The Media - "Collateral Damage" of A Political Showdown

Murder of the Former State Security Official Threatening to Change the Picture of Serbia

The approaching "final showdown" within the DOS can only intensify the aspirations of various centres of power to place the media under their control.

AIM, Belgrade, August 16, 2001

It seems that a crisis in the ruling Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) will not be the only consequence of the storm raised by the murder of Momir Gavrilovic, former official of the State Security Department (RDB). The Serbian media, as "collateral damage", might easily fall victim of the perfidious murder of the former secret agent.

However, there is an essential difference between subsequent victims of the latest Belgrade shooting from an ambush. Serious accusations exchanged between two DOS wings truly sound as an announcement of the disintegration of a coalition that won great popularity by toppling Slobodan Milosevic's repressive regime (the Serbian Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic, made it clear that it was "a first-class scandal which, unless resolved uncompromisingly and completely, would threaten further functioning of the DOS"). Nevertheless, the history of the "DOS case" shows that coalition rivals, personified, in the first place, in Prime Minister Djindjic and Federal President Vojislav Kostunica, know how to keep their conflicts and animosity under control if political calculations show that the time has not yet come for them to finally settle their mutual accounts. In other words, irrespective of the external incentives, the DOS's "shelf-life" will be determined by other, more pragmatic internal factors.

The situation is quite different when it comes to the media. Not so distant grim past has shown that the external pressures, especially those coming from the authorities, can very successfully stifle the media despite sporadic heroic internal (editorial) resistance. That is what happened to the dailies "Nasa Borba" (Our Fight), "Dnevni telegraf" (The Daily Telegraph), "Evropljanin" (The European) and other papers. According to the second scenario they were turned into propaganda machinery, what all the state-controlled media houses had been until a year ago. After October 5, the situation somewhat changed, but not enough for the media which had been abused for years, to get professionally and financially back on their feet again so firmly to be able to resist pressures and manipulations, such as those accompanying the "Gavrilovic affair".

The most disappointing in this whole story is the fact that the dust was not actually raised by yet another violent death in the traditional Belgrade ambush, but by the way the media reported on and "explained" the entire case. Seven bullets fired at the former high RDB official, Momir Gavrilovic (who left the service in summer 1999), did not make such a splash as several lines written in that connection in the daily "Blic" (The Flash) in line with the customary local practice that information coming from a "source" can be uncritically published, no matter what. Namely, referring to "sources close to the Yugoslav President", the "Blic" wrote that just a few hours before his death Gavrilovic came to talk with President Kostunica's associates. The story specified that on that occasion the unfortunate Gavrilovic "informed his collocutors of the connection between some top personalities in the current authorities and frontmen of the organised crime in Serbia" and "handed over some confidential documents proving this "alliance", particularly pointing to the cooperation between certain officials and members of the Surcin clan".

This set off the chain of conclusions: If Gavrilovic was murdered after providing President Kostunica with evidence on criminal activities of the top state officials, that meant that his murder was ordered by those he had accused, who could not be close to the President when this professional decided to put his trust in him.

This started accusations and skirmishes within the DOS; the Office of the District Public Prosecutor ordered investigation of the reports of this paper; Kostunica cut his vacation short and addressed the nation in dramatic tones (he confirmed the rumour that several hours before his murder Gavrilovic spoke to his associates, but skilfully avoided to say whether he left behind any written evidence or not); after this his Cabinet handed over the minutes from the incriminating talk between Gavrilovic and unnamed counsellors of the FRY President. Finally, the Prosecutor's Office issued a release stating that "Gavrilovic did not leave any written documentation as some dailies wrote".

However, five days that elapsed between the publishing of the text and the Prosecutor's statement were quite enough to bring back the distrust in the media and the old belief that "all reporters are lying and write what others tell them to". Day after day, quoting anonymous "sources from the President's Cabinet" the media refuted each other's writing, while politicians continued exchanging accusations, threats and violating the basic rule of the profession - the guaranteed secrecy of the source of information. It was evident that any medium that might have decided to disclose its source of information would thus endanger its future, for no one would ever trust its reporters again to be discreet, the more so as there are no legal grounds forcing them to behave so unprofessionally.

Namely, the Criminal Code of Serbia mentions a crime of non-reporting a criminal act or its perpetrator. According to that provision a person who is aware that a crime has been committed or knows a perpetrator of a crime which is punishable by death, but fails to report this to competent authorities, may be sentenced up to three years in prison.

The death penalty is envisaged only by the Criminal Code of Serbia, but not but the federal Law and just for two criminal acts: a first-degree murder or grand larceny which took a life. The reporter who wrote about the Gavrilovic case only mentioned the connection between the authorities and the crime, which is not punishable by death so that even in the highly hypothetical case it could not be considered as non-reporting of a crime.

There is another possibility. Namely, during pre-trial investigation a judge might demand of the reporter in question to name his source of information (under the assumption that there is ground to believe that Gavrilovic's visit to Kostunica's office had any connection with his murder, which no one has proven yet). If the reporter refuses to name his source he could be sentenced up to 30 days in prison. However, this raises another question: if Kostunica has confirmed that Gavrilovic had talked with his associates, why should then the reporter be the one to name those associates and thus help investigative authorities find out what had the murdered policeman said and whether it had anything to do with his death?

To make the whole situation totally paradoxical, on the order of the Public Prosecutor's Office the police decided to interrogate editor-in-chief Veselin Simonovic and reporter Dusan Vukajlovic of the "Blic" about Gavrilovic's murder. Incidentally, on that same day, acting Republican Public Prosecutor Dragomir Nedic and Minister of the Police Dusan Mihajlovic at their respective press conferences claimed that reporters would not be interrogated! "They wanted to know who was the source of our information. It did not last long. We gave our statements and refused to disclose our source!" said Simonovic.

However, the attempts of the police to find out the source of information provided to the press is not the only reason for Simovic's concern. Perhaps even more embarrassing is what happened behind the scenes. The part from the press release of the Office of the District Public Prosecutor of August 13, which said that, contrary to what "a source close to the Yugoslav President" had told the daily "Blic", late Gavrilovic had not given Kostunica's associates any written documents, clearly showed that someone had used this widely-read daily for his purposes. The well-hidden source directed the public in the desired direction by skilfully introducing new elements (the existence of written proof) into a basically true story (Gavrilovic's visits to the President's office).

The fact that the "Blic" knows who has abused the trust of their reporter, as well as that of other papers, can be hardly comforting in the atmosphere of a fierce struggle for power between different streams within the DOS. And, as Milosevic had shown, the media can come in handy in winning that power, especially when they lack money and staff (thanks to the previous regime), as well as courage (because of the current planting of information and pressures they are exposed to disclose their source to which the ruling coalition also gave its contribution).

The approaching "final showdown" within the DOS, accompanied by the increasingly frequent social protests (as the expected by-product of the initiated reforms), can only intensify aspirations of various centres of power to win the control over the media. That is why those media which show readiness to do something in their own defence can survive in the times ahead: to initiate a serious and thorough verification of information they get even at the price of being left without "sensational" stories which usually last only one day.

Vera Didanovic

(AIM)