GRANIC WRITES TO KEATING OVER ATTACK ON ZUPANJA, ETHNIC CLEANSING

ZAGREB, Apr 2 (Hina) - Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic expressed concern about yesterday's and this morning's attacks on Zupanja and Gunja at a Saturday meeting with UNPROFOR Coordinator for Civil Affairs Vieira de Melo. Minister Granic further conveyed the distress with which the Croatian Government received recent news of murders of Moslems and Croats in the Prijedor area and a new wave of ethnic cleansing of non-Serbian populations in northern Bosnia. In a letter to Security Council chairman Colin Keating, Minister Granic pointed out that the attacks on Zupanja and Gunja occurred "against the backdrop of just recently passed UN SC Resolution 908" and "following recently signed overall cease-fire agreement between the representatives of the Croatian Government and Serb insurgents in the UNPAs on the territory of the Republic of Croatia." "According to information at our disposal, as well as news agency dispatches, the selfsame irregular Serb forces in Bosnia- Herzegovina have continued with their gruesome and repugnant practice of ethnic cleansing," said the letter, quoting UNHCR and ICRC reports of the killing of at least 17 Moslems and two Croats in the past three days and the destruction of at least 40 Croat and Moslem houses in bombing attacks in the Prijedor area, as well as the stepping up of the ethnic cleansing campaign in Serb-held Banja Luka. Noting that ICRC was seriously considering evacuating Moslems and other non-Serbs from Prijedor, Minister Granic warned that "if ethnic cleansing of the northern parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina (...) is not stopped immediately, the Republic of Croatia will be faced by yet another great flood of refugees and the displaced." "Adding another 50,000 to 75,000 persons to the already unbearable burden of some half a million refugees in Croatia would certainly put my Government in an extremely difficult position and totally deplete very limited resources at our disposal," the letter warned. "Despite the UN SC Resolution 908 and the cease-fire agreement of March 27, large parts of Croatian territory continue to be exposed to criminal attacks and devastation by the Serbian irregular forces thus jeopardizing the cause of peace. My Government is deeply convinced that Croatia's demand, as presented in the letter by President Franjo Tudjman to Secretary- General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, of March 16, for ensuring and establishing a firm control by UN troops over the borders of the Republic of Croatia has by the latest developments been proven even more justified," the letter concluded. 021551 MET apr 94