Bosnia bill due and payable

Michael Hedges February 19, 2010 Follow on Twitter

After nearly two decades of international supervision, the countries spun-off from what was once known as Yugoslavia have made remarkable progress in sustainable media development. Pressures remain and the resulting tensions create more pressures. The investment has been considerable and now the bills are due.

European Broadcasting Union General Director Ingrid Deltenre wrote a pointed letter to both Houses of the Bosnia Herznovia (BiH) Parliament (February 18) asking both for resolution to the “deteriorating” condition of BiH public broadcaster (BHRT) and payment of a back debt owed to EBU of about €2 million. “The situation of PBS BHRT is deteriorating to a dangerous degree,” said the letter. ”This is very damaging to public broadcasting in your country, to the interests of your citizens, and to Bosnia-Herzegovina's ambitions to join mainstream Europe.” (See EBU statement here)

Strong letters by international media organizations and observers to BiH officials have followed what many believe to be a rise in regional ethnic tensions as international supervision ends. Last December Organization for Security and Cooperation Europe (OSCE) media representative Miklos Haraszti sent a letter expressing “concern” to BiH Council of Ministers chairman Nikola Spiric.

The 2006 Law on Communications, when passed, was widely praised by media watchers as a firm step toward a framework for bringing BiH broadcasting to European standards. Since passage, the law has been materially ignored as both the media regulator Communications Regulatory Agency (CRA) and the BiH public broadcaster became political targets of opportunity.  The joint letter from OSCE expressed “concern over attempts by the Council of Ministers to re-interpret the Law on Communications by introducing ethnic and political appointment criteria with respect to the composition of the CRA Council.”

The BiH House of Representatives rejected (February 17) a draft law that would have enforced ethnic proportionality in all government agencies, including the CRA and BHRT. Such proportionality would have been based on the last official census in BiH conducted in 1991, at the height of Bosnian, Serb and Croat ethnic tensions. Tensions are omnipresent in BiH; ethnically, politically and with international organizations that have imposed structure and order since the guns fell silent.

A recent broadcast on public television (FTV) set off more of those ever-present tensions. The FTV political program ’60 Minutes’ broadcast (February 8) a video clip taken from a website that portrayed ethnic Serb politicians from Serbia and BiH as Nazis. Republika Srpska Prime Minister Milorad Dodik was depicted as Adolph Hitler. In a divided Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska is  largely ethnic Serb.

“I am sure that this behavior by the public broadcaster does not contribute to building a prosperous and democratic in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” said Spiric (February 11), quoted by Glas Srpske. “We will see how they behave, which should give an answer on that kind of challenge. I think that the silence of the international mentors who help the democratization of the media is, at least, symptomatic.”

Other politicians joined in the criticism, also finding fault with the international community. A spokesperson for the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), the political party headed by Dodik, said FTV “crossed the threshold of tolerance.”

“Systematic hate speech produced in Sarajevo, with the assistance of a part of the international community, carries out its second phase. The first (phase) proclaimed Serbs genocidal, now its leaders are equated with fascism. In the third phase all Serbs will be labeled with fascism and genocide,” said the SNSD statement, quoted in Glas Srpske (February 9).

The FTV board of directors found the segment “threatened the editorial principles of public broadcasting services, the CRA Code of Broadcasting and generally accepted social norms,” in a statement (February 15). The CRA said (February 12) FTV’s broadcasting the segment “seriously undermines the professional and ethical standards of public service.” While the Bosnian Association of Journalists took no position on the program segment, saying, in essence, in a democracy politicians are fair game. Individual journalists in Sarajevo referred to the FTV journalists as “brave.”

The very existence of public broadcasting in BiH was brokered by OSCE, Council of Europe and the European Union. EBU played no small part, essentially contracted to build a new public broadcasting structure. From Ms Deltenre’s letter, the bills are due and payable.

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