REGIME OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE MEDIA

Disciplining the Media

AIM Belgrade, 9 July, 1997

Ten years ago, Slobodan Milosevic won power in a classical party coup prepared by his attack troops, and in the media, by his task groups charged with "reconstruction" of editorial staffs not inclined to Milosevic. A decade later, initiating in 1997 the ascent towards the post of the first man of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Milosevic is "introducing order" in the media again

New disciplining of the public with the threatening concerning of the regime about information was initiated six months ago by Radmila Milentijevic, American citizen who proved her (Serbian) patriotism in 1992 by having demonstratively stepped out of Milan Panic's government. Radmila Milentijevic was installed at the post of the minister of information of the Government of Serbia after the for the regime catastrophic behavior of the state media which tried to ignore the theft in the local elections in November 1996 and their complete failure to present the civil protest in Serbia as one of the world anti-Serb conspiracies.

Radmila Milentijevic set out on her latest minister's mandate by publication of the new draft law on information the text of which with its Goebbelsian view of the freedom of the press caused general consternation, despite the minister's attempts to save what could be saved by explaining that it was nothing but a draft subject to discussion.

"Discussions" on the topic organized in state media experienced a fiasco, so that even the "revised" draft law was somewhere along the way - although one should say, just for the time being - put on ice and taken off the agenda of the assembly of Serbia. However, this did not imply postponement of disciplining of the media. The Serbian regime had time and opportunity - from November last year until March this year - to grasp real possibilities of independent, or from the aspect of the regime, uncontrolled journalism. The biggest blow was in the world unprecedented disgrace with the ignominious attempt of disturbing and closing down of Belgrade radio stations B92 and Index, and the official explanation according to which the reason for interruption of their program was "water in the coaxial cable" which was signed by none other than director general of Radio-Television Serbia (RTS) and member of the Main Board of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) Dragoljub Milanovic. This attempt of closing down of a local radio station was a good lesson: because of Radio B92, twice as many demonstrants appeared on the street than after any appeal of the leaders of the Together coalition. That is why after the extorted recognition of the election theft, the regime consolidated its ranks and set out to discipline the media along two tracks. The rather sloppy action of Minister Milentijevic was accompanied by reorganization of the competent state institutions for telecommunications.

But, it was not only the regime that drew a lesson from the three-month long protest of the citizens. New local authorities, until recently the opposition, at first fulfilled some of the promises about freedom of the press. Undoubtedly the most significant move was "liberation" of Belgrade Independent Television (NTV) Studio B, which was brought by three-year long management of the Socialists to the status of a provincial branch office of RTS, to the verge of complete professional catastrophe and program for re-broadcasting commentaries of the state agency Tanjug. In the interior of Serbia recent opposition with more or less problems took over local media, slowly and gradually, and with a lot of haggling and wrangling, just as the regime, step by step, was recognizing one by one item in the report of Gonsales. In Kragujevac, taking over the media - publishers, radio and local tv station - was prevented by the police; in Trstenik, a deputy in the Republican assembly, Socialist Raka Radovic, took radical steps in the struggle against his political opponents: he came with a van and parked it in front of the studio, loaded the equipment and cameras into it, and simply took them home with him.

Things gradually settled down to the extent to which it seemed that one of the most important jobs of the state media was to slander local media in their central news programs for being traitors because they broadcast programs of the Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe, BBC, and even news of Independent TV Studio B or Radio B92. Then the system ruled by the "left coalition" - the Socialists, YUL-ists and New Democrats - started on the offensive once again. According to the words of Milos Vasic, journalist of weekly Vreme, who is since recently president of the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS), the chaos in the media is spreading: "A man is tempted to think that it is a carefully planned conspiracy. The number of dailies is increasing (only in Belgrade there are 13 dailies) and nobody knows how they intend to survive. During several years of tolerated chaos in the field of broadcasting, tens of local radio and tv stations were opened. Now the new Ministry of Telecommunications is closing them down one by one. It is much easier and more efficient that way: first they let people invest their money and work for a while, and then they close them down - usually at the moment they begin making their own news program".

Radio B92, by now more than a serious institution of independent journalism of "the other Serbia", initiated foundation and naturally became the head of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) made up of radio and television stations from twenty odd cities in which local power is executed by the Together coalition. ANEM was formed just in time, before in mid June the regime threatened to close down all media which had not the necessary documentation for work and broadcasting by taking away their permits. And in line with the already well-established practice, what the necessary documentation was - it was not said.

For a few years already a special law is in force in Serbia which prescribes that channels for broadcasting radio and television signals are allocated at a public competition. This would have been fine if there had been any public competition and if conditions for equal participation of those interested would have existed. As it is, the institution of the competition means that someone somewhere decides who is eligible to broadcast, and then by a decision in paper "worthy" stations are made legal (for example, Pink RTV which is controlled by YUL, or Karic brothers' BK Telecom, Radio Kosava managed by president Milosevic's daughter, etc.). The risk is, as the example of BK Telecom proved, that those who are worthy might some day suddenly decide to become "unworthy". This proved to cause no trouble to the regime: by turning off the transmission network - maintained and controlled by RTS - the range of "turncoats" can suddenly be reduced to the wished level of insignificant influence on the people. In the mentioned case of BK Telecom, this recipe seems to have worked.

With the association of independent electronic media it is more difficult to achieve such efficiency of repression

• especially with radio stations. They use transmitters of low power, they do not use RTS repeaters, and finally they have reached an agreement about satellite transmission and exchange of programs. RTS has no way of "turning off" a satellite. That is why the regime is demanding submission of papers, promising that it would reconsider the issued permits, and that it would finally publish the competition for allocating channels. The clutch is in the fact that valid regulations prescribe that at a competition only channels not used by the RTS network can be allocated, and only after explicitly confirmed by RTS that "free" channels will never be needed by it in the future either.

Aleksandar Mitrovic from Radio B92 says that in the latest regime offensive ANEM expects that the Federal Ministry of Telecommunications will finally give up repression and issue papers to the members. Nevertheless, he adds: "We have two negative examples in the Association: Radio Bum 93 from Pozarevac which was stifled on the same day as B92, that is on 3 December last year, and Radio Pozega which stopped broadcasting a month ago". Mirkovic hopes that the competent ministry will not make problems to those who supply the demanded documentation. The only form of assistance ANEM can offer to its members is also by the media themselves, stresses Mirkovic: "We can use all the technology we have at our disposal, including publishing news about stifling of the media on Internet, which has greatly helped us when we were shut down, but so did our international contacts with NGO's. Besides, the legal service of the Association is assisting its members in resolving problems of status, legality, channels and others.

The experience of independent media, however, does not offer much reason for optimism. "We can do nothing but hope", says Mirkovic, "despite obvious disharmony between the republican and the federal regulations. For example, the republican ministry is the one which issues the decision on registration, and B92 cannot be entered into the register because RTS with which we have a signed contract on business and technical cooperation, is simply not sending the answer to letters of the ministry that B92 is using a channel which RTS had given to it based on such and such contract. That is why B92 is still not entered in the register of media, although it is broadcasting for eight years already". This is just a single illustration of what the president of NUNS, Milos Vasic, calls intentional spreading of chaos in the sphere of the media.

Unfortunately, some moves in respect to media of the opposition authorities - especially since the relations of the leaders of Together coalition have reached the point of deep freezing - are not at all encouraging. Political advisor of Vuk Draskovic and president of the Management Board of NTV Studio B, Milan Bozic, tried to rub the noses of the professional team of journalists headed by Lila Radonjic and Zoran Ostojic in the best Bolshevik manner in the middle of June. Brought down to the facts, it turned out that the reason for accusations - almost like in the time of Josip Broz - was that a statement of the Serb Revival Movement was not read in extenso in a news program of NTV Studio B, but only its part.

In such a mixture of regime orchestrated and opposition arranged chaos, president of NUNS Milos Vasic with plenty of reason warns that "the situation in the profession - our main concern - remains bad with a tendency to deteriorate. These authorities still look upon journalism as socio-political work, and media as party propaganda. This could have been expected of them; but not of the opposition which ever since 1990 has never stopped talking about freedom of the press, and now started exerting pressure on independent media itself in cities and municipalities where it had won power. A lot of effort will be needed for both the authorities and the opposition to learn that true, complete and timely information is a very useful rule in the game called democratic system, similarly to independent judiciary or good post and telecommunications".

At this moment, in the beginning of summer to the heat of which political passions of the forthcoming campaign for presidential elections in Serbia will greatly contribute, the stratum of journalists will have to face a new challenge in the already long list of them in the past decade. Stressing that the journalists' job is divided along the line drawn by professionalism, truthfulness and honesty, Milos Vasic adds: "The stakes are high, and so are the challenges: preservation and promotion of journalistic standards - in which NUNS has accomplished much in the past years - remains our main task". Repeated experience with the old, and the first sparks in relations with the new authorities, give certain, although maybe just theoretical advantage to the journalists. If they do not yield to the Balkan syndrome of taking long time to learn and short time to forget, of course.

Aleksandar Ciric

Biljana Ristanic

(AIM)