Yugoslav Daily Survey, 97-06-04

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From: Yugoslavia <http://www.yugoslavia.com>

Yugoslav Daily Survey

CONTENTS

[01] YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT DRAFTS AMENDMENTS TO LAW ON FOREIGN TRADE

[02] SDA MUSLIM EXTREMISTS ACTIVE IN YUGOSLAV MUNICIPALITY

[03] TASK FORCE ON SUCCESSION TO EX-YUGOSLAVIA SITS ON IN BRUSSELS

[04] SERBIAN SOCIALIST OFFICIAL VUCELIC: ELECTIONS ARE ONLY WAY TO POWER

[05] YUGOSLAV ASSISTANT JUSTICE MINISTER RECEIVES U.N. DELEGATION

[01] YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT DRAFTS AMENDMENTS TO LAW ON FOREIGN TRADE

Tanjug, 1997-06-03

The Yugoslav Government drafted in its session, chaired by Prime Minister Radoje Kontic, on Tuesday amendments to the Law on foreign trade.

A statement issued by the Yugoslav Information Secretariat quoted the Government as saying the amendments would enable a more efficient control of the movement of goods and payments in foreign trade transactions.

The proposed regulations on certificates of origin for goods that are to be exported are in keeping with E.U. standards and the agreements that Yugoslavia has reached with other countries and that have been ratified.

The Government also increased fines for offenses in the sphere of foreign trade activity and drafted amendments to the Law on foreign currency transactions.

The Government proposed amendments primarily to regulations which were in operation during the United Nations' sanctions as a further measure designed to liberalise hard currency transactions of the economy and the people with foreign partners.

Under the proposed regulations, when travelling abroad Yugoslavs can take out hard currency and money orders to the equivalent of 1,000 German marks.

There is also a proposal that the Government define the amount of hard currency for purposes of education and medical treatment abroad, court and registration fees, removal expenses and the transfer of bodies of deceased persons.

When leaving the country, Yugoslavs temporarily employed abroad and foreigners can take out the amount they have declared when entering the country.

The Government defined a platform for Yugoslav Vice-Premier Nikola Sainovic's visit to Syria and Jordan on June 6-9. It also determined its further diplomatic and economic efforts for Yugoslavia's becoming part of the European road and railway network.

[02] SDA MUSLIM EXTREMISTS ACTIVE IN YUGOSLAV MUNICIPALITY

Tanjug, 1997-06-03

The Party of Democratic Action (SDA), known here as 'the Coalition List for Sandzak of Dr. Sulejman Ugljanin,' urges the territorial and political autonomy of the Raska region, Sjenica socialist leader Velisa Pejcinovic told Tanjug on Tuesday.

This has seriously damaged the good relations between Serbs and Muslims, deepened political conflicts, and spread fear and apprehension among the population, said the President of the Municipal Board of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) in the town of Sjenica in southwestern Serbia in the region of Raska, which muslims call Sandzak.

'The political situation in this area deteriorated rapidly with the return of Sulejman Ugljanin, who acts from the positions of Muslim extremists, religious and national exclusiveness and intolerance, thus inflicting severe damage upon both Serbs and Muslims,' he said.

SDA leaders and others who have such political views, openly spread hatred of the Serb people and the State of Serbia.

The current authorities of Sjenica openly claim that they do not recognize the Republic of Serbia or the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and their laws.

They go to Sarajevo, where the SDA central headquarters is based, for consultations, and to their party headquarters in Novi Pazar for instructions.

'Sulejman Ugljanin publicly advocates that authorities in Serbia be established without any Serbs in the Raska region and other Muslim- populated municipalities in Serbia and Montenegro,' Pejcinovic said.

As a result of such a policy, Muslims currently in power in Sjenica have ousted all Serbs from leading positions in the municipality and in public companies in the six months that they have been in power.

There are no Serb history teachers in the entire municipality of Sjenica. Muslim teachers present Serbian liberation wars as wars of conquest and the Yugoslav Army as an enemy and a force of occupation.

The perfidity of the activities of Muslim extremists is also evident in these examples.

If a Serb woman wants to have an abortion, she is granted permission immediately, but a Muslim woman is persuaded not to have one for 'reasons of health.'

Mullahs do much to influence the situation with their advice as well. There is not a single Serb gynaecologist or internist in the municipality of Sjenica.

There are also increasingly frequent incidents when Muslims deliberately close water wells in their villages to prevent water from reaching Serb villages, or change the course of the pipelines.

The municipality of Sjenica covers 1,056 sq km of territory and is the seventh-biggest municipality in Yugoslavia. It encompasses 103 places with 12 district administrations and has a population of 33,861 people (14,000 in Sjenica itself), and 80% of them are Muslims and 20 Serbs.

The number of Serbs in this municipality is rapidly dropping. Thirty years ago, about 17,000 Serbs lived here, and there are now about 7,000 of them.

The Muslim SDA party has 20 seats in the 29-seat Municipal Assembly, socialists have five seats, three belong to independent candidates (they are members of the Socialist Party of Serbia), and one seat is filled by a deputy of the Serbian Radical Party.

However, no socialist deputy holds any office in the Assembly or its organs. Thus, for the first time after several decades, the practice of having representatives of both nations in leading positions in this town has been ended.

'We are doing everything to preserve peace here,' the socialists' municipal board said. 'We are convinced the SPS will win at the next elections, since we now have the support of increasing numbers of Muslims who have been betrayed by the current authorities, with their actions.'

'In order to achieve this, we must prove ourselves in resolving the most important vital problems of the population, which is exactly what we are now doing,' the sources said.

'Certainly, we will not be able to do all this with our own forces, without help and support from the Republic and its respective organs and from Yugoslavia,' the socialist leaders of Sjenica said.

[03] TASK FORCE ON SUCCESSION TO EX-YUGOSLAVIA SITS ON IN BRUSSELS

Tanjug, 1997-06-03

A large number of amendments to a draft Memorandum was submitted on Tuesday to the task force on succession to former Yugoslavia, which is in session in Brussels.

The draft Memorandum is an informal document that should serve as a basis for regulating relations between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and four new States created on the territory of the former six-republic Yugoslav Federation.

The Yugoslav delegation insisted on two key facts.

One of them is that the 1974 Constitution did not divide the entire property of the former State, as claimed by the breakaway republics, which insist that the only thing remaining to be divided is property acquired since 1974.

The Yugoslav delegation takes the view that everything financed jointly should be divided.

The other concerns the reference date, December 31, 1990. which should mark the day beyond which there should be no mutual credits and liabilities.

Bearing in mind that the four republics declared independence at different times while not abandoning the single financial system at the same time but kept using the joint funds, it would appear logical that a single date could not be set for all of them.

The Yugoslav delegation maintains that four separate dates should be set.

As for dividing up the archives, four delegations are showing an interest in dividing only the central archives, those relating to the State, the Central Bank and the Army, while the Yugoslav delegation insists on accessibility to the republican and local archives too.

Finally, on the central question in the task force on succession talks - defining of State property - the draft Memorandum contains a proposal whereby all property should be defined on the basis of three criteria.

One of these is the principle of joint financing, which the Yugoslav delegation has been advocating all along. However, the delegations of Slovenia and Croatia have offered amendments trying to reformulate this proposal, which the Yugoslav side regards as a compromise solution.

The Yugoslav side maintains that, in defining State property, all three criteria must be applied, from the time the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was formed after the First World War, until 1990.

[04] SERBIAN SOCIALIST OFFICIAL VUCELIC: ELECTIONS ARE ONLY WAY TO POWER

Tanjug, 1997-06-03

A ranking Serbian Socialist Party (SPS) official said that the SPS will rally all democratic and leftist parties into a single bloc for the next election.

'The SPS has not selected a candidate for Serbian President and, even if it had, it would not announce it yet, because we believe that a race should not start before the starting signal,' SPS Vice*President Milorad Vucelic said.

Vucelic was speaking for the Belgrade daily 'Vecernje Novosti', which carries the interview in its Wednesday issue.

Vucelic said the SPS takes the same view of the nomination of a candidate for President of the Yugoslav Federal State.

'We must definitely relegate to the past the practice of seizing and relinquishing power in revolutions,' he said, adding that 'there is no way of coming to power except through elections.'

He said that acters in politics should abandon the practice of playing for high and vital stakes, recalling that in former Yugoslavia, 'whoever had a political grievance threatened to secede and, what is worse, carried the threat into action.'

Speaking about State interests, he stresses that the SPS never had any dilemma about taking the side of its people in war, whereas everybody else bowed out and left it to the socialists to do the needful.

'It is an undoubted merit of our policy that it has united Serbia, kept the war away from its borders, created Yugoslavia.

'This policy ensured against civil war in Serbia, it protected the Serbian people from genocide, created the (Bosnian Serb) Republika Srpska, these are our undoubted achievements, our ace in the hole,' he said.

He said that among the other national interests are economic and social reforms, further democratisation, the integration of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the international community, etc.

He vowed that the SPS will vanquish every separatist policy, and rule out secession by Serbia's southern Kosovo-Metohija Province or any other part of the territory, stressing that the question of Kosovo-Metohija is Serbia's internal affair.

'No matter of importance in the region can be settled without Serbia, and the world and the United States, whenever they need to discuss a serious matter in the Balkans, have no better partner in talks than (Serbian President) Slobodan Milosevic,' Vucelic said.

He said that the attitude of the SPS to the Republika Srpska is quite clear from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's Agreement on special parallel relations with the Republika Srpska.

Speaking about war criminals, Vucelic said that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia will remain firm on the position that it will try war crime suspects and regulate the entire matter in line with its laws.

'The Hague-based war crimes tribunal (for former Yugoslavia) seeks the extradition of people but gives next to no documentation.'

'As a nation, we have already been through an experience of being singled out as the villains. Let us only remember the Sarajevo massacre, which took so long and cost so dearly to clear up and clear us of blame,' he said.

He said that complete cooperation with international institutions, including the Hague-based court, must rest on the principles of equality and full mutual respect, without allegations of the Serbian people's collective guilt.

[05] YUGOSLAV ASSISTANT JUSTICE MINISTER RECEIVES U.N. DELEGATION

Tanjug, 1997-06-03

Yugoslav Assistant Justice Minister Radivoj Rajakovic received on Tuesday a delegation of the Belgrade-based U.N. Liaison Office, headed by Maria Theresa Mauro.

Rajakovic, who is also co-Chairman of the Yugoslav-Croatian Commission for the implementation of Article 7. of the Agreement on normalisation of relations between Yugoslavia and Croatia, informed the delegation about problems encountered in the implementation of Article 7, a statement issued by the Yugoslav Information Secretariat said.

The problems in question primarily concern Croatia's unwillingness to receive at this point at least some 60,000 refugees and displaced persons that want to return to their homes collectively, the statement said.

The statement said it had been agreed that U.N. officials continue to monitor issues within the Commission's sphere of responsibility and to report to the international community on the matter.

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