CROATIAN AMERICAN DREAM

AIM Zagreb, 30 November, 1996

On Wednesday, 20 November, Council for Telecommunications decided to give the concession and channel for a Zagreb radio to the project Globus 101, in other words to Europapress Holding Company which belongs to Ninoslav Pavic. Such a decision which, properly interpreted meant that the popular Zagreb Radio 101, after thirteen years, would stop broadcasting, caused a true turmoil in the city which culminated in "happening of Zagreb", first through the air and then in the, yet unseen in independent Croatia, gathering of over 150 thousand people at the central city Ban Jelacic square. Pavic, whose newspaper company is certainly the largest in the former Yugoslav space, because, apart from Globus, it prints Arena, Glorija, Mila, Vikend, Djecji klub, OK, Auto-moto, was immediately accused of collaboration with the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ), directly with the President's advisor for internal policy, Dr Ivic Pasalic. Having, obviously, assessed wrongly what Radio 101 meant for the citizens of Zagreb and alarmed with the revolt of the city, and increasing calls for boycott of his Globus, on that same day, as many believe in a direct agreement with the HDZ, Pavic gave up the allocated channel, and said: "Whenever I tried to get involved in politics, I brought trouble on myself".

With this sentence of repentance with which he indirectly admitted that the games concerning Radio 101 were of a political nature, Nino Pavic once again showed that in his journalist's and later on manager's career he was always inclined towards political games. Who is, in fact, Nino Pavic, the owner of the newspaper empire, initiator of the idea on foundation of a TV network which would, by connecting local television stations, try to be a competition to the Croat Television (HTV) on the national level, and who wished to get hold of the concessions for the city radio station, as he said, for financial reasons only? This 43-year old man, born in Zagreb, whose mother as he likes to stress lately is from Mostar, and who has managed to graduate only from high school and begin studying law, likes to present his curriculum vitae in the style of a specific "American dream", because from a journalist-politician, or more precisely, a political hanger-on, he has become one of the Croatian up-starts or nouveaux riches.

But, the actual truth resembles the known joke about a young American who earned his first five cents by selling an empty Coca Cola bottle, and then realized that it was profitable to collect old bottle, so he earned his first thousand dollars, then he doubled it, reached the figure of ten thousand dollars, and then his uncle died and left him ten million dollars. Pavic did not have a rich uncle, but he did have some other uncles who enabled him in a formally pure way to make his (?) first million.

What happened is that at the moment when he in 1989 found himself for who knows how many times on a downward slope together with Denis Kuljis (current owner of weekly Nacional, and former co-owner of Europapress) and Zdravko Jurak, the man who spent a few years in prison because of the notorious scandal with silver, he founded a share-holding company called Fakta. Since this enterprise had just a few ideas, but no capital, he found in the former enterprise Revije owned by Vjesnik, some good souls who agreed to an unbelievable contract. A deal was made according to which Pavic-Kuljis-Jurak bore the charges of journalists' fees, and Revije paid for printing of the journal Globus, while the profit was distributed according to the formula 60:40. Pavic soon after used the article of the contract on the possibility of breaching the contract at the moment when transformation started in Revije. By the way, the contract did not state precisely how possible losses would be divided. And that is how Jurak, Pavic and Kuljis became owners of 70 per cent of the new enterprise called Globus International, Share-Holding Company.

All that, of course, was not possible without a silent, or secret, agreement of the new authorities, just as Pavic and company would not have earned millions of marks had anyone tried to look into their fishy business with the actually sold circulation and collect all the taxes. Globus, therefore, continued to grow, both concerning circulation and capital, especially when journalists of former Danas joined it: Jasna Babic, Tanja Torbarina, Djurdjica Klancir and others, and when it started calling itself "national weekly". Journalists of Globus like to brag that independent journalism in Croatia had begun with them, which is of course far from being true. Globus was very skilfull in swimming between different currents in the ruling HDZ, so that majority of its scandals reached the public thanks to direct connections with mutually opposed leaders. Open suspicions arose that Globus was even buying information, but this tabloid in fact supported managers and so-called HDZ-Liberals, and frequent texts about the family Tudjman and its wealth brought it even the epithet of an opposition journals.

In any case, regardless of the manner in which they obtained exclusive information and too frequent petty-politicking, Globus played a positive role in creation of a critical public opinion, although to this day it has not been clarified why a split occurred between Kuljis and Pavic, friends from the time when they were beginning in students' and youth press. It was Kuljis's Nacional, which calls itself a free weekly, and which is in fact a copy of Globus, which a few days ago on two whole pages cut up Pavic to pieces, but spared Kuljis.

Pavic began his career by writing in Studentski list (Students' Journal) and "Omladinski tjednik (Youth's Weekly), and later on in Polet, where he met with Kuljis, Ratko Boskovic, Nenad Polimac, Rene Bakalovic, Miroslav Lazanski... He reached the absolute top of his youthful career in foundation of Polet, which in 1976 had an enviable circulation and respect, but after Nenad Polimac published a negative criticism of Lordan Zafranovic's film "Occupation in 26 Pictures" was urgently sent off to do his service in the army, where he stayed for long eighteen months far away in Macedonia. After return he found employment in Vjesnik as an assistant editor of Nedjeljni Vjesnik which has a very high circulation. Then he made his first big political move as faithful follower and associate of Stipe Suvar, one of the authors of the known "White Book" in 1983, after the Communist Party settled accounts with Jozo Vlahovic and his colleagues, and became deputy editor-in-chief of the weekly Danas. Zivko Milic who was called to help from Belgrade and acted as a parachutist on an occupied territory, was supposed to be just a transitional phase until the new crew headed by Pavic took over the editorial staff. Pavic brought Denis Kuljis, Ratko Boskovic and Nenad Polimac with him, and the editor of internal policy column became Nino Kopac, former Yugoslav consul in New York, who was always known to be a member of state security. But, Pavic did not succeed in the attempt to take over Danas, because the editorial staff after a series of meetings chose the smaller of two evils, Zivko Milic, so the group of young people had to leave the editorial staff.

At Suvar's intervention, Pavic went to Vjesnik, trying to make a compromise between Suvar and Mika Spiljak, and as Nacional wrote, his comments "still incite tart taste of infamous (Communist) party communiques". Pavic for some time worked in Arena, and then after a quarrel with its editorial staff, "his uncle died" and with skilfull moves, he became the greatest Croatian publisher.

He recently declared about himself that he was a simple journalist "sensationalist", who has become a semiskilled manager, but it seems that a frustrated politician crouched in him all this time, whose appetite was worked up by the power of the media and especially that of money. Is not it strange that Nino Pavic, who likes to present himself as the father of freedom of the Croatian media, in the project of the TV network is linked to Miroslav Kutle, one of the richest Croats. This is that same Kutle who was a member of the central Board of the HDZ, whose brother Ante is in the leadership of the party and an Assembly deputy, who "bought" half of Split and a "quarter" of Zagreb, and without paying a single kuna became the owner of Slobodna Dalmacija, and who took over TV Marjan in Split.

Perhaps it is exaggerated when it is claimed that the TV network is the "alter ego" of HTV, because it has so far gathered dissidents from state television such as Denis Latin, Dubravko Merlic, Silvana Mendusic, Igor Mirkovic, but it is quite certain that this idea cannot be realized without a political marriage with a part of the HDZ, or a compromise which is, as Pavic claims, aimed only at making money.

And as the best proof for this, let us quote the well known HDZ journalist, Dunja Ujevic: "How many weeks have passed since the agreement on cooperation which these members of the HDZ, friends of Susak, signed with Nino Pavic - agreement which enabled Pavic, by winning control over the television network, to become Croatian Berlusconi? Pasalic is a friend of Susak, Kutle is connected with Susak by family links. Therefore, Susak, Pasalic, Kutle and Pavic are involved in this game. It is a union of the impossible, or maybe the possible?"

GOJKO MARINKOVIC