EMPLOYEES IN BELI MANASTIR OFFICE ISSUING CRO DOCUMENTS REFUSE TO GO TO WORK

GO TO WORK VUKOVAR, 16 Oct (Hina) - Deputy spokesman for the U.N. Transitional Administration in Eastern Slavonia (UNTAES) in Vukovar, Yuriy Chizik on Wednesday confirmed that the Belgian UNTAES battalion members were no longer securing Croatian employees in the Beli Manastir office issuing Croatian documents and in its branch offices in Batina and Lug. #L# Chizik said that the offices were being secured by the transitional police. He added that the situation in the area was safe, confirming that Croatian employees did not show up in their offices today. Asked by the Croatian news agency Hina journalists about the composition of the transitional police, Chizik said that there were 1181 police officers in the region who were of five different nationalities. There were also 147 transitional police officers who were of Croat nationality, he added. Asked why the UNTAES had excluded the Belgian battalion members from the force securing the offices and their employees and relocated the Beli Manastir office from the town's centre, Chizik said that the relocation did not have a political character and added that the new offices were better. A local administration member Franjo Zdravcevic said that Croatian employees were not going to their offices in Beli Manastir, Batina and Lug as of yesterday, because the UNTAES could not guarantee their safety at work and on the way to the offices. After an incident which happened on 10 October in Beli Manastir, when some 200 Serbs blocked the office issuing Croatian documents, local Serbs demanded that transitional police be in charge of securing the employees and that the Beli Manastir office be relocated from the town's centre. (hina) rm 162303 MET oct 96