used without permission, for "fair use" only

Protectorate on Croatian Air Waves

by Boris Raseta

ARKzin , Zagreb, Croatia, February 16 1996

The case of Labin radio L.A.E. (Radio Labin Art Express) will become, it seems, a new bone of contention in the relations between Croatia and the European Union or, more precisely, the Council of Europe. And a significant one at that! Labin radio has managed until recently to transmit 16 hours of program daily, with only about 20 collaborators. Most of the time they have broadcasted music and entertainment programs, but recently they have started to carry BBC and Radio Deutsche Welle news. Some claim that that was the fatal mistake; the others add that there were certainly more mistakes. Namely, the program touched upon the topic of human rights, alternative culture and similar topics which cause panic in the authorities. With three transmitters, L.A.E. managed to reach with its program a large part of the Labin and Kvarner regions, and also parts of Pula and Rijeka. The radio was extremely popular in that region, the listeners regularly called in, wrote letters; Radio also gained a good international reputation. As the space in which L.A.E. could be heard was relatively small, the station, understandably, was a non-profit institution. In other words, they were not able to cover their expenses through radio commercials. Because of that, the radio bought new equipment and paid its collaborators (when it did; the collaborators claim that that was a rare event) with help of donations from European and World organizations such as Open Society Fund (infamous Soros) and the Council of Europe (infamous Council of Europe). In such a way, they ensured the continuity of the program and bought new technical equipment, which is today worth DM 300,000.

Dead Radio Station is the Best Radio Station

Therefore, Radio L.A.E. was a profitable station in Croatian terms and (it seemed that way until recently) its future seemed promising if not spectacular. The first shock for the station came in the August of the last year when, against the expectation of everyone at the radio station, they failed to obtain a concession at the state tender [for bandwidth allocations]! The old broadcast permit expired on July 16. A letter from the Ministry for shipping and traffic stated that L.A.E. could compete for the concession in the next tender and until then - nothing! Still, the radio continued to broadcast without a permit. Curiously, the concession for Labin was won by a competitor, FFI-Commerce, i.e. Radio Labin; one of the co-founders of FFI-Commerce is Zeljko Paliska, who had founded that company while he worked for Radio L.A.E.; in other words, according to the time tested tradition, he was trying to destroy L.A.E. from inside. The other co-owner of FFI-Commerce is Mr. Franjo Sirola, whom well informed persons suspect of being a member of HDZ and, according to an old passion of the members of that party, former employee in the Labin Police department (he worked for the passport service); in the "dark times" he responded to a name Franco Sirola [Italian for Franjo]!

Zeljko Paliska, convinced that because of his dedicated work a part of L.A.E.'s equipment should belong to him, allegedly hired N.K. from Porec to brake into the apartment of Dean Zahtila, Rado L.A.E. director, and paid "an advance of 300 Kunas for that service; he promised to pay another DM 2,000 after the completion of the break in and the delivery of two transmitters owned by Radio L.A.E." N.K. simply couldn't refuse that offer. The goal was to get hold of transmitters! However, since the transmitters were well hidden, N.K. only managed to steal 50 Kunas. Even more serious argumentation was used in this story: Kresimir Farkas was threatened with a beating unless he delivered one of the three transmitters to Zeljko Paliska.

It seems that Radio Labin does not have enough equipment and, in spite of the fact that they had won the concession, they still haven't started to broadcast! It is interesting to mention here that the Ministry explained in its decision regarding the allocation of the frequencies that the concessions "were given to those groups which submitted the best tenders." Obviously, HDZ concluded that the best media were silent and invisible media; in other words, the best medium is a dead medium! Unfortunately, the International Federation of Journalists does not have a lot of understanding for this theory; therefore, their surprise was understandable. They posed a logical question: if the competition was between a radio which had been broadcasting without interruption for 2 and a half years, had all the necessary equipment and resources and a radio which had none of that - how was it possible that the latter group made a "better" offer, actually "the best" offer?

Naturally, this was a rhetorical question, and they never received the answer.

After all, the new owners of the Labin frequency announced that their radio would have a commercial orientation.

Beluzic's no passaran

In the mid January of this year Radio L.A.E. received an order from the Ministry, signed by state inspector Miroslav Beluzic which ordered the Radio to stop broadcasting and stop using its equipment without a valid concession. "I order the aforementioned person to immediately stop broadcasting and to store all of his radio stations at one place and inform the state inspector once this has been accomplished." Naturally, this very literary decree ("all of his radio stations") was to be implemented immediately.

Kresimir Farkas, Radio L.A.E. editor-in-chief, did took the station off the air, since there was a danger that all the hard earned equipment could have been confiscated. Radio L.A.E. went off the air with the symbolic sounds of O Bella Ciao [Italian Communist song from WWII] by the Idiots [a local band from Pula]! International Federation of Journalists, the Council of Europe and other institutions immediately sent their protests to Dr. Franjo Tudman [Croatian president], Zarko Domijan, Ivica Mudrinic and Dr. Mate Granic [ministers in the government]. The answer still hasn't been given if one ignores Mudrinic's "diplomatic" assurances that everything would be resolved in the best possible manner.

Radio L.A.E. is still off the air. "We are waiting for the resolution," says Farkas. In its absence, there are several options. The worst one is the illegal broadcasting of program. The best one is the award of an official concession, and the in-between solution, which seems to be very likely, is that Radio L.A.E. be put under the protectorate of the Council of Europe; in that case this European organization would try "to resolve the problem" on several levels. Farkas stated for our paper that he was convinced that the Council of Europe would really place L.A.E. under its protection.

What does that actually mean? "That is protection or sponsorship, as we would say in Croatian [a joke]... In practice that means that Radio Labin Art Express would be allowed to use the Council of Europe sign on its logo and publicize that we are under the protection of the Council of Europe. They would be our sponsors, in the way that our dear president sponsors Sinjska Alka [Croatian traditional festival]. Further that could mean that the Council of Europe, would include the case of Radio L.A.E. in its list of the demands which Croatia must fulfill in order to be accepted into that organization. So far, the Council has included on its list a rather general paragraph about the 'improvement of media freedom in Croatia.'" Therefore, Radio L.A.E. would become one of the obstacles on our way to the Council of Europe.

Use Satellite to Reach Croats

The sponsorship of this station would be second case of this kind in Croatia, but would in practice had the significance of a precedent. The council of Europe has taken a sponsorship over the Democratic Forum from Rijeka an organization which still hasn't started with its work.

Bojana Humar, the coordinator of the International Federation of Journalists for the Balkan region, has told us that the Council of Europe really planned to establish a protectorate, or "sponsorship" if you like it better that way, over Labin Radio station, but it was more likely that the Council would include the whole project Labin Art Express in that protectorate. According to Farkas, the procedure for putting L.A.E. under the protection of the Council of Europe has started, and they had received verbal assurances from the Council of Europe that the case would be positively resolved. In his opinion, the result should be known in less than two weeks. Unless Eurocrats fail. If the radio does not obtain a concession, they will broadcast their program over a satellite. Naturally, they would need a lot of time to organize that (about 6 months based on realistic estimates) and a lot of money which would be provided by the Council of Europe. If that happens, the radio will widen its area of work to the whole Croatia and will try to include the representatives of other independent media in its work. If everything else fail, the radio is prepared to broadcast without a permit, but hasn't yet found a suitable frequency. Until further notice, the radio will stay off the air; between February 1 and 6, some 6,000 citizens of Labin signed a petition against the closure of Radio L.A.E., which was an obvious sign of support for the further work of this station.

translated on 7/9/96