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NEW YORK -- The United States and its Western allies gathered in Sarajevo at the end of July to announce a new financial-aid package to rebuild the Balkans. But they made it clear that no money would go to Serbia until Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was removed from power. Almost two months later, he is still running Serbia.
A combination of denial and passivity seems to be the prevailing sentiment in the Serb military and among a majority of Serbs, and it is preventing them from moving against Milosevic. They are reluctant to recognize the harsh fact that Serbia has become a pariah state. They can't acknowledge that their ruined economy can only be repaired with the help of the international community, and that the international community will begin rehabilitating Serbia only after Milosevic is gone. Clearly, the Serbs must be convinced that forcing Milosevic out of power is their best hope for the future. One powerful tool of persuasion that has not yet been tried has the potential to mobilize them. That tool is independent, over-the-air television.
Early in July, it was reported that Ivan Novkovic, a 31-year-old technician at a television station in a small southern Serbian town, had interrupted the regular broadcast of a championship basketball game with a videotape that he made. The tape demanded that a local Milosevic crony quit as commissioner of the Jablanica region. Novkovic called for viewers to support his demand.
Some 20,000 Serbs responded to Novkovic's summons. Protesting Yugoslav Army reservists demanded that the local television station film and broadcast the demonstration. But shortly after he spoke to the crowd, Novkovic was arrested on a vandalism charge and imprisoned. Citizens have since staged public protests demanding the technician's release.
Novkovic's success speaks to the power of television. Embraced in its infancy by the Soviets and their satellites as the most effective media vehicle to influence public opinion, television remains the most potent information source in Eastern Europe. There is no reason why the U.S. and its NATO allies cannot use a nationwide television service, just as Novkovic used a local TV station, to hasten the end of Milosevic's rule.
This would mean launching an independent television station easily accessible to Serbs. Its signal could be sent by powerful land-based transmitters broadcasting from Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, as well from NATO-friendly countries like Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. Because the station would beam its signal from locations outside Serbian government control, it could broadcast news and commentary programs that counter Milosevic's self-serving propaganda generated by the country's mass media, over which he has an iron grip.
When NATO's bombing campaign began in April, Milosevic muffled all Serbian media opposed to his policies, either by official decree or through intimidation. Six months earlier, he squelched political dissent by banning the rebroadcast of Serbian-language news programs distributed by the BBC and other Western programming services. Today, independent Serbian-based broadcasters, like Belgrade's outspoken and popular Radio B-92, have either been shut down or taken over by Milosevic loyalists. Serbian journalists who have attempted to report objectively have suffered police harassment or worse.
The U.S. military beamed television broadcasts over frequencies accessible to Serbian audiences from an EC-130 Lockheed Hercules transport during the campaign. Every day the aircraft, equipped with radio and television transmitters, circled just outside Serbian airspace, broadcasting programs, produced by U.S. psychological-operations personnel and Radio Free Europe, in the Serbian language. But few Serbs were exposed to the message because of the plane's relatively weak 10,000-watt signal.
The Serbian government complained about this intrusion on its airwaves to the United Nation's International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the agency responsible for coordinating telecommunications networks and services among governments. The ITU acknowledged that the use of aircraft for such a purpose is a violation of its regulations. But it reported that since none of the NATO countries accused by the Yugoslav government responded to its requests for information about the broadcasts, no further action was taken.
NATO member countries are currently supporting several projects that use broadcast media to inform Serbs how the "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo led to the bombing of Serbia and the country's economic ruin. One of these is "Ring Around Serbia," a 24-hour FM-radio news and information service launched by the U.S. government. Program content is supplied by the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. The broadcasts reach Belgrade and other major Serbian population centers, but they lack the visual dynamism and appeal of television, which can now be accessed by receivers in virtually every Serbian home.
Traditionally, Milosevic's greatest support comes from smaller Serb communities that are almost exclusively reliant on state-controlled television for information. An independent, uncensored television service could target these peoples' minds. Using strong land-based transmitters, it could reach virtually all the 2 million Yugoslavia households with television sets. Such a station could operate on Channel 21, the same television frequency that NATO's airborne transmitter used. To assure maximum viewership, recently released Hollywood movies and TV series, dubbed in Serbian, could be integrated into the station's schedule during prime time. This programming could be augmented by subtitled CNN, BBC Worldwide and other European newscasts.
With repeated television exposure to the bloody consequences of Milosevic's policies, a growing number of Serbs will be encouraged to "come out of denial." Once they face the facts, they may be able to respond to the West's offer to help their embattled nation rebuild its infrastructure and economy by repudiating Milosevic and his failed policies.
Poland's Lech Walesa was once asked what caused the peoples of Eastern Europe to overthrow communism. Gesturing toward a television set nearby, he said, "It all came from there." Serbian television viewers are just as likely to be inspired to dump Milosevic if they receive credible and well-produced television programs revealing the lies in his propaganda.