ABC of Repression

"Are you police officials?" this is the question asked of everyone who ventured into the hall of no. 8 Vlajkoviceva Street in Belgrade, the seat of ABC Grafik printing house and of the daily newspaper "Glas javnosti."  As this article is being written (Tuesday afternoon, June 27) workers at ABC Grafik and journalists of the "Glas javnosti" daily are silent and are packing the little they can take with them, as they expect to be closed down.  Former director of the printing house and Editor in Chief of "Glas javnosti," Slavoljub Kacarevic stated that court executors and policemen could come knocking at his door any minute and force everyone out of the building.

WISHES FULFILLED:  According to the decision passed by the Bankruptcy Court, all property of this company is supposed to go into the hands of the Serbian Government and this will cancel all contracts and will annul the ownership over the building and land owned by ABC Produkt (the mother company which owns the majority of stocks in ABC Grafik) in downtown Belgrade.  In this way the only private printing house in Serbia is sinking, the only private printing house which can mach the capacities of the state printing houses Borba and Politika.  Since Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday, depending on the whim of those in power, the dailies "Blic", "Glas javnosti," "Beogradske novine," and the weeklies NIN, VREME, "Srpska rec", "Pravoslavlje", "Knjizevne novine" and "Halo oglasi" will all be left hanging and without the possibility of coming out on time and in their usual circulation.  Since it did not manage to shut down the independent media in the past two years with its Draconian laws, the Serbian Government has decided to take another path in its battle against all those who think differently and to close down the printing houses which print the independent weeklies and dailies.  The takeover of ABC Grafik will coincide with the ratification of the menacing Law Against Terrorism, and will fulfill the express wish of the Serbian Government to hold monopoly over truth.

There is no printing house in Serbia which could fill the gap left by ABC Grafik, so that the fundamental supposition is that this measure will close down all the independent printed media.  Every one of the mentioned dailies and weeklies will try to make do with some miserable and half-way solution, but in the short term, and especially in the long term, the fate of each independent publication is highly suspect.  

What are the practical implication of this for the political scene in Serbia.  The pre-election campaign is in full swing and the ruling coalition (SPS-JUL-SRS) believes that by closing down ABC Grafik, the opposition will be prevented from getting its message across to its supporters.  This could once again mean that the socialists, JUL and the Radicals are not entirely confident in the power of their own propaganda machine, and are under pressure to shut down their political opponents who get their message across through dailies and weeklies that are printed at ABC Grafik.  However, except for several press releases and public announcements, the opposition did not demonstrate much zeal in defending the independent media and the printing house which worked for them.

The case of the printing house ABC Grafik definitely proves that the printing and publication of newspapers here can only be done by the state, and certainly not by private entrepreneurs.  This is not the only consequence of this development, even though it is the biggest consequence.  By taking over the printing house in no. 8 Vlajkoviceva Street, the Serbian Government is letting foreign investors know that privatization in this country is a matter of personal choice, and not a regular, legal phenomenon.  There is not worse move and propaganda against foreign investment from this one.

TAKING OVER FOREIGN CAPITAL:  The most successful Italian company in the five years is Grupo editorial l'Expresso.  The list was compiled by the Financial Times on the basis of stock exchange criteria, namely return on investment.  According to such measures, for every dollar invested in the Italian "l'Expres" in the last five years, investors got in return 6.255 dollars.

This news item which was carried by the state news agency Tanjug, was published on June 25 by the "Glas javnosti" daily under the headline "Media register highest profitability."  Nothing would be surprising in all this except for one paradox which is so unique to the country we live in - the privately run newspaper which published this news item has been targeted for several months now by a government which wants to close it down, along with the printing house which prints the actual newspaper itself, besides other independent publications.  The news item reported by the Tanjug News Agency could be very brief and of little solace for Radisav Rodic, the majority owner of the stocks in ABC Grafik and the "Glas javnosti" daily.  He only has two things he can think about now.  First of all, what drove him to enter the media world at the end of 1990, when he bought the bankrupt printing house "Glas."  Second, would he have had a successful company today like the Italian Grupo editoriale l'Espresso, had the Serbian Government allowed him to operate normally.

Everything began in December of 1990 when Radisav Rodic and his private company ABC Produkt purchased the bankrupt printing house "Glas" with hundred percent foreing investment from the American company Ronaco Systems Inc., thus becoming majority owner over the printing house.  At that time the Glas Printing House was a state enterprise with completely outdated technology (from 1915 and 1930) in which workers did not get their salaries for over six months.  This lead to the forming of the diverse company ABC Glas (later changed to ABC Grafik) which was owned privately and publicly, with a division of investment of 5.7 million German marks of private capital and 2.3 million German marks of public capital.  The main division of shares in this company is 71.25 percent privately owned, and 28.75 publicly owned, with the Commercial Court being in possession of all the documents to prove that the division of shares was carried out according to the law which was active at that time.

The state never fully accepted the fact that a private entrepreneur came to own property such as a printing house.  It is constantly trying to question majority ownership in this company through its Agency for Assessing Property Value, persistently claiming that this is majority private capital.  Even expert studies by the Economics Institute in Belgrade did not help, even though it only established the division of shares from the beginning of operations of this joint stock corporation.  Since day one, Radisav Rodic keeps reiterating that at the end of 1990 he bought a bankrupt company which was merely detrimental to the Serbian Government.

TRIPING OVER "RENEWAL":  In the meantime through its Yugoslav partner ABC Produkt, the American company Ronaco invested over 15 million German marks in the purchase of equipment, with another 12 million German marks having been invested in starting the daily "Glas javnost" (plus a million marks for paying fines levied according to the Law on Information).  Non-government publications such as "Demokratija," "Nasa Borba," "24 casa," "NT plus," "Evropljanin," the bulletin "Promene," as well as the Serbian Radical Party publication "Velika Srbija" and the voice of the Kragujevac Sociailists, "LID."

Who knows how much longer the argument over the division of shares would have lasted between ABC Grafik and the state Agency for Assessing Property Value, had the majority owners of the Printing House not decided to publish the bulletin "Changes" in the fall of last year, a publication issued by the Alliance for Changes.  This was a signal to the Government to intensify its debate over ownership of shares in ABC Grafik Printing House.  As a warning, 38 fines were levied against the printing house for printing the Alliance for Changes bulletin, each fine being in the average amount of 150,000 dinars.  When the fines proved inefficient, the Commercial Court blocked the company's bank account for six months.  Aleskandar B. Petrovic, lawyer for ABC Grafik, pointed out that there are many more, far bigger companies in Serbia whose accounts have been blocked for over two years, and that bankruptcy proceedings have still not been initiated against them, but this line of argument was not acknowledged by the Commercial Court.  Nor did it help when the company's creditors agreed on bankruptcy terms in the pre-bankruptcy proceedings.  At the beginning of January, bankruptcy officials entered ABC Grafik facilities and progressively looted private property with various temporary decrees.  Finally a court warrant annulled all property rights by ABC Produkt over the printing house and its facilities.  On the basis of this court decision, it came out that no one had invested anything in the printing house in the past ten years and that according to the Law on Foreign Investment, the foreign capital of the American company Ronaco could not be protected.

In the past several days ABC Produkt attempted to take out of its printing house some printing and editorial office equipment from its offices in Vlajkoviceva Street and to move it to Porecka Street, but the court authorities did not permit ABC Produkt personnel to move their company's property.  On the other hand, the Commercial Court recently began bankruptcy proceedings against ABC Produkt which only confirms the fact that the state has decided to completely ruin a private company with foreign investment, regardless of the international image this will create for the Serbian Government.

By resorting to arguments of force, and without the force of argument, the Serbian Government will carry out its intention of closing down ABC Produkt and its printing house, ABC Grafik.  If anyone who reads this text is not convinced by the fact that the state is trying to siphon off the printed independent media by bankrupting this printing house and continues to wonder if there anything else, here is the response offered by Slavoljub Kacarevic:

"There are many more unified interests hiding behind 'high' politics.  Perhaps there is certain personal animosity at stake.  Or maybe it's a question of personal interest.  Perhaps someone has been eying the commercial property in the Center of Belgrade, or someone is maybe trying to destroy the competition.  And perhaps someone is doing this under a political front."