United States Institute of Peace
"Virtual Diplomacy: The Global Communications Revolution and International Conflict Management" Washington, DC, April 1-2, 1997

INTERNET AND DICTATORSHIP

Fighting Slobodan Milosevic with the Web

by Veran Matic, editor in chief of Radio B92, Belgrade

"We do not need the virtual reality helmet in Serbia today." Statement made by one Western diplomat in Belgrade

Slobodan Milosevic initiated a series of so-called changes at the end of the 80s with tragic consequences; he convinced the Serbs that he was the first man in Eastern Europe to introduce change, then he managed to persuade them that they were a threatened people within Yugoslavia and finally he convinced them that they should go to war because of that.

The broadcast of this virtuality via powerful state networks continues today. However, it is now easier to demystify and thus de legitimize the Government. This was the result of more than a hundred consecutive days of civic protest.

Radio B92's motto is "Don't believe anybody, don't even believe us" (1991). The motto was made when the majority of our listeners began to trust our information blindly - simply because we were one of a very limited number of sources of alternative and objective information. We wanted to avoid a situation where we would be able to manipulate those who trusted us, as this would just mirror state misinformation. That is why we adopted our motto.

But the motto is also applicable in the other extreme; Western societies are saturated with information, which frequently means the distinction between the important and unimportant becomes blurred. Our motto, in this context, would remind people of the need to be alert and maintain a distance at all times. If they do not do so, people risk falling into the trap of generalization, superficiality, cynicism and over-simplification, the frequent result of globalization in the media, media systems and news where profit wins over journalistic standards.

As Jean Baudrillard says "The power of the 'virtual' is only virtual." In Serbia, this definition should rather read: "The power of the 'virtual' is real power." Jean Baudrillard would find resonance in this interpretation should he have been granted a visa to visit Serbia several years ago.

Radio B92 operated for 7 years without an official state permit. With a highly professional radio program whose basic aim was to promote civil society, human rights, peace and democracy, B92 has managed to expand into related media: TV production, publishing, the production of alternative cultural happenings in its cultural Centre, CD and cassette production.

The Radio's work in the area of the Internet intensified in 1995 in cooperation with the Foundation for an Open Society. We were the first Internet provider in Yugoslavia (Opennet). Our initial aim was to prevent our authoritarian government from establishing a monopoly in this sector. This was a real threat, even if the Serbian President and his wife were, at the time, inducing "the virtual" in the classic media. (They often consult astrologists and fortune-tellers as a form of "virtual communications".)

Opennet was used to serve both the NGO sector and the independent media. And so we achieved out chief goal - the prevention of state monopoly in the world of 'virtual' information.

Radio B92 established its own home page as a part of the project; that page was selected as The USA Today's web site of the week and was the one of 150,000 web sites world wide to receive the five-star Luckmann award.

B92's philosophy is that every idea must also be backed up with concrete assistance: in this case, it is our news service Odraz B92, which is distributed throughout Yugoslavia and the world via a server in the US. Odraz B92 was intended to cater for the hundreds of thousands of young people who left the country because they were unwilling to participate in the war. The idea was to create new links with them in the hope that they will one day return. Yugoslavia's lost generation have the advantage of having lived in democratic countries all over the world and are untainted by years of war-mongering propaganda. Their contribution to society is badly needed here.

We were among the first in Eastern Europe to put our magazines on the Internet ('Rec' and 'ProFemina'). Opennet was also designed as an education Centre, and as the first medium to be completely open to all citizens who wished to communicate. Thus, a large number of young people now have the benefit of an Internet education. During a summer course on "Unix and the Internet", one of the participants, Jaroslav Blagojevic, competed in the world's Information Technology Olympics and won the golden medal.

When the demonstrations in Serbia began, we realized the key importance of providing information at the international level and immediately started to translate our news into English and distribute it free of charge throughout the world (the format of our news presentation is easily transferable to the newspaper format). We supplied our news team with native English speakers and began a daily 10-minute news broadcast in English on our radio program. (Real Audio?) It was then that our radio started to be stifled; a much more powerful transmitters than ours began to jam our frequency, reducing B92's coverage to 20%. We, rightly, took this as a clear sign that someone was preparing to ban Radio B92, in spite of the obvious converse effect the jamming was having on the level of popular support for the radio and public opposition to the government; every day more and more people were on the streets of Belgrade.

As became clear the moment the radio was shut down in December, Radio B92 was not only a rare source of independent information on the demonstrations, but had also become an integral part of the civic protest. Radio B92 therefore began to prepare a campaign of self-defense. As we were already well prepared for international media attention we rapidly became the focus of the hundreds of reporters' and correspondents' who were in Belgrade. Most of them started their day's work with a visit to the Radio. This represented, in the foreground, a firm basis for media solidarity.

The second major challenge was to prepare "alternative" means of broadcasting our programmes and news - which was essential if we were to hold public attention and sustain morale within the radio. The most convenient way was to broadcast our 24-hour radio program via the Internet. We planned to transport the program, in this form, out of the country in order to return it back to the Yugoslav region via a transmitter in a neighboring country. Within 24 hours, we had made agreements with the Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe (RFE), and later on with the Deutsche Welle (DW) to rebroadcast our program via their waves. The VOA's permission to allow another radio station to use their waves is unprecedented. The B92 drama was a high-profile media event in the US. and the Federal Republic of Germany, putting these stations in the limelight.

Next we launched a daily (printed) bulletin in Belgrade with circulation of some 30 thousand copies. The Internet news we were distributing abroad was sent back to the country via fax and was then read out on a daily basis at the protest rallies before hundreds of thousands of protesters. Since there was a threat that distribution via the Internet might be prevented by blocking our telephone lines, we prepared a back-up solution - to broadcast the program via satellite phone - and also back-up transmitters at several secret locations throughout the city to enable the pirate broadcast of our programmes. Two radio stations situated inland in Serbia, and one in Montenegro, rebroadcast our programmes via phone. This was backed up by the alternative solution of distributing the program to them via the Internet, so that they could subsequently rebroadcast it.

Then Internew's (French organisation) installed a satellite TV link with Belgrade. This equipment was stored at the premises of Internet B92 from where a variety of TV links with politicians, representatives of human rights and free speech NGOs, artists and other guests were established. This prompted us to try to use the Internet in a similar way. However, so far we have not been able to obtain the necessary equipment to do this even though it would be an extremely important means of support for the development of independent TV stations throughout the FR Yugoslavia.

Our hard work paid off. 24 hours after Radio B92 was banned more people than ever could hear our program via the VOA, RFE and DW. Thanks to the Internet, our programming was not disrupted and at any moment 20 to 30.000 people world-wide were listening to, viewing or distributing our Internet news, while our reports and statements had become relevant sources on the CNN Website.

In his opening speech at the London conference, UN High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina, and notorious Internet-fiend, Carl Bildt mentioned Radio B92 no less than 22 times. Provoked by Mr. Bildt's comments to defend his government, Yugoslav Foreign Minister Milan Milutinovic told Channel 4 the same day that B92 had banned itself. The next day Serbian state television switched the B92 transmitter back on explaining that in fact no one had banned Radio B92, and the 'disruption' was the result of 'water in the coaxial cable of the transmitter'.

Immediately after Radio B92 went back on air the station was legalized, 7 years after it was founded. About the same time, The New York Times carried a front page story entitled "Internet Saves Protests in Serbia" (December 8, 1996). The Internet and our network of solidarity made censorship and the ban nonsensical, and the repressive regime powerless.

Today B92 still cannot obtain a permit to broadcast throughout Serbia - ist broadcast is limited to Belgrade. We remain unable to obtain a permit for a satellite broadcast either. However, a daily 3-hour broadcast of our program via satellite will begin in a matter of days. It will be carried by some 10 local radio stations. Thus we shall, in spite of everything, be able to cover about 80% of the territory of Serbia. This would be the first serious attempt to stand up on a national level to state-media dissemination of lies, hatred and violence who, at present, have a monopoly of nation-wide coverage. We shall overcome such state restrictions by transporting our programmes via the Internet or phone to London. From there our partners will put it on a satellite and send it back to the Balkans. Thus, even radio stations in neighboring countries will be able to listen to, and rebroadcast, our program. Our programmes about refugees, war criminals and the reconstruction of Bosnia add particular importance to this project. We have already established contacts with several stations interested in this, especially from Bosnia and Herzegovina. We see this as part of our contribution to the implementation of the Dayton accords. In addition to this, we are continuing with preparations for satellite TV. It is far more expensive than a radio network and we need to involve many more partners. (But it is not the first time we have tried to achieve the 'impossible'.)

When we first approached funders in 1994 and 1995 with the request to support the development of our Internet program, the response was negative. They explained that the technology was too sophisticated for us. They probably thought "the appropriate technology" for us was bongos. Without any disrespect for the importance and capacity of the bongo, or whistles, trumpets and saucepans for that matter, I think that the Internet model of self-defense, both for Radio B92 and the right to freedom of information in general, has a high probability for success as a new form of resistance to authoritarian regimes.

The Internet has become the key to the successful functioning of the NGO sector. Mr. Soros was among the first to realize this and to expand the Internet network in Eastern Europe. In order for East-West communication to be possible and effective, we must be familiar with the latest tools of communication. It is therefore essential to prepare long-term programmes for the development of the Internet. Long-term aid is essential to us, because our work with the Internet in the sphere of independent journalism will remain non-commercial in the FR Yugoslavia for the enforceable future.

Radio B92 has years of experience in the tactical use of the classic media. But because we also used the Internet and continued to keep abreast of new technological possibilities in the field of communications we were able to stay alive even when the government was trying to silence us completely. If we are to meet society's need for independent information we must be able to embrace new technology and implement our ideas with speed.

Such new technology includes teleconferences on the Internet, RealVideo and phone communication with the listeners. Each of these services should be defined as a tactical and meaningful leap for the Radio program, and so must be accompanied with continuous and quality-assured technological support. For that we need a considerably broader band-width from our provider, as well as speedy and constant access to quality software and hardware. We also need satellite links and the necessary frequencies to support these. We need powerful graphic servers which could be connected to the system of multimedia communications on the Internet for local and global networks and presentations, satellite receiver antennas for local networks and user and digital telephone lines connected to the world.

We can repay you with experiences such as these, which may help to design self-defense models in similar situations of media repression. There is a great need for such models as much of the world's population still lives in a closed society, isolated from world developments and trends and thus extremely vulnerable to political manipulation.

It is our aim, via the Internet, our experience and good-will, to try and open up these societies and communities. That would make for a safer, more peaceful and democratic world for us all to live in.

To conclude, I believe the readiness and openness of a society can be measured according to whether or not it views the Internet as a completely open medium for all.

As Belgrade has now become a free city, we are also endeavoring to make it a digital city by initiating the establishment of terminals for Internet communication at different locations, in particular at the City Council. We have already turned the American Cultural Centre in Belgrade into an Internet Centre in a joint project with the USIS.

At present, the Internet is one of the cheapest tools to open up society; it provides a wide range of information, conferences, and it can also be used for self-education through entertainment (or 'edu-tainment'). The aim is to make as many issues, situations and events accessible to the general public as possible.

We also plan to propose to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that they provide free access to satellite channels so that those countries where the leasing of frequencies to the independent media is restricted, and in those threatened by conflicts, can broadcast TV and radio programmes. We would ask the same for Internet communication. Electronic media can then in this sense be preventative. But it must be backed up by a prompt warning response. Such a response is only possible if ready access to channels, whose purpose is also to provide alternative information, already exists.

An Dutch friend of mine who is an anarchist was dumbfounded when he heard that "the VOA, that old machinery for disseminating propaganda, was in the case of B92 put to the defense of democracy." Another paradox is that the Internet was devised at the Pentagon and in this, and many other cases, has been used for the defense of the freedom of information.

Numerous multimedia services appear daily on the market and have almost a parallel development. The Internet has sucked in a vast majority of these products, shaping them with its own fate. Multimedia products have been promoted for quite a while now as the ideological basis for huge corporations to enter the Internet market (and vice versa), especially in the sphere of advertising. But at least so far, the Internet has managed to determine the fate of these rather than the opposite. Small and independent objects, as a rule on the margins of the Internet, have been given a multidimensional medium ideal for truly tactical use. Huge corporations, for whom the "multimedia" is intended, have as a rule failed to demonstrate the capacity to use the multimedia as anything else but as consumers.

I hope that military programmes will become increasingly civilian and that they will serve us in the struggle for the liberation of countries under totalitarian and authoritarian rules, as well as a means of preventing conflicts.

I also hope that large corporations will find it in their interest to support small, non-profit projects in the field of independent media, which are the tactical pioneers of a meaningful use of the Internet.

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