Today, the situation isn't any better. Both local media have become a mirror of the Democratic Party and newly founded party "Nova Srbija" [New Serbia]. All the disobedient employees have been removed and the obedient ones found. Cacanski Glas and Radio Cacak both carried a statement by the municipal council of the Democratic Party which said, among other, that "only a few days are between us and a possible bombardment(!)," of course, "because the relevant political parties in Serbia continue manipulations with the mandates of the representatives from the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro [in the Federal Parliament]". Also, this statement calls for civic disobedience regarding the implementation of certain measures of the National and Federal Governments [media censorship]; instead, only the instruction issued by Velimir Ilic and his political allies should be heeded; of course, Velimir Ilic and his allies have done all in their power to disgracefully criticize our country abroad. Let us add to this information that the director of Cacanski Glas and Radio Cacak Stojan Markovic is the president of the municipal council of the Democratic Party and the owner of Radio Ozon; on July 7 [public holiday which marks the Communist uprising against German occupation in WWII; Serbian Socialists like to portray themselves as heirs to the post-war Communist rulers and "ansit-fascist traditions" in Serbia] he finished his program with the fascist composition "Lili Marlen"!
That same Stojan Markovic emphasizes that Radio Cacak and Radio Ozon will continue to retransmit programs by BBC, Voice of America and Deutsche Welle until the "Association of Independent Electronic Media" issues a different recommendation or decision!
Namely, in the Cacak municipality, an increasing number of citizens who in 1996 voted for Velimir Ilic, Slobodan Djukic, Milan Kandic and other local officials, is publicly confronting the policy of these "power-brokers". Therefore, it is not surprising that the president of the county council of the Socialist Party of Serbia [Milosevic's party] Dragan Bojovic concludes that the current local authorities cannot anymore control a majority in the local assembly and find support for their strange policies, while the president of the county council of the Serbian Radical Party Slobodan Otasevic [another "patriotic" party in the ruling coalition] emphasizes that "the public in the Cacak region is smart enough to analyze the danger which threatens Serbia and see through the dirty tricks by world powers and local tyrants in Cacak" who, like cuddly servants and mercenaries are trying to convince the people "that Serbs are evil and terrorize innocent Shqiptars [ethnic-Albanians] in Kosmet, while those Shqiptars are only defending themselves"!
Radio Uzice, a member of ANEM, frequently reports about domestic political scene, not only on the local but also national level and gives "its listeners" an opportunity to not only criticize but also offend certain personalities from the political life of our country. This radio didn't refrain from counting down the days until the day when certain plans predicted the start of the bombardment of Serbia, although it is hard to figure out which plans were taken into account. Military and political commentator from Belgrade couldn't guarantee to the listeners that the bombardment will take place but he carefully analyzed "all three phases" of the planned NATO attack. Besides using the news from many daily papers, most frequently by the news agency Beta, until seven days ago Radio Uzice also retransmitted BBC news. It doesn't do that anymore, although, as they claim, their listeners have accused them of "false patriotism". Hence, now, besides their own program, they broadcast two news programs produced by Radio B92 and "Daily News", produced by Radio Belgrade.
Local television TV5 mostly follows the editorial policy, "you get as much air time as you pay" and several times a week carries mostly sitcoms and films provided by ANEM.
"Radio Uzice and TV5 are undeniably the opposition media. The presence of opposition parties without representation in [the Serbian] Parliament is especially pronounced on TV5. Nevertheless, so far the situation in the town is stable and there haven't been any attempts to spread panic. We will make sure that it remains so," says the president of the local Socialists Vladan Nikolic.
Translated on 10/22/98