U.N. AND SFOR TO INVESTIGATE MOSTAR INCIDENTS

SARAJEVO, Feb 11 (Hina) - The situation in the southern Bosnian town of Mostar was very tense on Tuesday morning but no new incidents had been registered, UN spokesman Alexander Ivanko and SFOR spokesman Tony White said in Sarajevo. Ivanko said that an urgent decision had been made on setting up a team of investigators to look into the causes of the violence that erupted in Mostar on Monday. The team would consist of senior police officials of the Moslem-Croat Federation and representatives of the International Police Task Force in the Mostar area. Ivanko added that they would launch an investigation later in the day. A spokesman for the office of the international community's high representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Michael McLay, said that it had been agreed between the high representative's deputy Michael Stainer and local Mostar officials on Monday that any local police officers found to have been involved in the incidents would be dismissed from work and brought to trial. Ivanko said that several Croat police officers from west Mostar had been seen in a crowd that had attacked the Moslems. They were wearing civilian clothes but that does not diminish their responsibility, he added. Ivanko said that international police had information showing that Croats were responsible for Monday's incidents because they first threw stones and then attacked and shot at a group of between 300 and 400 Moslems trying to visit a cemetery on the west side of the city. According to this report, one person was killed and 22 were wounded, all of them Moslems. There was no evidence to corroborate reports carried by Croatian media that three Croats were among the casualties, Ivanko stressed. International police in Mostar informed their headquarters in Sarajevo that 26 Moslem families had been evicted overnight from their apartments in west Mostar. McLay said that Steiner had demanded from Mostar's Croat mayor Ivan Prskalo to ensure that those people could return to their homes immediately. UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said that UNHCR personnel failed to come to work this morning because it was impossible to cross from the eastern into western part of town. He said that the situation was very tense and that there were hardly any people in the streets. (hina) vm mm 111814 MET feb 97