CLINTON CAN ONLY TURN HIS TV OFF

Journalists

INTERVIEW: KATI MARTON, President of the American Committee

to Protect Journalists

AIM SARAJEVO, April 26, 1996

"Journalism is a dangerous profession" is the motto of the American Committee to Protect Journalist, which Kati Marton, President of the Committee, could see for herself while visiting Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.

• Committee to Protect Journalists is a non-governmental organization established in 1991 by American journalists, or rather foreign correspondents who encountered unusual difficulties in their work. The Committee started its operation with the support of other American journalists colleagues who worked under exceptionally hard conditions outside the country. I have been the President for two years now and have been constantly postponing my visit to this part of Europe, particularly to Sarajevo. Now, the situation is sufficiently stable and after few days here I feel some positive vibrations, as if conditions are ripe for the achievement of a continuous progress.

Actually, I personally think that conditions under which journalists work today, in Sarajevo for example, are far more positive then they were not so long ago. Freedom of the press in the states of the former Yugoslavia is strongly supported by various international organizations, like or Committee to Protect Journalists or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe as well as many West European Embassies in your countries. Still, the problems journalists encounter here are very serious, but they are not a result of restrictive measures, i.e. formal restrictions, but rather of political reality of your countries. I am personally very happy to be here, but saddened by the fact that your journalistic work here is still restricted.

* Your first stop on your tour of this part of Europe was Croatia, which is not infrequently characterized as a state with a pronounced non-freedom of the press. However, President Tudjman complained to you that it should be him who should be protected from the media, and not vice versa!

• I spent two days in Zagreb and had an interesting conversation with Croatian President Tudjman during that time. I am not quite certain whether he would call it interesting, but I think that I have pointed strongly enough to the necessity for the freedom of the press in Croatia. After I said that he took out an issue of "Feral Tribune" with his caricature on the front page and giving me the paper said that no other leader could appear so on a front page of a newspaper. I replied that my President Clinton had equally bad press at home, but that such things are acceptable in my country. But, if what he sees about himself in the papers or on TV does not suit my President he can only close the papers or turn off the TV set. However, frankly speaking, I do not think that President Tudjman thought me very convincing.

* Talking about the American press, could you compare writings of the leading US papers on Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina four, five years ago at the time war escalated, with those written now?

• The only significant change concerns precisely the Croatian President Tudjman. Recently he appeared on the front page of a high-circulation magazine. He became a well-known figure in the States and much is written and said about him. Other personalities from Croatia do not exist for the American media, and actually the image of President Tudjman has become the image of Croatia in the United States. There are articles about his constructive role in Dayton, as well as some other things. Precisely in that conversation in Zagreb I tried to make him see that his path of democratizing Croatia is, to put it diplomatically - imperfect. The reason is that that precisely in the sphere of media freedoms the Croatian President is not implementing in full the Agreements signed in Dayton.

* In Sarajevo you also talked to the Bosnian Prime Minister Muratovic.

• Yes, I talked to Prime Minister Muratovic and B&H Foreign Policy Spokesman who pointed to serious problems facing the media here. Namely, a journalist in Bosnia can cover only 20 percent of the territory and there is general discontent on that account, the more so with the approaching elections here. I talked with many American journalists who followed events here and we all agreed that the point, i.e. the wall that cannot be crossed is Karadzic. My organization
• Committee to Protect Journalists - represents the leading US media and consequently, I plan to prepare a report on everything I have observed. I think that all the officials who are on different sides have to do something so as to limit the influence of Karadzic and Pale. As a representative of the American media, I am of the opinion that the problem of Karadzic, i.e. his removal, is relevant for my mandate in the media, as it is also for all the journalists working here. Naturally, I am not a diplomat - I leave diplomacy to my husband - but I have to state that Karadzic is one of the most disputable factors in the forthcoming elections in B&H.

* You are probably familiar with the idea on an independent TV network in B&H under the auspices of OSCE and Carl Bildt's Office, which the local media are already calling "Bildt's TV". One of the reasons for it is the conviction that the ruling Party of Democratic Action (SDA) will not allow equal access to all other political parties, while the situation is even more difficult in the TV houses of the Republic of Srpska and "Herzeg - Bosnia". What do you think of such a TV network?

• The idea is very interesting, but there is not enough time left till the elections in B&H. The building of a new TV network requires much time, starting from the training of reporters to technical problems. Quite justified is the concern of journalists here that that TV would not employ local journalists, but that all would be ordered and served from the outside. It is understandable that domestic journalists do not truly want this. I think that a compromise solution would be the inclusion of domestic journalists in the editorial policy of such a television, i.e. a combination of local journalists and imported equipment. Actually, the guiding principle should always be the linking of the overall nation into a single TV network, and bearing in mind the fact that out of existing nine only one transmitter is operational, that task will be more than hard to accomplish.

* What is the Committee to Protect Journalists planning to do in the Republics of former Yugoslavia?

• We have been following the situation here for years now and have good information on the state of affairs and connections with people here. For example, when the Bosnian Serbs captured David Rod, journalist of the "Christian Science Monitor" magazine because of his reports from Srebrenica, I personally talked to the Serbian President Milosevic regarding David's release. In short, this Committee will support our colleagues during the elections in Bosnia, and through the influence of the American media we will be able to provide much more than mere physical protection. I am just leaving for an interview with the Serbian President Milosevic and will give him the same message I gave to President Tudjman and Prime Minister Muratovic, and that message reads - the only thing that separates democracy from any other form of power is the freedom of the press. That freedom is not an ornament or a decoration, but an essential ingredient of democracy and no one can call himself a democrat if he contributes to the restricting of the freedom of the press. In Dayton the leaders have agreed to that and have to abide by it. For example, they have signed the agreement that elections in B&H must be fair and free. However, other political parties, except those in power still face problems with the accessibility of state TV. Spokesman of the B&H Foreign Ministry convinced me that the state TV here will observe the OSCE rules on media behaviour during pre-election period. Allegedly, President Izetbegovic approved this also, and it is a good news for me. It only has to come true.

DRAZENA PERANIC