LAW IN A BANANA STATE

AIM, BEOGRAD, July 6, 94 Television and Laws

The only area in which the ruling Serbian party SPS and the more important opposition parties have not yet reconciled opinions is the area of information, or more precisely, the operation of television. Although there are several televisions in Serbia - in Belgrade, for example, there are currently five, with a total of seven channels, the central state television, RTS, is constantly in the focus of political conflicts. Precisely at a time when a number of opposition parties have united around the demand for an extraordinary session of Parliament to review a new Law on Television and a Law on Informing, which should eliminate the monopoly of the ruling party on the most important media in the Republic, especially on what is known as "TV Bastille", the authorities have demonstrated that they still sovereignly reign over the entire information area: the second most important TV organization in Serbia - Studio B, whose editorial policy is closer to the opposition than to the SPS, has been denied, by one move of the competent Ministry, the long planned extension of its repeater network so as to expand its coverage to the audience in central Serbia.

Against "TV Bastille" by Law

At the time of the first steps of political pluralism, in which RTS, although not free of internal conflicts, sided with Milosevic's socialists, both the opposition and the public expressed dissatisfaction with the partial informative practices of the state TV organization. The largest mass demonstrations such as those in March 1991 and June 1992 are remembered primarily as protests against the action of TV Bastille from the so-called Tank (i.e. Takovska) 10 street. Two lives were lost in the demonstrations, some opposition leaders got beaten ( the then President of the Democratic Party - Micunovic, the writer Pekic), there were resignations in RTS, but the ideological vision of the main factory of pictures did not change.

The "ridding of TV Bastille" of the monopoly of the SPS has become the idee fixe, especially of Vuk Draskovic, the leader of SPO (the Serbian Renewal Movement). Although every Draskovic's act has unhindered access to the screen of NTV Studio B, which the Socialists often adduced as an argument in qualifying this television as an opposition television, the SPO leader will not give up his right to uncensured appearance and undistorted mention on the screens of the "big" television. RTS namely, covers the entire territory of Serbia and Studio B only the wider surroundings of Belgrade.

Ever since, after the December elections, he shifted the emphasis of activities of his party to Parliament, and himself, after a history of rally activities, decided to become a deputy, in which way he lost much of his charisma, Draskovic has not stopped announcing "revolutionary" changes in respect of RTS. When Parliament was being constituted, with 127 opposition versus 123 Socialist seats, Draskovic made the "bargain" regarding the division of officers seats in Parliament conditional on changes of the Law on RTS. It was, however, seen that the opposition was not up to the game. In the announced bargaining, the opposition (and Vuk as its selfimposed leader) suffered a tremendous defeat: RTS remained untouched in this whole fuss.

Only when it became finally clear that the project of "general unification against the Socialists" was a flop, some deputies came to the idea to initiate the legal parliamentary procedure for amending laws in the area of mass communications, counting on the "spontaneous" rallying of the opposition voices around proposals in their favour (even when political agreement had not been previously reached on them). After individual attempts (proposal of Vesna Pesic, deputy of the Civil Party and Radical deputy Tomislav Nikolic) a more comprehensive proposal was formulated for amending the mentioned laws and an extraordinary session of Parliament had to be scheduled to review them. In the history of pluralist Serbia, this is the first attempt to try to amend the Law on Public Informing and on RTS, and prevent the monopoly of the ruling party on the most important media, which should be in the service of all the citizens, through a regular legislative procedure.

The essence of the demanded changes relates to the "pulling out " of the state radio and television from the jurisdiction of the government (which according to the law in force has the decisive say in the appointment of the RTS Executive Board and Director) and its transfer to the Assembly and to the ensuring of a non-party editorial policy in them.

The Empire Strikes Back

The new bills have, for the time being, been supported by the delegates of the four most important opposition parties - the Serbian Renewal Movement, the Serbian Radical Party, the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Serbia. The deputies of the Hungarian party submitted an amendment to the proposal insisting on multi-lingual radio and TV programmes, from which one could conclude that they also took seriously the possibility of changing the disputable laws.

And precisely when the extraordinary session of Parliament was announced, and when it seemed that the SPS with its 123 voices would not manage to outvote the right of the remaining delegates to a central television, the opposition majority once again, God knows for the which time, started dissipating. First, there was a verbal duel between Draskovic and the leader of the Democrats, Zoran Djindjic. The leader of the third strongest opposition party, with large TV publicity, declared that he was not obliged to behave according to Draskovic's plans, implicitly reproaching Draskovic for his wrong strategy of big steps, instead of his (Djindjic's) patient, small ones. An even bigger crack in the legislative campaign against TV Bastille opened after the Party of New Democracy stated that the proposals for amending the law were not comprehensive enough and that it would submit more radical demands, which Parliament should consider in the autumn.

The Vice-President of the New Democracy, Petar Lazic said on that occasion that it was important "constantly to exert pressure through Parliament, until new laws are adopted". Since the current proposals, in Lazic's opinion "will certainly not pass at the extraordinary session", the aim of his party is that Parliament again review the same issue immediately after the summer break. Similar intentions were voiced by the republican government when commenting on the proposals of the new laws. The government, which comprises three members of the Party of New Democracy, once a Depos member, has intimated that in the autumn it will present comprehensive proposals for changing the Laws on RTS and Public Informing.

Without waiting, however, for the Parliamentary debate to begin, the ruling authorities by moves channelled in quite the opposite direction, showed that they did not have the slightest intention of ceding their influence on RTS to anyone else and that the entire field of media operation was still under their full control. Just when the extraordinary Parliamentary session on the Law on RTS was announced, NTV Studio B was informed by the competent bodies that it could not install its repeaters on Mts. Goc, Rudnik and Fruska Gora - approval for which was given to this organization as early as in 1992 during the Governemnt of Milan Panic. Namely, the positive opinion on eligibility for this expansion of the network, issued by the Republican Ministry for Transport and Communications, was suddenly revoked and a prohibition received from the federal minister, Blagoje Lucic.

According to Studio B Director, Dragan Kojadinovic, the positive opinion of the Republican Ministry was commented on by Federal Minister Lucic, as follows: "Which fool signed that?"

Although Studio B received numerous letters of support and protest against such a decision of the competent bodies, its Director said that in the "banana state" of Serbia he did not expect much legal help.

Only a week after this shock Studio B was exposed to an even bigger one. Just before the beginning of the tour of the "Folk League" organized by this house throughout Serbia and Serbian parts of Bosnia, in the preparation of which Studio B heavily invested, the best known folk stars got an ultimatum from RTS, (i.e its Record Production Department) that its door would forever be closed to them if they took part in the manifestation. The Folk League, which last year was for many towns in Serbia the most important cultural event of the year, was cancelled. Commenting on this blow of the TV Empire, Director Kojadinovic said that, in the showdown with Studio B, political methods had been replaced by mafia - like ones.

The legal or non-legal, institutional or non-institutional methods resorted to by the authorities in defending their information monopoly are proving efficient. Through them the regime demonstrates that the free area in which the independent media operate, is still just a small reservation whose borders only it can control. This also shows that the survival of the regime depends on these borders.

Jovanka Matic