|
| |
Veran Matic
Radio Free Serbia: Can the Truth Reconcile a Shattered Land?
By MICHAEL SOLLER
Yugoslavia's slide into murder and war in 1991 was precipitous, but the
nationalism
that touched it off emerged during communism's last days. Independent Serbian
journalist Veran Matic, one of the Yugoslav government's most vocal critics and
most
frequent victims, watched in the late 1980s as his country's state-run media
created a
culture of fear. Now he has joined the call for a truth and reconciliation
commission for
the Balkans. Such commissions have eased South Africa's transition to
multiracial
government and uncovered military crimes in Guatemala by offering amnesty to
people
who confess their crimes--a controversial idea in a region known for its
retributive
politics. Although the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague has
indicted 94
people since 1993, Matic believes such crimes are only part of the story of
Yugoslavia's traumatic past 10 years.
Matic is chairman of the Assn. of Independent Electronic Media, or ANEM, which
provides programming and technical and legal assistance to 28 local radio
stations and
20 TV stations in Yugoslavia and its former territories. He believes journalists
can play
an important role in defying a culture in which, as a short film produced by
ANEM
noted, "Censorship applies to everyone."
Censorship occasionally turns to violence. Earlier this year, the government
shut
down Matic's radio station, B2-92, and a TV station owned by opposition leader
Vuk
Draskovic. One month later, gunmen shot Draskovic twice; he survived. Radio
B2-92
was the successor to B-92, Belgrade's leading independent radio station, which
Matic
helped start in 1989. Hours before the North Atlantic Treaty Organization began
bombing Yugoslavia last March, Serbian officials took over the station; the
entire staff
resigned in protest. Matic wrote an article for the New York Times condemning
NATO's bombing, but his opposition sandwiched him between Serbian officials and
Western governments. "During the bombing, almost everyone around us was
against
us," Matic says.
Matic promotes Serbia's growing youth movement, publishing music and organizing
concerts; the radio station's Web site is part Rock the Vote, part Amnesty
International. At 38, he is the oldest B2-92 staff member, and he delights in
the student
group Otpor, or Resistance, whose symbol, a clenched fist, tags Belgrade walls.
With
Yugoslav elections on Sept. 24, Matic calls that "creative energy" a
greater challenge to
President Slobodan Milosevic's government than Serbia's fractious opposition
parties.
Matic spoke with The Times late at night from a rented office in Belgrade. His
wife,
Lola, worked for a pharmaceutical company owned by former Prime Minister Milan
Panic until two years ago, when Serbia's government took over the company. They
have two children, Ana, 14, and Djordje, 8. The conversation was translated by
one of
Matic's assistants.
* * *
Question: How can a truth and reconciliation commission work in Yugoslavia?
Answer: It can be established only when this region is democratized. . . .
Because
crimes in this region have been going on for 10 years, if we wait for them to
end to start
the process, we will not achieve anything. It's important to start so we can
preserve . . .
evidence. Another thing: Reeducation of the local population is necessary,
because
many people believe that these crimes were committed for just reasons.
Q: What are you doing to pave the way for a truth commission?
A: Investigative journalism should be applied in all media here to find out
what
happened, what really happened. That is exactly why our network, which includes
30
radio stations, introduced a show called "Catharsis." We are producing
a TV version. .
. . At present, almost all civic life in Yugoslavia is being conducted through
the state-run
media. The state-run media made a strong contribution to what happened in the
past 10
years, and that is why a change of media is important now.
Q: Truth and reconciliation commissions have mixed records around the
world.
South Africa's commission helped create a multiracial government, but the
country faces
spiraling crime and disease rates. What kind of barriers would a truth
commission face
in Yugoslavia?
A: Unlike other commissions around the world, a Yugoslav commission would
already have the presence of The Hague war crimes tribunal. That's the strong
difference, though the negative image of The Hague tribunal here could be an
obstacle.
But a Yugoslav truth commission, unlike the commission in South Africa, would
not
have to think about things such as an amnesty [for perpetrators].
Further, unlike all other commissions, this commission would have a major
difficulty
establishing the hard facts of crimes committed around the region. For instance,
in
Bosnia-Herzegovina, there are at least five truths circulating around the
country: There
is Bosnian truth, Croatian truth, Serbian truth, truth as presented by
international groups
and truth as presented by the coalition government, which represents several
parties. All
these truths are separate. So first we must find mechanisms to ascertain the
real
numbers: How many people were killed, how many went missing, who committed the
gravest crimes and for what main causes?
In this region, local regimes . . . want to promote the notion of collective
guilt,
because they want to hide behind the collective responsibility of the whole
nation. We
want to prove that there is no such thing as collective responsibility. The only
way we
can do that is to discover individual responsibility for the crimes.
The most difficult part of the whole story is . . . the frame of mind that
allowed the
entire nation to support nationalistic forces. Individual responsibility would
be decided
in The Hague or in national courts in the region. Our task would be to deal with
the
frame of mind in people that led them to support nationalistic regimes.
Q: Do international groups, including The Hague tribunal, support or
oppose your
efforts?
A: The major opponent . . . is the prosecutorial office of The Hague
tribunal. It
cannot understand that punishments signed by someone in The Hague will not solve
all
our problems. Much wider efforts must be undertaken in things not directly
linked to
specific crimes. There is a group of major inspirers from intellectual circles
who
motivated ordinary people to commit crimes, and those inspirers will never be
brought
to light [by the tribunal].
On the other hand, members of similar commissions in other parts of the world
support us. South African commission members have visited Serbia. Groups from
South America, including Chile and Argentina, have also visited.
Q: Turning a mirror on government is supposed to be one of the functions
of an
independent press. What does an independent press mean in Yugoslavia, and what
can
it accomplish?
A: In the past 10 years, independent media are the only institutions that
did not
change their attitudes, their opinions, to reflect nationalistic policies.
Independent media
actually guarantee the successful development of democracy, because it is
absolutely
clear that they will always oppose totalitarian regimes. It is not just
important what
happens in the current political situation, but also what will happen after
this. . . .
Independent media [are] the major mobilizers of . . . creative energy, which is
the major
opponent of Milosevic's regime. This energy is more threatening to the
government than
the opposition parties. And it is obvious that the creative energy of younger
people is
the most threatening.
Independent media are being fined every day. . . . Our own premises are occupied
by the government, and we are not allowed to enter. The Milosevic regime has
tried
four times to ban Radio B2-92. . . . In all these situations, we managed to
continue our
broadcasts. At the same time, it means a higher degree of danger for all of us
working
here. In the past 10 years, the danger to our private lives has become a part of
our daily
lives, so we got used to it. . . . Recently, a 14-year-old boy was arrested in a
Serbian
town because he played over a public loudspeaker a B2-92 broadcast he had
received
from a satellite.
Q: What do you mean by "creative energy"? How is that more
threatening to the
government than the presidential challenge of Vojislav Kostunica?
A: When I talk about creative energy, I mean the kind of energy that is
created in
Serbia within independent media, NGOs and the culture. That kind of creative
energy
can be best articulated during great political events, such as the rallies in
1996 [when
students protested election fraud]. . . . The police couldn't do anything about
it, except
use brutal force from time to time, which only caused people to gather in
greater
numbers on the streets. That energy cannot be controlled by anyone, and it is
mainly
produced by student organizations such as Otpor, in cooperation with independent
media. In an election campaign, the opposition also undergoes a kind of
renaissance
and joins forces, which has already produced good results, at least according to
polls.
All the polls show Serbia's democratic opposition and Vojislav Kostunica doing
better
than Milosevic and his coalition.
Q: Images of Belgrade protests show many young people. Yet, many Serbian
youth
are disaffected by politics. How do you appeal to them?
A: Since most who abstain in elections are young people, according to our
surveys,
we decided to produce a series of concerts this year all over Serbia to motivate
young
people to take responsibility and vote. The first 10 concerts were very
successful: Polls
show that there will be fewer abstainers this election than before. And a great
number
of voters also decreases the possibility for election fraud. . . .
We have extremely good connections with student movements and youth
movements. In this campaign, what helps us is that we received MTV Europe's Free
Your Mind award for free speech [in 1998]. We also have contacts with War Child
[an
English relief organization that collaborates with artists and musicians] and
with
members of well-known rock bands, such as REM, and famous club deejays. We are
also a record label; we are releasing CDs of local bands that are very popular;
we do
videos.
Q: You opposed NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo. How did that affect the
way people viewed you in Yugoslavia and in the West?
A: It's absurd that [my opposition to] the bombing is used as criticism
against me
even here. That was one of the major criticisms of the people now managing Radio
B2-92. Because [the New York Times article] was very clearly an argument against
Milosevic, too. But in extreme situations, things are always viewed in black and
white.
So those who highlighted the point that I am against Milosevic at the same time
concluded I cannot be against the bombing. The same thing happened at the
international level: That "I am against the bombing" means "I
can't be against Milosevic."
I am proud of that article, because all reactions to that article speak to our
independence. One of our former directors used to have a saying that, "You
are really
independent when everyone hates you." During the bombing, almost everyone
around
us was against us. . . .
One of the main problems with the reporting on events in the former Yugoslavia
in
the past 10 years was its superficiality. Bombing was a radical event, but
everything that
preceded it was also radical and important. The whole thing deserves deep,
profound
and careful analysis and reporting. All NATO's mistakes [planes bombed a convoy
of
refugees and destroyed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade] proved to be helpful to
Milosevic. We [in the independent media] are all absolutely helpless about those
mistakes. All we can do is condemn them. One of the hard facts that contributed
to this
is that nothing has been done in Kosovo, so far, to calm the situation. Murders
of
Serbians, Romany and Albanians happen on a daily basis. There is no system that
functions there.
Q: What are the important lessons of past 10 years?
A: It's easy to establish what kind of responsibility the politicians and
the military had
at the time. But it's very difficult to define the responsibility of those whose
. . . articles,
works of art and speeches influenced crimes and brutality. It is impossible to
establish a
new cultural model for the younger population, a new system of values, without
defining
and revealing the mistakes of past cultural models.
In the past 10 years, we have had another kind of black-and-white picture: Serbs
were always villains, and all others were good. We need balance on that issue. *
- - -
Michael Soller Is Opinion Articles Editor
Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times
|
P.O. Box, CH-8031
Zürich, Switzerland