OSCE PRESENTS HRT WITH ULTIMATUM ON BOSNIAN ELECTION COVERAGE

( Editorial: --> 5067 ) SARAJEVO, Aug 21 (Hina) - The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has given Croatian Radio Television (HRT) an ultimatum to change its coverage of Bosnia-Herzegovina's election campaign. The OSCE mission to BH announced in Sarajevo on Friday that it had given the HRT a deadline until midnight Sunday to alter its relations towards political parties taking part in the elections and thus fulfil the Media Experts Commission's demands. Mission spokesman Nicole Szulc said that if changes did not occur by the deadline, then the case would be immediately forwarded to the Election Appeals Sub-Commission (EASC) which had the authority to remove candidates from electoral lists in cases where election regulations were violated. In this case penalties would be passed on to the candidates of those political parties who were promoted on HRT programmes, Szulc said. Office of the High Representative (OHR) spokesman Simon Haselock told reporters that the international community shared the OSCE mission's concern over the contents of HRT programmes. But he emphasised that the primary problem was finding the legal basis on which the HRT programmes were being re-transmitted into another country, Bosnia-Herzegovina. It is a fact that in BH there are land transmitters carrying television signals from other states which deepens division in this country rather than bringing reconciliation, Haselock said. He rejected the possibility that the raising of the issue was an attempt at imposing a form of censorship, but he said that any broadcaster wanting its programmes to be watched in a particular country had to abide by the laws valid in it. The Independent Media Commission is currently very carefully considering the legal basis on which the HRT is using land transmitters in Bosnia, Haselock said. He added that there was real confusion in BH concerning frequencies and laws which regulated the jurisdiction of electronic media. The OHR believes there are no doubts that the Mostar firm EROTEL which officially operates the transmitters re-broadcasting HRT programmes is only a subsidiary of the HRT in BH, so both are obligated to adhere to the rules which are applicable to media in BH - first of all securing equal access by political parties and then respecting legal norms. In any case things stand fairly dubious, Haselock said. Carlos Westendorp's spokesman said EROTEL was using licences and frequencies awarded on the basis of regulations which had been valid in, as he put it, the so-called illegal creation of Herzeg- Bosnia. From this it can be seen that the legal position of this firm is not defined at all and therefore the way in which the HRT's programmes are transmitted in BH, Haselock said. The people who run EROTEL are known as people with strong political links in BH and from this fact it follows that fines could be given to election candidates which the OSCE mission warned about, he said. (Hina) mbr 211651 MET aug 98