WE WILL NOT ALLOW THEM TO SILENCE US

An interview with Veran Matic, President of the Association of independent electronic media (ANEM)

By Zoran Mamula

On 17th of May Serbian authorities have "shut down" all non-regime-controlled electronic media in Belgrade. Bursting into city radio and TV station Studio B in the middle of night, under pretext that the station called for violent toppling of the constitutional order, the ruling coalition not only took control over that media outlet, but also shut down independent Radio B2-92. After regime had confiscated the stations' name (it was called Radio B-92 before) and equipment last year, Radio B2-92 was broadcasting its program on one of the Studio B frequencies.

Student radio Index, the premises of which are located in the same building with Studio B and Radio B2-92, was also prevented from regular broadcast so that Index's program now consists only of music and short news.

Serbian opposition which is in power in the city of Belgrade called the citizens on the same day to demonstrate before the city hall, but only several thousand Belgrade residents showed up at the protest. The number decreased after the first two protests when the police intervened and dispersed the demonstrators who were taking a protest walk towards the building of Studio B. Even the joint opposition meeting staged on central Belgrade square on 27th of May attracted no more than 20 000 demonstrators, which caused many speculations about the reasons behind such poor response from the citizens.

Some analysts think that the reason is displeasure towards ten-year-long fruitless attempts of the recently united opposition to topple the regime of Slobodan Milosevic, other say that shutdown of Studio B was not a motive enough for all opposition supporters, since until the 17th of May that media outlet was under complete control of the strongest opposition party Serbian revival movement, which had advantage over all other opposition parties in the station's program. However, both groups of analysts agree that important factor was an evident fear of now greater government repression. Veran Matic, president of the Association of independent electronic media and the head of Radio B-92, which against all odds continued with its broadcast, talks for NIJ about all thes e issues, and of course, about the overall media situation in Serbia.

Q: Authorities banned Radio B2-92 program for the fourth time in the last ten years. However, you somehow managed to go on with producing information program. How do you do it?

A: Radio B2-92, that is B-92, as our radio was called until the government took it away, has been functioning for years in extreme conditions, partly as a virtual media - an institution which doesn't have its permanent residence because of the constant threat of ban. We have always been functioning in several different variants and that is why it was possible for us to be banned four times in ten years. If we hadn't functioned that way, we would have been banned only once and would have never again appeared on air. It was the fact that we had decided rather long ago that we shouldn't let to be banned that we created concepts which enabled us to broadcast our program even in the gravest situation. We were helped by new technology. Only few hours after the most recent occupation of our premises and confiscation of technical equipment, we started the production of information program and its distribution over satellites and Internet. What is more important is that our information ram is re-broadcast by 30 radio stations all over Serbia, all of them being members of the Association of independent electronic media (ANEM). It is, on the other hand, a certain paradox since radio station from Belgrade can be heard by people from inner Serbia, but not those living in Belgrade, except the ones who have satellite receivers, and there are not many of them in such a poor country.

Q: Do you fear that the regime will ban broadcast of your program as it is now?

A : As long as there is a regime headed by Slobodan Milosevic and his clique, we will always be in situation that something bad can happen to us. Even now , after we have been occupied, we are under not only verbal pressure but also threatened by arrest and imprisonment. That could even be the mildest penalty now, since we could fare far worse, according to our previous experience and present rhetoric. That is the fate of objective and professional journalism in Serbia so that we can expect new bans during the next couple of days. Few days ago we celebrated 11 years of our officially "non-existent" radio station, and we can see that they banned something that doesn't exist. Today, such thing is possible only in Serbia, but we will not allow them to silence us.

Q : How would you comment on the opposition actions after the newest wave of repression in Serbia?

A: Actions which the opposition tries to coordinate into some kind of serious project are the true image of what opposition parties represent in this society. Few months ago when there had been some serious estimates that Studio B would be occupied, opposition swore that, if that would be the case, it would organize large demonstrations immediately and would not leave the streets until the station is returned to the Belgrade citizens.

However, during first two days of demonstrations which were organized because of overtaking Studio B, we could see a lot of tactical moves, negative energy and impossibility to unite all those protests into one - fight for democratic changes on all levels, not just media. When we speak of relatively mild reactions on Studio B case, we mustn't forget that in this moment, thanks to ANEM, the inside of Serbia is better informed than Belgrade, so that residents of the Serbian capital phone their friends in the inner Serbia to find out what is happening in Belgrade. However, relationship between opposition leaders are still the main problem. For example, the government recently confiscated transmitter from local TV station, an ANEM member, in Kraljevo.

Coalition Together (that is still functioning in that town as opposed to the Belgrade headquarters) joined spontaneous citizens' protest and all united their forces. Such attitude made the ruling coalition to return confiscated equipment to Kraljevo TV station and to issue it a broadcast license. That is much harder to achieve in Belgrade since here there was the first strike to coalition's unity when three years ago, few months after local elections which the opposition parties had won, Serbian revival movement took complete control over the city council and removed then mayor and coalition partner Zoran Djindjic, president of Democratic party. Since something like that happened, it is hard to suppose that the same Djindjic will bring himself into fight for Studio B, despite the fact that the opposition has been once again working together for five months. I think that this problem could be alleviated by proclaiming city council people's council so that it could be rightly called the council of all Belgrade citizens. Opposition leaders who hold daily meetings in the city council due to this new situation should rule this city, where they have some kind of government, in a constructive way and solve everyday problems. That would make conditions for the real opposition unity and party leaders could return the trust of citizens who would in turn support demonstrations against the regime in much greater number than now and would accept the call for civil disobedience. Most citizens in Serbia is against this government, but the problem is that they have no faith in the opposition parties.

Q: You pointed at the fruitlessness of the opposition and now greater apathy of the citizens. In such light, how would you comment on the evident nervousness of the authorities, which manifests not only in shutdown of independent media, but also with arrests and physical violence of police over the opposition supporters?

A: It is very difficult to get information about what is really going on in the ruling coalition. We can only describe what we hear from some our sources and they say that there is a serious detoriation within the government. There are many fights and problems, and some of them are caused by EU sanctions against regime officials and persons close to the government. They cannot move their money from the private bank account abroad and there is, of course, ban on travels to EU countries. The ban is valid not only for politicians but also, which is more important to regime, for businessmen close to government. Many of them feel that this regime cannot last long. Also, there is now a great deal of terror within the government itself, and that instills fear not only in regime representatives but also in common citizens. I think that the basic reason for the nervousness of the authorities lies in the fact that this system simply cannot function anymore with this degree of separation from the rest of the world and with terror within the regime. Yet, international community doesn't have any serious strategy for fight against this government or serious help program for democratic opposition and that is a great encouragement to the regime. Also, neither the opposition has a vision, the serious vision of how to peacefully change the government and return the trust of the citizens who are tired of ten years of fruitless opposition parties' actions and their constant internal struggles. All these factors compensate for evident erosion of the government and enable it to survive.

Q: At recent meeting in Brussels, organized by International federation of journalists (IFJ), international community announced that it will help independent media in Serbia. What can be expected in the near future?

A: International community cannot save us, and that goes both for opposition and independent media, since they have completely isolated this area and Milosevic's regime. He doesn't have much choice, the only option is the Hague and I don't believe that anyone, at his point, can open negotiations with Milosevic - and trade his departure to Hague for something else. Thanks to double isolation independent media experience here, even when we receive some kind of help we cannot use it since we have our hands tied.

It is the aid that only enables us to survive, barely. Situation is now extreme since there was never such a level of repression and we need more support from abroad which is impossible. At this time, all depends on how will resistance be created here, in Serbia. If it fails, there will be no help. International community cannot use artificial revival, the most important issue is whether opposition parties will succeed in articulating their unity and resistance program to Milosevic's regime in the right way. If that doesn't happen, there is no program that can help independent media on a long-term basis.

pubished by: STINA news agency
The Network of Independent Journalists for Central and Eastern Europe - Weekly service
Issue No. 176. - June 2, 2000.
phone/fax: ++ 385 21 347 121, 357 040, 591 581
E - mail: stina@zamir.net  stina@st.tel.hr

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