A LITTLE BIT OF "SVETLOST" (LIGHT) IN SERB DARKNESS

Local press in Serbia fighting SPS windmills

The blow stricken against the most powerful among all local journals in Serbia (circulation 6,000) did not put an end to the political chase against about twenty local independent journals which have recently gathered around Svetlost, trying to form a specific "pool".

AIM, Belgrade, September 9, 1995 Tito's photo on the wall, collected works of Marx and Lenin, five-pointed red star - all that is just a part of the "setting" prepared by some twenty journalists of the Kragujevac newspaper Svetlost in their helpless wrath as a "welcoming" decor for the new editorial team forcefully imposed on them by the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS). In fact, when the new team arrives, journalists will leave the premises and start, with a new founder and in some other place, their recognizable, civic-society oriented journal, the Nezavisna (Independent) Svetlost. Just as the journalists of Nasa Borba have done. That is the outcome of the conflict between the independent editorial policy and Kragujevac Socialists led by the firm hand of Borislav Jovic.

The blow stricken against the most powerful newspaper among local journals in Serbia (circulation six thousand), did not mark the end of the political chase against about twenty other local independent journals which have recently gathered around Svetlost trying to form a specific "pool". To be more precise, to form an enterprise which would have its own printing works which would protect them from despotism of local SPS power-wielders. "We are just rabbits in the forest, they hunt us when and as they see fit", the present director of Nezavisna Svetlost, Pavle Cirovic, says. "And all that, 'pursuant to law'."

Rabbits in the forest

Director of Vreme, Ivan Mrdjen, says that Svetlost was stifled because it was the centre of gathering of all local media, and the authorities wished to eradicate the very idea about a joint enterprise which would preserve the weakly democratic germ.

The recipe has already been applied in the case of Borba. But the Kragujevac authorities were much more efficient. At ten o'clock in the morning, unexpectedly, the issue of "ownership transformation" of this journal was put on the agenda of the assembly of this workers' ("red") city. At noon already, the socialist majority voted that the journal be transformed into a public enterprise (although according to law, newspapers are not considered to be an activity of public interest) with new management. The court, as customary in this space, abolished its own regularly reached decision on registration of the journal.

Two days later, Svetlost was already published again, but this time directed by the Socialists, with the slogan on its front page reading - "The journal returned to its city", although the city has not asked for it. Only the state-owned Svetlost is sold at news-stands now. Citizens of Belgrade were informed about the event (by Radio B-92 and Studio B), personnel of various embassies were infirmed about it, "Journalists without Frontiers" were informed about it - in short, everyone - except the citizens of Kragujevac. Because, in Kragujevac, as in the whole of Serbia, only regime television can be watched, and only the favourite of the regime Politika arrives to the news-stands even that too in a limited number of copies.

Take the man - down

In the interior of Serbia where associated forces of the police and the ruling party inviolably rule, local independent press practically flourished in the past three years: Novi Pancevac, Smederevac, Borske novine, Videlo in Nis, Mlavska zora, Vranjske, Obrenovacke novosti, Has from Sandzak, Glas gore from Dragas, Zig in Subotica...

They sprang up as opponents to city journals, apologists of the ruling party, once communist, now socialist. And they mutilate sweet sugarcoating of the South ruled exclusively by Milosevic. They report when jaundice appears somewhere, which is concealed by the authorities. Their editors get up early to get hold of rare volumes of the independent Vreme or Nasa Borba, reproduce some of their texts, and then their papers appear in the streets to break the complete information darkness.

Had there been no local journals, noone in Belgrade would have heard for the case of the plumber Milan Jovic, for example. Namely, he came to the building of the police in Zajecar to replace a water pipe in the cellar, and ended up badly beaten up thanks to a clumsy inspector who told a policeman to "take this man downstairs". And to take someone "downstairs" in Zajecar police means to beat him up until he confesses or "confesses". This painful fact was published by Borske novine which went like hot cakes.

Their disobedient editor, Miroslav Radulovic, was taken to "informative conversations" by the police several times, and the last volume of the journal was banned. He has problems with printing too. When he dared publish texts the authorities did not like, in a short while he had to change three printing works.

The others do not have an easy time, either. Pancevac also had to transform into Novi (new) Pancevac. Smederevac recently just barely avoided closing down, due to "wicked texts", and the President of Smederevo municipality sent a letter-warning to all enterprises - not to advertise in this journal.

Vranjske novine are barely making ends meet, editor Vukasin Obradovic disburdened his mind to a journalist from Svetlost, claiming that his work was interfered with by financial police which shows up at the door of each and every private entrepreneur who dares publish an advertisement in this journal.

Further South you go - the gloomier it gets

When all political and "legal" pressures are exhausted, economic ones are resorted to. Newsprint is in the hands of monopolies, and the monopolies are in the hands of the authorities, so it is not hard to guess what possibilities small newspapers have to get hold of it. Printing works are also in the hands of the authorities, even when they are privately owned, because they too depend on political forces. Monopolies are concealed in distribution of the press too, so the money acquired with great difficult is delayed for months at a time.

Owners of journals and journalists-enthisiasts who are mostly believed to be "traitors of Serbdom" by their environment (when they are not "in favour of Sloba") often unwillingly admit that "further South you go - the gloomier it gets". Independent journal Videlo in Nis, city of 260 thousand inhabitants, is sold merely in 1200 copies.

The local Don Quijotes feel about the outcome of the struggle with SPS windmills quite differently.

"In Vranje, we are treated like a natural distaster which has hit them, which lasts, but now they are waiting for it to pass", the editor of Vranjske novine, Vukasin Obradovic, stated to a journalist of Svetlost once. "We are trying to bring some light to the South, to break the well-known information darkness, but it is very hard to do, because operation in the specific circumstances is on the verge of profitability. That is why prospects of the newspaper are dismal".

"There is still hope for us, the local journals", Miroslav Radulovic, editor of Borske novine, says. "When they failed in Bor, that stronghold of the ruling party, despite all the pressures, then we shall survive."

The editor of Novi Pancevac, Djordje Zojkic, believes that the war is not lost and that the planned joint enterprise will come to life.

Enthusiasm and persistence was explained by a journalist, Olivera Bergam, when she exclaimed after several days of struggling for the freedom of Svetlost, at a press conference: "We love this newspaper, we care about it".

Gordana Igric