Media in Serbia

Some to Rome, Others to Jail

AIM Podgorica, 9 March, 1999 (By AIM correspondent from Belgrade)

Ever since in October 1998, the new, extremely repressive Law on Information was adopted, which is contrary to all the fundamental principles of law and justice, passions stirred up by this (para)legal document cannot seem to die down. The damage it has done to independent media, but also to remains of a reputation Serbia used to have in the world, is immeasurable. When representatives of the Serb Revival Movement (SPO) recently joined the federal government of Momir Bulatovic (which has an extremely dubious legitimacy because it is not recognised by the official authorities in Montenegro, the only remaining federal partner of Belgrade) and in it, among other, were charged with the ministry of information, one of their first promises was that they would do everything they could to pass a new federal law on information which would - being superior to the Serbian law - at least alleviate, if not completely annul the devastating consequences of the law made by the Radicals.

A few days ago, federal minister of information Milan Komnenic has finally made it public that he would put the draft new federal law on information in the regular assembly procedure and that - once this act is passed - the Rpublican administration will be obliged to observe it. Serbian minister of information, Seselj's Radical Aleksandar Vucic strongly reacted to such declarations saying that this was "nonsense", that the media were in the jurisdiction of Serbia and that no federal regulation could be passed without votes of the Radicals in the federal assembly. Even if such a law would be passed by some miracle - who would implement it, Vucic wondered. Perhaps Bozidar Jaredic (his Montenegrin counterpart) or Milo Djukanovic?

On this point Vucic is in fact quite right. Montenegro neither recognises nor implements any law or other regulation passed by the currently rump federal assembly (practically with no representatives of the ruling parties in Montenegro), and treats Bulatovic's cabinet as nothing but a bizzare "group of citizens" which was benevolently permitted to move into a certain number of offices in the Palace of the Federation in New Belgrade. The legal regulations currently in force in Montenegro, when media are concerned, are much more liberal than the Serbian ones, so - even if there had been no controversy about legitimacy of the federal cabinet - it needs no corrections from the federal level in this sense.

In Serbia, on the other hand, the Socialist-Radical-Left majority would not have passed such a repressive law if it had not believed that it was vitally needed. That is why it is impossible to see how the slow and indeed quite marginal federal assembly (it meets for ten days a year on the average) would ever be able to pass a "better" law, and least of all how it could be implemented. Why would those who can do it take away the Law on Information as their favourite toy from Vucic and other Radical enthusiasts, now when Milosevic must deal with much more serious and dangerous business of Kosovo, in which he will badly need the support and backing of patriotically inspired Radicals. That is why it is difficult to avoid the impression that the initiative of Milan Komnenic and SPO will merely be used to keep the cabinet busy for some time and it will be put in the procedure just in order to fromally keep the given promise. This also means that the repressive and draconian Serbian Law on Information like the sword of Damocles will continue to hang over the heads of all journalists in Serbia.

For some time, however, implementation of the Law in practice has somewhat slackened: after the initial avalanche of mighty repression - primarily against Dnevni telegraf and Evropljanin, but also against certain local journals and Monitor weekly from Podgorica which cannot legally be sold on the Serbian market any more - things have become routine and there have almost been no unthinkable court decisions since the end of last year. Probably in a certain high place it was assessed that the intimidating effect of the Law has been achieved, and that it was better to set aside the stick because of the enormous damage it has caused to Serbia in the international public. Of course, it should not be forgotten that this stick is still near at hand of the anti-media bullies: it is the matter of their good will when, where and against whom this subtle "legal" mechanism will be implemented in lawful destruction of free public.

Slavko Curuvija, owner of DT and Evropljanin and a man who is by far the greatest victim of the new Law on Information who fared so badly that many serious analysts in Belgrade will tell you that the Law was adopted just to enable the regime to get back at "renegade" Curuvija - last Monday he significantly increased his collection of troubles: the court in Belgrade sentenced him and two journalists of Dnevni telegraf to five months in prison each (not on parole) for the article which indirectly establishes a connection between Milovan Bojic, director of Dedinje hospital, vice prime minister of Serbia and one of the leaders of JUL, with the murder of one of the physians employed in the institution Bojic is the head of. This physician was recently shot in front of his house, and the official version asys that he was killed by a man who had been pathologically jealous for years and obsessed by the physician's wife whom he knew from early childhood. The fact that in the article about the murder it was stressed that the murdered physicians had criticised Bojic's engagement at the post of the director of the hospital and mentioned alleged abuses were sufficient to sentence the journalists.

Among the journalists in Belgrade - at least those who are not inclined towards the regime - the opinion prevails that this was just a convenient reason for escalatrion of the showdown with Curuvija. If the court of the higher instance rejects the appeal of the council of the defence and these three actually go to jail, it will cause great damage to independent media in Serbia: fear will dramatically grow and it will become tangible as prison bars. That is exactly what those who control such moves rely on. One should not forget that the climax of the Kosovo crisis still lies ahead and the regime needs submissive media. The ruffled, but influential and popular media might in the name of the citizens raise certain extremely unpleasant questions on Kosovo, for example, and the regime is highly aware that it is not able to offer coherent answers.

At the same time, the collection of all kinds of journalistic political eccentricities in Serbia is growing by geometric progression. In the end of February, official state news agency Tanjug sent its new correspondent to Rome: Dragos Kalajic, the known Belgrade dandy, snob and fascist, fan of Mussolini's "corporative society", sympathiser of certain "racial theories" and extremist rightist movements around Europe, lover of "revisionist" literature on the Second World War, Radovan Karadzic, and the likes of him.

This picturesque personality, in the time of peace a second-rate painter and "thinker", used to be treated as one of numerous personalities of his kind every big city has. In the meantime, collective psychological picture of Milosevic's Serbia has become so close to that of Kalajic's that hardly anyone (publicly) expressed abhorrence because of such "personnel policy" of the state news agency. Only Kalajic will be abhorred that the "decadent" Rome in 1999 hardly resembles "sound, Spartan" Rome as it was in 1939.

If nothing else, this dedicated lover of all totalitarian doctrines will not be in danger should Serbia be exposed to NATO military intervention. A local Belgrade radio station plays repeatedly an interesting jingle in the beginning of its news show: "The sponsor of the information program is the public company for shelters of Serbia". Quite appropriately, with no doubt. Because exactly that kind of "information programs" have brought about the situation in which Serbian are forced to seek shelter against bombs.

Teofil Pancic

(AIM)