Who are the People in Banja Luka Studio of Serb Television?

Difficult Job for the Supervisor

AIM Banja Luka, 22 January, 1998

Whether because it is a war abortive undertaking or because its management instead of the capable employed only the obedient, Serb Radio Television (SRT), after six years of work is still - in diapers. Had everything happened in a normal course of development, journalists and other cadre of SRT would have mastered by now at least everything that belonged in the domain of preschool education and acquired the knowledge necessary for attending elementary education for work in radio and television stations. As it is, without exaggeration, they nowadays, still need a guardian or a supervisor.

All those who think that things have changed for the better after August cuts and independence of the Banja Luka SRT, are badly mistaken. People who were in the service of the policy from Pale have remained in the program. Some of them have in the meantime, tirned their backs to Pale and the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) and turned towards Biljana Plavsic and the Serb National Alliance, while there are also those who are still, openly or not, working for the old masters.

Absence of Marica Lalovic from the Serb screen passed almost unnoticed, because Mira Lolic-Mocevic is quite engaged in political programs. Milos Pribic who, similarly to Alija Izetbegovic, condemned the celebration and organized festivity on New Year's eve, is consistently replaced by Snjezana Lalovic, and Milka Ceremidzic and the Pale faction is still headed by Svetlana Pezer-Sukalo.

It is an open secret, and this can be observed by any careful tv analyst, there are two factions in Banja Luka Studio of SRT: one loyal to the official policy of the company and president Plavsic, and the other, faithful to Pale and the policy instituted by late Ilija Guzina and the founders of the SDS. Those who are still loyal to this party are on the pay-roll of the SDS. For their dog-loyalty they receive a large sum of money - in cash.

Radomir Neskovic took over the post of the head of the Studio of SRT after he had turned his back to Pale and the Serb Democratic Party in the Main Board of which he had been ever since its first convention. Discontented by the treatment in the party he had founded along with Karadzic and Plavsic, he took sides with the current president of Republica Srpska who gave him the signal to proclaim independence of the Banja Luka studio. Neskovic, however, did not make a very good choice of his close associates. The question remains open, though, whether he was the one who chose them or whether they were imposed on him.

The current editor of news and political program, Mira Lolic-Mocevic has arrived in Banja Luka television station as a reliable cadre of the Serb Democratic Party. Her brother, Branislav Lolic is the former vice-president of the city board of this party in Banja Luka, but is nowadays a vice-president of the party of Biljana Plavsic and the head of a department in the clinical hospital. As a beginner who was still learning her job, Mira Lolic did not pass the usual path for a journalist. The then editor-in-chief of the Banja Luka studio, blindly obedient to the party in power, Vlado Slijepcevic, appointed this beginner to the post of the editor and host of the program called "Travelling Around Serb Lands". After her brother's split with the SDS, Mira Lolic-Mocevic went on a sick leave. When her brother resurrected in the party of Biljana Plavsic, although politically still immature, Mira Lolic-Mocevic became the editor-in-chief of the news and the political program. It is generally known that before each program she receives instructions from the Serb National Alliance, but also from the advisors of the president of RS. Rumour goes that she also gets questions of the spectators from them for live phone-in programs.

The other big failure of the Serb Television Banja Luka is Nikola Deretic, editor of the cultural and entertaining program, who when need arises or when he wishes, does not hesistate to deal with political issues, too. He is the most responsible person for the latest sabotage from the Serb screen which additionally accelerated appointment of the supervisor for SRT. On the eve of the Catholic Christmas, the Banja Luka studio broadcast a program of Belgrade Television called "penetration into the Balkans" by Dusko Andjic, which is insulting for the non-Serbs. In it, "Tudjman is the same as Pavelic", "all the Croats are Ustashe", and the "Muslims fascists and fundamentalists". That is how Nikola Deretic, who had skilfully concealed his political stand, revealed which side he was inclined to and what faction he belonged to.

Svetlana Pezer-Sukalo and her husband Aleksandar Sukalo who has remained at the post of the head of marketing of SRT always bear in mind that they are winners of the greatest awards of the former president of RS Radovan Karadzic. Perhaps because of that and some other things, Sukalo and his wife are not giving up on the policy of corruption and war-mongering formulated in the circles of the SDS. A sarcastic joke circulates SRT that these two are sorry that their son Marko had not been born just ten days earlier, believing that had he been born he would have also been awarded by Radovan Karadzic. Central news programs editted by Pezer-Sukalo remind of those during the war. Current contributions are regularly illustrated by shots which cause hatred and ethnic intolerance. In one of the programs, she gave space to the Christmas greeting of Chetnik voivoda, priest Momcilo Djujic, indicted for crimes in the Second World War.

Marinko Ucur publicly boycotts the official policy of the house he works for and intentionally works in favour of intensifying of the crisis, probably because in normal conditions he could not have found a job in any decent media. If he wished to remain in the profession he would have to return to the local radio station - to Sipovo or Jajce where he worked before the war.

Technical cadre commanded by engineer Bosko Budisa, former worker of Television Sarajevo, mostly consisting of half-skilled young men who had fled from Sarajevo, are completely loyal to Pale. Therefore, one should not be surprised by the frequent interruptions and technical mistakes in the time-table when those who are not made by measure of the Pale leadership are scheduled to appear.

Banja Luka Television station has no more personnel which could be classified in the category of journalists. Predrag Laketa, Tamara Curuvija and the others who sign the central daily news program as its editors, are nothing but readers and collectors of agency news.

Due to all that, the television station needs a supervisor. The international community has invested over 800 thousand dollars in SRT in the past few months, but with the existing cadres and the current policy there are and can be no results.

The newly appointed supervisor of SRT, Dragan Rasic, by disciplining the Croat television station in Mostar showed that he can successfully do the job entrusted him. Contrary to journalists who he will control, he will not have an easy job. Straightening the distorted picture and putting the SRT in the service of Republica Srpska and all its citizens, and not just a single party and personal interests of its leaders, as it is the case now, is a tedious and strenuous job.

Rade Rastanin (AIM)