Politics and the Media War

AIM Zagreb, December 11, 2000

A huge media scandal that has been shaking Croatia for one whole week has shifted direction, but new shifts should not be ruled out in the near future. Two media magnates, the great Nino Pavic and the not as great Vinko Grubisic, suspected of having conspired in 1997 with key officials of the former government (Ivic Pasalic and Miroslav Kutle) to divide up among themselves almost the entire media scene in Croatia (some 80 percent of it), were released from custody only a day after being detained. It was officially announced that this was done because of insufficient evidence to prosecute them, but that the investigation will continue.

This explanation, however, failed to satisfy anyone. Immediately questions were raised concerning synchronization between police and judicial bodies: why, some said, did the police, in a spectacular event that even saw the use of special units, arrest Pavic and Grubisic, only to have the prosecution fail to find evidence to even keep them in custody for a minimum of 48 hours? The question sounds so reasonable that it has even been raised in the ruling coalition circles, so that Minister Ivanisevic in an interview in the Feral Tribune daily had to find an explanation that would salvage the basic credibility of the law enforcement and judicial branches of government.

No big secret is at issue, he said, because police have been probing the contract that envisaged their domination of the media. In the middle of this investigation a new daily, the Republika, appeared at newsstands (run by Pavic's rival, Ivo Pukanic), publishing facsimiles of the contract and its code, which were key documents in identifying the group... According to Ivanisevic, however, the article in the Republika has speeded up events so that the state attorney could not finish the job. Since it is illegal to keep people in custody after a certain period, the state attorney decided to release Pavic and Grubisic, and to continue the investigation.

Ivanisevic explanation, however, instead of clarifying the matter only raised new questions. Namely, it confirmed that the police knew about the compromising documents implicating Pavic, Grubisic, Pasalic and Kutle (who was already in custody) even before their existence was revealed by the Republika. Even more, it was revealed that Ivanisevic had been discreetly negotiating with Pukanic not to publish the documents at that stage of the investigation. This low-profile communication in this case does not appear in too good a light given yet another publicized fact. Before the fist issue of the Republika appeared, this news house was visited by Croatian Premier Ivica Racan, who later publicly admitted that at that time he was informed of the contents of the contract concluded by the members of the "Criminal Gang of Four," as the Republika has called the group.

The fact that the arrest of two big newspaper publishers came only after the papers Republika and Nacional, owned by a third big publisher, Ivo Pukanic, revealed to the public the secret documents only added to the public outrage that initially accompanied the scandal. In connection with this, the police are suspected of having acted as an extended hand of one of the sides in the media war. The suspicion was later extended to include more or less the entire top leadership together with Racan and President Stjepan Mesic. The latter, whose friendly relations with Pukanic of long standing are secret to no one, is alleged to have intervened so that the Republika, the publication of which Pavic had tried to stop for quite some time, be allowed to go ahead.

On the basis of some additional information, the circle of those suspected of having done services for Pukanic was expanded to include certain lawyers (Hanzekovic, Kostrencic), whose political ties lead to the government, but this time around, not to Racan and Mesic, but in the direction of Drazen Budisa. Another version of the events is also in circulation, far more spectacular that the others, which claimed that the whole scandal was created by Ivic Pasalic, who still wields much influence in the secret services and who, with their assistance, leaked information to impede the investigation and brought into the affair the elements of chaos and an anarchic media war in which everybody is fighting everybody else.

Certain previous scandals that started with the fiercest accusations against Tudjman but in which later details surfaced compromising the sources of the information, offer much credibility to these speculations. This story, however, has a current context with the focus of attention being the change of opinion of key personalities in the government in relation to the local news media. Namely, a rather simplified scheme according to which Racan is behind Pavic's media realm, and Mesic behind Pukanic's, was no longer accepted and it appeared, at least for the moment, that the two of them had found themselves on the same side, joining forces against Pavic.

Were principles the reason for that no one would have really minded because it is obvious that Pavic's business books, and particularly their secret annexes, beg to be opened and thoroughly reviewed. If Pavic's secret arrangements, however, are to be exposed, the same criterion should be applied to Pukanic, especially because the two of them were partners of sorts in the second half of the 1990s. Only when these arrangements fell through, a veritable media war ensued to divide anew the information sector. Once run by a combination of banking, organized crime and media circles, the media sector is again a battlefield on which its former rulers have now only taken sides with one of the two clans vying for power.

It is obvious, however, that the current Croatian authorities are not prepared to peek into each and every dark corner of the local media scene because there is a well-grounded suspicion that their fingerprints might be discovered there as well. This primarily goes for Ivica Racan, whose ties with Pavic went as far as to having resulted in the awarding a large group of journalists from his various publications with special diplomas for democracy. These were, in fact, plaques designed by renowned sculptor Edo Murtic, used to express gratitude to those who had made a great contribution to the fall of Tudjmanism and change of government in Croatia. Mesic never made such mistakes, but he also showed more inclination towards some papers than towards some others, though he took care not to have his favorites come from the media galaxy revolving around Racan.

Thus it was clear from the very outset that the current Croatian government was not prepared to disassemble the huge media monopolies of the Tudjman era, but to inherit them untouched instead, and split them up by mutual agreement, if possible. The problems surfaced once it became clear that an agreement was impossible, and the struggle began. What is worse still, instead of fighting their war themselves, the politicians, following an old habit of theirs, dragged journalists into it. Some of them, who must have known what sort of bosses they were working for, but having only a few days ago realized what type of low-lifes they have actually been involved with, are now trying to heal they deep moral wounds.

The critical mass for revolt, however, has not yet been created. On the one hand, a tacit agreement between journalists and their employees has been in effect for too long. It stipulates that the former will not be too picky about what their bosses were actually all about, and the latter that they will not meddle in what their employees write, or bother to issue too many instructions. On the other hand, the unresolved relation between the government and the media is directly assisting such a state of affairs. The unwillingness of the authorities to abandon their monopoly in the media sector is boosting the media's uncontrolled proliferation and aggressiveness.

Marinko Culic

(AIM)