Freedom of Media Unsealed

On the Air in Serbia

AIM Podgorica, 22 June, 1999

(By AIM correspondent from Belgrade)

The television and radio air in Serbia, in these postwar days, seems quite chaotic: hardly anybody is producing the program like they used to do before the war, from the same place, via the same transmitters and on the same channels. And even if they do - it is very questionable who can see or hear their program... One of the important targets of NATO air-force were transmitters and repeaters of Radio-Television Serbia (RTS) and some other TV and radio stations close to the regime both in Belgrade and inside Serbia.

Results of the two-month air campaign are obvious: in a large part of Serbia it is impossible to watch programs of RTS via its own transmitters. Since the news programs of RTS - the central TV daily news show above all - are the main propagandist pillar of the current regime, all RTV stations in Serbia received a directive from the ministry of telecommunications and information that they had to carry the central information shows of TV Serbia; how far this has gone is best illustrated by the fact that even on the exquisite Third Program of Radio Belgrade - for decades reserved only for intellectual debates and classical music - you can listen to the audio version of TV daily news program. During the war, nobody (publicly) complained because of such practice of directives, but nowadays, the number is increasing of stations which are meeting this obligation with unease, expecting to free themselves of it as soon as possible.

Belgrade Studio B, which is controlled by city authorities governed by Draskovic's Serb Revival Movement (SPO), has already broken this imposed "cooperation" with RTS, but was soon "asked" to renew it as long as the state of war is in force, which was done by this station with a certain amount of appropriate grumbling.

It is no surprise that the regime is very keen on having RTS's parainformative fabrications disseminated unhindered around the whole of Serbia, because they are one of the indispensable factors of preservation of power. The citizens who are interested in access to uncensored information are more interested in how much "information pluralism" there is and will be in the postwar media landscape. It should be reminded that during the first night of the war already, under a worthless pretext, the cult Belgrade radio station B92, which had been the "brain" and the "backbone" of independent electronic journalism in Serbia in the nineties, was shut down by force. After that, a series of other "undesirable" stations around Serbia were also shut down or prevented from working which automatically frustrated normal operation of ANEM, the network of independent electronic media which during the previous years had managed to do what is the most difficult: to bring uncensored information closer to people "deep inside" Serbia and pauperised population which neither has serious readers' habit nor money to buy independent press regularly.

It need not be stressed that this is the population which is the source of the most loyal voters and that this is the reason why the regime is so jealously protecting it from "contamination" by different information. Nevetheless, after the end of the war, the citizens are manifesting the unwillingness to tolerate such usurpation any further: in Cacak, important industrial city in central Serbia and stronghold of democratic opposition, local authgorities and citizens demanded from the inspectors for telecommunications to enable broadcasting of TV Cacak again, or else they would do it on their own. What the citizens of Cacak are announcing has already happened further to the south, in Sokobanja tourist resort: the local authorities - also members of Serb democratic opposition - removed the seal off the premises of TV Sokobanja and restarted making free and uncensored program. VK1, the first independent radio station in northern Voivodina also started work. There are similar examples in Nis, Kraljevo, Bajina Basta and other cities and towns around Serbia.

In the meantime during the war, the authorities appointed their men in Radio B92 (using the Achilles heel of many media in post-communist societies: unresolved and vague ownerdhip status), so that the people who had made this station a globally recognised phenomenon and symbol of independent journalism in Eastern Europe are at the beginning of the chaotic and politically arbitrary legal system of Milosevic's Serbia to get back the radio station they themselves had created. Nobody in fact believes in the favourable outcome without serious political changes, and therefrom political deblocking of the judiciary.

Among the non-regime media which survived and which can be heard in Belgrade, the citizens trust Radio Pancevo the most, because even during the most difficult war circumstances

• which were indeed even more difficult in Pancevo than in any other city in Serbia outside Kosovo - this radio station proved that it was both professional and that it had civil courage by distributing all relevant information from all sides and all sources, showing to those less resolute and less brave that "censorship" is primarily an ideal pretext for those who are ready to make even unnecessary compromises, and then everything else. Radio Pancevo survived that too and reinforced its position and reputation among the listeners. Studio B is also a firm and important source of information which carries everything that does not exist in state media. Its fatal limitation is the fact that it is controlled by SPO, so that the citizens who have a sensitive taste can hardly swallow the very obvious favouring of this party and its president which not rarely reaches the proportions of distasteful and counterproductive caricature.

One of the side-effects of the past war is "emptying" of the air over Serbia due to destruction of numerous transmitters and due to dissolution of the electric power system: in the long war nights without electric power, citizens of Belgrade could listen on their transitor radio sets to various stations from Croatia, B&H, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, and that competition on the air is a very serious business is proved by the fact that somewhere in the vicinity of Serbia (those well informed claim: in SFOR bases near Tuzla) a powerful FM radio transmitter was installed which enables the citizens of western and northwestern Serbia, a considerable part of Voivodina and Belgrade to have high-quality reception of programs by BBC, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Deutsche Welle, Radio France International and other international stations. This of course is not at all agreeable for the regime, because it is no secret that these stations have become quite popular during the war, which mars the image of the war the authorities claim to have a monopoly on; the prescribed image of its causes, its course and its consequences. That is why the official newspapers are full of enraged commentaries that these stations are "dinosaurs of the cold war". This, in fact, is not completely unfounded criticism, but in their satanisation rhetoric of the cold war is used - but from the east...

The majorty of citizens of Serbia - bombed from without and oppressed and robbed from within - do not care to listen to anyone's "truth" any more. That is why they seek delusive oblivion in "light entertainment", but that is where regime infrastructure awaits them again - the department of the authorities in charge of entertainmen in the media, that is, the escapist musical and film stations such as TV Pink and TV Palma (owned by high officials of the ruling party) and RTV Kosava (headed by Marija Milosevic, daughter of the president of FRY). After NATO had bombed the sky-scraper of the former Central Committee of the Communist Party (which is now owned by Milosevic's post-communists) at the top of which were transmitters of these stations, their programs could not be seen or their range has been significantly reduced. Now they have put up new antennas on the top of this from within destroyed building which means that the gay "production of oblivion" with cheap Latin American TV soap-operas and literally indescribable trash-music will continue in full swing. That is how for a decade already, strange days of modern Serbia are passing: a little bit of singing, a little bit of shooting, and then, all over again.

Teofil Pancic

(AIM)