APARTMENT EVICTIONS CONTINUE IN WEST MOSTAR - UNHCR

SARAJEVO/MOSTAR, Nov 29 (Hina) - Illegal evictions of Moslems and Serbs from apartments in Croat-controlled west Mostar are continuing, a spokesman for the UN High Commission for Refugees said on Friday. Sixty-five apartment evictions have been recorded since the signing of the Dayton peace agreement a year ago, and three such cases have taken place in the last five days, UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski told a news conference in Sarajevo. He cited a very brutal case which occurred on November 25 when a disabled elderly woman, who could not walk without crutches, was thrown out into the street. Three men in military uniform broke down the door of her apartment, forced the old woman out, took her to a former separation line close to the east, Moslem-controlled half of the town and left her in the street, the spokesman said. Janowski said that local Croat authorities showed a complete lack of interest in preventing such violence, adding that there was irrefutable evidence indicating that both Croat troops and police were directly involved in such incidents. UN spokesman Alexander Ivanko said in Sarajevo that international police were not satisfied with the cooperation with Croat police in west Mostar because of their failure to respond to numerous complaints. The European Union special envoy to Mostar, Martin Garrod, said on Friday that apartment evictions in west Mostar had to be stopped. Garrod vigorously condemned a recent attack in central Sarajevo on a deputy to the international community's high representative to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Michael Steiner. The Mostar commander of the International Police Task Force, Frank Sarver, said that international police were in contact with Croat military and civilian police in order to identify and arrest the perpetrators. Sarver said that NATO-led IFOR troops and international and local police forces had recently conducted a joint operation in which they had found and seized weapons from guards of public institutions in both Croat- and Moslem-held halves of the town. In response to questions on expulsions of Croats from the central Bosnian town of Vares, Garrod strongly condemned such incidents if reports of such cases were accurate. Garrod confirmed that many bursts had been fired at the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) headquarters south of Mostar on the night of November 26. He said that it was still unclear from which direction fire had been opened. (hina) vm mm 291417 MET nov 96