CROAT MEDIA: WHO WILL BE NEXT?

AIM Zagreb, April 1, 1996

Although for a moment, at the time when President Tudjman along with the Chairman of the Assembly, Vlatko Pavletic, was asked to sign the 21 conditions which would enable Croatia to join the Council of Europe, it seemed that the ruling Croat Democratic Community (HDZ) would give up the mini-reform of its criminal code, this did not occur. Therefore, the HDZ majority, despite remonstrance of all the opposition parties and warning from the Croat Journalists' Society and foreign experts, reached a decision that in the future state attorneys (prosecutors) in the line of duty would be able to prosecute all those who insult the president of the Republic, chairman of the Assembly, prime minister, president of the Constitutional and the Supreme Court, but would previously have to obtain the approval of one of the "five sacred cows". The criminal law also includes provisions on publishing state and military secret, which journalists and editors will be punished for very strictly.

In this way, the Croat state, that is, Tudjman and the HDZ, definitely put a noose around the neck of the few independent media. And what this will be like in practice, that is, what it already is like, is best illustrated by the case of a journalist and news photographer of the weekly "Nacional", Ms. Zeljka Godec and Robert Orlic, who were taken into custody for a four-hour "informative" interview. Namely, about ten days ago, this Zagreb weekly published a document which proved that Croat police and intelligence service were tapping the phones and following every move of some prominent journalists, trade union leaders and opposition politicians. The name of military commentator of "Vjesnik", Fran Visnar, ranked high on the list, who was accused of being a Serb and American spy (it was assumed that one of the reasons for it was that Miroslav Lazanski, his colleague working in Belgrade ever since the beginning of the war, was the best man at Visnar's wedding). Visnar was even susprected of being involved in an alleged attempt on the Pope's life.

The journalist and the photographer of "Nacional" intended to talk to Visnar and present to him evidence on the accusations against him, asking him to comment on them, but they did not succeed because policemen in civilian clothes prevented them. Their arrest (taking into custody), in fact, served as main evidence about allegations on telephone tapping, because the police happened to be in front of Visnar's home on the basis of an "anonymous denunciation" as men from Croat Ministry of the interior claimed, and the denunciation obviously, as a miracle, took place immediately after Visnar had agreed to meet the journalist and the protographer by phone. It was not hard to guess who was the "anonymous denunciator", in other words, that he was sitting at the main post office listening to the conversation. And in order to corroborate this allegation as firmly as possible, Ivan Jarnjak, Minister of internal affairs himself did his very best, by declaring in response to a question of a deputy in the Assembly, that he knew that such a question would be asked, and that the journalists of "Nacional" were in possession of a document which was state secret. The attempt of assistant minister Smiljan Reljic to get the Minister out of the scrape in his interview to "Vecernji list", who explained that the fascimile of the published document was mere forgery, gave the Minister the lie, because how can a forgery be a state secret?

Reacting to the "scandalous" custody for the informative interview, but also to a series of similar interviews conducted with neighbours and relatives of the journalists in Split and Zagreb, the Executive Board of the Croat Journalists' Society said that "with his statement in the Assembly, Minister Jarnjak helped clarify what police practice the law-makers had in mind when they proposed amendment of the criminal law pursuant to which the journalist who made a state secret public shared the responsibility for it, but that it was neither defined nor regulated by law". "The fact that the journalists will be subject to legal sanctions for publishing the so-called state secret will practically leave us without information" - believes Bozo Novak, Vice-President of the Croat Helsinki Committee and without doubt one of the best experts for the issue of freedom of media. Namely, due to the existing spectre of secrets - state, military, and even "artistic" - and the practice to mark every document with the label "strictly confidential" or at least "restricted", journalists will be able to publish unpunished only prices of cabbage in the market - that is, if peasants selling it fail to consider that too as their business secret.

A few days ago, Viktor Ivancic, editor of the "Feral Tribune", also spoke about this topic sarcastically, when he commented on the fact that noone in Croatia, except "Novi list" from Rijeka and "Feral" itself, published that this weekly and its editor received a prominent award on March 21 on the occasion of the Day of the struggle of the media against racism and intolerance: "This certifies the high level of freedom of the media in our country, that everybody can publish what they want or what they do not want. I highly respect that. This is a picture of absolute freedom of the media in Croatia. Information is not important, everything else is".

What "everything else" might be was best illustrated on Friday by Croat television which broadcast for five whole minutes conclusions of the Presidency of the HDZ about the Zagreb crisis, insulting seven parties which won the elections in Zagreb even more than President Tudjman did recently in his open letter. The opposition was accused of treason again, of serving foreign interests and of lacking understanding. It was called a "ridiculous seven-head association" which intended to overthrow the HDZ and Tudjman, just in order to return Croatia back into some kind of Yugoslavia or a similar association, allegedly pursuant a serious plan made in the West. In order to avoid any possibility of a mistake who Television belongs to, in this statement-indictment which includes even direct threats, there are entire paragraphs which are identical to a recent commentary formulated by the Editor-in-Chief, Obrad Kosovac. Namely, after discharge of Ivan Parac, not predestined Croat ambassador in Belgrade against whom a criminal investigation was initiated in the meantime for financial embezzlement, and after Tudjman's favourite, Ivica Mudrinic, former minister of maritime affairs and communications, had been appointed to the post, Television made additional efforts to turn into a party medium. Punishments of journalists who bring unwelcome guests have become quite frequent, the opposition has not a single program of its own, and even the once popular and respectable program which carried fragments of program from other parts of former Yugoslavia called "Slikom na sliku" is gradually disappearing. For the time being, it is not broadcast on weekends any more, and that which can be watched on the other days of the week is mere propaganda, so it is useful to watch it just as an illustration of what the Croat authorities actually think.

Disciplining the media (in this new campaign) actually began when the Editor-in-Chief of "Slobodna Dalmacija", Josip Jovic, was discharged although he was considered to be a man the authorities could rely on, but it seems that he had grown tired of listening to just one side of the truth and published a humorous sketch in which two fictitious citizens (an optimist and a pessimist) discussed the situation in the state. In Croatia, this was immediately compared with the notorious humorous piece published before the war in Belgrade "Politika" - "Vojko i Savle" - and Jovic learnt about his dismissal from his own journal. Kruno Kljakovic, former communist party ideologist from Split was appointed in his place. Jovic was also once secretary of the committee of the communist party of Croatia in Imotski and a close associate of Stipe Suvar. The very act of his dismissal speaks for itself about private ownership in "Slobodna Dalmacija", since majority of its shares are owned by Miroslav Kutle, brother of the Assembly deputy and owner of a lot of property in Zagreb and Split.

The case of dismissal of Kresimir Fijacko from the post of the editor-in-chief of "Vjesnik" is still fresh in everybody's memory, as well as the fact that a complete anonymous Ante Ivkovic succeeded him, known only for being asked not to write at all after three unsuccessful attempts. In just half a year, he managed to pull down "Vjesnik" so low that somebody arrived at the conclusion that a new director should be found for it. It was found in the person of Nenad Ivankovic, correspondent from Bonn, former journalist of "Vjesnik", "VUS" and "Danas", when he used to be known as an expert for religion. He earned the right to the editor's post by his appearances on TV in which he taught the Croats from Bonn what democracy was, but quoting only that part of newspapers which was favourable to Croatia and only the opinions which coincided with the stances of the party. However, Ivankovic will find the job easier than it was for his predecessor in one aspect at least. Contrary to Ivkovic, he will start "from scratch", that is, all the enormous debts which were believed to amount to several hundred million German marks were written off or transformed into share-holding rights. He starts work on April 1, and announces return of the newspaper to the big size as his first move, with Ljubljana "Delo" as a model.

But, knowing what the situation is like in "Vjesnik", what the salaries and circulation is, and it is quite clear that editorial policy cannot be any more liberal than it used to be, because key texts are written in Presidential headquarters, the only issue at stake is who will be reading it and what is the purpose of such "Vjesnik" with its meagre twenty thousand copies? Who will be next?...

GOJKO MARINKOVIC