is not known because FRY and international organizations refuse to give out information, present a specific problem. Until 1992 when the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on the former Yugoslavia, Serbs managed the foreign exchange reserves and gold, a large amount of which they had spent. The remainder, which Marendic estimates to amount to about 1 billion dollars, is now frozen. Joint foreign exchange reserves amounted to more than 5 billion dollars in 1990. "We will not give up our rights," Marendic stressed. The four states are directing their actions to individual ventures, as well to a global solution. By initiating court proceedings in Nicosia (Cyprus), Slovenia froze 147 million dollars of the Belgrade Bank's assets as part of the claims from the former Yugoslav National Bank. What Slovenia had done was done in the name and for the accounts of all of us ... as there were actions which Croatia lead in the name of all of us, Marendic explained, stressing that malicious information that Slovenia was doing this for only itself were wrong. The apportionment of the former state's monetary gold deposited in Basel is under way, despite FRY's lack of cooperation. The fourth round of bilateral talks on succession is to end on Friday. (hina) lm jn 131506 MET sep 96