Helsinki Committee, Serbia - September Media Monitoring: 

Corruption and Organised Crime

Despite their frequent use of the words ''corruption'' and ''organised crime,'' the Serbian media have contributed very little to uncovering these social ills - some have gone as far as to dub corruption an disease endemic to Yugoslav society. Both print and electronic media curiosity about these phenomena is limited to straightforward coverage of politicians' statements that ''corruption and organised crime, as an ignominious legacy of the former regime, should be stamped out,'' or to running sensationalistic news about arrests of, or the filing of indictments against, members of the former regime. Crime and corruption receive much media exposure (along with criticism of the authorities' inefficiency in dealing with it), and a struggle against it is urged, but no concrete examples are given or pertinent research made.

For months, some media, such as daily newspapers Danas and Blic, have been running an identical text headlined "Stop the Mafia." This was first produced after Vecernje novosti's Jagodina correspondent Milan Pantic was murdered on 11 June 2001, to appeal for the protection of journalists in the anti-mafia campaign and send the message that journalists, in the face of existing threats and dangers, shall continue to publish the findings of their investigations in the effort to contribute to the anti-mafia struggle. However, only a few of such investigative articles have been published, largely because of journalists' fears for their safety.

The assassination on 3 August of former member of the Security Services, Momir Gavrilovic, has reignited media interest in organised crime. The case has had political ramifications for relations between different members of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, DOS, coalition government, as, on the day of his assassination, Gavrilovic allegedly visited Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica to inform him of links between top officials and mafia bosses. However, this time around the media mostly limited its coverage to features on well-known criminal gangs and chronologies of assassinations during the past decade.

The daily Glas made a major effort, throughout September running a series of features on abuses and criminal offences in Serbian partly state-owned telecommunications company Telekom Srbija. This investigation, supported by copies of various documents (invoices, official trips' per diems, lists of people to whom flats were given), citations from official papers and technical explanations, probed pre- and post-5 October abuses and misuses of power in this company. The motive behind this extensive coverage was the recent increase in call and subscription charges, which Glas claimed were illegal.

The same daily on 22 August ran an article headlined "Cannot, doesn't want, and doesn't know how," in a bid to find an answer to why "the reformed police force is not succeeding in solving both old and new murders?" After reminding the governing DOS coalition that it promised an all out anti-crime campaign, the paper complained that, "all murder cases remain unsolved, the killing-spree continues, abductions have grown in scale and frequency, but everything is kept under wraps." Glas quotes several opinions, including those of Director of the Institute for Criminology and Sociology Research Dobrivoje Radovanovic, former customs inspector Mladen Lajovic and Democratic Party of Serbia, DPS, member Dusan Prorokovic, more or less concluding that, "the current police force is working as badly as the previous one," and that "the new oligarchy is spreading faster than that of the Milosevic era."

Throughout September, the daily Vecernje Novosti ran a feature on rewards offered by the Serbian Interior Ministry to all those who help to solve, with tips or information, some twenty murders committed in the past several years. However, the feature only dealt with the Milosevic era underworld and those murders linked with it.

On 19 September, shortly after the launch of the book "Corruption in Serbia," produced by the Centre for Liberal-Democratic Studies, Politika ran an article with the headline: "Customs officials and doctors top the list of the most corrupt professionals." In the opening lines of the text, it was stated that Serbian society is riddled with corruption, going on to complain that, "Because it is so omnipresent at all levels, it has become such a public, commonplace phenomenon that no-one decries it on moral grounds. It has become a systematic occurrence which has infested the authorities and opposition alike and all levels of our society." Similar opinions of the Centre's experts participating in the book promotion were also cited.

On 26 September, Politika carried a ''file'' on corruption and kickbacks in Serbia. An entire page was devoted to a general discussion of the phenomenon, while different research on aspects of corruption and its influence on the economic and political situation was only briefly mentioned.

On 13 and 14 September Vecernje Novosti ran a two-instalment feature on imports of spoiled food. The article posed the question: "Is syndicated crime behind the importing of food and agricultural produce, whose unfitness for consumption was proved by laboratory tests?.....Do some importers, in collusion with the competent state bodies, place on our local markets Mad Cow-infested meat imported from some Western countries?". Vecernje Novosti didn't provide an answer to these questions, merely concluding that "competent bodies should give us the necessary answers."

On 20 September, in an article headlined "Food tasting of fraud," Blic carried the statements of two federal officials, Branko Djuric and Stojan Arizanovic, which more or less confirmed that, "organised crime gangs involved in importing spoiled food have links with structures within the state apparatus." They also gave a series of concrete examples of such imports and collusion between market and sanitary inspection officials. The daily did not run any commentary on these statements and allegations.

Blic concluded, "If the competent Ministry does not eliminate criminals from its own ranks, and stop such wrongful imports, the victims of which are citizens, consumers of expensive, rotten food, then the police and the Federal government will have to tackle the problem."

An article headlined "Graft-Taking Judges" in daily Glas' 24 September edition touches on corruption in courts of law in general terms,but gives neither concrete examples nor names. The article also includes the following statement of prominent Belgrade lawyer Strahinja Kastratovic, "Kickbacks and corruption are commonplace among the judiciary. They are as deeply rooted there as they are in all other spheres of our public life." However, Kastratovic concluded that "the majority of our judiciary is honorable and moral."

Judge Sead Spahovic, on the other hand, was more outspoken and concrete, claiming, "the most corruption-prone are commercial court officials and investigating magistrates."

Belgrade District Court staff on 26 September rebuffed allegations of corruption among the judiciary, and accusations that the inefficiency of the anti-crime campaign is caused by their under-performance. This communique was issued because of "repeated negative statements, reproduced in the media, from influential members of political and state bodies, public figures, and financial and economic institutions," which, "are not only unrepresentative, but also counterproductive, as they thwart our attempts to achieve results in the anti-corruption campaign, and our efforts to build an independent and efficient judiciary." This reaction was covered by the electronic media, but not mentioned in the print media.

The re-admission of Yugoslavia to Interpol after an eight-year break was hyped up by the media and the authorities, but most frequently linked to the possibility that the country contains over 100,000 stolen cars. This was announced in a statement given by Zoran Zivkovic, the Federal Interior Minister, to Beta agency and RTS on 26 September.

On 27 September, in an article headlined "Interpol Presses Charges," Vecernje Novosti wrote that since the readmission of the FRY to the international police organisation, owners of cars stolen abroad have begun to panic. The paper went on to note that, "in recent years Yugoslavia, like Croatia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and the Middle East was an ideal market for stolen cars...but from now on lists of all stolen cars shall have to be drawn up and agreements with countries in which cars were stolen shall have to be made..."

In its interview with Zivkovic, "Wanted: 100,000 Stolen Cars," the weekly NIN also focused on this issue. Zivkovic recommends that citizens do not buy cars, "with suspicious or irregular documents." In response to the interviewer's accusation that, "the FRY has become a transit area for drugs and arms trafficking, illegal immigration and white slavery...," the Minister stated that, "Kosovo and Metohija is the most criminalised area of our country...but as the territory is under international protection, no Yugoslav or Serbian competent body or its officials are allowed to operate there."

The daily Danas welcomed readmission to Interpol by running an article headlined, "The End of the Smugglers' Decade," mostly devoted to the advantages of and obligations stemming from membership of the international police organisation. In mid-September the study, "Corruption in Serbia," funded by the Washington-based Centre for International Private Enterprise, was published. The related press conference held in Belgrade's Sava Centre on 20 and 21 September, and the contents of the study, received extensive coverage from the weekly Vreme.

"The long-term consequences of corruption are most lethal to every society. At certain points in time, society reaches a juncture....Serbia can now choose to make a decisive move to become a productive society, in a bid to create a new set of values, or to continue along the beaten track left by the former regime, the one riddled with corruption and organised crime. (Vreme, "Corruption in Serbia", 13 September)

The conclusion of the research published in January by the Centre for Liberal-Democratic Studies (based on a sample of 1632 respondents and 327 private enterprises and shops) was the following: "Although it is not a Serbian speciality, corruption has become such a public phenomenon in the country, that it raises no public concern or moral condemnation." The study served as one of the bases for a two-day international meeting, also entitled "Corruption in Serbia," whose participants included the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the World Bank and Transparency International.

The Beta news agency and some other media carried the statement of one of the authors of the study Slobodan Vukovic, made at the press conference, that "Corruption in Serbia is endemic ...it has infested all levels of society."

The popular movement Otpor on 18 September announced the start of a six-month campaign called "Let's Root Out Corruption" At the press conference given by Otpor to launch this, covered by all the media, it was said that the "goal of the campaign is to do something concrete, that is, to engage all levels of society in the resolution of the problem, for the politicians talk about it only in abstract terms and use it as leverage in their jockeying for power." It was also said that Yugoslavia is the second most corrupt country in the world, after Nigeria.

Electronic media have rarely covered the problem of corruption and organised crime in depth, but an excellent interview with the Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic (25 September, TV Politika) was indeed an exception to that rule. When asked why many criminals are still at large, Batic replied that "the pioneers of crimes, Slobodan Milosevic and others, are in jail. But I am not satisfied with the slow pace of the anti-crime campaign. However after ten years of erosion of the judiciary and messed up values, this phenomenon cannot be rooted out overnight." The interviewer concluded that the real culprits were yet to be brought to justice and asked Minister Batic why proceedings were not instigated against those who had unlawfully amassed their wealth. Minister Batic replied that, "this was a crime and corruption-riddled society and we cannot change that situation overnight." The interviewer then asked him why some DOS leaders did not make more efforts to stamp out this social ill, and Batic retorted, "You should ask them."

Unfortunately, the RTS-conducted interview with the Federal Interior Minister Zoran Zivkovic on the occasion of the FRY's re-admission to Interpol focused only on the importance of the international police organisation for the world and the FRY, and on the problem of stolen cars. 

source: IWPR
published by: Roland Brunner rbr@medienhilfe.ch date of release on this site:26-10-2001

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