'POST DAYTON ILLUSIONS' ROUND TABLE ENDS IN ZAGREB

ZAGREB, Jan 19 (Hina) - A two-day round table on the rights of journalists and media organizations, called "Post Dayton Illusions and the Reality of Transition to Press Freedom and Sustainable Media Development," ended in Zagreb on Sunday by adopting a final declaration. The fifth round table, organized by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the federation of international publishers (FIEJ) and sponsored by the Council of Europe and the 'Open Society', attracted 150 journalists, editors and publishers from 19 countries including countries that emerged from the former Yugoslavia. Speaking of reports by the Croatian media, the IFJ Secretary- General, Aidan White, said that they been inadequate and sometimes inaccurate. He expressed those remarks after the first day of the round table. In the final declaration the gathered journalists and publishers said that they saw "that the current peace process has not brought an end to the critical problems of freedom of expression in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Macedonia." They insisted that "substantial and on-going international support remains critical to the creation of a media landscape which can properly serve democratic society." The document said that the international standards of freedom of expression and journalism should be "the benchmark for defining the process by which assistance can be given." The round table's participants call on the international community and donor countries to make political and economic support "conditional upon total respect for human rights including freedom of expression." They demanded from governments in the countries in the region to ensure freedom of movement and freedom of communication as well as to remove all obstacles to the development of a free media market. According to the declaration, strategies for assisting media must be long-term and must take account of the different market and professional conditions which apply in each country in the region. In the document the participants propose "the establishment of a legal defence fund to assist journalists and media organizations who are subject to unfair legal prosecution." They also proposed that journalists working for the state- owned media should be included in the work of such gatherings in the future. The round table deplored the continued and politically motivated control over the electronic media by state organizations, and condemned particularly the suppression of the Albanian-language media in Kosovo. The Kosovo case was pointed out in a special resolution by the round table. The Ljubljana-based IFJ/FIEJ co-ordinating centre should continue "to act as a link between local media professionals and assistance providers" and should help carry out initiatives for the development of independent media. Tasks of the IFJ/FIEJ co-ordinating centre also include monitoring of "violations of freedom of expression in order to alert the international community where national authorities fail to meet their obligations to create conditions for press freedom." Besides the final declaration, another four resolutions referring to violations of press freedom in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) were adopted by the round table. (hina) mš 191728 MET jan 97