PRESIDENT TUDJMAN'S CRACKDOWN ON THE FREEDOM OF PRESS
Conveniently ignored by European governments focusing their ire on Serbia, Croatia's President Franjo Tudjman is quietly enforcing his authoritarian rule. One of his main objectives, right now, seems to be to reinstate government hegemony over the press after a promising but short period of pluralism. Within the last three months six leading independent and critical newspapers either disappeared or were brought under state control.
The crackdown began in August with governmental harassment against the weekly "Novi Danas", formerly "Danas", a longstanding publication known as a pacemaker for democratic and critical journalism already under the former communist rule. A year ago the state-owned printing shop simply refused to print the weekly - allegedly because of its debts. The printing shop however continued to print other Croation press publications with much higher debt burdens but less critical of the government. In June 92, "Danas" was shut down by its publisher, the state-owned "Vjesnik". The entire editorial staff was fired. But a private investor, Emil Tedeschi assured the reappearance of the weekly under the name of "Novi Danas". Yet, only days before the parliamentary elections on 2 August, "Vjesnik" which controls most of Croatia's distribution network refused to sell the weekly at its newsstands. As a result only six of a total of 300 newsstands in the capital Zagreb offered the magazine. Emil Tedeschi stopped the publication of "Novi Danas" after only five issues "for economical reasons". The weekly's chief editor, Mladen Maloca, commented "Vjesnik's" deadly blow: "This is an unprecedented act of discrimination and a black spot on the image of Croatian democracy."
Only one newspaper, "Slobodna Dalmacija", Croatia's second largest daily edited in the town of Split, had the courage to publish the letter of protest of the president of the Croatian Union of Journalists to the Prime Minister.
One month later, in the beginning of October, "Slobodna Dalmacija" itself became the most prominent victim of Tudjman's crusade against independent journalism. The well-running newspaper was put under state management by government ordinance. "Please inform the chief editor that any comment following the appointment of the new board of management is prohibited in our newspaper", it said in a directive sent by the government to the new director of publication. With this measure one of the last remaining critical voices in Croatia has been silenced.
Similar action had earlier been taken against less known newspapers, among them "Glas Slavonie" in Ossiek and "Novi List" in Rijeka.
Formally, the governmental take-overs of the independent newspapers is carried out on the basis of the law on privatization. The law sets a term within which enterprises must be privatized. According to the government, the press publications which have been put under state management failed to comply with the time set. Officially, the role of the state management board is limited to assuring the rapid privatization of the enterprises concerned.
Yet, critics point out that some of the publications concerned are indeed privatized. Thus, "Slobodna Dalmacija", formerly a self-managed workers cooperative according to the legislation under socialist rule had become a limited company owned entirely by its employees. The government replies with the reproach of unfair competition, arguing that the company failed to offer shares to the public. It further claims that the state management boards imposed on the newspapers will not encroach on the freedom of the editorial staffs , their only role being to assure the transfer to private ownership.
Reality is, however, different. As experience shows, journalists in the state controlled newspapers no longer dare to write freely, as they know that the transitional period before privatization is used to make out the "illoyal" elements in the editorial staffs to be removed by the future pro-governmental owners.
As a prominent critic of the government who wished not to be named explained for FECL, "people in former Yugoslavia have a longlasting experience of totalitarism. They tend to be afraid and bow to pressure."
On 8 october, 1992, in the maybe last issue of "Slobodna Dalmacije" as an independent and critical newspaper, some of the leading Croatian intellectuals, among them Lino Veljak of the new United Socialist Party, Nikola Viscovic, an independent professor of law at the University of Split, and Slavko Goldstein (Social-Liberal Party) denounced the government's move and warned against the reintroduction of a totalitarian information monopoly under inversed premises.
Nicholas Busch
Sources: Slobodna Dalmacija (Split), 8.10.92; Daily Telegraph (London), 12.8.92; Wiener Zeitung (Vienna), 11.9.92, Profil (Vienna), 12.10.92; own sources. Letters of protest against the Croatian government's crackdown on the freedom of information should be addressed to: Mr. Franjo Tudjman, President of the republic of Croatia, 41000 Zagreb, Croatia.