If the elections are to be successful, however, a number of complicated political and practical problems will need to be overcome. In a new report, entitled Elections in Kosovo: Moving Toward Democracy?, the International Crisis Group reviews progress made to date and sets out measures to counter corruption, hate media and intimidation.

Conduct of the Media

Media in Kosovo give few signs of adequate readiness for a major electoral contest. Indeed, the media situation provides a microcosm of the broader problems of society in anticipating structured and stable political changes. Although the media report continuously on political personalities and issues, standards of fairness are uneven.

Pristina on 1 June had seven Albanian language dailies (Rilindja, Koha Ditore, Zëri, Bota Sot, Kosova Sot, Dita, and Epoka e Re.) A wide range of general political weeklies and monthlies was also on sale. The entire province has 40 radio stations and five television broadcasters.

The main dailies are seen to be aligned with different political parties. Rilindja, the former official organ of the League of Communists of Kosovo, is now considered a semi-official voice of Hashim Thaci and the PDK. In addition, Dita, a new and expensively produced daily, is also viewed as particularly close to Thaci: Dita has amassed significant resources for an entry into the television field, and is seeking a television license. Bota Sot, a newspaper that has also been criticised by many representatives of the Albanian media profession and the public for its habitual personal attacks, inflammatory use of prejudicial language when discussing Serbs, and general sensationalism, leans toward support for Rugova and the LDK.

Although daily newspapers from Albania do not circulate in Kosovo, weekly and monthly periodicals do, and Kosovars watch broadcasts by RTV Tirana and other non-Kosovo Albanian media as well as European channels through ubiquitous satellite dishes. In addition, Albanian newspapers from Macedonia are sold in Kosovo.

RTK Kosova - an internationally funded public broadcasting facility operating out of the facilities of the old state-run Kosovo broadcast entity - presents television and radio programs. Its television broadcasts are limited to two hours a day because of insufficient money to pay for required additional satellite time for more broadcasts.

Radio Kosovo's medium wave broadcasts - though considered poor quality and therefore seldom listened to - cover virtually the entire northern part of the Albanian-inhabited zone of the Balkans. Radio Kosovo's electoral programming will comprise three phases: first, electoral profiles of parties, programs, and candidates; secondly, direct news coverage of the campaign, and thirdly, as the vote gets nearer, Western-style policy debates with restricted time for answers. The profile broadcasts have covered all parties, including the smallest and newest, and focussed on call-in questioning, and have been extremely successful.

Radio Rilindja - the radio broadcast arm of Rilindja, the PDK-supporting newspaper - has the highest level of listenership in Kosovo. Radio 21 is a popular station that is viewed as among the best media in Kosovo. Blue Sky Radio, supported by a Swiss foundation, has high quality music programs and broadcasts 24 hours per day, but is viewed by many Kosovars as close to UNMIK and lacking in balance; its audience share is small.

Regional Albanian-language radio may be expected to play a major role in municipal elections. Such stations also show political alignments; for example, Radio Dukagjini in Pec is considered to be associated with Ramush Haradinaj of the AAK.

Serb and minority interests are either radically underrepresented or unrepresented. Two "weeklies" appear in Prizren in Turkish (Yeni Dönem) and Bosnian (Kosovski Avaz), but no Serbian print media exist indigenously. Jedinstvo, the former Serb daily in Pristina, is sold in the Serb-controlled areas of Mitrovica and north Kosovo, but its circulation is small.

Several Serb radio stations operate, including Radio Max, an FM broadcaster in the village of Silova near Gjilane, whose eight employees, all Serb, have applied for membership in the Association of Kosovo Journalists (SHGK), the membership of which was previously exclusively Albanian. There are four other Serb radio stations: Radio Gracanica, Radio Caglavica, Radio Kontakt Plus, and Radio Televizija Kosovska Mitrovica (RTKM). In addition to the latter, Serbian-language news bulletins appear on RTK Pristina television. Finally, Radio Kontakt in Pristina operates as a multiethnic station with Serb programming.

Belgrade television is also received throughout Kosovo. The interests of the Serb population are also partially represented by the press in Serbia proper, which circulates freely in Mitrovica and the northern border zone, and also makes its way to the Serb enclaves.

Unfortunately, at present the ethnic character of Kosovo media is one of relatively strict segregation in reporting. Albanian media present only an Albanian viewpoint. Official media under Milosevic's control are consistently hostile to the international community's efforts in Kosovo and their coverage of Kosovo forms a part of Milosevic's continued strategy of destabilisation of the region. By contrast, Serb opposition media like BLIC and DANAS, which are read in the Serb enclaves, report with fairness and sympathy on the views of Kosovo Serb democratic opposition figures like Bishop Artemije.

In terms of professional activity on the ground, few Albanian or Serbian media have reporters regularly covering the "other side." Naturally, security issues are involved here, but the result is to reduce informed coverage of the other community. On the evening of 21 June 2000, a Serb woman journalist employed by Radio Kontakt and her male companion were shot and wounded while walking in downtown Pristina, highlighting the security problem.

International community media regulation has also followed two tracks, through two successive phases. During the first year of the international presence in Kosovo, in the print realm the international community attempted to introduce a voluntary code but its impact was negligible. In theory, broadcast media were more closely controlled through allocation of frequencies, but even there international officials claimed to be able to do little more than provide general policy guidance to broadcast media. As of 21 June 2000, only 12 of 40 radio stations were licensed, but no sanctions of any kind had been applied to unlicensed stations.

Hate speech is present in Kosovo Albanian media, especially in the daily Bota Sot, which has virtually institutionalised use of the ethnic slur "shkije" for Serbs, in its headlines and subheads. Issues of incitement to violence and the regulation of Kosovo print media were dramatised earlier this year with the controversy over reporting by the daily newspaper Dita about a Serbian employee of UNMIK, Petar Topoljski. In a 27 April article, Dita published a photograph of Topoljski along with serious allegations of criminal misconduct during the war. Within two weeks Topoljski was found dead. On 3 June 2000, UNMIK chief Bernard Kouchner ordered the offices of Dita closed for eight days.

Dita publisher Behlul Beqaj insisted that the story was accurate and that the fault lay with the international community for employing Topoljski. Koha Ditore offered to print several pages per day of DITA's editorial product until the ban ended, and the attitude of the Albanian media to the ban were typified by Koha Ditore's headline on 4 June, the day after the suspension, which declared "Dita is closed by decree, not through normal procedure." After the suspension, Dita continued its defiant attitude, republishing the original Topoljski article and following that with additional articles - including pictures - allegedly about Serbs living in Kosovo who had engaged in violent activities against Albanians during the war.

The facts of the Topoljski case itself remained obscure, with rumours flying and little confirmed by investigators. Dita seems to have had valid grounds for concern about the UN employment of an individual with an alleged background of questionable activities during the war. It also appears that international authorities may have failed to pursue these concerns when Dita raised them informally. But by presenting these issues in an article in which Topoljski was identified with a photograph, along with a description of his employment - in contrast with the Albanian witnesses in the story, who were identified only by initials - the handling of the matter by Dita amounted to an incitement to violence against Topoljski.

Before the Topoljski incident the international community had largely sat on its hands regarding the issue of media regulation. A proposed scheme for media supervision was developed in August 1999. At that time, OSCE invited seven Kosovo residents to form a Media Policy Board to advise OSCE, which would retain final regulatory power over the media. The seven-member board would have included one Serb and six Albanians, the latter comprising human rights activists and intellectuals, as well as journalists. The plan was withdrawn after a leak of information on the plan led to protests against alleged censorship from media watchdog groups. Regulations regarding the allocation of frequencies to broadcast media were largely ignored, resulting in a proliferation of unlicensed broadcasting.

As a substitute for international regulation, the international community attempted - with no success - to encourage self-regulation by Kosovo journalists themselves. A professional Code of Conduct was produced by the Association of Journalists of Kosovo. This code, however, was apparently never formally adopted, the "Court of Honour" it called for was never created or used, and its provisions had no discernible impact on the behaviour of the Albanian media.

The Dita case revitalized determination in the international community to address the issue of media regulation in Kosovo. On 21 June 2000, OSCE chief Everts unveiled regulations governing the conduct of broadcast and print media. The new rules created a Temporary Media Commissioner (TMC) with the task of implementing a regulatory regime for all media in Kosovo, pending the establishment of an Interim Media Commission. The media commissioner was authorized to issue binding Codes of Conduct for print and broadcast media. For violations of the regulations or the codes by either broadcast or print media the TMC was authorized to employ a range of tough but graduated sanctions including warning, fines of up to 100,000 DM, seizure of equipment, and suspension of operations. An appeals process is established in both areas.

Sensitivity to the aftermath of the Dita case was shown in sections of the regulations titled "Special Provisions," which specifically forbade "publishing personal details of any person, including name, address, or place of work, if the publication of such details would pose a serious threat to the life, safety or security of any such person through vigilante violence or otherwise."

The Codes of Conduct were not made public at the time the regulations were announced. Drafts of the codes (dated 25 June 2000) established broad but vague standards for both broadcast and print media. In both codes journalists, editors, broadcast managers and other media personnel were required to:

Respect the needs of citizens for "Useful, timely and relevant information" and to respect individual rights;
Avoid "unnecessarily or baselessly provoking or inflaming public opinion" and avoid writing, publishing, or distributing material that "by its content or tone" would incite ethnic or religious hatred, crime, or carry a clear risk of "public harm," defined as "death, injury, damage to property or other violence;"
Meet generally accepted standards of civility and respect for the ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity of Kosovo;
Factually report crimes, violence, and natural disasters while avoiding sensationalism and showing consideration for privacy;
Strive to ensure accuracy, fairness, and impartiality;
Distinguish "commentary from news;"
Avoid exclusively or primarily promoting the interests of one political party;
Avoid writing, publishing or distributing false or deceptive material; and Avoid derogatory language about individuals or groups.

The new OSCE regulations are well intentioned and aimed at addressing serious problems in the Kosovo media. But the drafts of the codes available to ICG set vague but sweeping standards - with the force of law - that would appear to make it possible to penalise a broad spectrum of reporting that falls well short of hate and incitement to violence. The codes should be tightened to make legally punishable only carefully defined media activity, of a kind that has the likely effect of stimulating ethnic hatred or inciting violence. Provisions intended to encourage internationally accepted standards of journalistic conduct, such as objectivity, accuracy, and respect for privacy should be retained as goals, with implementation here left to beefed-up professional organisations of journalists, established on a firm institutional footing with OSCE backing. The provision banning media support for political parties goes significantly beyond hate reporting and incitement and should be eliminated; media organs should have the right to support a political party if they wish.

Another troubling aspect is the open-ended nature of the regulations in terms of time. Although international officials involved in developing the regulations have said they are intended to be temporary, the print media regulation is to remain in effect pending establishment of "effective self-regulation by the print media in Kosovo," an event uncertain in both time and content, and which in any case is left entirely up to the UN to decide. The broadcast regulation is of open-ended duration. Some regulation of broadcast licensing and allocation of frequencies is obviously necessary on a permanent basis but the broad provisions of the code as it now stands are too restrictive.

Limited government regulation of media content in Kosovo is justified in the immediate post-conflict period, and while the region's media is becoming re-established, but it must not be allowed to become a permanent feature of the Kosovo media environment. Under no circumstances should the international community hand over to Kosovo government authorities, who have only limited experience in democracy, a ready-made tool for putting the media in a straightjacket.

With virtually every aspect of media behaviour to be regulated - and potentially restricted and punished - by the international community, monitoring of the Kosovo print and broadcast media will have to be comprehensive, timely, and accurate. Up to now, media monitoring by the international community has been a mixed bag. Both OSCE and the UN maintain separate, and often duplicative, media monitoring operations. UNMIK media monitoring is considered by most consumers to be the best in quality and quantity, although it distributes translations of only a fraction of the stories appearing every day in the print media. Broadcast monitoring is reported in a very sketchy fashion. OSCE media monitoring is somewhat slower and less comprehensive that that of UNMIK. It would make sense for UNMIK and OSCE to combine - or at least co-ordinate - their media monitoring efforts in order to ensure that potentially punishable material is brought before the appropriate authorities in a timely fashion. Failing to distinguish and act on important stories was dramatically seen in the Topoljski case when the offending Dita article elicited no response from policy makers in the international community at the time of its publication, going unnoticed until after Topoljski's death.

Also troublesome is the status of the Temporary Media Commissioner. In introducing the new regulations, OSCE chief Daan Everts described the independence of the Commissioner as "crucial." According to the regulations, however, the Commissioner is appointed by the UNMIK chief and there is nothing in the regulations to define his status or to protect his independence. Kosovo needs someone to provide appropriate supervision to its media but the individual chosen to exercise this heavy responsibility should be a senior, respected international figure who is both genuinely independent and possesses broad journalistic experience.

A regulatory structure governing expression in both print and electronic media could have a constructive impact on the development of Kosovo self-rule, but the current one should be promptly recast in favour of one including the following principles:

The structure must be temporary, ideally limited to one year or to a period ending a month after the conclusion of the first Kosovo-wide general election; It must be administered by an independent figure of international stature with journalistic experience and statutorily independent of outside interference by international authorities in Kosovo or the countries involved in the Kosovo mission; It must be limited to specific activities, such as hate reporting, unfounded allegations of criminal behaviour, incitement to ethnic violence, and incitement of political violence through hateful attacks on individuals and political tendencies; and Kosovar journalists should be drawn into its administration to the greatest possible extent.

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