Summary Records - CERD - Bosnia and Herzegovina

Distr.

GENERAL

CERD/C/SR.1062
11 October 1996

ENGLISH
Original: FRENCH

Summary record of the 1062nd meeting : Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Yugoslavia. 11/10/96.

CERD/C/SR.1062. (Summary Record)

Convention Abbreviation: CERD

COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

Forty-fifth session

SUMMARY RECORD OF THE 1062nd MEETING

Held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva,
on Monday, 15 August 1994, at 3 p.m.

Chairman: Mr. GARVALOV

CONTENTS

PREVENTION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, INCLUDING EARLY WARNING AND URGENT PROCEDURES (continued)

Croatia

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro)

Bosnia and Herzegovina

The meeting was called to order at 3 p.m.

PREVENTION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, INCLUDING EARLY WARNING AND URGENT PROCEDURES (agenda item 6) (continued)

Report of the Country Rapporteur on his technical assistance mission to Croatia (CERD/C/45/Misc.6 and CERD/C/45/Misc.10)

1. Mr. YUTZIS summarized the terms of the mandate with which the Committee had entrusted him to meet the request by Croatia for advisory services and technical assistance, which appeared in paragraph 507 of the report of the Committee on its forty-eighth session (A/48/18) and paragraph 58 of the summary record of the Committee's 1002nd meeting (CERD/C/SR.1002). He had considered his mission to have a twofold purpose: firstly, to provide the Government with the advisory services requested to assist it in preparing reports and, secondly, to assist it in adapting its legislation and policies to the requirements of the Convention.

2. Mr. ABOUL-NASR noted that Mr. Yutzis' report was in fact an account of various discussions. It lacked recommendations and conclusions, however, which he hoped Mr. Yutzis would provide in his oral presentation.

3. Mr. YUTZIS expressed appreciation of the unreserved logistical support he had received from the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs during his mission. He had met with representatives of the Ministry of Labour on refugee matters, officials in charge of inter-ethnic questions and the President of the Human Rights Commission of the Chamber of Deputies. He had been able to visit a prison and refugee camp and speak to students at the Zagreb Law Faculty about the scope and limits of the Convention. Turning to substance, he said that he had been struck by problems relating to the continuing lack of clarity in the use of terms such as "peoples", "nations" and "communities" as referred to in the Constitution, the ambiguity of which could well lead to discrimination. Following talks with officials responsible for matters relating to foreigners, he had been able to form a clear idea of some of the problems with which foreigners were faced. In particular, there were often lengthy delays in issuing national identity cards and work permits. Most disturbing was the excessive direct control of the media by the State. In his talks with those officials, therefore, he had emphasized the need for the situation to change, for it would be difficult to improve inter-ethnic relations with the media in the grip of the Government. He had been given explanations justifying State control of the media, but the heads of services responsible for inter-ethnic relations, education and the media had all agreed with him. He had also learned of the recent adoption of a law on the use of electronic media. The Committee should be given information on both the legal and constitutional aspects of the law and the way it was applied. He also noted that some sectors of the population, such as the Croatian Serbs, did not have access to all the opportunities that the educational system provided for ethnic Croatians.

4. His meetings with members of the Supreme Court and representatives of various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) had shown him that the judiciary was far from enjoying the independence needed for the proper implementation of the Convention. The efforts to train police officers in human rights, although not negligible, were still inadequate. Croatia still had much to do in that area and should keep the Committee informed of its initiatives and progress. He had also noted with concern that the Constitutional Court had appointed deputies to posts that should normally be filled by popular election. The Committee should ask Croatia for additional information on that practice. It should also ask to be informed about the activities of a number of parliamentary committees directly involved in implementing the Convention, such as the Committee and Sub-Committee on the rights of minorities and the Committee on nationalities. It was not sufficient for the Country Rapporteur to receive such information personally. The Committee had also been told nothing about the consultations that had taken place between the services in charge of inter-ethnic relations and those in charge of NGOs. His meetings with State representatives had indicated that, although some inter-ethnic tensions persisted, for example between Serbs and Croats, the authorities were making efforts to redress injustices and integrate the different groups into a single community. The case of Gorski Kotar was an interesting one: even at the level of the municipal authorities, it had services whose members were of different ethnic origins. It would be interesting to learn whether that was a specific case due to the location of Gorski Kotar, the partition of which would mean the partition of Croatia itself, or whether it was a model of peaceful coexistence in the making.

5. He had been able to visit the Osijek prison and meet with several Serbian detainees. Some of them might eventually be prosecuted by an international tribunal for acts they had committed, but they were receiving decent treatment in the prison. According to information from other sources, there were also, regrettably, semi-secret camps where detainees did not enjoy the guarantees laid down in the relevant international instruments. The Committee should ask for information on those camps and the practices in use there.

6. As he had considered his mission to be not only to provide assistance in reporting but also to explain the implementation of the Convention, he was pleased to have been able to meet with the officials directly responsible for establishing national identity cards and foreigners' work permits, in particular. He had been able to ask them for statistics, receive assurances that the Committee would be provided with such statistics, explain the criteria to be used and caution them against carelessness, such as delays in issuing cards and permits. He had also met with the individuals directly responsible for refugee aid. Croatia was a country of 4 million inhabitants which was hosting approximately 1 million refugees. He had visited a refugee camp which had struck him as a model camp, and spoken with its occupants. However, he would have liked to visit a somewhat less perfect camp, and accordingly, found the information he had been given to be inadequate. He had also met with the jurists who had drafted the Constitution, discussed with them its conformity with the Convention and helped them clear up some ambiguity in that connection. He had discussed the fate of non-Croats and "secret" camp members. Inasmuch as his mission had been to explain the Convention and assist the Government to provide relevant and complete information in its reports, he believed he had successfully completed his task.

7. Mr. ABOUL-NASR said he admired the "mission impossible" described by Mr. Yutzis and the wealth of information Mr. Yutzis had managed to collect in only three days under a rather vague mandate for technical assistance and a mission of inquiry. He was surprised that Croatia had not called on the very competent Croatian expert who had been a member of the Committee until recently. It was not his intention to criticize Mr. Yutzis' work, but to draw lessons from the experience in order to improve the Committee's working methods. Neither the report on the technical assistance mission to Croatia nor the letter which the rapporteur was recommending that the Committee should send to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Croatia (CERD/C/45/Misc.10) contained replies to the questions the Committee had asked. Since the rapporteur had been on the spot, should he not have asked for a reply to those questions? In future, a technical assistance mission should provide such assistance, which Mr. Yutzis' mission did not appear to have done, and should therefore be prepared more thoroughly. That would avoid the need for requesting information in writing when it might have been given directly to the rapporteur.

8. Mr. DIACONU said he had read Mr. Yutzis' report and recommendation with interest. The additional information on measures taken to implement the provisions of the Convention, which the Committee had asked the State party to provide (A/48/18, para. 508), was unrelated to the mission undertaken by Mr. Yutzis in the framework of the advisory services and technical assistance programme of the Centre for Human Rights, to assist the Government in reporting on the implementation of the Convention (A/48/18, para. 507); nevertheless, the Committee had not received it. It might have been hoped that the exchanges of views between Mr. Yutzis and the Croatian authorities would have encouraged the authorities at least to provide additional information in reply to the rapporteur's specific questions. If the Committee were now to send the Croatian Government a letter requesting further information on measures taken to implement the provisions of the Convention, as Mr. Yutzis was recommending (CERD/C/45/Misc.10, para. 1), would the Croatian Government have available the information and advice needed to reply? That was not certain. In his view, all the Committee could do for the time being was to ask the Croatian Government to include the additional information requested in its next periodic report, taking into account all the questions Mr. Yutzis had asked.

9. Mr. VALENCIA RODRIGUEZ said that Mr. Yutzis' written and oral reports showed that the Committee had been well advised to adopt its prevention and early warning procedures and to offer Croatia its technical assistance. Mr. Yutzis had been given a very broad mission, as he himself had said. The report made the following points: firstly, there were several deficiencies in the Constitution of Croatia, which should be corrected by making sure the criteria used were clear and precise. Secondly, foreigners in Croatia still had difficulty obtaining work permits, which required the adoption of special measures. Thirdly, government bodies still had excessive control over the media, which prevented the population at large from being provided with accurate information. For those reasons the State party was falling down in its obligation under article 7 to promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among racial or ethnic groups. Fourthly, it was necessary to ensure the independence of the judiciary, which played a decisive part in implementing the provisions of the Convention, especially articles 4 and 6.

10. The rapporteur's recommendations on follow-up to his mission were extremely important; some related directly to particular aspects of the written report. Nevertheless, he was not certain that it was sufficient to repeat the request to the State party to provide the Committee with further information on the measures taken to implement the provisions of the Convention, as the rapporteur was recommending (CERD/C/45/Misc.10, para. 1). He wondered whether it would not be more appropriate to obtain the Croatian Government's agreement to Mr. Yutzis conducting a second mission.

11. Mr. RECHETOV said there was no doubt that the contact established and discussions held by Mr. Yutzis during his visit to Croatia had been useful. Mr. Yutzis was to be commended for completing his task in three days with limited financial means. A reading of the documents prepared by Mr. Yutzis had left him with the feeling that the Croatian legal system was very similar to the legal systems of many Eastern European countries. He would make a few observations in that connection. Concerning the document "Follow-up to the mission to Croatia" (CERD/C/45/Misc.10), he wondered first of all whether it was not a tactical error to draw attention to the fact that the Western countries traditionally did not give a very clear definition to words like "nation", "minority", etc. (para. 2, first subpara.). That could well provide the Croatian authorities with a justification for not having done so in their own legislative instruments. The need to "reduce statelessness" (para. 2, second subpara.) was a very important concept, but what kind of stateless persons was meant? Foreigners residing in Croatian territory? Or the inhabitants of the former Yugoslavia - Serbs, Muslims, Montenegrins, etc.? The same remark applied to the term "foreigner" (para. 4): which "foreigners" were at issue? Other questions, such as the need to ensure the independence of the media (para. 2, third subpara.), the need to ensure the independence of the judiciary (para. 3, second subpara.) and the appointment of some parliamentarians by the Supreme Court as an alternative to popular election (para. 3, fifth subpara.), were certainly important, but the Croatian authorities might find them too vast and too indirectly related to the elimination of racial discrimination, which was the subject of the Convention. He could not see how the Croats would welcome such a recommendation.

12. Paragraph 9 of the report of the Country Rapporteur on his mission to Croatia (CERD/C/45/Misc.6) stated that "there were incidents where Serbians had 'voluntarily' chosen the 'correct' Catholic religion and had modified their name so as to be more assimilated within Croatian society". He was not really sure he had understood that sentence correctly: was the remark meant to be positive or negative? The Committee should endeavour to see that the momentum created by Mr. Yutzis' mission to Croatia was not lost, and to that end, give some thought to the best way to follow up the mission.

13. Mr. FERRERO COSTA echoed the remarks of the preceding speakers in expressing support and gratitude to Mr. Yutzis, on behalf of Mr. de Gouttes, who had not been able to attend the present meeting, and himself. Both he and Mr. de Gouttes fully supported Mr. Yutzis' proposal that a letter should be sent by the Chairman of the Committee to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Croatia referring to the technical assistance mission to Croatia undertaken by Mr. Yutzis (CERD/C/45/Misc.10, para. 1). Mr. Yutzis' mission had been one of the Committee's first missions to a country as part of its early warning and emergency procedure. The mission report should be evaluated from that standpoint. It should also be borne in mind that the report was addressed by the rapporteur to the Committee and not to the State party: there were no rules for the form of such reports. It was for the Committee to consider the report and decide what type of communication it should address to the State party as follow-up to the mission.

14. Mr. Yutzis' report and recommendations were very important and very satisfactory. Mr. Yutzis had accomplished a great deal in a limited time (meetings with government officials, representatives of NGOs and private individuals). The report would enable the Committee to form a preliminary opinion of the situation; it would always be possible to request further information later on, as Mr. Yutzis himself recommended. Besides the importance of the mission itself, the significance of the Croatian Government's cooperation with the Committee should be emphasized (CERD/C/45/Misc.10, para. 1, first subpara.). The Croatian Government had been well disposed towards the Committee; not all Governments were, and that fact should be noted.

15. The task before the Committee was to decide how to follow up Mr. Yutzis' mission. Taking Mr. Rechetov's very positive remarks into account, and in cooperation with Mr. Rechetov and perhaps other members of the Committee, Mr. Yutzis might make some amendments to the report and recommendation, in order to put them into the proper form for transmission to the Croatian Government, and prepare a draft letter. The Committee would adopt those texts in the next few days, ask the Croatian Government for further information on specific points, inform the Government that the question of racial discrimination in Croatia remained on the Committee's agenda and invite the representative of Croatia to appear before the Committee at its next session, in March 1995. In doing so the Committee would simultaneously be resolving the issue of the additional information to be requested from Croatia and that of the follow-up to Mr. Yutzis' mission: the two issues were linked.

16. Mr. SHAHI thanked Mr. Yutzis for succeeding, in the space of a short mission, in establishing an extensive dialogue with the Croatian authorities. He would like some clarifications on the report (CERD/C/45/Misc.6). Paragraph 9 spoke of the 30,000 displaced persons in Osijek who had not been allowed to return to their homes. Who were those persons? Paragraph 11 referred to a visit to the refugee camp at Guisinci (Slavonia) housing 15,000 persons, comprising a majority of Bosnian Muslims and approximately 150 Croats and Serbs. Was there freedom of religion in the camps? The letter to be sent to the Croatian authorities should draw attention to the need to set up the human rights tribunal mentioned in paragraph 15 of the report and prosecute all those guilty of human rights violations. Mention should perhaps also be made of the detainees in the Dugo Selo camp, who were being deprived of freedom of movement with no legal decision and for an unknown period of time (report, para. 24). Finally, he was surprised to find no reference in the report to the "ethnic cleansing" that had been practised against the Bosnian Muslims since the division of their territory by the Croats in mid-1993. That "ethnic cleansing" had been given extensive coverage in the press at the time. He had no objection to the rapporteur's recommendation that the Chairman of the Committee should send a letter to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Croatia requesting further information (CERD/C/45/Misc.10, para. 1). The letter should also underline the Committee's continuing concern about the illegal and arbitrary detention of foreigners (para. 4).

17. Mr. ABOUL-NASR said that in his view Mr. Yutzis' mission was not over and the report should be considered an "interim report". Mr. Yutzis might perhaps continue the mission by himself asking the State party for the additional information in question, in the light of the points made during the Committee's present discussion, and prepare a second report for consideration by the Committee at its next session. The Committee would then decide what action should be taken on the basis of that second report.

18. Mr. AHMADU thanked Mr. Yutzis for his report and pointed out that it would have been useful to include a chapter on religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He would like to know whether Muslims enjoyed the same freedom of association as Serbs and whether there were Muslim deputies in Parliament. The letter to be sent to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Croatia should repeat the request to the State party for further information on measures taken to implement the provisions of the Convention. He did not believe the letter should ask for detailed information on subjects such as efforts to ensure the independence of the judiciary or the electronic mass media law and its implementation, for those issues were not directly within the purview of the Convention.

19. Mr. YUTZIS noted that he had had the difficult task of fulfilling a twofold mandate: to clarify the Committee's concerns to the Croatian Government and to assist the State party in adapting its legislation and policies to the requirements of the Convention. He had tried to act as a mediator between the different parties to the conflict. For example, he had spoken to the students of the Law Faculty on the provisions of the Convention, in the hope of fostering better understanding of the Convention. On the question of "ethnic cleansing", he had been able to mention certain aspects of concern to the Committee, even though he had not been able to go very far into those questions in the field. His visit to the refugee camp at Guisinci (Slavonia) had been much too brief to draw any conclusions as to the refugees' conditions of detention. Replying to Mr. Shahi, he confirmed reports that 30,000 persons were being held at Osijek, most of them Serbs. In reply to Mr. Rechetov, he said that the issues mentioned in the report reflected the concerns expressed by people whom he had met in Croatia. Those questions should be given special attention by the Committee in the interest of receiving as detailed information as possible. In his view the Committee should send a letter to Croatia repeating its request for further information while thanking the Croatian Government for the cooperation and assistance with which it had provided him in carrying out his mission. It was his understanding that the Croatian Government would favour a sequel to the mission if the Committee thought it necessary.

20. Mr. RECHETOV said that Mr. Yutzis' mission had been quite useful. Mr. Yutzis had met with the representatives of the three principal ethnic groups (Serbs, Croats and Muslims), encouraged the conciliation measures involving the three groups and expressed the Committee's concerns about certain practices in the country. He hoped that Mr. Yutzis' mission would help foster better understanding among the warring parties. On another matter, he did not understand why the mission was being linked to the request for further information, although he realized that without information the Committee could do nothing to try to end discrimination.

21. Mr. DIACONU endorsed Mr. Ahmadu's remarks to the effect that the Croatian Government should be sent a single letter referring to the technical assistance mission and also repeating the request that the State party should provide the additional information that the Committee had still not received. Mr. Yutzis' report was certainly useful, but it did not change the fact that the Committee was still awaiting information from the Croatian Government. In that connection, he believed that the information should relate directly to the Convention and that the questions on the independence of the judiciary and the media should be presented in another form.

22. Mr. YUTZIS explained that in a country where interethnic balance was crucial, the question of the independence of judges was relevant and fell within the purview of articles 5 and 7 of the Convention, as did the question of the freedom of the media.

23. Mr. RECHETOV referred to the situation in Kosovo, where the majority of the population was Albanian while the police were generally Serbs. There was no point in going over the history of the situation in Croatia. Such situations were disturbing, but he did not believe it was within the Committee's competence to tell the Croatian authorities that they should ensure the independence of the judiciary, for example.

24. Mr. ABOUL-NASR said that he would like more details on the mandate of the mission to Croatia.

25. Mr. YUTZIS explained that the mission's twofold mandate was set out in paragraphs 487 and 516 of the Committee's report to the General Assembly (A/48/18). Thus his visit had not been limited to a mere fact-finding exercise; its purpose had been to examine Croatia's political behaviour in order to assist the Government in reporting on the implementation of the Convention.

26. Mr. ABOUL-NASR said that he had read the two paragraphs in question and the letter of invitation sent by the Croatian Government. It was his impression that the mandate in question had been limited to assisting the Government in reporting on the implementation of the Convention. In his view the letter which the Chairman would send to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Croatia should keep to that definition.

27. The CHAIRMAN, noting that opinions diverged, said that he would leave it to the members to decide which procedure should be adopted.

28. Mr. DIACONU said that the Committee should avoid entering into a lengthy discussion on the mandate of the mission to Croatia; it could decide to take the simple approach and ask its Chairman to write to the Croatian Government to repeat the request for further information and remind the Government of the Committee's concerns, as described in paragraphs 496-506 of its latest report to the General Assembly (A/48/18), and reproduced by Mr. Yutzis in his concluding observations. Once the Croatian Government had sent the additional information, the Committee could decide whether to continue the mission and, if so, in what form.

29. Mr. FERRERO COSTA agreed that there was no reason, at the current stage, to discuss the exact terms of the mandate of the mission to Croatia; in any event, those terms were set forth in paragraph 507 of document A/48/18, which, at least in the Spanish version, spoke of assisting the Government in reporting on the implementation of the Convention. That wording left room for a more restrictive or less restrictive interpretation of the rapporteur's mission, on which the Committee would have to come to a decision later on. For the time being, a dialogue with Croatia was under way, and it was important for that dialogue to continue and for the question to be kept on the Committee's agenda. The rapporteur's mission had been quite positive from that standpoint. He therefore favoured the solution Mr. Diaconu had proposed: the Chairman would send the Croatian Government a letter requesting the additional information not yet communicated officially, on the one hand, and expressing the Committee's concerns, on the other. The letter, which should also mention the rapporteur's mission, might or might not state exactly what information was being requested. Croatia must know that the Committee continued to be interested in it and that it would keep the question on the agenda of its next session; later on, the Committee might wish to decide that another visit to the country was necessary.

30. Mr. ABOUL-NASR said that the goal was not to find a hasty and simplistic solution, but to establish a procedure for the future. The Committee would not have needed to send a mission in order to request further information in a letter. The root of the problem was, what results would the Committee be submitting to the General Assembly? How had the Committee, in the words of document A/48/18, assisted the Croatian Government in reporting and what information had it gathered, since it was asking the Government for further information? He did not wish to prolong the debate, but the rapporteur's mandate was not clear and should be made clearer in future.

31. Mr. AHMADU said that, even when a Government invited a rapporteur to do more, the rapporteur should first see that the specific mandate entrusted to him was carried out. The letter in question did not concern the mission to Croatia directly; it was aimed at obtaining information which the Government was bound to communicate. As Mr. Diaconu had suggested, however, the mission might be mentioned in passing, and the Croatian authorities should be reminded that the rapporteur was at their disposal if they wanted assistance: that coincided exactly with Mr. Yutzis' mission, and if Croatia asked for assistance, Mr. Yutzis, in his capacity as expert, might collect some useful information. In any event, the letter which the Committee was planning to send did not concern Mr. Yutzis' mission directly, although it could provide an opportunity to mention it.

32. The CHAIRMAN noted that, after taking stock of the mission to Croatia, the Committee still appeared to want the additional information which the Croatian Government was bound to provide pursuant to a 1993 decision; the question whether the Committee should add a point concerning the rapporteur's mission to Croatia had not yet been settled. He had met with the representative of Croatia, whom he had informed that the Committee had decided to keep the question on its agenda. The representative had always proved very willing to cooperate with the Committee; Croatia had already undertaken to draft a report to the Committee, which might be completed in time for the March 1995 session, but it was waiting for more specific instructions on the information to be provided.

33. Mr. FERRERO COSTA said that the situation had become clearer: on the one hand, the Committee appeared to agree that further information should be requested from Croatia, for it was concerned about the situation in the country. On the other hand, however, the Committee had sent a mission to Croatia and it would not be logical to make only a passing reference to it; both aspects should be combined without minimizing the importance of the mission, which had provided Mr. Yutzis with important information and enabled him to ask some important questions. The Committee should therefore inform the Croatian authorities that it was keeping the question on its agenda, that it was still awaiting further information and that the conclusions of the rapporteur's mission had confirmed its concerns. The Chairman's letter to the representative of Croatia should strike a balance between the two aspects. The specific questions to which Croatia should reply in preparation for the Committee's 1995 session appeared in both the summary records of its 1993 session and the conclusions of Mr. Yutzis' mission.

34. The CHAIRMAN said there had never been any question in his mind of minimizing the importance of Mr. Yutzis' mission, which certainly should be mentioned in the letter to the Croatian authorities. But Mr. Aboul-Nasr was right to say that the Committee had to account to the General Assembly for concrete facts. The present discussion would of course be reflected in the Committee's report to the General Assembly, but it should lead to a concrete decision. If the Committee decided to send a letter to the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Croatia, it would request further information and thank the Government for hosting and cooperating with the mission. But would that be all, or would the letter state that the rapporteur remained available to the Government for assistance? Would the Committee refrain from saying whether the mission had been successfully completed or whether it might be continued if that proved necessary? Would it say that it would be pleased to accept another invitation, in the light of its consideration of the additional information to be provided for the following session? The preparation of the letter was a delicate task, and he proposed to entrust it to a working group, perhaps made up of Mr. Yutzis, Mr. Aboul-Nasr and Mr. Diaconu.

35. Mr. ABOUL-NASR said that he was not in favour of sending such a letter and therefore did not wish to participate in the working group.

36. Mr. RECHETOV said that time and experience had taught him that the first version of a document was very often the best one, all things considered. That appeared to be the case at hand: the first paragraph of the rapporteur's recommendation (CERD/C/45/Misc.10) appeared to be fully satisfactory as it stood, for it met all the concerns expressed during the debate; its two subparagraphs might become the body of the letter to be sent to the Croatian authorities together with the mission report.

37. The CHAIRMAN agreed that the text might serve as a basis for preparing a letter to the Croatian Government. If he heard no objection, he would take it that the Committee wished to entrust Mr. Yutzis and Mr. Diaconu with preparing a draft letter for the Committee's consideration.

38. It was so decided.

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro): request for further information

Bosnia and Herzegovina: request for further information

39. The CHAIRMAN noted that no further information had been received from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) or Bosnia and Herzegovina. The representative of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) had not indicated whether the Government had changed its position on the request for a mission to be sent to the country. The Committee would have to decide whether it wished to repeat its request to both Governments for information which it would consider at its next session.

40. Mr. DIACONU said that the Committee should repeat its request to both countries for further information, but the two letters should be drafted differently. Considering the negative response already received from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), the Committee's letter should remind the State that, as a party to the Convention, it was bound to communicate information and to continue its dialogue with the Committee. The letter to Bosnia and Herzegovina might simply remind the State that the Committee was awaiting the information requested.

41. Mr. FERRERO COSTA said that the Committee should also inform both countries that it continued to be concerned about the prevailing situation, that it hoped to receive the information requested before its next session and that it was keeping the question on the agenda for that session.

42. The CHAIRMAN said that, if he heard no objection, he would take it that the Committee agreed to send two different letters, one to the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) and the other to the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would be drafted according to the suggestions of Mr. Diaconu and Mr. Ferrero Costa, and not to revert to those questions before its next session.

43. It was so decided.

The meeting rose at 6 p.m.

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