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Radio in Concentration Camp

Radio KiM from Pristina works without a telephone, under frequent electricity blackouts, with minimal equipment, and their correspondents can cover the radius of several hundreds of meters

by Ana OTASEVIC

NIN, Belgrade, FR Yugoslavia, March 8, 2001

Radio KiM started broadcasting in early December on the frequency of 93.9 MHz from a location near Pristina. Thus, after more than two years of work finally the idea of Raska-Prizren bishop Artemije regarding the founding of a news radio program in Serb language as a counterweight to local pro-Milosevic radio stations in Kosovo, became reality. The editor-in-chief of Radio KiM, Zivojin Rakocevic, says that the idea about the radio in Serb language with an independent editorial policy could not have been realized as long as Milosevic was in power. The idea about the founding of Radio KiM, explains Rakocevic, was based on the need for a medium in the Serb language that would be independent, would provide information and have a regional basis.

The founder of Radio KiM, which is financed exclusively by the donations, is a non-governmental organization of the Serb National Council. The editorial staff is based in the Youth Hall offices and includes about twenty people, including about ten journalists. Most of them are very young, as the experienced people from the former media are almost all gone. Radio KiM is their first journalism school. The director of the radio, Fr. Nektarije, a hieromonk from the Monastery High Decani, and the editor-in-chief Rakocevic are in charge of a sort of training that takes place almost every day. An interesting feature of this radio station is that from its founding it has been functioning without a phone line, as it is impossible to get one from the post office in Pristina, which is run by ethnic Albanians. In spite of the lack of basic journalistic equipment, frequent electricity blackouts, lack of freedom of movement, during the last three months they've managed to put together a program that is occasionally quoted even by some international media, such as Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe... Radio KiM also has a program in Romany [Gypsy language], which is broadcast for two hours every week. The idea is that this radio station, two kilometers from Pristina, should become a clearinghouse for the information coming from all parts of Kosovo where Serbs live. From here, the information would be broadcast all over Kosovo. "Radio KiM is a radio station in a concentration camp, which behaves as if everything is normal and is trying to provide its listeners with correct information. Our system is based on a network of correspondents who cannot leave their enclaves, so that we receive their reports via two mobile phones owned by the station. We have correspondents in Strpce, Kosovska Mitrovica, Lipljan, Leposavic, and even Prizren where Serbs live under house arrest. A larger group lives in the Seminary building, where our correspondent is also based. He has freedom of movement within a 100-meter zone. Another correspondent is a priest of the St. Archangel monastery near Prizren. We are currently trying to cover the Kosovo Morava Valley [Pomoravlje] region, which is hardly covered by the media. We plan to recruit two correspondents in Kamenica and Gnjilane, and even the village of Gorazdevac, near Pec, from where so far the information only came via ham radio operators, and is frequently unreliable and sensationalist," says Rakocevic.

Radio KiM has daily contact with the new Serb authorities in Kosovo, and the intention of the people working there is to hook up with the media in Serbia proper. "Our goal," says Rakocevic, "is to break through the media darkness and show that Serbs still live here, even though that cannot be concluded from the media, and to inform both the Serbian and world public about the problems facing these people. We want to become a serious institution, which is of national importance for Serbs in Kosovo, who now do not have any institutions."

Translated on April 4, 2001