DRAMA WITH NO DENOUEMENT

Media in Kragujevac Snatched Away

AIM Belgrade, 28 January, 1997

"We agreed about the following: the police will withdraw from both buildings of the Kragujevac Radio- Television and Newspaper Publishing Public Enterprise (RTV Kragujevac) which includes city television, local radio and weekly Svetlost. City television station will interrupt broadcasting until litigation in court is completed. Journal Svetlost will not be published until litigation at court is completed. Radio Kragujevac will continue broadcasting but with no information programs, also until litigation is completed, as Mayor of Kragujevac, Veroljub Stevanovic, declared on 24 January, after his talks with Director General of RTS Dragoljub Milanovic and his associates in Belgrade.

In this way, the status of local Kragujevac media has been "frozen" for an (in)definite time, and the denouement of the drama which began in connection with their seizure postponed, again for an indefinite time.

Leaders of Kragujevac from the ranks of the local coalition Together expect that the commercial court in Belgrade will reach the final decision about the status of RTV Kragujevac, that is who its real owner is, by the end of January or in the beginning of February at the latest. Whether that will actually be the case, remains to be seen. The essence of the court litigation between the RTS and the city of Kragujevac is mildly speaking absurd and legally irrational.

Probably even laymen are aware that local media in Kragujevac - into foundation and development of which the city and the local population had invested a few million German marks - were literally seized, and that Radio-Television Serbia (RTS) incorporated them into its system pursuant an unlawful decision of an unauthorized authority (former local government). The city government controlled by the Socialist Party of Serbia reached the decision on incorporation of RTV Kragujevac on 11 December, when it was already clear that the Socialists have lost the elections in the centre of Sumadija, and that, along with the city assembly and public enterprises in its jurisdiction, local media will also pass into the hands of the "enemy" coalition Together.

"We will somehow surrender power, but the media - we shall never surrender", on 11 December Kragujevac Socialists exclaimed, and gave RTV Kragujevac as a gift to RTS, as if this local media were their ancestral property.

Towards the end of December, new city assembly was constituted (in which coalition Together has the so-called "comfortable" majority), which simply invalidated the unlawful decision of the former Socialist regime on incorporation RTV Kragujevac into Radio-Television Serbia. The newly-elected leaders of Kragujevac demanded from the Commercial Court in Belgrade to reject the application of RTS to enter incorporation of local media into the court register as property of Radio Television Serbia. In mid January, the Commercial Court accepted the demand of the new authorities of Kragujevac and reached a decision to turn down the demand of Television Serbia with the right to appeal within eight days.

At that moment, the majority of the local public (which later turned out to be naive) believed that RTV Kragujevac was definitely returned to the city. Especially because President of the Management Board of RTS, Nada Popovic-Perisic, who is also the Serbian minister of culture, promised that the RTS would not lodge an appeal against the decision of Belgrade Commercial Court...

After this promise, new authorities waited for the formal legal deadline of eight days for the appeal to expire, and then take over the RTV Kragujevac - scheduled for 22 January. On that day, Mayor of Kragujevac, Veroljub Stevanovic, city Prime Minister Borivoje Radic and the newly appointed Acting Director of RTV Kragujevac Vidosav Stevanovic, experienced a total surprise when the former management of Television Kragujevac stated that they had to "carry out additional consultations with the competent people in the RTS..." The takeover was postponed for the afternoon that day. Then the former authorities organized another surprise, because instead of the new director Stevanovic and his deputy, police forces entered the building of RTV and locked all entrances and exits in both buildings of this enterprise, since the management of the RTS after all did lodge an appeal at the Commercial Court. The news about the occupied building of the Television soon spread around the city and in the early evening hours, a mass of people gathered in front of the administration building of the Radio-Television and Newspaper Public Enterprise.

Kragujevac did not experience such a dramatic night ever since October 1941. The number of citizens of Kragujevac who were gathering grew as time went by. Around midnight there were between fifteen and twenty thousand. Nervousness increased and it was just a matter of time when the people would break into the building of RTV Kragujevac guarded by powerful police forces. This fortunately did not happen, and only a municipal delegation entered the building in order to negotiate with the usurpers. The talks lasted until early morning hours, but at about eight o'clock in the morning, most persistent citizens who remained in the street until morning, were told that no agreement had been reached with the people from the RTS.

On that same day, 24 January, citizens of Kragujevac completely blocked the city with trucks, tractors, cars. The police intervened at the access to the city from the direction of Batocina and brutally beat up ten demonstrants, and among them deputy Dr Zoran Simonovic and his mother. Embittered citizens after that blocked the building of the Ministry of the interior in the city. The next day, a three-member delegation of the Ministry of Information of Serbia arrived in Kragujevac, and leaders of the city reached an agreement with them that the police would withdraw from the building of RTV Kragujevac and that work of local media would be "frozen". This proposal was also forwarded to the address of Director of RTS Dragoljub Milanovic, who immediately invited people from Kragujevac to negotiations. The outcome is known: RTV does not work, the Radio station broadcasts only music, and Nezavisna Svetlost is not published. All that until the court litigation is completed.

Zoran Radovanovic