Milivoje Pavlovic, the new Director of Radio Belgrade

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: March 4, 1947, Medvedja.

CAREER: Graduated from the Faculty of Philology. Worked as a journalist. Later promoted to deputy editor-in-chief of the "Radnicka stampa" publishing house. Held the post of Serbian Information Minister for two terms (in governments headed by Radoman Bozovic and Nikola Sainovic). Spent several months "on stand-by", and after a lot of talk that he might be given an ambassadorial post, he was finally appointed the new Director of Radio Belgrade by Radio-Television Serbia Director Milorad Vucelic (his subordinate until yesterday).

OTHER ACTIVITIES: Before becoming a politician, "Who's Who in Serbia" listed his occupation as writer. He drew attention to himself twenty years ago as the author of "The White Book" (empty pages from cover to cover). Malicious gossip claims that his book exceeded Nobel recipient Ivo Andric's opus in number of editions and citations. He did start writing later and published three books on culture. Pavlovic's fame as a writer will rest on a birthday message sent to then Serbian Prime Minister, Radoman Bozovic. In this often cited message, he congratulates Bozovic on the day when he "stepped towards his lucky star".

AWARDS AND DECORATIONS (1): If a decoration is introduced one day for the heroes of this war, Pavlovic will certainly receive recognition for "spreading the truth" about Serbia. He is truly one of the first fighters of the lost media war (to be precise, he didn't start it, but he did keep the ball rolling) which opened the doors wide in Serbia to stupidity, crassness and indifference to scenes of violence and death, using the slogan of fighting for national interests and a plethora of patriotic phrases.

HE IS ALSO FAMOUS FOR: While minister, he never passed up an opportunity to shoot himself in the foot. Apart from his servile birthday greetings to Serbia's worst-ever prime minister, Pavlovic claimed that the "balloon of lies had bust and that the truth about Serbia had finally started to leak out" - at a time when Serbia`s image was worst in the foreign media. Pavlovic foundedthe Council for Information and threatened to expose those "who stood behind the free media", which he called "fifth columnists" out of force of habit, while his adroit associates discovered the presence of "non-patriotic genes" among such journalists. Pavlovic personally invited, met with, and recommended various professional "disseminators of the truth about Serbia", who turned out to be bad investments. He financed and promoted the "Dictionary of Delusions" which was supposed to puncture a hole in that "balloon if lies" about Serbia, and lived to have Mirjana Markovic (the Serbian President's wife) say that it would not negate the ugly picture of Serbia, "but rather contribute to it". A "Vanity Fair" journalist claimed that Pavlovic had given incorrect information on the length of Milosevic's stay in the United States, and that Pavlovic's ignorance on such important matters allegedly caused his boss to smile sourly and comment sarcastically...

HOW HE LEFT THE MINISTERIAL POST: In a miserable state. In his first speech to the Assembly, the new Prime Minister Mirko Marjanovic said that the previous attitude toward public relations had been completely wrong. "Information is responsible for a part of the awareness that the world is against the Serbs, and that we don't need the world for this very reason. This belief is, of course, unfounded. It is not true that all are against the Serbs, just as it isn't true that the Serbs can live as political, economic and cultural Robinson Crusoes..."

AWARDS AND DECORATIONS (2): His appointment to the post of Radio Belgrade Director gives Pavlovic a chance of becoming a fist rank fighter once more and even earning a decoration. Most of the first rank fighters among Serbian journalists, who until yesterday convinced the people that the "whole world hates us", have, in the meantime, come full circle. From their new posts they have the task of getting us back into that same world and of persuading us that autism is not the greatest Serbian virtue, i.e., that only the errant Serbs in Bosnia suffer from it.Nenad Lj. Stefanovic