CROATIA CONDEMNS DERVENTA ATTACKS & SENDS PROTEST TO SFOR

( Editorial: --> 9330/9341 ) ZAGREB, April 24 (Hina) - Croatia has strongly denounced Thursday's Serb attacks on Croat Catholic believers and Sarajevo Archbishop Cardinal Vinko Puljic in the northern Bosnian town of Derventa, describing them as a "brutal crime". The Croatian Foreign Ministry released a statement on Friday expressing its harsh condemnation of the attacks "given that it was on a gathering of faithful which had been arranged with the local authorities and international community representatives". The Ministry said it was concerned because "this crime had happened directly ahead of a conference on return announced for April 28 in Banja Luka". "This brutal crime does not contribute to the stabilising of the situation, mutual understanding and easing the process of return and Croatia is expecting the local and higher authorities of Republika Srpska and Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as international players, to clearly take a stand towards this act," the statement said. Meanwhile, Croatia's Ambassador to Bosnia-Herzegovina Darinko Bago has lodged a sharp protest with the international community because of the ineffective work of the NATO-led Stabilisation Force and the UN's International Police Task Force (IPTF) during the attacks in Derventa. On Friday Bago met the international community's Deputy High Representatives for BH, Jacques Klein and Hanns Schumacher, in Sarajevo to express Croatia's dissatisfaction. A Croatian Foreign Ministry statement said Ambassador Bago emphasised that the attacks on Croats had occurred "despite the earlier approval by local authorities" for a religious service, at which Cardinal Puljic and Catholic faithful were to have celebrated the day of the parish patron St George in a destroyed church. International community representatives who had information on the incidents, as well as SFOR and IPTF forces, were inadequately prepared and as a result did not prevent the incident in which several people were injured, the statement said. (Hina) mb /as 241935 MET apr 98