Attack on the Media in Croatia

AIM Zagreb, 21 April, 1999

The strike of workers of Tisak, the greatest Croatian press distributer, which began on Wednesday afternoon, will most probably at least for some time prevent most of the newspapers in Croatia from reaching the readers. After a several-month long delay of financial reorganization of Tisak, more than three thousand of its workers decided by going on strike to try to persuade the government of the Republic of Croatia and its institutions to finally resolve the problems of this enterprise, because along with the fact that for two months they have not received their salaries, they are facing the probability of its ruin. But, it is questionable whether they will succeed in their attempt because apart from the problems with finding the source of fresh capital necessary for revitalisation of the enterprise destroyed by transformation plunder, they would have to unveil the concealed political games in which the regime is trying to get rid of at least a part of independent publishers by using business problems of the greatest Croatian press distributer.

While NATO, America and Europe are busy bombing Yugoslavia and breaking down Slobodan Milosevic, the regime of Franjo Tudjman has snatched the opportunity to deal with the media, especially the independent ones, and break down everything that manifests any opinion of its own and any critical spirit. Franjo Tudjman is abundantly making up for the newly disclosed cooperativeness of Croatia and its president with NATO, manifested by its silent on-looking and failing to react to developments in the neighbouring state, as well as in the initiative for a summit of representatives of neighbouring countries of Yugoslavia which has allegedly "met with excellent reception of the international community": two independent weeklies, Nacional and Feral Tribune, have become the targets of the strongest strikes this regime has invented against media, while the greatest distributer of newspapers, Tisak, is still wriggling in agony the end of which will come in sight only after everything printed that dared speak up about miserable and looting nature of the regime is destroyed.

After Miroslav Kutle, the notorious tycoon who is close to the Croat Democratic Community (HDZ), had sucked out of Tisak 150 million German marks which disappeared into thin air without anyone from the authorities having even raised the question how he could have done it, for whose benefit and where the money had gone, Croatian government decided to financially restore the enterprise whose regular business operation had been brought to the verge of collapse. After days of negotiations with representatives of newspaper publishers who are foredoomed to deal with Tisak because its network of four thousand newsstands all around Croatia is the major distribution chain, it was decided that a consortium of six banks would be established which were expected to raise money and transform the enterprise from a big debtor faced with financial debacle into a model of "successful transformation" and financial recovery. But, the six banks also had to be financially reorganised themselves, but the term financial reorganisation has a somewhat different meaning in Croatia than in the normal world.

Financial reorganisation around here means that an emergency loan will be obtained (from somewhere in the world) by the means of which the enterprise will pay back its debts made by extending loans to HDZ tycoons. Guarantees for the loans are given by the state, which means that the debt would be paid back by tax payers, or rather all the citizens of Croatia among whom the percentage of poor ones is increasing every day. The six financially reorganised banks which the state had taken hold of again after the transformation plunder, were expected to enable Tisak six months ago to stand on its own two feet and go back to normal business operation. This, of course, did not happen, and it is uncertain whether it ever will. The debt of Tisak to newspaper publishers according to the latest data has piled up to 120 million kunas (30 million German marks), although there are doubts that it might be much higher. At the same time, the offer of the French distributer Hachette to invest money and put Tisak where it hade been before was turned down.

The explanation given in the refusal is typically Croatian: Tisak is of strategic interest of the state and it must not end up in the jaws of foreign capital. Such a wonderfully put explanation conceals a less wonderful truth: just six months ago, Tisak brought its owners a daily profit of one and a half million marks in cash, which in present-day Croatia brimming with indebted and bankrupt enterprises makes it incredibly interesting for any tycoon. On the other hand, Tisak is even more interesting for the authorities: by constantly failing to pay the money made by sale, the regime has discovered the simplest method by means of which it can beat independent media on the head for as long as it pleases and pretend that it, the same regime with the blessing of which various Kutles and associations of war veterans marched though Tisak, has nothing to do with illiquidity of a "privatised" enterprise. And the fact that the banks have done nothing to carry out the planned financial reorganisation programme, that they are letting this enterprise go to wreck and ruin, although it could have returned every investment in a very short time is justified by "business policy of unrisky investing".

All these games with Tisak appear to be even worse in the context of what is happening in the past few weeks to Nacional and Feral Tribune. Journalists of these weeklies are in court almost every day where they are forced to justify their actions because of accusations mostly of HDZ officials or creations of Croatian social life close to HDZ. Because of "spiritual pain inflicted" by journalists various state dignitaries are trying to find consolation in indemnity demands of several hundred thousand German marks. In about eighty appeals and court proceedings taking place at the moment against Feral indemnity demands have reached the amount of five million marks, and similar is the situation with Nacional and its journalists. Nacional has also encountered a precedent in Croatian judiciary: father Anto Bakovic, president of the Croatian Populist Movement, owner and editor of the populist (pro-fascist) newspaper called Narod (People) and priest warrant for the arrest of whom has been issued by Austrian police, has managed to bring about bankuptcy of Nacional's publisher, Media press. Bakovic lodged an appeal against them three years ago for the article in which his activities were analysed based on known facts from his life. The court ruled 200 thousand kunas (50 thousand German marks) of indemnity to be paid in his favour, but Nacional, partly because of the situation in Tisak, has not that much money on its account.

After that, with the help of attorney Zeljko Olujic Bakovic demanded initiating bankruptcy proceedings in the publishing company, which was accepted by the Commercial Court in the middle of April. All appeals of Nacional's attorneys and the attempts to find a more peaceful solution for the dispute remained futile, and Media press is facing bankruptcy proceedings initiated by the same Commercial Court which has for months refused to register Radio 101 until this radio station was abandoned by majority of journalists who are now on the verge of survival.

In the mentioned eighty odd appeals against Feral, along with extremely high indemnity demands, the number of cases is increasing in which criminal penalties are sought for journalists and editors, but also sentences in jail. And the judges loyal tro the regime are dilligently meeting these demands: Boris Raseta of Feral Tribune was recently arrested and sentenced to one month in prison, suspended sentence of two years, for insult of a minor judge, and a similar sentence is threatening executive editor Viktor Ivancic. The editor-in-chief of Feral Hani Erceg was visited four times by the police in just one week and summoned to court, and an indemnity demand for two million kunas (more than half a million marks) sought by a physician whose few baby patients died on his operating table was accompanied by a demand that she too be sentenced to prison. Feral's journalists and editors have difficulties counting the number of court decisions that convicted them in the past few months, and the amount of money they are sentenced to pay is emptying Feral's cashbox and threatening its further publication.

At the same time, Tisak's debt to Feral and Nacional is increasing all the time, but Feral is also having problems with collecting claims from the distribution network of Slobodna Dalmacija, another newspaper publishing company taken over by the state again after Miroslav Kutle had used it as a stepping stone for his scandalous plunder of about two hundred enterprises. In collecting debts from Tisak, newspaper publishers according to certain information will encounter even greater problems. After two state enterprises, daily Vjesnik and Croatian printing works, have merged, it seems probable that the former president of the management board of Croatian printing works Goran Maric will be the new director of Tisak will be .

The American of Croat origin Chris Bojanovic brought to Tisak to try to save it, thanks to "lack of business cooperativeness" of the bank consortium did not manage to save this enterprise, not even to help it which is a sufficient pretext to remove him from the post of the director and put the tested cadre from the Croatian printing works in his place. Doubts are increasing that bringing Maric in Bojanovic's place could mean the beginning of a merger of Tisak with Vjesnik and Croatian printing works, that is, of creation of the largest newspaper publishing enterprise in the state owned by the state itself, whose dictate of (unfavourable) conditions would completely ruin independent newspaper publishers. Even if this had not been the year in which change of party in power is expected, that is, the departure of HDZ, its members' hatred of everything that has a critical stand concerning the way they rule is so strong that destruction of media is not at all surprising, but a logical result of egoism of an autocrat and his wretched retinue. The elections are just an additional stimulus for HDZ repression on printed media after it had destroyed electronic media (radio stations) or after it had prevented them to normally develop (private television stations). If like in the case of Tisak it is possible to get hold of a sum of money along the way, their efforts become - at least from the way HDZ understands power - utterly justified. Had they had by any chance a different stand about it, several hundred thousand workers would have still had their jobs and they would have been able to live off their salaries. But this would have been another story in which media would not have had the problems they are encountering nowadays nor would Croatia have had the authorities it has.

MILIVOJ DjILAS