Phil Taylor's papers
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Challenges of the Media in Conflict Prevention, Conflict Resolution and Post-Conflict Rehabilitation 
Slow, painful, but moving - Challenges of the Media in Conflict Prevention, Conflict Resolution and Post-Conflict Rehabilitation Jamie Shea, Director of Information and Press North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO0 The media bear a distinct responsibility in the former Yugoslavia for the degeneration into chaos and ethnic violence. Not the only responsibility but in many cases they were relay stations for political extremism rather than buffers or palliatives to it. And that's on all sides. Not simply on the Serb side but in many respects some of the Croat output was equally bad and remains so even to this day. Therefore the media is having to come from a very long way now that it wants to put itself back to where it should be as a bulwark of democracy and not simply an instrument of political parties and sectarianism. It's going to take time and it's going to be a difficult process which will require a constant degree of international support and supervision. That would be my first point. I remember very well when I was the NATO spokesman during the Kosovo air campaign bemoaning, although of course as an international bureaucrat I would say this wouldn't I, but bemoaning the fact that the spokesmen of Milosevic were on the international TVs day in day out (and why not, given the culture of impartiality and fairness and allowing all opinions to speak), but it was impossible for us to get access, let alone equal time, on Serb TV or Serb radio or even in the Serb newspapers. It was distinctly not a level playing field. When we appeared on Serb TV it was as hideous caricatures of ourselves dressed up as Nazis. And let me say first and foremost that in conflicts in future, although we're talking about conflict resolution here, but in conflicts we need to think much more imaginatively about how we get the message of the International Community into war zones or zones of heavy censorship to try to restore the level playing field. We didn't really do that in the Kosovo air campaign and it was a weakness. Relying upon the internet or email doesn't work. Now we're in the age of electronic warfare or cyber warfare and those type of information circuits can be put out of action quite comprehensively by ping bombardments. The second point, is that in this transition period there is a role for the international community. Both in a positive and sometimes in a negative sense. In a positive sense we have set up throughout the former Yugoslavia all kinds of international networks. We have TV IN and Radio Fern in Bosnia , UN Radio in Kosovo and newspapers and publications financed by the International Community such as NATO´s "Herald For Peace" in Bosnia. The locals, quite rightly, may see these sometimes as propaganda channels for the International Community but they do at lease ensure that there is a certain degree of objective news reporting and broadcasting, even if sometimes we have to use old series of Dallas and Dynasty, dubbed in Serbo-Croat, to get the local populations interested. In a negative sense, in that we have had to intervene, I say we, that means not just NATO but the international organisations, in the former Yugoslavia in closing down TVs radios, newspapers which have broken the rules. When I say broken the rules I don't mean criticised the International Community, that's perfectly legitimate, but clearly incited to violence. Examples are when NATO some years ago in Bosnia had to seize four TV transmitters and hold on to them for several weeks until the International Community, in the shape of the High Representative, was able to restructure the board of governors of SRT, the Bosnian Serb TV, and ensure objective news reporting or at least standards of accuracy and accountability. More recently in Kosovo certain Kosovo-Albanian newspapers like Bota Sot and others have been fined or temporarily suspended because they've put on their front pages pictures of so-called traitors who on occasion have been killed shortly afterwards without any kind of trial. So where clearly the media is still inciting to violence I think there is a legitimate case of intervening against it and trying to restructure it. That of course is controversial and it does raise the question, which I fully accept, of how far does freedom of speech go and where can freedom of speech be legitimately suspended in the name of preserving peace and stability. But we have taken responsibility on our shoulders in acting but it was not a NATO solitary action but done at the request of the High Representative or the UN authorities. The next aspect is that while the local media is being reconstructed to be a force for democratisation rather than the reverse, there is clearly a great need for the International Community to continue broadcasting by recognised media, BBC World Service, Voice of America, in its day Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe, Deutsche Welle in the local languages to these areas. These stations have got a well established listenership and I think that money for this output which has tended to be often cut by our governments in recent years is money which is truly well spent. One obvious problem is to set up in the former Yugoslavia a regulatory framework. Now this is comparatively easy in the places where the International Community is running the show. Essentially Kosovo and Bosnia and where we have at least for the time being more or less plenipotentiary powers. It's more difficult in countries which are running their own show, such as Croatia, Yugoslavia, and Macedonia where we don't have any mandate to tell the government how to restructure its media and where we can only give advice. But what should a regulatory framework look like? Well the first thing is there's got to be a freedom of information act, which means that journalists are not sent to jail simply for revealing a piece of information, that they are protected and their sources can be protected too. This may stop short of state secrets, like it does in western countries, but we still have situations where in many areas of the former Yugoslavia journalists have been put in jail simply for reporting a straightforward government decision. Media, if its to be plural, has to have access to airwaves and airspace and wavebands to encourage at financially economic cost pluralist media to develop. For instance, one of the problems in the past has been the very heavy cost of news print which has made it difficult for newspapers to have a large circulation, particularly beyond their ethnic areas, so that everybody has watched TV. And TV then has been the only instrument that exists especially in rural areas for people to watch and at election time it's been heavily controlled by governments. So a Value Added Tax free regime on news print, for example, would be something that I would strongly encourage to allow more newspapers to get off the ground in this area. Another straightforward thing is a law that gives all political parties equal access to the media at election time. France has such a law. It means that Jean Marie Le Pen had equal access time with Jacques Chirac before the second round of the elections but as you could see it didn't really influence the result. But that is key. You cannot have a situation where in an election the government is able to spend 85 percent of the TV air time putting its view and the opposition gets just a couple of minutes. There are other elements as well but clearly regulatory frameworks which encourage pluralist and protect free media are, in my view, critical. A crucial element is the current war crimes trials. Particularly that of Milosevic, which is ongoing in The Hague, shortly to be followed by others. And as these trials go forward it's not just Serbs who are on trial. In fact before Milosevic's appearance most of those indicted and tried have been Croats and there will no doubt be Bosniacs and Kosovo Albanians also as the full story is told. Now TV is being heavily watched in the region during the period of the war crimes trials but a crucial question for the future is: how is TV going to present these war crimes? Will, for example, in Kosovo this be presented purely as a feast of ethnic jubilation at what they see as the defeat of the Serbs? Wrongly in my view. The cheering when Rugova testified against Milosevic the other day, was a convenient substitute for Kosovo Albanians asking themselves about their own responsibility in those tragic events. Equally, in Belgrade will this be seen purely as Milosevic once again bravely defying the International Community? David versus the awful Goliath? And again nobody asking any questions about whether Serbs also bear a share of the responsibility or as we've seen in Croatia, where war criminals are those who hurt Croats whereas Croats who hurt Serbs are heroes, supported by demonstrations. This is going to be for me at least a crucial element, particularly at a time when unfortunately for example in Yugoslavia I saw in the newspaper the other day that now only 2 out of 14 Serb channels are actually showing the Milosevic trial because everybody's lost interest. But this is wrong and it's, to my sense, discouraging that people have lost interest in what is still only the beginning. So I believe that all of the media here have a crucial responsibility to treat the war crimes as an occasion not for simply renewing the accusations against the other side but for admitting the general responsibility, that everybody has blood on their hands and if that can be done then that could serve as the effective basis of reconciliation. I'm not sure if it will be done and if it isn't done it would be an appallingly wasted opportunity. Two or three very brief final remarks. Do not rely upon the internet to replace good local and even national media or state televisions in the area. The internet can be just as much a purveyor of propaganda and false news and a means to invent your own news as it can of objective information. I never have seen the internet as a substitute for proper regulated media. Second point: we are now experiencing donorship fatigue throughout Yugoslavia. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find funding for media programmes and other programmes in civil reconstruction. There is a sort of fatigue with the place. Other places like Afghanistan, which seem to be more sexy in the wake of September 11, have opened up and everybody wants to be involved there. NGOs are reprogramming their activities away from the Balkans and towards post September 11 activities. It would be a great tragedy at the very moment when we can do something useful but it's increasingly difficult to find funding. It is very important that the international media retain an interest in the region. No journalist that I've ever met wants to report on a crisis that didn't happen and very few, and many of them are here and they'll probably contradict me, but very few want to report on a success story rather than a failure or the important rather than the dramatic and the immediate. The trouble is that now the crisis is over in the Balkans and good things are happening nobody is interested and nobody wants to go to report on them. The press sometimes write the first chapter of the book and then lose interest and the remaining chapters of the book, including the more positive conclusion, are unwritten and unnoticed. Therefore we have to do whatever we can to continue to get international media going there, encouraging the local media, setting the standards and even showing the local governments that the international media is watching that we are seeing what they are doing. The good things, but also the bad things will appear in the Financial Times, or on CNN or on BBC World. But I agree that it's a tough job for somebody like me to persuade editors or producers to do that. But we have to. Finally, the OSCE has an invaluable programme in journalist training, seminars on journalist ethics and so on, and an ombudsman - Freimut Duve, a distinguished German - who has a role of going around doing reports on the media situation, making recommendations for improvement. It's extremely important that governments pay attention to these reports and where they have recommendations that those recommendations are acted upon. So in other words, I think the media in the region is certainly out of the intensive care section but not yet out of the out patients department and if we don't want the region to lapse back then it's important that we ensure that the media next time round isn't going to act as the Siren song for nationalist politics. |