CROAT TELEVISION IN MOSTAR REFUSES TO READ OSCE STATEMENT

MOSTAR, Oct 28 (Hina) - West Mostar Television has refused to read a statement by the Sarajevo-based OSCE media sub-commission containing claims that Croatian Television of Mostar (HTV Mostar) informed the TV audience not objectively. HTV Mostar editor-in-chief Milan Sutalo said on Tuesday evening that the OSCE media subcommission's accusations were "an unsuccessful attempt to produce an alibi, i.e. pretext, for eliminating HTV Mostar". He also described it as "an attack against freedom of the media." Sutalo added that OSCE objections referred to several statements and reactions concerning the Mostar car-bomb explosion, which HTV Mostar just relayed. The statement by the OSCE sub-commission said that HTV Mostar admitted that it had intentionally deceived the audience, instigated violence and hatred against the Moslem (Bosniak) people, tried to divide the peoples in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and used insulting language that stimulated the obstruction of the international community's work in implementing the Dayton accords. Sutalo said that on October 27, the head of the Mostar-based OSCE office, David Foley, had officially given him the order to read the statement. Under the order, HTV Mostar must read the OSCE statement in the first fifteen minutes of the central news broadcasts "Dnevnik" for five evenings consecutively starting on October 27. The OSCE order warned that the international community would limit the broadcast of the HTV Mostar programme unless the statement was read. "Keeping in mind that already 15 Croats are in The Hague, that still nobody is answering for horrendous crimes committed against Croats in the war and that six Croats have been killed in recent months while the perpetrators of these murders have not been discovered and Travnik authorities have not been replaced, and keeping in mind that only Croat politicians are being removed, and threats issued only to Croat media in the Bosnian Federation, it is clear that the elimination of HTV Mostar is not the ultimate objective but only a part of a broader strategy aimed at marginalising and exerting pressure against Bosnian Croats," Sutalo said. (hina) jn rm mš 282234 MET oct 97