$ ZAGREB, Dec 15 (Hina) - Croat national minorities who live in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Italy, Hungary, Austria, Romania and Slovakia are prone to assimilation, participants said in a Forum on Croat minorities organized
last Saturday with the aim of discussing the current problems, minority rights, education and cooperation of Croat minorities with the Republic of Croatia.
COUNTRIES
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ZAGREB, Dec 15 (Hina) - Croat national minorities who live in the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Italy, Hungary, Austria, Romania
and Slovakia are prone to assimilation, participants said in a
Forum on Croat minorities organized last Saturday with the aim of
discussing the current problems, minority rights, education and
cooperation of Croat minorities with the Republic of Croatia. #L#
Croats in FRY were most vulnerable, the participants said,
adding that around 45,000 Croats had been exiled from Vojvodina
since 1991.
Speaking about the life of Croats in FRY, president of the
Democratic Croats' Association in Vojvodina, Bela Tonkovic,
stressed that Croats were being exposed to repressive measures
aimed at exile, adding that, except for general law provisions on
the equality of citizens before the Law and the prohibition of
discrimination on any basis, FRY had not regulated ethnic rights of
the non-Serb population by any constitutional or legal provisions.
Over one third of the overall population in FRY consists of
non-Serbs.
Tonkovic stressed that there were no schools in Vojvodina or
the Boka Kotorska bay which taught the Croatian language, but that
Croat children were learning the Cyrillic alphabet in primary
schools.
He also tackled the signed Agreement on the normalization of
relations between Croatia and FRY, expressing hope that item 8 of
the Agreement would be respected. The item stipulates that
countries are to guarantee all rights to national minorities in
line with international law.
A representative of Hungarian Croats said that they were
hoping for moral and financial assistance which would help them to
maintain their Croatian identity and language, now that they have a
free and independent homeland.
Croat minorities represented an especially valuable segment of
the Croatian cultural heritage which needed to be sustained, the
participants of the Forum concluded, calling on all Croatian
institutions to help them maintain their Croatian identity.
(hina) lm
151352 MET dec 96