CENTRAL BOSNIAN AND NERETVA CANTONS MAINSTAY OF FEDERATION - SARIC

SARIC $ TRAVNIK, Oct 23 (Hina) - "Every serious politician or public figure in the (Croat-Moslem) Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina knows that the Central Bosnian Canton, along with the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, is the mainstay of the Bosnian Federation and one of crucial conditions of its establishment and development," Ivan Saric, the newly-elected Central Bosnian Canton head, said to Croatia's news agency Hina on Wednesday. He explained that this role of the two cantons had followed on the parity of both peoples' (Bosnia's Croats and Moslems) in organization of the public life as well as on the balanced ratio of Croatian and Bosniak (Moslem) peoples in the two cantons, according to Saric. Insisting on equality of both people and on the fact that they are constituent members of Bosnia-Herzegovina, he said that every time when any partner might try to have more power, it would pave the way to the breakdown of relations in the Federation. Saric added he would commit himself of discouraging such attempts. He acknowledged that an urgent problems that should be soon solved was the return of all refugees to their hometowns and villages in the Bosnian Federation's cantons. The Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina consists of ten cantons, and two of them (Central Bosnian and Herzegovina-Neretva) are mixed, whereas either Croats or Moslems have majority in other eight cantons. (hina) jn mš 231417 MET oct 96