PRESS CONFERENCE SPONSORED BY FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA
Press Briefing
PRESS CONFERENCE SPONSORED BY FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA
19970220
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
(SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO)
Truth had been one of the biggest victims of the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, and the task now was to turn that situation around and present the facts to the world community, the newly appointed Minister of Information of the Republic of Serbia, Radmila Milentijevic, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference this morning.
As a result of events surrounding the elections held in November 1996, the Republic of Serbia had recently experienced a period of political crisis, she said. However, the crisis had now ended, and the Government was moving quickly to tackle the major task before Serbia today, which was establishing an economic and political democracy. She stressed that Serbia was moving faster than the western world expected in the direction of privatization and a market economy. The Government was also taking steps towards ensuring that the laws and life in Serbia were democratic.
Concerning the economy, Ms. Milentijevic continued, Serbia had been moving in the direction of privatization before the civil war and the dismemberment of the country, but the ensuing sanctions had cut that process short. Serbia was now beginning to revive the process of privatization. The legal framework for the privatization of the Serbian economy already existed in the Serbian Constitution and several subsequent laws, the most recent of which was promulgated in September 1996. Now, the Government needed to determine which institutional mechanisms could best assist the achievement of privatization. Among measures taken in that regard, she cited the appointment of a new minister in charge of economic development and privatization, who was from the private sector and not a member of any Serbian political party.
Freedom was guaranteed by the Constitution and reflected in a variety of situations and institutions in Serbia, Ms. Milentijevic said. The country had a multi-party system, and it had held several multi-party elections at all levels of government. She would take issue with anyone suggesting there was freedom of the media there.
However, there was a problem concerning a law governing the media, she continued. The law had been enacted in 1990, when Yugoslavia was moving towards a multi-party system and a democratic political system, and that law did not seem adequate for the needs of Serbia today. One of her first tasks would be to examine the current law and see its weaknesses. By examining the laws that governed the media in western European countries, she would determine those among them that were the most liberal and most applicable for the situation in Serbia. Those texts would serve as models so the Government could enact a law that would respond adequately to the needs of today.
The current opposition press in Serbia was substantial, Ms. Milentijevic said. In fact, there were far more anti-government newspapers and magazines -- weeklies, monthlies and dailies -- than pro-government publications. Serbia also had more than 100 unregistered radio stations that the Government did not even know existed and, therefore, did not control. In addition to the government-owned and supported television network and several private television stations, Serbia also had more than 20 television stations that were not registered or regulated by the Government.
It was puzzling, she said, that the Serbian Government was constantly being accused by the Western media of not allowing adequate freedom of the press, when there were more than 100 radio stations and 20 television stations which transmitted programmes without the Government regulating them. The new law governing the media would create a legal framework applicable to the situation in Serbia. Then, the Government would proceed to work to register all radio and television stations, but it would leave all programming decisions to the stations and their boards.
A correspondent asked if there was any proof of the substantial opposition press in Serbia. Ms. Milentijevic said she had brought a stack of publications with her, as many as she could carry, because a few weeks ago The Washington Post had printed an article stating, among other things, that there was a lack of freedom of the press in Serbia. The article had named one newspaper, Nasaborba ("our struggle"), as the only and last independent paper in Serbia. Serbia was flooded with the opposition press, and there were more opposition newspapers in Serbia than in any other European country, or in the United States, she stressed.
Asked how it was possible for the Government to operate effectively with so many opposition papers, Ms. Milentijevic said there were also pro-government newspapers. Although the number was fewer, the pro-government papers were more established and had a level of professionalism unmatched by the opposition press. Those publications were also much more broadly conceived and covered a whole series of problems and issues, including politics, economics, foreign policy, cultural affairs and social issues. Most of the opposition papers were single-issue oriented with the sole aim of gaining political power.
A correspondent asked if, as a professor of European history, she thought that the dismemberment of Yugoslavia represented an attempt to reconstitute the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Ms. Milentijevic said there were people who subscribed to that point of view, as well as politicians who would like to see the restoration of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. But, realistically speaking, that goal was not possible to achieve. Serbia would probably be in favour of moving in the direction of the formation of a Balkan economic unit and the integration of the Balkan States into western Europe. The old empire concept was not applicable today, because the world was now in a process of political and economic globalization.
The same correspondent asked if she envisioned Serbia becoming part of a non-aligned group of nations. Ms. Milentijevic said that, historically speaking, the countries of eastern Europe -- the countries between the Russian Federation and Germany -- had never been independent when those two larger neighbouring countries were strong. But, it was not inconceivable that there might be some kind of arrangement involving eastern Europe in the near or distant future. Currently, Russia was weak and Germany was strong. The United States was very strong, and, for all practical purposes, it dominated the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), so naturally it wanted to incorporate eastern Europe into the NATO alliance.
Asked if recent media reports stating that the Albanian minority in Kosovo was about to stage an armed upheaval were true, Ms. Milentijevic said she did not think such information was accurate. There had been several terrorist acts, but, by and large, Kosovo today was more calm than it was six or seven years ago. For a period of time, the Albanian population had removed itself from the institutions in Kosovo. For example, they withdrew their children from the schools and refused treatment from hospitals. More recently, however, the Albanian population was returning to Serbian hospitals. In one Kosovo hospital, Albanians comprised 85 per cent of the patient population. In addition, an agreement was recently reached to return Albanian children to the schools, and several committees were at work resolving the issue so that all children in Kosovo would be back at school this September.
A correspondent asked what, if anything, did she see as the globalization of the world's political system. Ms. Milentijevic said that, for the time being, the United States was the super-Power of the world. It had won the cold war, so it was in the position to push its policies, which were the democratization of the entire world with an emphasis on human rights, and the globalization of the world's economies by creating free markets.
Asked how she would interact with members of the foreign media who had not always been objectively informed in the past, Ms. Milentijevic said she would ask all visiting journalists to first come to her because she had the information that they needed. After that, the journalists could go wherever they wanted. In the past, journalists who arrived in Serbia would draw all of their sources from the opposition. She would like foreign journalists to be able to listen to both sides.
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