SPLIT: INT. CONFERENCE ON TRANSPARENCY OF DEFENCE WRAPS UP

SPLIT, Oct 20 (Hina) - A four-day conference on the transparency of defence, which pooled around 100 defence ministry experts, university professors and scientists from 16 countries, wrapped up in Split on Saturday with a debate on contemporary terrorism. The conference will contribute to a better military-civil cooperation among representatives of attending countries, Croatia's Assistant Defence Minister Ivan Kozlic said. The event was organised by the Croatian Defence Ministry and the international centre for defendological researchs, with support from the "Konrad Adenauer" international foundation. The debate on contemporary terrorism raised the question "Do the newest forms of terrorism hamper the transparency of defence?" Representatives of some countries pointed out that in light of the latest developments, defence must not be too open to the public. The position that prevailed, however, was Great Britain's - every country's defence must be public and civic freedoms and democratic achievements must not be suppressed in the name of allegedly higher goals. The conclusion was that terrorism, unfortunately, does not have an official, generally accepted definition, with even the UN Security Council as yet without consensus about the definition of terrorism. Participants in the conference pointed out the consequences of terrorism were addressed a lot, unlike the causes, and that the world must do everything to eliminate these causes. According to Bozidar Javorovic, a Croatian scientist and one of the organisers of the Split conference, everything is different following the terrorist attacks on the United States which proved that nobody is safe, not even a world power that spends $30 billion annually on its intelligence organisations. (hina) ha sb