"DANAS"

Dobrosav Nesic imprisoned

LESKOVAC, May 14 -- Dobrosav Nesic, the president of the Leskovac Human Rights Committee and editor-in-chief of the monthly Rights of Man yesterday began serving a thirty-day sentence in the Leskovac Municipal Gaol.

On January 21, in Leskovac, the Offences Board upheld a decision under Article 69 of the Republic Information Act under which Nesic was fined 70,000 dinars and imprisoned for 30 days for an article, To Write Like All Normal People, published in issue five the Rights of Man. According to the ruling body, the text was untrue and violated the reputation of Radio Leskovac.

Journalists of Serbia Are Not For Hire

The professor is obviously a victim of Borba's interpretation of the world which represents independent developments in technology in which a man, the creator of all technology, eventually becomes subject to this progress. Everything was well set up: first NATO completely destroys (as it has already done) the total transmission and production facilities of the Serbian party involved in the war and then "organises a strong network of television and radio transmitters in the Adriatic Sea". (Once upon a time there was a radio ship), as well as in "some NATO-friendly countries". These signals will then be "uplinked to communications satellites which will rebroadcast the signals to transmitters surrounding Serbia," thus closing the circle of technology. One more trifle remains: to find "well-known and respected journalists and commentators" who will say the things Serbs need to hear, according to NATO "from Ljubljana". But before we begin to deal with this large trifle, here are some observations. I do not know Mr Secundo and I have no personal motive to take issue with his opinions. But it's obvious that this war has thrown some challenges to Serbian media and Serbian journalists, particularly those who care for their reputation; it is a challenge which must be overcome in the conditions of formal and informal limitations which arise from the fact that they work in a country in which war has been declared. The essence can be a single solution to the dilemma. Does the word of a journalist in Ljubljana have the same weight as that of one from Belgrade? The answer is very simple: after giving his voice and his word to those who will uplink him into the country, his reputation, respect and trust among the audience will be completely destroyed. Only the credibility of a media outlet or a journalist (B92 is specifically mentioned) will be completely destroyed. Let's give an example: a well-known and respected journalist is charged with reporting on the bombing of the market and hospital in Nis, where a lot of people have been killed and he comments that to err is human, in other words he emphasises that NATO, after hesitating, has admitted to an error, that NATO regrets the deaths but there is no war without casualties, then he begins a tirade about the Milosevic regime. In this case the hypothetical journalist will be clinically dead and the Serb audience will turn its back on him forever (regardless of any trust he formerly enjoyed), no matter what the outcome of the war. Any future report he files will be irrelevant, whether he writes it personally or General Clark does it for him.

But, as I have said, the answer to these dilemmas is very simple: so simple that even the professor must understand it: thus his efforts for the involvement of respected journalists and media may be interpreted as the trite phrases familiar in every war in which the end justifies the means. In this case it justified to destroy the credibility of the Serbian media for the end of improving the NATO bombing. I don't, however, believe that the professor is so superficial: it is more that he doesn't understand what has been happening here although, as I see, he is writing a book on media in Eastern Europe.

Before completing this journalist's cookbook in which the main meal and the salad are made from the reputation of Serbian journalists, he had to inform himself of at least two facts: respected Serbian journalists are mainly against the Milosevic style of rule and, secondly, there is not a single respected journalist who didn't warn that the bombing of Serbia would increase problems rather than solve them. The planners of this war (both here and abroad) did not want to hear this, as always happens with journalists. Because today every respected Serb journalist must ask a lot of questions which will endanger his standing with NATO. I don't mean the banal questions about collateral damage, but the political questions, in logical order, from why is NATO supporting the terrorist and separatist Kosovo Liberation Army to whether they believe themselves when they say that the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was an accident. However the logic of correct information withdraws in the face of war logic, which the professor confesses, indirectly. He wrote that an aircraft named Commander Solo, which broadcasts a poor quality program, has to circle randomly around Serbia for strategic reasons. Translated, this means that it has to keep away from the bombers. It appears that preaching for the Serbian information space is of minor importance compared to the destruction of Milosevic and the rest of the Serbs and their registration as collateral damage.

I have been in this business a long time and, I'm glad to say, I don't know a single respected Serbian journalist who wants to be uplinked from Ljubljana to a transistor on a counter in the Nis market. To console the professor, the Serbian people will not believe the voices from Ljubljana any more then they believe the media whose voices come from the ruins of Serbia. Thus the propaganda he defends and the propaganda he attacks are both unsuitable. This is one of the absurd results of this war, and respected Serb journalists warned about it and the very same journalists will not rent themselves out as they are profoundly aware that they will be able to serve their own people only if they manage to survive all the pressures of both earthly and heavenly forces.

Dragoljub Zarkovic
The author is the editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine Vreme. The war has brought a halt to work on his current book: a miscellany of commentaries on Radio Free Europe.

RIGOROUS EU MEASURES
The lengthening list of undesirables

Those who have previously been on this list claim that it is the greatest acknowledgment of their struggle for the rights of the Serbian people. The Ministerial Council of the EU has adopted measures for stronger sanctions against Yugoslavia and Serbia and, as part of this, has introduced bans on visas for the countries of the Fifteen to about three hundred Yugoslav and Serbian officials, among them Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and members of his family. Serbian President Milan Milutinovic is also on the list as are the Yugoslav Prime Minister, Momir Bulatovic, and the Serb Prime Minister, Mirko Marjanovic, and many ministers from the two governments. The new measures were adopted at a session of the EU's Economic and Financial Ministers, along with an extension of the freeze on Yugoslav and Serbian government property abroad. This measure will be now include individuals associated with Milosevic and companies associated with surveillance or those which trade through the Yugoslav and Serbian government accounts. Thus it is written in the text of the resolution. The EU Ministers banned "export financing of private companies which work for the Yugoslav or Serbian governments, in other words for all corporations or other entities which work for them. The embargo on all commercial and private air flights between Yugoslavia and the European Union is in place. The EU Economic and Finance Ministers also banned the export to Yugoslavia of "goods, technology, services and equipment which could be used for repairing damage caused by bombing to properties, infrastructure and equipment used by the Yugoslav government for conducting their policy of domestic repression". On the list of officials who have been banned from obtaining visas to travel to EU countries, under the paragraph headed "The Milosevic Family" are daughter-in-law Milica Gajic-Milosevic, wife Mirjana Markovic, brother Borislav Milosevic, daughter Marija Milosevic and son Marko Milosevic. The ban also includes Federal Vice President Nikola Sainovic, Foreign Affairs Minister Zivadin Jovanovic, Internal Affairs Minister Zoran Sokolovic, Defence Minister Pavle Bulatovic and other vice presidents, ministers and government members and officials as well as the Chief of the Military Headquarters of the Yugosalv Army, Lieutenant-General Dragoljub Ojdanic, General Geza Farkas, General Nebojsa Pavkovic, General Vladimir Lazarevic and other military officials. Other names on the list are the president of the Vojvodina Executive Council, Bosko Persoevic, the president of the Kosovo Temporary Executive Council, Zoran Andjelkovic, the Serbian vice president, Vojislav Seselj and other members and officials of the Serbian Government. Under the heading "Entities close to the regime whose activities support President Milosevic", the ministers of the Fifteen include a large numbers of politicians, directors of firms in Yugoslavia and abroad, and editors-in-chief and journalists of Yugoslav and Serb media. Among these are the director of Politika, Dragan Antic, the director of Zastave, Milan Beko, SPS spokesman Ivica Dacic, Takovo director Ivko Djonovic, the director of Komercijalna Banka, Ljubisa Dordjevic, the "leading personality" of the holding company First Point, Zoran Drakulic, SPS Secretary-General Gorica Gajevic, Supreme Court President Balsa Govedarica, PTT General Director Milorad Jaksic, "the owner of the Serbian firms Nana Sal and Menta Sal in Lebanon", Zoran Jovanovic; Federal Customs Director Mihalj Kertes; the Serbian Public Prosecutor, Dragisa Krsmanovic; director of Galenika, Marija Krstajic; a member of the JUL board and the editor of RTS current affairs programs, Tatjana Lenard; JUL board member and director of the Dunav Insurance Company, Nebojsa Maljkovic; JUL spokesman Ivan Markovic; general director of Sartrid and vice-president of the SPS, Dusan Markovic; the editor-in-chief of TV BK Telekom, Dejan Milojevic; the president of The Yugoslav Trade Chamber, Mihajlo Milojevic; the director of the Delta Bank, Miroslav Miskovic; the owner of TV Pink, Zeljko Mitrovic; the director of CIP, Milutin Mrkovic;the director of B-92, Aleksandar Nikacevic; editor-in-chief of Srpska Rec, Bogoljub Pejcic; a member of the Executive Board of SPS, Goran Percevic; the president of Beogradska banka (The Belgrade Bank), Zlatan Perucic; the "main announcer" of TV Politika, Sanja Puric; the general director of C Market, Slobodan Radulovic;the president of JUL, Ljubisa Ristic; the owner of Rodic MB, Radoslav Rodic; the Mayor of Pristina, Dusan Simic; the member of the JUL board, Vladimir Stambuk; the general director of Grmec, Rajko Uncanin; the governor of the NBJ, Dusan Vlatkovic; the director of Beogradska Banka, Borka Vucic; "the bankers", Milija and Miodrag Zecevic. On the list also are: a member of the Serbian Government, Bogoljub Karic, "the members of the Karic family (bankers, etc.)", Karic Dragomir; "the business woman, the wife to Bogoljub Karic" and "members of the Karic family (the bankers, etc.)",Sreten and Zoran Karic.