At IAPA, Salvadoran President Supports Confidentiality Agreements

By: Mark Fitzgerald Speaking at the formal opening of the 60th General Assembly of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) Monday, the president of El Salvador, El?as Antonio Saca, condemned courts that force reporters to reveal confidential sources.

"I am greatly worried about the growing tendency in Latin America and in other countries that force journalists to reveal sources in cases of criminal slander and other cases," Saca said. "Nobody should have impunity, including the press. But using laws to silence the press and intimidate journalists, this is against freedom of expression -- and should be studied in depth," he added, speaking in Spanish. The assembly of about 500 IAPA delegates burst into applause.

Sunday, during a country-by-country survey of press conditions around the Americas, IAPA officials criticized courts in the United States for several instances of using contempt-of-court charges and threats of jail in attempts to get journalists to reveal confidential sources.

And in his final report as IAPA president Monday, Tribune Publishing President Jack Fuller criticized special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald for his "threats to send several journalists to prison" in the investigation of the Valerie Plame case.

Saca, who was a radio magnate before being elected president of El Salvador, quoted from Fuller's book, "News Values," and said liberty of expression and transparency were the two most important values for any government.

"Liberty," he said, "is always under threat."

In the report summarizing his year as IAPA president, Fuller said he was ending his term as it began -- preoccupied by the poor state of the press in Cuba and Venezuela.

"Cuba is the only place in the hemisphere where there exists no freedom of the press nor assembly," Fuller said. "It is an outrage that in 2004 this exists." Cuba, he said, has rebuffed all attempts by IAPA to discuss the March 2003 mass arrests and show trials that landed 30 independent journalists in prison with sentences ranging up to 25 years. Among the prisoners is an IAPA director, Raul Rivero. "This organization will not rest until they are able to practice their work without imprisonment and threat," Fuller said.

Fuller noted that Hugo Chavez's government welcomed an IAPA delegation only slightly more warmly when it traveled to Venezuela to investigate official pressure on the press. "A government minister called us all Citizen Kanes, a bunch of rich ignoramouses," he said.

After winning the referendum on his presidency earlier this year, Chavez has continued his repression against news organiztions, Fuller added: "Step by step, President Chavez is trying to squeeze the life out of freedom of the press."