438, Lastly, clarification was requested of the statement in the report that the issue of the exercise of the right to self-determination and to secession concerned all the nations within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and that that right could not be regulated unilaterally by the assemblies of the federal units. In that regard, it was asked whether the Constitution actually permitted the republics to assert their right to self-determination. Further information was also requested on efforts undertaken by the autonomous provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina to exercise the right to self-determination and on the envisaged status of those autonomous provinces under the new Constitution, it was also asked how the measures taken against Albanians in Kosovo during the state of emergency, such as the dismissal of teachers and lawyers and the closure of Albanian schools, could be reconciled with the provisions of article 4, paragraph 1, of the Covenant. 439, In his reply, the representative of the State party emphasized that the Yugoslav Government was no longer in control of the whole territory of the country. Since under the Constitution and international law, peoples and nations had a right to self-determination, including the right of secession, the Government was in the process of drafting rules for secession that would lay down the mutual rights and obligations of the republics and central Government. With regard to the specific situation in certain republics, he explained that in June 1991 the Republic of Slovenia had tried violently and unilaterally to secede by taking over frontiers and customs posts. Yugoslav troops had been withdrawn from Slovenia by a presidential decision that was later deemed unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court. The crisis in Croatia had been precipitated by the attempt of Croatian authorities to adopt a new constitution without the consent of the Republic's Serbian population. Acts of discrimination against Serbs had escalated into attacks by the Croatian army and paramilitary groups against Serbian villages. Yugoslav army units had then been ordered to intervene between the two conflicting sides and they had, in turn, been attacked by the Croatian military, which had proceeded to commit atrocities verging on genocide. The question of Bosnia and Herzegovina was critical since the Republic was made up of Muslims, Croats and Serbs, all with conflicting wishes. 440, Although the Government did not recognize the secession of the breakaway republics, it was endeavouring to cooperate with them in finding a solution to problems of day-to-day existence, which included human rights issues. Given that the secessionist republics had stated that they intended to be bound by international law, there should not be any difficulty in ensuring the continued application of the Covenant in territories outside the de facto control of the federal Government. The most obvious area of difficulty was, however, that of minority rights. 441, Some of the amendments to the 1988 Constitution had been accepted by all the constituent republics. Fifty amendments had, however, not been adopted, and since there were no representatives of Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia or Bosnia and Herzegovina in the current national Parliament, they could not now be expected to be adopted. A new draft constitution had recently been prepared and would be open for ratification by all republics wishing to remain in the Yugoslav Federation. The Government had submitted to Parliament a proposal to ratify the First Optional Protocol and to make the declaration provided for in article 41 of the Covenant. -105-