ANEM WEEKLY MEDIA UPDATE

AUGUST 1 - AUGUST 3, 2001

• PARLIAMENT PROBE INTO CIGARETTE SMUGGLING RACKETS

PODGORICA, August 1, 2001 - The Montenegrin parliament will decide Tuesday whether to set up a committee to investigate media claims that top-rank officials in the republic are involved in cigarette smuggling. MPs from across the political spectrum are expected to back the move to probe the reports by Croatian weekly Nacional. Montenegrin president Milo Djukanovic has already announced that he and the republic of Montenegro have brought criminal charges against the journalists in question. (SRNA)

• DAN NEWSPAPER DENIES DJINDJIC'S STATEMENT

PODGORICA, August 1, 2001 - Podgorica-based daily Vijesti wrote that Federal Prime Minister Dragisa Pesic ought to take away the printing works mandate from the company Yu Medija Mont, in which he owns 33 percent of the capital, and to collect the debt of 800,000 German marks this company owes for its printing paper. The owners of the Yu Medija Mont Company are Dragisa Pesic, Dusko Jovanovic and Mladen Milutinovic. Democratic Party members maintained that the Federal Directorate for Commodity Reserves had given the printing works and the printing paper from the printing house Matroz to Dan free of charge, during the time when the Momir Bulatovic administration had been in power. According to Jovanovic, the accusations of the Democratic Party were only a political harangue, organised by some previous arrangement together with the Montenegrin authorities, because Dan was the only independent opposition daily newspaper in Montenegro and Serbia. Dan accused Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic of picking apart the daily because it was the only newspaper that published the criticisms and even negative assessments of his work. Dan's editing committee responded that to the Democratic Party criticisms by explaining that they had gotten the printing paper during the NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia because, due to the complete blockade at that time, the printing paper could not be obtained anywhere except from the Federal Directorate for Commodity Reserves. According to Dan's statement, many other newspapers also had gotten their printing paper through the same channel at that time. Dan's editing committee concluded: "Let everybody return what they got. The things we got for our defence of the country, and everything Djindjic got for breaking up Yugoslavia."

• DEMOCRATIC PARTY DENIES SUSA'S CLAIMS, SUSA FIRES BACK

BELGRADE, August 1, 2001 - The Democratic Party denied journalist Gordana Susa's statement yesterday that the Democratic Party had participated in the cancellation of the competition for the position of editor-in-chief of the Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) News Programmes. "We invite Gordana Susa, if she wants to play the brave and independent journalist, to be brave all the way through and to publicly announce the name of the person that, in her opinion, is guilty for her not having been elected the editor-in-chief of the RTS News Programmes. One cannot be brave by representing somebody's responsibility as a collective responsibility, and by saying around that everybody was guilty," Democratic Party members wrote in their statement. They added they would not let anybody besmirch their party's name without a single tangible proof. Gordana Susa responded to this by citing a part of the statement by RTS general director Aleksandar Crkvenjakov that Susa had not become the editor-in-chief of the RTS News Programmes not because she didn't have the necessary support of the Democratic Party of Serbia, but because she didn't have either the support of RTS employees or support from the other political parties. "Let's put aside the fact that Crkvenjakov has now denied what he himself said, and I spoke about that in the press conference, mentioning the exact names of some people, as well as the exact names of some of the representatives of your political party in the Serbian Government, who had told me that the Democratic Party of Serbia was the main obstacle in choosing me for editor-in-chief. Your malicious comment is not appropriate to a democracy-orientated political party, and I will also remind you that you had not considered it to be an act when you invited me to make a speech in the public demonstrations on March 9, during the citizens' protests in 1996 and in 1997, as well as in 2000, when the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia and I personally, took an active part in the actions of the resistance against repression," Susa told press. (Beta)

• KOSTUNICA'S PARTY BACKING BOJANA LEKIC

BELGRADE, August 1, 2001 - The Democratic Party of Serbia pans to support Bojana Lekic for the position of editor-in-chief of the Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) News Programmes, Belgrade daily Blic learnt from Democratic Party of Serbia leaders. The Democratic Party of Serbia considered it unfair to officially announce that the position of RTS editor-in-chief would be offered to Bojana Lekic because nobody from the party had been able to discuss that with her yet, since she was in the United States at the time, Blic reported.

• COMMITTEE FOR ESTABLISHING THE TRUTH ON NACIONAL CLAIMS

PODGORICA, August 1, 2001 - The Montenegrin Parliament founded a committee yesterday evening to establish the truth about the allegations in Croatian newspaper Nacional that Montenegrin officials were involved in Balkans cigarettes smuggling. >From the sixty-three representatives of Socialist People's Party in the Parliament, sixty-one voted for establishing the committee. The representatives of the Serbian People's Party abstained from voting. The committee was given the mandate to investigate whether any Montenegrin officials had been involved in the cigarettes smuggling in the Balkans, as Nacional claimed. They should also discover "the secret channels" for tobacco trafficking, the mandate ordered. Within three months from today, the Montenegrin Parliament should receive the commission's report, which is to be published in the Official Gazette of Montenegro. The Socialist People's Party whip Vuksan Simonovic will preside over the work of the committee. (Beta)

• "YUGOSLAV ARMY KNEW RTS BUILDING WOULD BE BOMBED"

BELGRADE, August 2, 2001 - Zanka Stojanovic, mother of Nebojsa Stojanovic, who was killed during the 1999 bombing of Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) headquarters, told Radio B92 that she had information that the Yugoslav Army had decoded the message from Avian that the state-run television headquarters would be bombed. "I know that one man who worked in the military operational centre in Podgorica received and decoded the message, and then he handed it over to the Operational Centre in Belgrade. I do not know his real name. I don't know his address. The moment I learn that, I will inform the public about that," she said. NATO Secretary-Genera; George Robertson has evaded giving an explicit answer to Zanka Stojanovic's question in a letter she sent him January this year whether NATO had informed the former Yugoslav government that the RTS television building would be bombed. Zanka Stojanovic told Radio B92 that George Robertson's answer was like a fairy tale for very young children, because he hadn't answered a single question she had posed to him: "I asked him whether he was aware of the crime he had committed, whether he was feeling guilty about it, what he would do to somebody if they had killed his child… a few days ago he said that Mr. Milosevic should be honest about that, and say the truth. I begin to suspect that the two of them had some kind of agreement," Zanka Stojanovic said. In his response to the letter by Zanka Stojanovic, dated July 25, also sent to Beta news agency, Robertson wrote that he was not feeling guilty for the bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, when he had been the British Defence Minister. He expressed his regrets about the people having been wounded and killed, and especially because the employees of Radio Television of Serbia were killed, but said that the NATO had tried to do everything they could to avoid killing of the civilians. "Every target was carefully considered before it was attacked, including the aspect of their legal acceptability," Robertson wrote. Zanka Stojanovic sent a similar letter in June to Jamie Sheen, who was a NATO spokesman during their bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.

• DJINDJIC DENIES SUSA'S ACCUSATIONS

BELGRADE, August 2, 2001 - The Democratic Party had absolutely nothing to do with the choice of the candidates for the position of editor-in-chief of Radio Television of Serbia (RTS), Serbian prime minister and party leader Zoran Djindjic said Wednesday evening. Gordana Susa, the president of the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia, has publicly criticised the Democratic Party, with the intention of making "a certain symmetry between the political parties", and in order to avoid to say openly what had really happened in connection with her candidacy for the position of the editor-in-chief of the RTS News Programmes, Djindjic said, appearing as a guest on the RTS programme "Otvoreni studio" (The Open Studio"). "In fact, let Ms. Susa step up and tell everyone what the truth is, and who told her what," Djindjic said, and denied his party has had anything to do with the whole affair. (FoNet)

• FORMER RTS DIRECTOR MILANOVIC CHARGED

BELGRADE, August 3, 2001 - After a six-month investigation, the Belgrade District Prosecutor's Office brought a criminal charge against Dragoljub Milanovic, the former general director of Radio Television of Serbia (RTS). Milanovic is charged with committing a criminal act against public safety during the night between April 23, and April 24, 1999, when NATO bombed the RTS television headquarters, killing 16 RTS employees. This crime involves a prison sentence of up to fifteen years.

• MEDIA HAVE NOT BEEN FREED FROM THE POLITICAL PRESSURES

NOVI SAD, August 3, 2001 - Acting general director of Television Novi Sad Aleksandar Kravic said that the Democratic Opposition of Serbia had not kept their pre-election promise that the media would be freed from the political pressures. "The political consensus and decision making in some of the centres of power outside the Television still represents the continuation of practices from the previous period. Radio Television of Serbia resembles a giant dying dinosaur, around which a battle is going on about who will be the one that will control him, although it is on the verge of being dead," Kravic told the Novi Sad daily Dnevnik.

• CRIMINAL PROCEDURES AGAINST NACIONAL NOT YET BEGUN

ZAGREB, August 3, 2001 - Radovan Otrinski, the Croatian public prosecutor, has not yet approved the initiation of the criminal proceedings against the four journalists of the daily Nacional, on the grounds of insulting Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic and the state of Montenegro. According to his deputy, Dragan Novosel, in order to carry out such a procedure, it was necessary to obtain the permission from the state of Montenegro to carry out such a legal proceedings before the Croatian court. However, Novosel pointed out that it was also necessary to solve the uncertainty pertaining the question whether Montenegro was a kind of state to which the provisions of the Criminal Act of Croatia on Protection of Reputation of a Foreign State and its President could be applied. The criminal charge was brought against the daily Nacional on the grounds of the articles in which the Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic had been mentioned in connection with the cigarette smuggling in the Balkans.

• CRKVENJAKOV ON THE RADIO TELEVISION OF SERBIA COMPETITION

BELGRADE, August 3, 2001 - "I was appointed by the Government, and my duty is to hear all the relevant factors in this country. In those discussions and consultations, which are much more comprehensive than those of the Democratic Party and than the Democratic Party of Serbia, nobody has expressed any objections to the journalistic or political profile of Goradana Susa, but the uncertainty concerning her managerial capabilities have been expressed," Aleksander Crkvenjakov said in the press conference held on the premises of the future RTS news programmes editing committee on Abardareva Street. He added that the editor-in-chief of Radio Television of Serbia should be a person who could be at their disposal twenty-four hours a day, who had no other commitments to some other organisation, or in some independent production, and who was capable of communicating with everybody present in the political scene. "The competition for the position of editor-in-chief of the news programmes was not a competition for the position of a columnist, and it was even less suited for somebody who owns a private production. Besides the candidates' professional profile, we considered their organisational abilities, too. Gordana Susa was in the editorial position for two months after October 5, and then she simply resigned. People asked me to present some guarantees that she would not do that again. Gordana Susa is also the first problem concerning which even the members of the Board of Directors took different sides, and that hasn't happened until now. She made the story of her being a victim of the political pressures public, while the members of the Board of Directors who were against accepting her for this position were asked to explain publicly why they did so. Isn't that exactly what political pressure is," Crkvenjakov concluded rhetorically.

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