OSIJEK, Croatia, Aug 4 (IPS) - Every so often Dr. Zarko Domljan, vice-president of the Croatian parliament, receives an unpleasant letter protesting about the state of press freedom in Croatia -- be it from the Croatian independent media or human rights watchdogs.

Reporters have learned that one such letter arrived on his desk sent by the Council of Europe -- which promotes democracy and respect for human rights in on the continent -- soon after the Jun. 27 attacks against the satirical weekly newspaper the 'Feral Tribune', published in the Croatian coastal town of Split.

There, on the main town square, a gang confiscated copies of the 'Feral Tribune' from newsboys and newsstands and publicly burned them at several locations on the streets of Split.

This incident could not have occurred at a worse time for Croatia as the newspapers were burned on the streets at the same time as the PHARE -- a European Union development programme for central and eastern Europe -- delegation was visiting Zagreb.

The embarrassment of the Split incident was enormous since the PHARE Programme delegation had canceled a previously scheduled visit. Indeed, concerns about Press freedoms in the former Yugoslav republic was one of the main reasons for the postponement of Croatia's membership of the PHARE Programme.

Domljan attributed the public burning to a freak ''group of extremists who only wanted to express their political opinions, that were different to that of the weekly.''

However, this is only one incident indicating a strategy towards thwarting the freedom of the independent media in Croatia.

In the past, the 'Feral Tribune' editor was violently thrown out of his office by the army due to the weekly's open and frank reporting on the abuses of power by the Croatian government and President Franjo Tudjman.

Later, it was burdened with a hefty tax -- normally only levied on pornographic magazines. After numerous protests and pressure from around the world, the tax was abolished.

Now, the latest strategy for its financial ruin is a wave of libel cases filed privately, mainly by high government officials demanding heavy damages.

Indeed, since the early days when unruly editors were thrown out of their editorial offices at gun point, the Croatian authorities have learned that there are more subtle and fruitful methods of dealing with them.

The taxation ploy did not work, and it is yet to be determined what gains will be made from the lawsuits. In the meanwhile, the government is employing another strategy aimed not only at underming the independent Press, but at trying to convince the international community that the media scene is vibrant in Croatia.

One high official in the Croatian government recently commented on the level of freedom of the media in Croatia by pointing at the enormous number of publications. ''Just look at the newsstands, there have never been so many different newspapers there!''

Whether intentionally or not, in these few words he expounded the governments strategy for dealing with foreign enquiries about media freedom in Croatia.

The reasoning behind such a philosophy is that in a country where the newsstands are too crammed to hold the immense number of publications on sale, there should be no doubt about the freedom of the press.

Although the state already strictly controls the national television and radio stations, as well as four of the five daily newspapers in the country, in the last few months, there have been a flood of new newspaper titles that have been started and financed by the state.

They range from newspapers dedicated to demographic renewal to satirical magazines aimed at competing with the 'Feral Tribune'.

'Obzor' (Horizon), 'Drzavnost' (Statehood), 'Velebit' (Mt. Velebit), 'Narod' (People), 'Zora' (Dawn), 'Hrvatsko Slovo' (Croatian Voice), and 'Zalac' (Sting) are some of the titles that have appeared. The hope seems to be that their sheer numbers will squeeze out the independent papers on the stands.

The circulation of all these papers is meagre, making it quite obvious that they would quickly disappear if state financial support dried out.

Apart from crowding out space on the Croatian newspaper market, they also perform the role of creating the illusion of pluralist, diverse journalism that is present in democratic societies.

Newspaper distribution in Croatia, including the largest network of newsstands, is monopolised by ''Tisak'' the state-controlled distributor. And it is hard not to infer that the 'state media' are afforded the most prominent positions on the newsstands, no matter how meagre their sales.

When such a sophisticated way of state control over the media is added to the confiscation and even burning copies of the 'Feral Tribune', one gets a very powerful and efficient means of suppression.

After the burning of 'Feral Tribune', many newsstand vendors hid their copies of the weekly out of fear. In the flood of state newspapers, the gap was not even noticed.

Another role fulfilled by the newpapers is raising the level of media noise by screaming hysterically from their front pages against the alleged national betrayal and the 'Yugo-nostalgia' of the independent media and journalists.

President Tudjman once said independent journalists had ''sold themselves to the enemies''.

The frenzied campaign that state journalists conduct against their independent colleagues has already taken the form of a real media war on a par with the one that was conducted against Serbia's independent journalists in Belgrade in the wake of Serbian aggression.

The most drastic division made between state journalists and independent journalists was made by the President himself at a recent national awards ceremony when he handed out numerous decorations to journalists from the state-controlled media, for their part in the ''homeland war'' against the Croatian Serbs.

Some of the decorated journalists had barely spent an hour reporting from the frontlines, while others were the foremost advocates of the media war and campaigns of hate.

On the other hand, not one journalist from the independent media was decorated, although some have spent months reporting from the front lines.

And it was not a case of the president being economical with the medals -- he allotted no less than nine decorations to himself!

The irony of it all was not lost on Viktor Ivancic, the 'Feral Tribune editor who said the whole exercise was a farce. ''These are very hard times for satire. Whatever we write, the state will come up with something far funnier than us,'' he said.