'FERAL TRIBUNE' PUBLICATIONS IN JEOPARDY BECAUSE OF DEBTS

ZAGREB, Jan 14 (Hina) - The editorial office of the Croatian "Feral Tribune" weekly warned Thursday that their publications are in serious jeopardy because of debts of distributors. Despite repeated appeals, not one kuna has arrived on Feral Tribune's account from Tisak, the weekly said. This additionally aggravates the weekly's publishing business and blocks employees' salaries, Feral said, stressing that Tisak owed Feral Tribune US$210,000. "We are convinced that this is a political strategy by which the Croatian regime, ahead of the elections, is trying to complete the final showdown with independent press," the editorial office said in a statement. The Tisak distributor company confirmed that it owed about US$210,000 to Feral. President of Tisak's managing board, Chris Bojanovic, told Hina that at this moment, "it was not possible to pay the debt, because the company has been blocked for some time now, and payments to all Tisak's suppliers have been stopped". Bojanovic recalled that a new management board had been nominated at Tisak recently, which did not cause this situation, but found it as such, and whose task is to find a way out of the crisis. The new management board upon appointment "expressed firm intention" to pay all debts as son as possible, Bojanovic said. "We hold insinuations about smothering independent press malicious, because, due to the situation, all publishers are having trouble, and the amounts owed to them are much more significant than the amount owed to Feral," Bojanovic said. (hina) lml mm