REPRESENTATIVE ON FREEDOM OF THE MEDIA Freedom and Responsibility YE A RBO O K 199 9 / 2 0 0 0 Vienna 2000 The cover is a drawing by the German author and Nobel Prize laureate (1999), Günter Grass, “Des Schreibers Hand” (The writer’s hand). He gave his kind permission for its use as the logo of the publications of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media. The drawing was created in the context of his novel Das Treffen in Tel g t e , dealing with the literary authors at the time of the Thirty Years War. © Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Office of the Representative on Freedom of the Media 2000 Kärntnerring 5/7, Top 14, 2. DG A-1010 Vienna, Austria Tel. +43-1 512 21 450 Fax +43-1 512 21 459 [email protected] The authors retain rights on the essay texts. Design: WerkstattKrystianBieniek, Vienna Printed by Eugen Ketterl, Vienna Freedom and Responsibility What we have done, why we do it – Texts, Reports, Essays, NGOs Contents Knut Vollebæk – Preface 7 Freimut Duve – Introduction 9 I. Essays on the Balkans - Writing, Politics and Media: In Defence of the Future Ivan Lovrenovic Five Fragments about Implosion 19 Baton Haxiu Kosovo - Where the Dead Speak 35 Dragan Velikic Which Way and Back 43 Branko Sbutega A Question about Boka, A.D. 1993 59 II. Views and Commentaries - Events, Challenges and Conflicts Deyan Anastasijevic A Swallow, Not The Spring 75 Ivana Zivkovic and Lidija Popovic Report on the Media in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 81 Anatoli Pristavkin Chechnya - a Country at War 105 Freimut Duve There is a war going and everyone is watching 115 Katharina Hadjidimos The Role of the Media in Greek-Turkish Relations 125 III. Twenty-five Years of the Helsinki Process: 1975 - 2000 A Personal Reminder by Roy Gutman 149 IV. Our Work – What We Think, Why It Matters Reflections by Staff Members Stanley Schrager None of Your Business 157 Alexander Ivanko Damned if You Do and Damned if You Don’t 16 5 Hanna Vuokko Minority Media: The Case of the Swedish-Speaking Finns 171 Mihaylo Milovanovitch The Forbidden Language 177 Katarzyna Cortés A Child of ‘Solidarity’ 181 V. Overview – What We Have Done The Mandate 189 1. Reports - Regular Reports to the Permanent Council 193 - Urgent Reports on Current Issues to the Permanent Council 214 - Report to the Standing Committee of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly 226 - Report to the OSCE Review Conference 232 2. Projects 1999/2000 - Protection of Journalists 236 - The Media in Central Asia: The Present and Future 239 - School Newspapers in Central Asia 240 - Other Projects 247 3. Current Media Situation in Ukraine 249 4. Visits and Interventions in 1999/2000 275 VI.Where to Find Those Who Help - The Media NGOs in the OSCE World 283 The Authors 318 Knut Vollebæk Preface In 1999, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) had to face some of the most serious and difficult challenges in its history. Looking back brings to mind some unforgettable scenes. In Ja n u a r y , I was warmly welcomed by crowds of Kosovar Albanians who, thanks to the OSCE Mission, had been able to return to their homes and villages. In April, I stood on the border between Kosovo and Albania and saw the despair and fear of the Kosovar Albanian refugees, driven from their homes by the Yugoslav authorities. In July, the sight of the burned-out houses and villages and the destruction of Serb churches and memorials appalled me. In December, on a hillside near Grozny, I met exhausted Chechen refugees while artillery shells rained down on the suburbs only a few kilometres away. We all need these reminders that there is only one yardstick by which all our activities should be measured – whether or not we have improved the lives of ordinary people. This must apply to all our work: to the efforts to reconcile people of different backgrounds, to the build- ing of democratic institutions and practices, to giving each other advice on legislation that will protect the individual and ensure the freedom and prosperity of our societies. We must foster societies that tolerate and promote pluralism in ideas, opinions and cultures. One of the major objectives for the OSCE during the last decade has been to support and nurture the large number of new democracies that emerged out of former totalitarian regimes. One feature common to them all was the need to develop free and independent media. In this respect, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media plays an invaluable role. His task, to assist governments in the furthering of free, independent and pluralistic media, is crucial for fostering a climate of tolerance, openness and accountable governments. The role of the media will continue to be a vital one as we deal with the challenges ahead – in the Balkans, but also in the Caucasus and Knut Vollebæk 7 other parts of the former Soviet Union, including Central Asia. One of the main challenges for the OSCE right now is the acute need for demo- cratic reform in Serbia, as well as in Kosovo, where hate speech is hard- ening the divisions between ethnic groups. During my year as Chair- man-in-Office, I met with independent media representatives every time I visited Belgrade. Their courageous struggle to provide objective information to the people of Serbia made a deep impression on me. The efforts of the regime to silence these brave men and women are total- ly unacceptable. In his capacity as OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Freimut Duve has done his utmost both to improve the media situation in Serbia and to combat hate speech in Kosovo. His work will undoubtedly be a key element in the struggle towards a democratic Serbia. Mr Duve and his team have provided significant and constructive assistance in many of the issues that confronted the Norwegian Chair- manship during my term of office. I am convinced that the OSCE Rep- resentative on Freedom of the Media will continue to play an impor- tant role in helping to build stable and open democratic societies throughout the OSCE region. Oslo, February 2000 8 PREFACE Freimut Duve Introduction During this year, the year 2000, the OSCE will be celebrating its 25th birthday. The relevant declarations of intention, which is what Presi- dent Ford of the United States of America called the agreements con- tained in the Final Act of the original Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe, were signed in Helsinki in 1975. Out of these intentions developed the most radical changes in the political world in the second half of the century, and finally the end of the Soviet system. One of the declarations of intention concerned the “third basket”: improved access to information, an area in which Hel- mut Schmidt, the then Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, described what was achieved as “not completely satisfactory”. How- ev e r , a first step in the direction of freedom of opinion and media diver- sity was taken at that time. The appointment of the Representative on Freedom of the Media, who began work in 1998, would not have been possible without the Helsinki process. His Mandate1 is the result of this process. In a broad sense, such an agreement on journalistic freedoms and diversity of infor- mation has its roots in the basic motivation of the West: the overcom- ing of dictatorship not through violence, in whatever form, but through increasingly open discussions concerning the basic rights of citizens. Seen in this light, Helsinki, 25 years ago, began a historic process which can perfectly well be compared with that leading up to the French Rev- olution in the 18th century: a process aimed at putting an end to all forms of authoritarian dictatorship, whether based on monarchist or ideological principles. Authoritarian leaders always act in a similar way; they allow no criticism of their actions, and seek to keep control over published comments on their exercise of power. Helsinki was a first step towards replacing the “self-aristocratization” of the ideologically select- 1 The Mandate, see page 189 Freimut Duve 9 ed ruling cadres by a discussion which led in Poland to the trade union Solidarity and later in Russia to “glasnost”. A politically, but also cul- turally, revolutionary process. It was thus only logical that the community of states known today as the OSCE would be the first regional organization to establish an office with the task of protecting the freedom of journalism. Whereas discussions concerning security in 1975 were concerned mainly with questions of disarmament and the joint planning of dé t e n t e , the basic questions of common security focus today, a quarter-centu- ry later, on other issues: above all, on how the always latent danger of ethnically motivated propaganda, and the instrumentalization of the media for that purpose, can be countered. The three wars in the states that made up the former Yugoslavia have shown how the danger of war can suddenly become acute as a result not of the accumulation of mis- siles in the opposing camps, but of quite different causal processes. During the Cold War period, discussions concerning security were necessarily concerned in the first instance with the number of weapons at the disposal of the “two camps” – the East and the West. Security meant guarantees against military attacks from the other side. Both sides were considered “stable” - the democratic West and the author- itarian East. Internal conflicts were seen as part of this dualism: the democratic protests in Hungary in 1956 were welcomed in the We s t and brutally repressed by the East, and the same happened with Prague in 1968 and Gdansk in 1979.