MEDIA FOCUS 5

Monitoring Period December 10 - 23, 1998

"HE WAS BRILLIANT, BRILLIANT, WHAT ELSE CAN I SAY?" RTS VIEWERS CHAMPION THEIR LEADER

A common characteristic found in all the state or pro-government media monitored during this period, as in general, was that they served as propaganda tools rather than providers of information. Their main task was to promote, vindicate and glorify official policy and, above all, the role of FRY President Slobodan Milosevic. Their role as suppliers of information was of secondary importance, for they reported the news only selectively and restrictively. Their choice of stories and their presentation was in the service of the official rhetoric.

Our continued look at these outlets reveals that in them, one propaganda campaign succeeds another. In the preceding monitoring period, their aim was to promote Belgrade's own draft agreement for Kosovo by drumming up support for the Declaration signed by Serbian President Milan Milutinovic and representatives of several local national communities in Kosovo, then to back FRY President Slobodan Milosevic by supporting the Declaration of the FRY Assembly passed as a reaction to the deterioration of relations with the United States. This campaign was succeeded by yet another, still more vigorous, for the purpose of glorifying the president’s person and his wisdom. It was launched the moment Milosevic gave a 1,700 word interview to The Washington Post which ran in a longer version in Newsweek and which was then picked up by the local media. Unlike its predecessors, the latest campaign was not triggered by any momentous move or decision at the state level. Readers in other countries, unaccustomed to local practice, would be surprised to learn that the sole purpose of the latest campaign is to give full weight to a text, i.e. an interview.

The interview first appeared locally on Sunday (Dec. 13) on five and a half pages in the daily Politika. The front-page subtitle explained that the daily was publishing a "...translation of a tape recording of the conversation in the order in which it was conducted, without systematising particular topics," although the end of the text on page 17 bore the signature "arranged by H.D.A.", which are the initials of Hadzi Dragan Antic, the daily’s director and editor-in-chief. It remains unclear what he "arranged" if what Politika published was indeed unedited text.

The daily used its usual technique of announcing events of paramount importance, i.e. by splitting the main, front-page headline into two large ones, separated by a long line and occupying no fewer than five lines altogether. The upper headline was given in larger bold type and quoted Milosevic as saying that "My duty is to safeguard the interests of my people and my country," while the second, in somewhat smaller type, read "The key to Kosmet [Kosovo] is the equality of all its national communities." The main headline was repeated across the whole p. 13, on which the interview was continued. This, as well pp. 14-16, were adorned with headlines summing up the salient points of the interview, namely "Our citizens stand trial in our country", "The press is free", "We have a market economy", "We do not arrange our country to suit the tastes of others", etc...

"WORLDWIDE INTEREST"

Soon after the publication of the interview, the state media and some independent media too carried Politika’s version (based on notes made during the interview and not representing a translation of The Washington Post interview - a fact pointed out first by Dnevni telegraf and followed by Vreme and other media). It nevertheless set into motion an avalanche of reactions from the country and abroad over the next few days.

On Dec. 14th, Politika frontpaged Tanjug’s summary of world reactions under the headline "Foreign agencies and media carry extensively parts of FRY President Slobodan Milosevic’s conversation with The Washington Post journalist". But next day, Dec. 15, The Washington Post "journalist" Lally Weymouth was promoted to "editor" to give the interview greater importance, while the expression "carry extensively" was changed to "extraordinary publicity". The front-page headline ran "Extraordinary international publicity to President Milosevic’s conversation with the editor of The Washington Post".

On p. 14, the daily began to publish the reactions of the municipal boards of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), the Yugoslav Left (JUL), the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and of "veteran" and "patriotic" organisations, headlined "Reactions of parties, associations and collectives to the interview of the FRY president with The Washington Post: Slobodan Milosevic supported in his protection of the vital interests of the country". A box announced that "President Milosevic reaffirms himself as an unflinching fighter for peace".

INTERVIEW "A SELLOUT IN SKOPJE"

The editorial introduction to the reactions (Dec. 15-16, p. 14) stressed that the viewpoints set out by Milosevic in the interview, "especially his emphasis on being proud of his role in the protection and defence of his people, and his firm conviction that the problem of Kosovo cannot be overcome by any solution imposed from abroad, continue to meet with approbation and support by numerous parties, associations and collectives in the country..." The Patriotic Alliance of Yugoslavia’s expression of support (Dec. 14) was published under the headline "The righteous, freedom-loving, and statesman-like utterance of President Milosevic". The next day, Politika carried a Tanjug despatch from Skopje under the headline "All copies of Politika sold out in Skopje" (suggesting outstanding interest for the interview in the Macedonian capital).

Radio Television Serbia (RTS) too gave most of its air time to Milosevic’s interview in its Dnevnik 2. Immediately after carrying the bulk of the interview on Sunday, Dec. 13, it ran the well-established patriotic spot "We love you, our fatherland", with footage of scenery, people and soldiers (the spot has been a regular feature in Dnevnik 2 since NATO’s made threats of air-strikes in October). Immediately afterwards, the newsreader read the first reactions.

Of 30 news reports carried by Dnevnik 2 on Dec. 14, 16 pertained to domestic and world reactions to Milosevic’s interview. That evening, the presenter started off with the following words: "We support President Milosevic, who in his interview with The Washington Post, let the United States and the whole world know that there will be no compromise or trading with regard to the national and state interests of Serbia and Yugoslavia. This has been made clear in all the reactions of citizens relayed by our reporters in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Pristina, Nis, Uzice, Leskovac, Vranje, Sabac, Sombor." The announcement was followed, one after another, by comments given during vox pop TV interviews conducted in these towns, with all 21 respondents speaking with one voice. Here is a (typical) response: "He was brilliant. He was brilliant, what else can I say, that’s the way to do it. That was the only possible reply to everything the Americans are doing to us."

THE PEOPLE SPEAK?

The next three statements were chosen by us because they raise doubts about the authenticity of the poll, namely that the respondents were not chosen at random: "Everything he said came from the mouth of a wise, conscious, worthy citizen of this country and protector of the sovereignty and integrity of our people"; "I think that the interview of President Milosevic... merely reaffirmed his continuous and consistent policy, a policy President Milosevic has pursued for years with the aim of preserving the most vital interests of the Serbs and Montenegrins", and "The interview of President Milosevic is yet another proof that the state and national interests are the cornerstone of his principled and consistent policy, a policy which safeguards the integrity of Yugoslavia and a policy which lets the world public know that no one has the right to discuss certain issues in Yugoslavia, and that no one who doesn’t belong to this people has the right to make decisions, because, among other things, the referendum on Kosovo generally makes this clear."

In its broadcast Argument vise (Dec. 14), Radio Beograd also treated Milosevic’s interview as the news of the day. Its contribution titled "Approbation and support by numerous political parties, citizens, associations and collectives for the viewpoints set out in the interview" lasted 25 minutes. All the respondents polled in several towns across Serbia spoke in unison. It also relayed international reaction to the interview without a single critical or negative remark both on that day and during the next three.

The radio station’s Nedeljom u 10 (Dec. 13) was no exception to this rule. In the broadcast on Dec. 20, Milika Sundic, introduced his commentary with the words: "The messages and morals from President Milosevic’s interview with The Washington Post represent the basis and the key for solving the problem in Kosovo." Sundic started off by observing that terrorism in Kosovo had been inadequately condemned by the US State Department "led by Madeleine Albright, who is not well-disposed towards us." He went on, as if he were a protagonist himself, to claim that if America continued to behave in this way "it will lose its credibility, as President Milosevic made clear to Richard Holbrooke..." Further on in the commentary, Sundic linked the US role in the air-strikes on Iraq and the "arbitrariness" of US policy in the Balkans, and condemned the role of international observers in Kosovo as "transparent and impudent partiality".

Dnevnik of Novi Sad on Dec. 14 carried Milosevic’s interview "given to the American newspaper The Washington Post" on pp. 1 though 6, but did not explain how it had come by it. Actually, it was the same version published by Politika. The same day, Dnevnik launched a series of "reactions to the interview of President Slobodan Milosevic with The Washington Post", drawing mainly on Tanjug texts on this topic. There was a characteristic example on Dec. 15, with Tanjug quoting an article from Magyar Hirlap of Budapest. It quoted the Hungarian paper as writing that the FRY president had "rejected the latest US plan for Kosmet, observing that the crisis ought to be solved by the people who live there themselves." The state news agency also quoted Milosevic as saying that "Albanians are good people, but their leaders are Nazis bent on an ethnically pure region" and that, unlike them, the Vojvodina Hungarians had fully adjusted themselves to the social situation in Serbia.

VOJVODINA STIRS ON THE BACK OF KOSOVO

Tanjug, a reliable government filter, passed over two relevant facts in silence. First, that the article in Magyar Hirlap was actually a report by its correspondent in Novi Sad, who retold the version of the interview as presented in Politika, and Dnevnik. It also failed to mention (whether by accident?) that the Hungarian newspaper, in its reaction to Milosevic’s observation about the "well-adjusted Vojvodina Hungarians", recalled the position of the currently most influential party of the Vojvodina Hungarians, the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians (SVM), that "it is impermissible to seek solutions to problems concerning only ethnic communities living in Kosovo." Magyar Hirlap also wrote, and Tanjug failed to report, that the "SVM will soon make public its draft concept for Vojvodina’s self-government, in response to the concept proposed by the Serbian Government to solve the minority problem in Kosovo, and that the SVM considers that the problems of the Kosovo and Vojvodina minorities ought to be solved in parallel..." In other words, Tanjug’s correspondent carried the "reaction" of the Budapest paper in a tendentious, fragmentary manner, ignoring its crucial point.

In common with the other pro-government media, Dnevnik did not give any hint of the form in which the interview appeared in The Washington Post, nor carry any reactions from Montenegro, NATO, etc.

The pro-government Podgorica daily Pobjeda published on Dec. 14 a summary of the interview on its front page under a somewhat ironical headline although it was a quote from the interview, namely "Serbia is the most democratic country in the world". Next day, on p. 5, it published Montenegrin parliamentary party reactions under the headline "The chief’s idea of democracy". It omitted only the reaction of Milosevic’s sole ally in the Montenegrin parliament, the Socialist People’s Party (SNP) of Momir Bulatovic.

KOSOVO

This last monitoring period was characterised by the largest number of fatal incidents since the signing of the Milosevic-Holbrooke agreement: 36 Albanians killed on the Yugoslav-Albanian border; six Serb youths mown down in a cafe in Pec; the deputy mayor of the municipality of Kosovo Polje assassinated...

International mediators were accused of partiality by both sides, though local politicians could not boast unreserved support from their co-nationals either. The fact that Ibrahim Rugova received the European Parliament’s annual human rights award "Sakharov " for his role in the quest for a peaceful solution to the conflict in Kosovo was either ignored or described by the Belgrade state media as a "moral collapse of the international community". On the other side, the Pristina Albanian-language daily Koha ditore cynically presented the news on a page full of violence reports from Kosovo (Dec. 17, p. 5).

A "Peace March" by Kosovo Serbs, headed by, among others, Momcilo Trajkovic, a leading Milosevic opponent and chairman of the Serbian Resistance Movement (SRM), was passed over in silence by the Belgrade state media, whereas Kosova sot, the Albanian-language paper, described Trajkovic's gesture as a "propaganda trick of the Serbian authorities". (Dec. 11, p. 7).

SEVERAL VERSIONS OF THE TRUTH

The parallel worlds of the Albanian and Serbian political institutions and their parallel interpretations of the same events in Kosovo and Metohija can produce nothing but parallel ideas of the reality in the minds of the divided Albanian and Serb publics who rely solely on their respective local media. The trouble is, they are presented with several "true" versions of an event. Instead of being given hard facts, both groups are offered "ready-made" interpretations believed to be the most appropriate for the moment in question.

On December 15, six Serb youths were riddled with bullets from an automatic rifle in the cafe "Panda" in Pec. The incident set a precedent in Kosovo, for up to then, with the exception of attacks on individuals, civilians in general had been relatively safe in urban environments.

THE KILLINGS IN PEC: POINT COUNTERPOINT

Politika published a series of reactions to the killing of six Serb youths in the Pec cafe, which took place a couple of days after the Milosevic interview, but it did that in such a way as to fuse the two into a story whose morals might be summed as follows: The Americans hate the Serbs and support the terrorist Albanians, the terrorist Albanians are taking advantage of this to do us harm, their sole purpose being to wrest Kosovo from us.

The implication was plain enough in the headlines themselves but was especially prominent in a series of commentaries published during the week by Radivoje Petrovic, the daily’s regular interpreter of state policy. More profuse than in previous weeks, he wrote three large commentaries (Dec. 11 to 16), of which one, headlined "The ominous messages of the Pec massacre" (Dec. 16, p. 15), contained the following lines:

"If there are still people here or abroad who are not fully aware of what the Shiptar separatists are prepared to do in the name of their holy separatist aims, then they should take their cue from the latest massacre of the Serb youths who had not yet come of age... The price of international political exhibitionism and of Shiptar separatist manipulations is getting too high and... dangerously undermines the pronounced co operative attitude of the Serbian and Yugoslav authorities... For this reason, a cool head and a wise attitude towards this criminal act is more necessary than ever before, because it is clear even to political laymen that so brutal an act betrays the far-reaching designs of those who would like to split Serbia in half, to behead Yugoslavia, and to provoke civil war in these parts... Those well-informed about the situation in the southern Serbian province are ready to agree that the Pec massacre was, among other things, a specific separatist reaction to the constructive and peaceful messages of President Milosevic in his interview... The conviction and soundness of the arguments presented (by Milosevic) to the US public with regard to a solution in Kosmet had to be at least absorbed by this bloody separatist scenario in Pec..."

The Pristina Serbian-language daily Jednistvo reported the incident on the first page next day, Dec. 16. The author, D. Babic, described it without quoting any of the survivors, cited a police report mentioning the empty bullet cases found on the spot and indicating a Chinese-made weapon, and a priori attributed the slaughter to "Shiptar terrorists."

The Albanian-language press treated the incident equally superficially, but gave it second-rate treatment and drew opposite conclusions. Thus, Kosova sot published its brief article on p. 8, suggesting a shoot-out between rival gangs. Bujku for its part frontpaged its article, but focused on the atmosphere in Pec in the wake of the incident under the headline "Killers unknown, Albanians blamed and harassed". Koha ditore reported the incident on the bottom of p. 4, citing "Serb radio" as its source. Next to that was a much larger article alleging that in Pec Serbs hurled stones at verifiers’ vehicles, and quoting Richard Huckaby, KDOM spokesman, as saying he had seen people in the yards shooting in the air. Next day, Dec. 17, the Albanian-language press gave the incident more coverage. It focused on a statement issued by the office of Adem Demaqi, KLA political representative, which suggests that the killing was the work of the Serbian regime "in order to sow hatred and conflict between the two peoples, and to compromise the KLA and its just liberation struggle in the eyes of the world."

"SERBS RESPONSIBLE FOR KILLING THEIR OWN"

A headline in Koha ditore ran "the KLA has nothing to do with the Pec incident" and an article in the same issue alleged that "there will never be peace in this town". Describing the situation in the town following the killings, the daily claimed that OSCE observers had been absent from it all day because previously "Serb citizens carried out several attacks on their cars". The daily’s investigation into the incident, which had set the whole town on edge, was summed up in the speculation of a certain Sabriu, who was quoted as saying, "It is suspected that they were killed by a policeman’s son. He took his father’s automatic rifle and burst into the cafe. It seems that the whole thing was about a woman". On Dec. 17, Bujku published a headline "Dangerous development of the situation in Kosovo" and alleged in the article below that "armed Serb civilians are demonstrating violence in the town streets and in villages". To substantiate this, Bujku wrote that "a Serb killed an Albanian at Rausic near Pec", not mentioning the official version that a policeman, attacked by two KLA members, returned the fire and killed one of them.

RTS availed itself of the opportunity to promote the official line. Thus, the news of the tragic death of the six youths in Pec was announced by Dnevnik 2 as a pretext to announce that Serbian President Milan Milutinovic had sent condolences to the victims next of kin.

The report itself and interviews with eyewitnesses in Pec came only after this, to be followed by 20 minutes or so of reactions from various political parties and associations. These outbursts, the authorities’ favourite method of claiming massive support, were replete with expressions such as "fascist and genocidal" and calls for the "annihilation of the Albanian terrorist bands". They continued next day. This abuse of a tragic event for political purposes was crowned on Dec. 17, with the reading of a statement of the Socialist Party of Montenegro, the bitter rival of Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic. The party’s comment on the absence of an expected avalanche of condemnations in the Montenegrin media ran as follows: "The fact that the (Djukanovic) regime and the (Montenegrin) regime media passed over that odious massacre with heir heads bowed and in silence bears out their passionate devotion to the separatist, anti-Yugoslav policy and their well-disposed attitude towards Albanian terrorism and its protagonists."

The tragedy in Pec was treated in a similar manner by the Belgrade daily Politika, which relies more and more on commentaries on, and reactions to, events than to the events themselves. It announced the killing at the bottom of p. 1 and continued the report on the relatively unimportant p. 18. But next day, Dec. 12, it reserved pp. 15-17 to reactions of "citizens, parties, and associations." During the next three days too, (Dec. 17-19), the reactions were bunched together on pp. 15 and 16, but this time Politika published only those of the local boards of parties and organisations close to the government. Another characteristic of these "reactions" was the condemnation of US policy and internal enemies, and calls for an energetic action to suppress terrorism.

On Thursday, Dec 17, Politika published on p. 15 a boxed letter to President Milosevic from a Pec mother, saying, "Our confidence in you as president, patriot and parent commits you to protect our children... Among the wailing of the mothers from the foothills of the (nearby) Prokletije Mountains, I implore you once again to put down terrorism uncompromisingly. This can be endured no more." On Friday, Dec. 18, Politika carried a despatch of the news agency Tanjug stating that "members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Serbia have arrested three terrorists... who, as co-perpetrators, took part in the terrorist attack on the cafe in Pec."

It was added that the police had "mounted a pursuit of the following terrorists (nine names given)." Nowhere in the despatch was there any mention of any "suspects", only condemnations in advance of a trial. The despatch did not cite that during the widespread police investigation, encompassing the whole of western Kosovo, Albanian sources had reported raids on Albanian houses and harassment of their inhabitants.

"ALBANIAN-ALBANIAN" BORDER INCIDENT

There was another example of different treatment of the same event. In a yet another clash between Yugoslav border guards and armed Albanians trying to cross into Yugoslavia, 36 Albanians were killed, 12 wounded and nine arrested on the two countries’ border on Dec. 14. The scene was visited by members of the OSCE verifying mission. The dead wore KLA uniforms and carried modern weapons.

Jedinstvo of Pristina headlined its report on Dec. 15 as "Intrusion of Shiptar terrorists foiled" and pointed out, without giving the source, that the border guards, who had been attacked from Albania, suffered no casualties. That day, the same event was frontpaged by Bujku, Koha ditore and Kosova sot, quoting several sources including Serbs, but largely playing down the Albanian casualties. Bujku wrote it "learned unofficially that all the wounded were civilians". Next day, Dec. 16, however the headlines pained a different picture: "31 Albanians killed from an ambush" (Koha ditore), "Serb army murders 31 Albanians" (Kosova sot). The latter reported on the funeral of 33 Albanians killed in the clash with Yugoslav border guards on its front page (Dec. 12), with a related photograph occupying two-thirds of the page, and on the whole p. 5. The headline ran "Thirty-three who fell on the Albanian-Albanian border buried" (the term "Albanian-Albanian border" is commonly used by other Albanian-language newspapers to refer to the Yugoslav-Albanian border).

MORE GORE

In the monitoring period, two other killings were widely covered by the media, one being the abduction and killing of Zvonko Bojanic, Serb deputy mayor of Kosovo Polje. The Albanian-language media’s coverage was true to form. Koha ditore on Dec. 19 reported the killing under the headline "Demaqi: KLA disassociates itself from this criminal act which is contrary to its aims and strategy". The subtitle ran: "Denouncing this act, as in the case of the incident in Pec, when six persons lost their lives, we express our conviction that at work is yet another stage-managed provocation of the Serbian regime calculated at compromising our liberation struggle and the KLA as its standard-bearer, as well as at creating a pretext for the Serbian regime to continue its terror and massacre of the Albanian population". The subtitle in Kosova sot was an a priori, condensed verdict based on the statement, namely "Serb police behind the killing".

The Belgrade pro-government daily Politika ekspres, true to its editorial policy, uses Kosovo events to churn out sensationalist stories laced with photographs which would be more suitable as evidence in court files. On Dec. 19, the daily published on p. 3 a photograph of Bojanic’s mutilated body, along with a Tanjug story headlined "A savage act of brutality". Attention is also drawn to the commentary of Miroslav Markovic (Dec. 17, p. 2) under the headline "Crime and the accessories", in which he minimises the international community’s reaction to Kosovo violence and concludes: "Is it by mere chance that these foreign officials, who claim to be "appalled by the incident", make no reference whatever either to "separatism" or "terrorism". Such behaviour on their part boils down to complicity. And in practice, it is much more than that. Nothing happens by chance."

POINTING THE FINGER

Koha ditore on Dec. 13 reported the killing of three Albanians in Glogovac under the headline "Possible witness of Drenica massacre killed". In the article, it suggested involvement of Serbian police and explained that one of the dead, a policeman, Xhafer Chori, was "considered a possible witness of the massacre in the villages of Poklek and Gornje Obrinje." The daily did not mention, or know, that some 10 days before being killed, Chori had reported to the police that men in KLA uniforms had fired at his house.

THE TWO DIVIDES TOUCH

The two divided publics, Albanian and Serb, have nevertheless some points in common. One of them is their general attitude towards the latest plan of US ambassador Christopher Hill, although they have their own grounds for rejecting it. Koha ditore (Dec. 11) headlined its article "An end to Hill’s shuttle diplomacy" and, citing diplomatic sources, predicted direct Albanian-Serb talks. Next day, the daily published Hill’s draft. Although both its headline "weeping prerogatives for Serbia under ambassador Hill’s new plan" as well as the accompanying commentaries were suggestive, the editors nevertheless gave the readers a chance to judge the plan for themselves.

The headlines in the Belgrade daily Politika (which never gave so much as a hint of the content of Hill’s plan) in this connection ran as follows: "A perfidious scheme of the US administration" (Dec. 12, p.15), "Washington’s open support to separatism and terrorism" (Dec. 12, p. 16), "All US plans against FRY have failed so far" (Dec. 12, p. 16), "US policy in Kosmet meets with defeat" (Dec. 13, p. 2), "Let America let us come to terms ourselves" (Dec. 14, p. 14), etc...

THE SAKHAROV PRIZE

There was a visible trend in the Albanian-language press to marginalise Ibrahim Rugova. Kosova sot reported on Rugova’s visit to the Czech Republic under the ironical headline "Controversy about the viewpoint of the "Kosovo Gandhi". Next day, there was a brief and inconspicuous summary on Rugova’s visits to Paris, Strasbourg and Prague and his Sakharov and "Homo Homini" awards at the bottom of p. 3. The reaction of Koha ditore in this respect was given in the introduction.

State RTS in its Dnevnik 2 (Dec. 18) ran a commentary by Zeljko Avramovic, who described the award of the Sakharov prize to Rugova as an "Infamy unrecorded in the history of mankind". The commentator pointed out that the "award was presented to the initiator, inciter and champion of violence and terrorism of the worst kind, one who has been shunning talks for months", and that the presentation of the award represented not the "twilight of morality or humanity at its worst, but (an act of) insanity." Making a reference to the killing in Pec, the commentator switched over to the US-British air-strikes against Iraq, observing that international law had given way to power politics.

RTS OMISSIONS AND ADDITIONS

RTS Dnevnik 2 was under close scrutiny during the monitoring period, in view of the fact that official manipulation relies heavily on the omission of undesirable information. There was no mention on Dec. 10 of the meeting between Serbian President Milan Milutinovic and US envoy Christopher Hill, nor of the Paris meeting between US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Ibrahim Rugova. Next day (Dec. 11), in connection with Hill’s visit to Podgorica, this prime-time news programme only reported Hill’s media statement that a military solution to the Kosovo crisis was out of the question, not that he had paid tribute to the Montenegrin leadership for its constructive role in dealing with the problem. On Thursday, Dec. 17, Dnevnik 2 omitted to report the announcement of the NATO defence ministers that the threat of NATO air strikes against targets in Yugoslavia was still present. Also, on Dec. 18, it did not report that Harold Koh, US assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labour, had told a news conference in Pristina that the situation with respect for human rights in Kosovo was "deeply disturbing".

The technique of manipulation, i.e. partiaal and vague reporting, was evidence in connection with the visit to Kosovo of Sadako Ogata, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Dnevnik 2 said that Ogata "paid a visit to the Albanian refugees in Dragobilje, Blace and Malisevo and satisfied herself that there was no sign of a humanitarian catastrophe and that aid is regularly made available through distribution centres." It is unclear whether she said this herself or the reporter thought she must come away with this favourable impression.

HOW OTHERS SEE IT

The attitude of other Belgrade TV stations appeared to depend mostly on the balance of forces within their own management. Thus BK telekom (owned by the Karic brothers, who rose to wealth from their power base and home town of Pec) switched to a low-key coverage of Kosovo events the moment its proprietor, Bogoljub Karic, became a Serbian deputy prime minister. Its news items are getting shorter, with no more regular reports from the ground, and drawing heavily on Tanjug despatches and statements by state bodies or leaderships of parties close to government.

Studio B, dominated by the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), is increasingly failing to cite all relevant factors with regard to Kosovo. But it makes up for this by copiously quoting from SPO statements and its leader Vuk Draskovic. Its Vesti u 7 (Dec. 15) broadcast a commentary on the Pec incident by Dragan Kojadinovic, the station’s director and editor-in-chief. Kojadinovic’s text, which appealed to the viewers’ outrage and sense of powerlessness as mere witnesses of the death of six innocent youths, was read by a newsreader as through the commentary was a statement from a politically relevant personality.

Against the backdrop of Kojadinovic’s portrait, the newsreader read the message to the Contact Group: "If your intention is, by trampling on the Charter of the United Nations and international law, to tie our state hand and foot so that it cannot defend itself against Albanian separatism, then you and you alone have the obligation to defeat this Nazism. Failing this, desperate cuts must have desperate cures. Serb blood too has its price. We ourselves will determine this price. We will respect the world as much as the world respects us." The expression "desperate cuts must have desperate cures" is borrowed from Serb epic poetry and is a pet saying of Vuk Draskovic’s. He also used it on Dec. 19 in an interview with the local channel TV Palma of Jagodina, which was duly carried by Studio B. It was only through Draskovic’s statement, read by the newsreader, that the channel’s viewers learnt of the presentation of the Sakharov award to Rugova. The statement ran: "It was a shameful gesture on the part of those in Strasbourg to present Ibrahim Rugova, supreme warlord of Albanian separatism and terrorism, with an award at a time when our children and youths, murdered by Rugova’s proteges, were being laid to rest..."

Vecernje novosti covered the Kosovo events in a mostly reasoned manner, although its commentators did not try to conceal their animosity towards Rugova and the US role in the Kosovo crisis. On Saturday, Dec. 12, it carried a commentary by Borislav Komad under the headline "An ominous alarm". The article said, among other things, that the "Shiptars" mentors are willing to entertain their protege Ibrahim Rugova in all the capitals of the planet (and somewhere, as in Paris, also to award him), but they somehow cannot "succeed" in bringing him to the negotiating table with the Serb, i.e. Yugoslav side. But before that, the political leader of his extremist co-nationals in Kosovo and Metohija should perhaps also be made to pay a visit to [the war crimes tribunal, in] The Hague. "The daily’s correspondent from Washington, Borislav Lalic reported the State Department’s denouncement of the Pec assassination (Dec. 17, p. 8). Commenting on the omission of important points on the part of a spokesman James Foley, Lalic made the following conclusion: "Now it is again Holbrooke’s turn to go out in search for the shoes he took off last spring in the presence of the "KLA" terrorists, somewhere under the Prokletije Mountains."

In its coverage of Kosovo, the pro-government daily Dnevnik of Novi Sad relies mostly on Tanjug’s dispatches, which as a rule give versions to which the authorities have no objections. For instance, on Dec. 13 (p 1), it carried Tanjug’s report from the Vienna meeting of EU leaders, saying that they "called on the FRY Government and the political representatives of Kosovo Albanians to solve all questions by dialogue." It passed over the part of the statement in which the EU called on the Belgrade authorities to carry out democratic reforms, respect media freedom and co-operate with the Hague Tribunal, as well as its expressions of support for Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic. In the same manner (Dec. 19 and 20), it published "official" statements, relayed by Tanjug, made after Koh’s meeting with Zoran Andjelkovic, president of the Temporary Executive Council of Kosovo and Metohija, and Nikola Sainovic, FRY deputy prime minister. Under the headlines The world must be told the truth" and "The right to life is the paramount right", it only carried the Yugoslav officials’ remarks to the US assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labour. Judging by the report, Koh only sat and listened.

In accordance with established policy, the abduction and killing of the Kosovo Polje deputy mayor was given half the space devoted to the protest rally of the Kosovo Polje Serbs, assembled on this occasion, and to the telegram of condolences of the Provincial Board of the Socialist Party of Serbia. Admittedly, the readers were informed that the protesters did not want to disperse when the organisers asked them to, but were not told why they refused and that they hissed and booed during Nikola Sainovic’s (Federal Deputy Prime Minister) speech (Dec. 19, p. 3). Those who listened to the Belgrade local, independent radio station B92 or read Glas Javnosti learned that the participants in the rally asked, "Has Belgrade sold Kosovo down the river?" and were outraged because only the officials were permitted to speak.

A media outlet’s reaction to audience behaviour can serve as a litmus test of whether and to what extent the outlet it is under direct state influence. In this case, the question is whether the Serb participants in the Kosovo rallies hissed and booed during the speeches of certain officials including that of Serbian Minister of Internal Affairs Vlajko Stojiljkovic. According to RTS, Politika, Politika ekspres, Vecernje novosti and Dnevnik, and also TV Studio B, the officials were listened to in silence. But other media noted that the crowd was not in its best mood.

A CHANGE OF OPINION

The change in the Montenegrin media coverage of Kosovo topics compared with a year ago or before is worthy of attention. Montenegrin media no longer regularly refer to the Slav population in Kosovo as "Serbs and Montenegrins". According to them, there are only Serbs now in Kosovo. Their coverage of Kosovo reflects a certain distance. Most of them do not have their own reporters on the ground and use the services of the Belgrade independent news agency Beta. Likewise, they do not comment on their or other sources’ news reports.

"BEST" OF THE REST

BK TELEKOM - UNRESERVED SUPPORT

BK Telekom’s news programme Telefakt continues its increasingly open, unreserved support of the ruling coalition. The monitoring period confirmed this trend of devoted promotion of all state activities. Throughout the period, Telefakt recorded no reaction of any opposition party to any event, only those from the three ruling parties and the allied SPO. Also, for a whole month, pictures of leaders of opposition parties, including parliamentary ones, have been absent from the channel’s other programmes.

A typical example of this new attitude was registered on Dec. 13, when the channel, characterised by its dynamic broadcasting, devoted 12 minutes and 45 seconds to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s interview with The Washington Post and Newsweek, outdoing even RTS’s Dnevnik 2. The contribution, in which a male speaker read Milosevic’s answers and a female colleague the questions asked by correspondent Lally Weymouth, was noted for the unnatural effort on the part of the male speaker to imitate the voice and diction of the Yugoslav president.

The channel stressed the importance of Milosevic’s diary activities by broadcasting them first, although other events might have been considered more important and far-reaching. Thus on Dec. 12, Telefakt started off by announcing that Milosevic had been presented with a "golden plaque" to mark the 50th anniversary of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade; the report that the United States had stopped the UN Security Council from adopting a statement condemning terrorist activities in Kosovo was broadcast fifth; the protest march of some 2,000 Kosovo Serbs to the KLA stronghold in Dragobilje, demanding to be told the truth about the fate of their 40 missing relatives, came sixth; and a report that an explosion of coal dust at the Usce colliery had injured five miners was announced tenth.

A most telling example of Telefakt’s policy was its report on Dec. 21, lasting 10 minutes and four seconds, on the visit to Russia of Mira Markovic, president of the Directorate of the Yugoslav Left (JUL) and wife of Slobodan Milosevic. BK Telecom went out of its way to secure for this unusually long contribution authentic footage, abandoning its practice of accompanying its Moscow correspondent’s reports with stock views of the city, the room in which the Duma sits, or Russian cultural and historical monuments. However, the correspondent’s clearly partisan and unnecessarily laudatory approach, as well as his constant repetition of general remarks and the unvarying composition of his sentence, turned the report into a piece of crude party propaganda rather than an event meriting so much prime-time coverage.

THY MASTER'S BIDDING

In its prime-time news broadcast, Vesti u 7, Studio B continued to build up the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) and its leader Vuk Draskovic. Their views were as a rule broadcast before others and given more time and better presentation. It also gave prominence to statements and announcements of parties close to the SPO or in agreement with its current line. On the other hand, events, parties and individuals not fitting into the SPO’s general outlook were marginalised or ignored, and not infrequently, Studio B editors and journalists engaged in "skirmishes" with individuals and parties in conflict with the SPO.

The channel had no room for the activities of the opposition Alliance for Changes, as well as for the Serbian Radical Party (SRS), whose leaders are also state officials. The monitoring period saw a number of fierce attacks on these parties without giving them a chance to defend themselves. A somewhat better treatment was reserved for Kosovo Albanian parties, though their reactions were carried increasingly rarely and only briefly. Current affairs and news from Montenegro were either given very low-key treatment or passed over in silence.

An example of using various tricks of the trade in dealing with an SPO political rival was noted on Dec. 10. The occasion was provided by SRS leader Vojislav Seselj’s interview with TV Politika the day before, in which he blamed the SPO for the adoption of the widely unpopular Law on the Rights and Obligations of Elected Persons, which guarantees privileges to state officials and members of parliament. Following a comprehensive quotation of a statement of the SPO parliamentary floor group, Vesti u 7 broadcast a commentary of Dragan Kojadinovic, Studio B’s director and editor-in-chief, who, among other things, accused Seselj of being the "high priest of the mud-slinging campaigns against everybody and everything, proving this time too that he wallows on the very bottom in the mire of immorality he brought to Serbia by his arrival and appearance on the political scene." As a final swipe, there was a report on the visit to the small town of Loznica of Aleksandar Cotric, a prominent SPO official, quoting him as saying that the average monthly pay in the region amounted to a mere 61 German marks and observing that the economic situation in Serbia had deteriorated since the SRS entered the republican government. The example is characteristic in that much time was devoted to an inter-party feud, unfortunately typical of Serbia’s political life. It also bore out the identification of the editorial board with the controlling party and exposed the editors’ tendency towards purposeful verbosity and an inappropriate vocabulary.

Another event of minor importance "a meeting of the SPO municipal board in Arilje, another small town near Loznica visited by Cotric" was used on Dec. 13 to attack the Alliance for Changes. "The SPO members in Arilje condemned the shameful secret deals between the leaders of the so-called Alliance for Changes and certain international circles and Albanians to hand over Kosovo in return for being brought to power. Zoran Djindjic is offering the Serbs in Kosmet cantons and autonomy for some Serb monasteries, Dragoslav Avramovic is promising the Albanians a republic, and Milan Panic is advocating a wider autonomy for the Albanians than the one they enjoyed under the 1974 Constitution. All this indicates that this company of played-out politicians ought to be renamed the "Alliance for a Greater Albania".

BLIC - EXCLUSIVENESS AT ALL COSTS

The daily Blic, which is generally comprehensive, politically impartial and relies on several sources, was noted for an unprofessional report betraying a desire to be exclusive. Under the large headline "Hill replaces Miles in Belgrade" (Dec. 11), it wrote: "The present head of the US mission in Belgrade, Richard Miles, who is considered in diplomatic circles as a rare pro-Serb member of the US Administration, has not been seen in public for more than two months. Well-informed sources claim that he fell out with Washington during the October threats of air-strikes, when he argued for a peaceful settlement of the crisis caused by the increase of tensions in Kosovo." The next day, however, the daily carried a denial by the US embassy in Belgrade under the headline "Miles to stay after all?" The article said that Miles’ regular three-year term in office as US charge d’affaires in Belgrade was due to expire in the summer of 1999, rejected as improper and inaccurate the description of Miles as a pro-Serb diplomat, and portrayed him as an all-out pro-US man who wholeheartedly implements the policy of US President Bill Clinton and the State Department towards Serbia.

The daily’s proclivity for sensationalism bordering on lack of good taste was manifested on Dec. 14. An article headlined "Clinton’s options dramatically reduced" was accompanied by a photograph showing a smiling Clinton and his wife displaying a book of pictures of naked women to their curious- and perplexed-looking daughter (the photomontage was taken over from the Internet).

GOVERNMENT UNDER OPEN ATTACK

Radio 021 of Novi Sad, in its prime-time news programme Petrolejka, was almost invariably critical of all state, government and parliamentary party activities. Examples of such one-sided approach were registered in its broadcasts on Dec. 13-14, which contained only negative reactions to President Milosevic’s by now legendary interview.

This radio, in common with most new radio stations, is characterised by an excessive and frequently false easy-going attitude, as well as by humour and colloquialism incompatible with the subject matter in question. Thus, on Dec. 10, the station announced the sudden jump in the value of the German mark on the black market with the words: "Listen carefully, we’re talking about money!" It signed off the programme on Dec. 17 saying, "In keeping with the situation in our country, tomorrow morning will be cloudy, and that’s that. You’ve been listening to the evening news broadcast of the active Radio 021 called Petrolejka. We regret if we have spoiled your pleasant evening with these rather gloomy reports, but we can’t help it, for we’re used to telling the truth whenever possible."

There is no denying that the newly-established radio stations, which have sprung up as a reaction against the unwieldy, rigid and above all politically obedient large radio channels, come as a refreshment, introducing an alternative spirit and more comprehensive reporting. For all this, however, their lack of professionalism, impermissible improvisation and ignorance threaten to consign them to the sidelines. Their lack of signed texts could be made up for by sound coverage, but unfortunately theirs is often far from being professional. In common with others, Petrolejka has adopted the currently fashionable trend with the newsreader rattling off an announcement of quite some length (so that it no longer serves as an introduction to a topic to follow) and then playing an audio recording of mostly one, most "attractive" protagonist. In this way, it deprives the listener of comprehensive information about an event.

CHRONOLOGY OF MEDIA RELATED EVENTS: 10 TO 23 DECEMBER, 1998

Thursday, December 10

- Radio B92 announces that the management of the Yugoslav Academic Internet Network (which links all universities in the FRY) last week prohibited, without prior notification and warning, the network’s access to OpenNet Internet locations, which relay independent media news reports. The most popular sight on the location were B92’s ‘ news reports in Serbo-Croatian and English.

- Slavko Perovic, a deputy of the Liberal Alliance of Montenegro, demands at a meeting of the Montenegrin Assembly, that Goran Rakocevic and Velibor Covic, general director and editor-in-chief of state Radio-televizija (RTV) Crne Gore, submit resignations for being unprofessional.

- Zoran Jeremic, FRY ambassador in Germany, protests in a letter to the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung over an article headlined "Egyptians and Albanians in Kosovo" published on December 1. Jeremic protests because the daily referred to the Egyptian national community in Kosovo as "mysterious Egyptians".

Friday, December 11

- Representatives of Radio Brus, Radio Zrenjanin, Radio Ivanjica, Ris-radio of Ivanjica, Radio Smederevo, the Information Centre of Sombor and the RTV institution Resava Svitel sign contracts with the FRY Ministry of Telecommunications on the temporary use of radio frequencies and TV channels.

- At the end of a weeklong debate, the Montenegrin Assembly adopts a decision on the organisation of the state, public information establishments RTV Crne Gore and the daily Pobjeda. The Assembly next elects the outlets’ multiparty supervisory, administrative and programme boards.

- Slavko Curuvija, owner of the Podgorica-registered daily Dnevni telegraf and the magazine Evropljanin, submits a complaint to the Court of First Instance in Podgorica against the Republic of Serbia, Vlajko Stojiljkovic and Aleksandar Vucic, Serbian interior and information ministers, and eight more persons judges and persons who have brought lawsuits against the daily and the magazine. He alleges that the defendants have caused damage to the daily and the magazine by trying to prevent their sale in Serbia and deprived citizens of Serbia and Montenegro of their right to free, truthful and timely information. Curuvija claims damages of 50 million dinars (about $5 million).

- Representatives of independent local newspapers members of the "Lokal pres" Association (comprising 26 local newspapers in Serbia and Montenegro) tell a news conference in Belgrade that the Serbian Law on Public Information hampers the professional execution of journalistic activities and urge the Serbian Constitutional Court to urgently examine requests for an assessment of its constitutionality.

- The opposition coalition Sumadija asks the authorities in Kragujevac (dominated by the deputies of the former coalition Zajedno) to relive Radisa Rankovic and Ranko Milosavljevic, director and editor-in-chief of RTV Kragujevac, for favouring the Serbian Renewal Movement.

Saturday, December 12

- European Council leaders condemn the attacks on the independent media and reiterate their insistence on democratic reforms and media freedom in the FRY.

Monday, December 14

- The federal public institution "Borba" and its director Zivorad Djordjevic are fined by a municipal magistrate in Zrenjanin 150,000 dinars ($15,000) for violating the Serbian Law on Public Information. The lawsuit was brought by Zlatomir Kozlovacki, former mayor of Zrenjanin.

- The Serb National Party (SNS) of Montenegro brings a legal action against the state-run media outlets Pobjeda and TV Crne Gore for "grossly violating the Law on Information". It accuses them of ignoring the electoral will of the citizens who voted for the SNS.

- The EU Ministerial Council decides to prohibit the issuance of visas to Serbian politicians who have taken part in the preparation, implementation, promotion or political abuse of the Serbian Law on Public Information. The list comprises the Serbian deputy prime ministers Vojislav Seselj (SRS), Tomislav Nikolic (SRS) and Milovan Bojic (JUL), Serbian Minister of Information, Aleksandar Vucic (SRS), his deputy Dusanka Djogo-Antonovic and his assistants Miljkan Karlicic and Miodrag Popovic, Serbian Minister of Justice, Dragoljub Jankovic, Serbian Minister of Culture, Zeljko Simic (SPS), SPS Secretary-General Gorica Gajevic, SPS officials, Zivota Cvetkovic and Slavko Veselinovic, SRS officials, Stevo Dragisic and Natasa Jovanovic, editor-in-chief of the state daily Borba, Zivorad Djordjevic (JUL), editor-in-chief of Radio Jugoslavija and JUL official, Ivan Markovic, president of the Patriotic Alliance of Belgrade, Milorad Radevic, and president of the Association of Women of the FRY, Bratislava Morina. The Council says it will expand the list unless the FRY authorities comply with its request to bring Serbian information legislation into line with European standards.

- Slavko Curuvija tells a news conference that he was questioned by Belgrade police in connection with an article on the killing of the heart surgeon Aleksandar Popovic, published in Dnevni telegraf, under the headline "The slain man criticised Bojic". Milovan Bojic, Serbian deputy prime minister and director of the Belgrade Clinic for Cardiovascular Diseases, at which Popovic worked, brought a legal action against Dnevni telegraf over the insinuation and the daily was fined 450,000 dinars ($45,000). Wednesday, December 16

- In a Vecernje novosti poll of most Serbian officials denied entry into the EU, Minister Vucic says he is proud for being on the list. Tomislav Nikolic, the deputy prime minister, says he does not feel deprived because he had no intention of travelling to EU countries which are full of "scum in government" anyway. And "Borba" director Djordjevic says that the ban "bears out the bullying attitude of the world gendarmes".

- Veran Matic, director of B92, and Sasa Mirkovic, member of the Presidency of AVNOJ, discuss with US envoys Richard Holbrooke and Christopher Hill the situation of the independent media and projects to assist them, especially those in Kosovo.

- Slavko Curuvija and B92 lawyer Nebojsa Samardzic address the Council of Europe Committee for Political Issues in Paris about the repression of independent media in Serbia under the Serbian Law on Public Information.

- Harold Hongju Koh, US assistant secretary for democracy, human rights and labour, meets representatives of independent and private media outlets during his visit to the FRY. He says that the Serbian Law on Public Information is at variance with international standards. Minister Vucic refuses to meet Koh, explaining he does not want to discuss democratisation in Serbia with a US official.

Thursday, December 17

- The Serbian Ministry of Information, invoking the Law on Public Information, sends a written caution to the Pristina Albanian-language dailies Bujku, Koha ditore, Zeri i dites, Fjala e jone and Koha, saying that their articles directly encourage terrorism, advocate violent overthrow of the constitutional order and violation of the territorial integrity and independence of Serbia and the FRY, and incite hatred and racial and religious intolerance. The Ministry says in a statement that some of these media are not on the Register of Public Media of Serbia and must urgently correct this "omission". The Ministry warns it will take legal action "if the omissions are not corrected, and in cases where a criminal act or misdemeanour is perceived to have been committed under the law".

- Veton Suroi, owner of Koha ditore, says that the daily will not change its editorial policy in spite of the Ministry of Information warning. He says he does not understand the Ministry’s qualification that the daily Zeri i dites contains articles threatening the country’s integration given that it has not yet been published.

- "As far as the SRS and its leaders are concerned, we had no intention of travelling to those (EU) countries as long as they are led by their shitty governments", says Vojislav Seselj in connection with the EU decision to deny entry visas to officials involved in the implementation of the Serbian Law on Public Information.

- Goran Matic, FRY secretary for information, tells journalists invited to a New Year cocktail party in the Federation Building that the FRY Law on Information will be brought into line with the FRY Constitution and put in parliamentary procedure "when the time is ripe". He says that the "pressure the so-called independent media feel is actually their guilty conscience for being engaged in anti-Yugoslav options".

Friday, December 18

- The daily Bujku fails to come out. Its director Bljerim Staviljeti tells B92 that the "chances of the daily continuing to be published are slight". He says that the "Panorama" state printing works reportedly stopped printing the daily over its debt of some 190,000 dinars ($19,000). But, he added that a more likely reason was an "order from the Serbian Ministry of Information, which threatened to close down Bujku unless it changed its editorial policy".

- Zoran Andjelkovic, president of the Temporary Executive Council of Kosovo and Metohija, tells Harold Koh in Pristina that the world must be informed about the "crimes and misdeeds of the terrorists, because he who keeps the information secret becomes an accomplice". "The Albanian-language press too must carry true information, not publish lies and calls for the overthrow of the constitutional order", he adds. Andjelkovic tells Koh that "no newspaper in Kosovo has yet been shut down, only cautioned".

- Srdja Popovic, a Democratic Party (DS) deputy in the Belgrade City Assembly, brings a lawsuit against BK TV editor Dejan Milenkovic and Ekspres politika editor Djordje Martic and insists that the court should order them to publish his denial. The DS says in a statement that the denial pertains to the outlets’ allegation that Popovic was recently arrested and detained in central Belgrade for possession of cocaine.

Monday, December 21

- Rajko Vasic, Republika Srpska minister of information, says that the Serbian Law on Public Information is "yet another life-belt thrown to a drowning regime".

- The Information Committee of the JUL Directorate holds its first meeting presided over by Goran Matic, its chairman and FRY secretary for information. He announces that "next year will be a year of mobilisation of the Yugoslav media towards contributing to the realisation of the policy of our country." Ivan Markovic, JUL Directorate secretary for information and director of Radio Jugoslavija, says that RTS, "Politika A.D.", "Borba", Tanjug and Radio Jugoslavija have "made sure, by their patriotic commitment, that the domestic and world public are being kept truthfully informed about all issues, especially about the crisis in Kosmet, in an objective and timely manner". The committee adopts this statement as its assessment.

Tuesday, December 22

- The Serbian Constitutional Court gives the Serbian Assembly 30 days to submit its reply to and opinion on several proposals and initiatives to assess the constitutionality of the Serbian Law on Public Information, adopted on 20 October 1998. The Court also decides to refer to the FRY Constitutional Court requests to examine whether the Law is compatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The requests were submitted by several legal and natural persons, including the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS), ANEM, the Belgrade Medija centar, the Yugoslav Committee of Human Rights Jurists, and the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. They are challenging the constitutionality of 25 out of 76 articles of the Law.

- Radmila Visic, Serbian deputy minister of information, announces legal action in the days to come against Albanian-language media which disregard the Serbian Law on Public Information, are not registered by state bodies, and ignore the Ministry’s demand to change their editorial policy.

- William Walker, head of the OSCE verification mission in Kosovo, expresses dissatisfaction and concern about the state of media freedom in Kosovo, in connection with the failure to publish the daily Bujku.

- The magazine Ekonomska politika is not published for the first time in 46 years, says its recently-dismissed editor-in-chief Milos Markovic. He says he doubts that the magazine will continue to be published under its present editorial policy. Under a decree passed in November, the FRY Government attached the magazine to the public institution "Borba" although it was registered as a private company in 1993.

Wednesday, December 23

- Representatives of Pristina Albanian-language media hold a news conference in connection with the warning of the Serbian Ministry of Information. The conference is held five days after the daily Bujku stopped being published. Dina Kelmendi, Bujku’s editor-in-chief, says that after receiving the Ministry’s order to register, the office was prevented from preparing the issue by having its electricity supply cut by order of the management of the public newspaper publishing company "Panorama", which prints the daily. Kelmendi says that a re-registration is out of the question because Bujku is the successor of the registered and banned daily Rilindja. Baton Haxhiu of Koha ditore says that its editors have received several threatening letters in recent months and that secret police members have visited the premises.

- The FRY Constitutional Court initiates a procedure to assess the constitutionality of the Serbian Law on Public Information. The initiative came from NUNS, the Yugoslav Committee of Human Rights Jurists and the company "D.T. Press". They claim that the Law is at variance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the FRY Constitution, the Criminal Law, and the Law on General Administrative Procedure.

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