Street scene Belgrade/Newspapers

Accordion music

00.00.00

Wilesmith:  Belgrade is the capital of Serbia, the biggest republic of the fractured federation of Yugoslavia. This is a city cloaked in lies. They're peddled in the media which is intimidated by the president, Slobodan Milosevic.

00.14

Accordion music

00.27

Man playing accordion on street

Wilesmith:  The big lie is that Yugoslavia is the victim of an international conspiracy to break it up. It's the only way that Milosevic can explain why the country is crippled by sanctions, threatened with air strikes.

00.35

There are few independent newspapers left.  This is one that dares to tell the truth.

00.49

Man:  Dnevni Telegraf, Dnevni Telegraf.

00.56

Map Balkans

Newspaper function

Wilesmith:  For the Dnevni or Daily Telegraf to survive for three years is cause for celebration.

01.06

It gives a voice to journalists and politicians, to student leaders, and business people who want to break the suffocating grip of the old communist regime. Publisher and editor is Slavko Curuvia. And despite tonight's gaiety, he's going broke.

01.13

Slavko:  My paper is banned, they're confiscating every copy they find,

01.29

Slavko

but I still succeed to smuggle about 20,000 copies every day form Podgorica to Belgrade, and Serbia also, of DT, Daily Telegraf, and also 35,000 copies of my news magazine, European.  And we are very successful in that.

Wilesmith:  But if I was President Milosevic, I would assume that your aim is to get me out of power. So why would they let you publish?

01.58

Slavko:  I really don't know. He's an irrational man, and when you deal with somebody who is irrational you can not predict anything.  Anyway I think he will lose the power very soon, in one year or one more year and a half. Very optimistic.

02.10

Flag over White Palace

Wilesmith:  The centre of power in Belgrade is the so-called White Palace. It's here that Milosevic, who has ruled in one way or another for a decade, receives a constant stream of international envoys. He's such a control freak that the government cameraperson is instructed to film him from the same position every time.

02.30

Ministers and diplomats have been this past year warning him to stop the slaughter in Kosovo. Milosevic though seems to thrive in these crises, bluffing until the last. Using them to justify his iron grip on the country.

02.54

Newspaper function

The President wouldn't have liked the rebellious mood at the Telegraf party. Among these people he's seen as the key to Yugoslav's ruin. On this night, a leading opposition leaders, Zoran Djindjic finds hope that there can be a democratic revival in Serbia.

03.15

Djindjic

But he concedes that difficulty of dealing with Milosevic.

Djindjic:  It's not possible to have a normal conversation with him.

03.35

00.39

With Milosevic in power are going to lose Kosovo and Montenegro, not only, maybe Voyvodina, maybe Sandjak, maybe other parts of country. Milosevic is just destructive, just a destructive person.

03.46

Street scene Belgrade/Newspaper vendor

Wilesmith:  That destructive character reveals itself in the clamp on free expression at the universities, and by broadcasters and journalists.

04.04

Wilesmith buys paper

Wilesmith:  Isn't this a banned newspaper?

04.20

Vendor:  Yes it is.

04.23

Wilesmith:  So how are you able to sell it?

04.24

Vendor:  I sell, sometimes the police take me and my papers, sometimes no.

04.27

Newspaper presses

Wilesmith:  If the Daily Telegraf was published in Belgrade or anywhere else in Serbia, it would be much easier to confiscate every copy of the paper and finally to kill it off.  The production site though is safe from the Serbian police. It's 500 kilometres away in Podgorica.

04.42

Map Yugoslavia

It's the capital of Montenegro, much the smaller of the two republics left in Yugoslavia, but technically equal in power to Serbia. And thus far, Milosevic has been unable to stop it becoming the free speech capital of Yugoslavia.

05.01

Guys preparing newspaper

Novakovic:  On the front page of tomorrow's newspaper the top story is that representative of Serb parties from Kosovo are announcing that they will come to Milosevic unless he comes to Kosovo.

05.12

CU Hand on computer mouse

Wilesmith:  The stories are written in Belgrade and sent on a data line to Montenegro. There's a back-up system should the Serb security police try to hack into the system.

05.30

Novakovic in office/interview

Novakovic:  I must admit that working form a journalistic point of view this is the most interesting situation that any journalist could wish for.  It doesn't matter how inconvenient - it's interesting... exciting... we live for the work.  These are the only weapons we have - the only way we can fight the fascist and Stalinist regime in Serbia.

05.43

Wilesmith meets with Djukanovic

Wilesmith:  Hosting the exiled Belgrade media helps to raise opposition to Milosevic, and that suits Milo Djukanovic, the president of Montenegro, very well. Once a Milosevic ally, he's now he's most dangerous opponent.

06.24

Djukanovic

Djukanovic:  We thought it was all right to help all of the media that were closed in Serbia by Milosevic to help them continue if they wanted to broadcast and print in Montenegro. We believe it is necessary for Montenegro to help Serbia to become more democratic.

06.39

Women in office

FX:  Typewriters

07.06

Wilesmith:  In Belgrade, though, the democrats are struggling.

07.10

At the Daily Telegraf, they're writing the paper the old fashioned way. When the police closed down the paper in October they seized the computers.

But old technology is the least of Slavko Curuvia's problems. He has to mastermind a complex smuggling operation, getting the papers from Montenegro and past the Serbian police.

07.21

Slavko

Super:

SLAVKO CURUVIA

Editor, Dnevni Telegraf

Slavko:  This morning they stopped a train coming from Podgorica - in  the southern part of Serbia -- and confiscated the whole circulation intended to be distributed all around Serbia and Belgrade. Yesterday they done the same thing at the airport. I am losing every day this whole amount of money, all my reserves are running out at the moment.

07.34

TV studio

08.06

Wilesmith:  One key to Milosevic holding power is his tight control  over the extensive network of Serbian government radio and television stations.

08.11

Independent TV stations, like this one in the city of Cacak, south of Belgrade, are constantly in danger of being closed down for giving airtime to those brave enough to criticise Milosevic.

08.19

A law was passed retrospectively to validate the media bans. And the Deputy Information Minister, Miodrag Popovic, is in the difficult position of having to defend it.

08.34

Miodrag

Super:

MIODRAG POPOVIC

Deputy Information Minister

Miodrag:  The media law was adopted in the parliament, again by the majority of the people, who are ruling through the MPs, as in any country.

08.45

Wilesmith:  But you're a journalist. How do you...

08.54

Miodrag:  Yeah, maybe I don't like it, but I have to accept it and I have to live with it.

08.56

Wilesmith:  Why don't you like it?

09.03

Miodrag:  Well, I don't like it because it's not specific enough. It's very wide in definition, so it can be this or it can be that.

09.04

Armoured personnel carrier on street

It was the Kosovo war which made Milosevic desperate to limit critical Serbian reporting.

09.16

He'd ordered Serbian paramilitaries into the southern province, where in the population of two million, the Serbs are outnumbered nine to one by ethnic Albanians.

09.23

Yet in a major miscalculation, instead of crushing the incipient Albanian rebellion, the war intensified.

09.33

FX:  Gunfire

09.40

Bodies from Racak massacre

Child crying

09.48

Wilesmith:  It was the Racak massacre of 45 villagers that finally galvanised international opinion to stop Milosevic's crusade in Kosovo.

09.55

The survivors of Racak fled into the hills.

10.06

Sali Beqaj gave a detailed, coherent, believable account of what had happened.

10.10

Sali

Sali:  They lined the men up in groups of twenty-four.  They told them to put their hands on their heads and they told them to walk or run down to a village.  But then another part of police came from that side, and they shot them.

10.15

Villagers with Wilesmith

Wilesmith:  Very few of these eye witness accounts emerged in the Serbian media. Milosevic dares not let people know what's happening here.

10.35

Curuvia

Curuvia:  The final result of his policies will be losing Kosovo. I expect NATO troops very soon over there. Not because I want them. I think the conflict will be so terrible that they will have to come in. Even he will maybe ask them to come to stop fighting.

10.46

Church gvs

It's an extreme irony that Milosovic's ultra nationalist policies may result in foreign troops in the very place - Kosovo - which he declares to be the heart and soul of Serbia.

11.05

Church paintings

For more than one thousand years the Serbian church has been in this region. In Kosovo there are more than thousand churches and monasteries that our forefathers have built from the twelfth century up to today.

11.19

Artemije Radosavljevic

Artemije Radosavljevic the Serbian Orthodox Bishop in Kosovo insists there can be no question of Kosovo being separated from Serbia.

11.50

Artemije Radosavljevic

For two years we have been going around the world talking about Kosovo as the cradle of Serbian people of Serbian culture and spirituality.

12.00

Nuns Singing, Gracanica Monastery

Milosovic has been exploiting the churches traditional links with Kosovo for more than a decade.

12.35

But Bishop Artemije labels Milosovic the chief cause of the conflict and is seeking to oust him through the Serb resistance movement.

12.42

Artemije Radosavljevic

I believe we have to work on changing the regime in Serbia in order to have a democratic solution.

12.52

Milosevic waves to supporters

Wilesmith:  Milosevic is the antithesis of a democratic leader, and yet a significant proportion of Serbs still support him. While old style communist regimes have been swept away across much of eastern Europe, Milosevic has somehow managed to hang on. Whether his regime survives may well depend on the advice that he gets from the leader of the Yugoslav United Left, Mira Markovic, also known as Mrs. Milosevic.

13.13

Markovic at rally

Markovic:  The biggest wish of the Yugoslav left is for all people in Yugoslavia to live together - to live in equality and harmony.

13.38

FX:  Applause

13.49

Wilesmith:  She might as well have added, as long as they do as we say.  It was Mira, Milosevic's soul mate since they were teenagers, who late last year pushed for the closure of the critical media. And yet, Mrs. Milosevic had, by all accounts, been astute at maintaining contact with the regime's critics.

13.53

Among them, Slavko Curuvia.

14.10

Slavko

Super:

SLAVKO CURUVIA

Editor, Dnevni Telegraf

Slavko:  She could and she used to do that, to protect me, in all circumstances except on. When Milosevic say kill him, or close him down.

14.13

Milosevic leaves parliament

FX:  Cheering

14.30

Wilesmith:  The conventional wisdom is that Milosevic diverts the attention of the people, 65% of whom are reckoned to be living in poverty, by creating crises. In a war over Kosovo, they forget their domestic struggles in a surge of Serbian nationalism.

14.31

Young man church bell

FX:  Bells

14.48

Wilesmith:  We encountered such a display during an Orthodox New Year ceremony in Montenegro.

14.52

Music/singing

14.58

Wilesmith:  It was an impressive turnout on an appalling night. But there was no repeat of the previous anniversary, when Milosevic supporters attempted to invade government buildings. Some say it was an attempted coup d'etat.

15.03

Montenegran music. Mountain gvs

Montenegro literally means black mountain and there are many of them.

15.21

They served as barriers against invaders over the centuries such that Montenegrans like to characterise themselves as fiercely independent..a nationalist sentiment now being tapped by President Djukanovic.

15.27

Djukanovic

Djukanovic:  Due to Mr. Milosevic, Montenegro has not been able to achieve equal status within Yugoslavia and Yugoslavia has no international legitimacy and it has not prospects for the future.

15.41

Djukanovic is careful not to mention the ‘I' word Independence

15.54

Montenegro street scenes

Montenegrins, some of whom declare themselves to be ethnically Serbs are not ready to break with Yugoslavia yet.

16.02

Gvs of Montenegro, villages, coast

But the Djukanovic government is defining Montenegro's separateness gaining exemption from the sanctions hitting the rest of Yugoslavia, seeking foreign investment and issuing it's own tourist visas to revive the tourist industry along its magnificent coastline.

 The Yugoslavian government is losing control

16.09

Srdan Darmanjovic

Milosovic has totally lost the battles for Republican Institutions - president, parliament, government, state, media Police and secret Police - all those vital institutions are out of his hands.

16.29

Wilesmith: Srdan Darmanjovic is head of the United States sponsored centre for democracy and human rights in Montenegro.

16.46

Srdan Darmanjovic

Darmanjovic: Djukanovic has his in his hands state machinery and fights against  Milosovic like a state against a state. And he could help the Serbian opposition from that position. He really has the most dangerous anti-Milosovic block in the country. He is his most dangerous opponent.

16.53

Planes, sky

There is a certain nervousness in Montenegro about this blatant challenge to Milosovic. Some fear that the Yugoslav Air Force and Army could be sent in to re-assert Belgrade's authority.

17.08

NAT SOT Planes

Newspaper presses

Wilesmith:  In Montenegro they hope that this will be the last year of the last significant dictator in Europe. But he may claim another victim before then. The Daily Telegraf looks like closing. The final hope is for emergency funding form Europe or the United States.

17.22

Curuvia

Curuvia:  If they don't send any money 'til the end of February, I'm afraid I will have to shut my shop down. First of all the DT will be killed, I'd say so.

17.37

Wilesmith:  Technically there is still a way out of this. The publisher would need to pay fines totalling about seven hundred thousand dollars.  It's not a series option.

17.55

Curuvia:  They don't want my money, they want me...

18.05

Wilesmith:  They want you silenced.

18.10

Curuvia:  Yeah. Silenced, and bankruptcy.

18.12

Ends 18.30