NEW "BENEFITS" FOR JOURNALISTS

AIM Zagreb, April 23, 1996

"I feel like five thousand other Croat citizens who are discharged every month. I am, therefore, insulted and humiliated, primarily because I did my job conscientiously, often going over the norm" - says Franjo Kiseljak, a journalist of Vjesnik for 36 years, after his new editor recently sent word to him that he was not needed any more.

Despite his modest identification with a mass of those who are dismissed from work every day, Franjo Kiseljak became a symbol of victims of the purge in the media, which is just going on in the Zagreb daily newspaper. Since hardly a month ago he took over the job of the editor-in-chief of Vjesnik, journal which used to be called the Croat "axis of the media" during the former regime, and which would like to become that again, Nenad Ivankovic, who had until recently been a correspondent from Bonn and the favourite commentator of Tudjman's, raised a lot of dust in the media. It is difficult to recall anyone who stirred up so much public animosity in such a short time - it seems that he is an absolute record-breaker. The man who is known to be a sanguine person, has lately in his texts swooped down on everybody who dared even raise their voice when speaking of the Presidential Palace. From Germany, he used to analyze circumstances for Croat television, honouring Tudjman more dilligently than others. However, he definitely shocked the public when he announced that he would raise criminal charges against Marko Veselica, the "Croat Mendela" simply because the latter dared remind the public of some of his texts from former times. After that, he set out to a brutal purge of Vjesnik's journalists, that is, what was left of them after all the previous purges.

Franjo Kiseljak, doyen among the journalists and reporters from the Assembly and the Government, had managed to survive all previous "rat poisoning" in the media and preserve his professional dignity. The new editor discharged him, as the first in the group of fifteen odd "redundant" ones. Nenad Ivankovic claims that majority of the discharged are sub-editors, and just a few are journalists. He explains that young and capable journalists are required for his new concept of the journal and that some simply did not fit in. Rumours say that some other respectable journalists will also be thanked for their services, it is claimed that there will be about thirty more discharges, but Ivankovic does not wish to say who does not fit.

All things considered, the list of surpluses included many more names, but allegedly, a directive arrived from the Presidential Palace where it had been made in the first place, to interrupt the planned operation. Namely, for the first time, the public and the colleagues protested. Almost all reporters from the Assembly (except Vjesnik's) signed a petition in protest because Kiseljak had been discharged, and the Croat Journalists' Society protested in the same way. Ivankovic added fuel to the fire with his brutal statements. He said that such protests could happen only in Croatia, while in Germany, for instance, when the editor-in-chief of Spiegl was discharged, noone even thought of writing petitions. To journalists from other media who sought explanation for the big purge, he cynically said that they could engage Kiseljak if they thought he was that good.

Allegedly, Ivankovic was called from the highest instance to stop making his irritating statements and the purge he has been. Nobody denied the right of the first man of Vjesnik to choose members of his own team, but this does not imply throwing people into the street. Fundamental human decency would demand that they be appointed to other jobs. It is true that this had never been taken care of before, in all the former numerous punitive expeditions which rushed over the Croat media scene. The drop which this time spilled the cup was probably the intolerable way in which it was all done. But probably there was also certain general awakening and maturing in it which started to show in the latest elections.

Maybe it is because of them, or, more precisely, because of the elections which are yet to come, that time has come again for intensive assaults on freedom of the media. Legal innovations follow one after another, which under the pretext of protection of reputation of highest state officials and keeping state secrets, in fact criminalize investigative journalism and criticism. Charges against the editor of Nacional have already been raised for spreading false information in a text on alleged defficiencies of Dubrovnik airport; then there was the "coup" with customs taxes against Rijeka Novi list, aimed at preventing publishing of the daily odious to the authorities and creating space for a completely different newspaper; in the end, there are the mass discharges in Vjesnik which sweep what has been swept several times already.

Coordinates of his operation of disciplining media were outlined By Franjo Tudjman a few days ago in an interview, explaining his policy of the so-called "all-Croat reconciliation". He claims that the judiciary and the media are still "full of the old cadres", so "the policy of reconciliation returns as a boomerang". In "resistance to implementation of this Croat policy, journalists who were coryphaei of communist, socialist, Yugoslav and even Yugo-unitarian are now, allegedly in the name of democracy, marching against Croat freedom, Croat democracy and in doing it, they are enjoying support of foreign circles which are against Croatia's independence. The likes of them enjoy benefits of democracy and freedom and attack all those who have sincerely accepted this country as their state and are extremely unscupulous about it".

Franjo Kiseljak, as a gentleman among journalists, took great care not to attack anyone, but nevertheless, he got the opportunity to "enjoy benefits" of Tudjman's democracy and freedom. Like many before him. But, for the first time there were mass protests against oppression of some media. In the past few days, defiant Rijeka and Istria are signing a petition as a sign of support to Novi list, defending much more than just a newspaper. More than forty thousand signatures have been collected already.

JELENA LOVRIC