Witnesses to Announced Death

Almost two years after the bombardment of the building of Radio Television Serbia and the death of 16 employees of that media house, the former general manager Dragoljub Milanovic is held in detention awaiting trial due to charges that he had committed a criminal act of causing general danger for which a prison sentence is prescribed in the duration of three to 15 years. Namely, it is suspected that the former general manager knew that RTS would be bombed, and that despite this he failed to evacuated the employees - the names of the other (possibly) responsible people for now aren't even mentioned, and the "patriotic" forces, led by Milanovic's wife Ljiljana and the leftist duke Sinisa Vucinic, are coming to life once again, trying to prove that someone else is to blame for it all.

"We are spending days and nights in our editorial offices, editing rooms, studios, at the transmitters . Let Clark shoot - we're waiting for him" - with these words Tatjana Lenard addressed the viewers of the state television on April 8, 1999. Fifteen days later, on April 23, RTS employees met "Clark", but not the foreign reporters who were also spending "days and nights" in Takovska no. 10 - they, along with RTS's former management, knew that the possibility of "Clark's shooting" wasn't negligible. The only difference lies in the fact that the latter kept stressing that "official announcements of the bombardment didn't exist" (T. Lenard, NIN weekly, Oct. 19. 2000), and the former that they had warned their RTS colleagues in due time of the danger which was hovering over them.

SMOOTH OPERATION: During the war, practically all foreign reporters who were reporting on the bombardment were using RTS's technical facilities, while premises in the building were only allocated to CNN and NBC News (this media house in actual fact used it for one day only - it moved in and out in the very same day). Namely, even though all media houses from NATO countries were informed on March 24 that they wouldn't be able to use RTS's facilities, and a day after the ministry of information practically deported the majority of the foreign reporters from the country, during the last days of March all foreign TV stations were allowed to feed their material from the RTS building (with prices which were three times higher than prior to the bombardment). During the first days of war, CNN was located in the Hyatt hotel, but at the beginning of April they were forbidden from using a satellite connection from any other location apart from the RTS building, meaning that the move to the RTS building was in some way compulsory. " Things started functioning smoothly from there on and reporters even got into some sort of routine and were becoming accustomed to the rather severe rules of entering and moving about the RTS building, including viewing the material before it was fed. The criteria by which this "censorship" was enacted wasn't totally resolved until the end of the war, although there were instructions that wide city plans weren't allowed, it was strictly forbidden to film anti-aircraft action during the night, nor were they allowed to film the RTS building", is how one domestic reporter describes that period, then engaged as an assistant to foreign TV stations during the war.

However, that "smooth operation" was disrupted at the beginning of April, when it becomes apparent that RTS isn't a secure place. Even though it was quickly denounced, the fact that NATO's spokesman, David Wilby, openly threatened that state media in Yugoslavia would be "attacked if they don't stop lying", pointed out that RTS was at least being considered as a target. The first changes occurred on April 6 - it was suggested or ordered that all foreign reporters were to steer clear away from the building in Takovska street and to cancel their already scheduled night terms for feeding their material: "At that moment rumors on what would be hit superseded each other and there was a lot of doubt about their authenticity. As the team had worked hard all day to film a report, including convincing people in the press center for hours to receive a work permit for that day, disappointment was enormous and we at first refused to obey orders. A few minutes later a new one arrived. Not only was it forbidden to enter the building, but anyone who failed to comply would be automatically dismissed!" says one of our interlocutors. A few days prior to the bombardment of RTS, the CNN and NBC teams moved out of the building, and everything became clear after that even to those who weren't explicitly warned - a member of the SKY News team who claims that his bosses didn't warn him about anything, reminds that "a wise man sees the signs" and that after April 6 and especially after CNN moved out, no one spent too much time in Takovska street.

WARNINGS: What remains unclear is how the RTS employees remained at their work stations, i.e. why, following the lead of their colleagues from the other media houses, they weren't moved to an alternative location. By all accounts, the management, if on nothing else, was informed of the warnings which the foreign reporters had: "We had good relations with the foreigners and we kept receiving warnings. I passed all those warnings to my boss, the editor-in-chief of Serbia's program, today Caslav Radovic, but there was no feedback", says Natasa Tasic for VREME, manager of the department of RTS's international service, during the war engaged on control of the material which foreign reporters were feeding. Ljubodrag Stefanovic, a producer in the same department, received a phone call on April 7 in the afternoon from a friend in Atlanta who was working for CNN who warned him of the danger of bombardment. While talking to VREME, Stefanovic stresses that he informed the security service of it, but that he also received no answer. RTS's management and the police officers who were following the movements of the foreign reporters had full knowledge of their behavior and the reasons for avoiding the RTS building in the evening hours. Still, all of that failed to have any impact, since it isn't known that anyone had raised the question of danger of being in the building - on the one hand there were warnings, and on the other disbelief or helplessness. One of our interlocutors reminisces that a colleague from RTS's bureau of exchange, after he was informed of the danger, only said: "Well, what are we to do now?"

What is interesting in this story is that even the foreign journalists sometimes weren't absolutely sure of the information they were getting from their bosses. A day after they were first forbidden from entering the RTS building, i.e. on April 7, a journey to Pristina was organized so that they could film the post office building which had been destroyed during the previous night. On their journey back, editors informed the reporters that they still shouldn't enter the RTS building, but if they returned by half past eleven, they could enter and feed their material. "The temptation to receive pictures from Pristina, for the first time since the bombardment began, was too great for the editors, and it's possible that some of them could have stopped the bombers until our work was completed. During our trip to Kosovo, a number of reporters called their editorial offices to inform them of it, asking that NATO be informed so that it wouldn't bomb the bus", explains one of the participants of that trip.

The theory of some of those editors's influence was confirmed a few months after the war ended. Namely, Sunday Telegraph published that at the Conference on Media and War Crimes (held in Barcelona in Nov. 1999), Ison Jordan, head of CNN's international branch, stated that at the beginning of April he was informed of the time when RTS would be attacked by the Pentagon. At that moment he filed a protest directly to NATO's commander because of the danger to the foreign journalists who were still using the building at that time - after that protest, the planes were stopped halfway to their target.

"It is natural for reporters and editors to have their sources in all important institutions, even the army. Anyway, a possibility of RTS's bombardment was even announced by some NATO officers. We knew nothing about any other targets and I'm convinced, neither did our editors. If another location where we were operating had been a target, own sources would probably have informed of that too. Our editor's goal was to protect us", says Alessio Vinci, CNN's reporter, for VREME.

WASHING HANDS: The question remains, naturally, whether the CNN bosses or at least the reporters of that media house informed someone from RTS's management of that potential danger. Vinci claims that the reporters didn't have any contacts with the managers - he himself only had contacts with Tatjana Lenard, but that conversation turned into a fight about the accusations against foreign reporters which Lenard had voiced in her TV appearance. What is definitely known is that the former state television management had to have had at least business contacts with CNN: according to Natasa Tasic, the general manager Dragoljub Milanovic was in charge of all larger contracts, and the contract with the US television station was just that. CNN even had certain privileges (dearly paid for, as we are informed); not only had it used part of the video editing equipment in the very building for a certain while, it was the only news team which was allowed to use alternative manners to feed its material via TOKO boxes, which turn a video signal into a digital one and feed it via two satellite phones. This manner of feeding was approved on a couple of occasions during the war "from the highest place", and they definitely weren't using it as they saw fit - in any case, one can surmise that during those "business contacts" there were occasions when warnings could have been given.

CNN is, or so it seems, the only media house which is prepared to publicly admit having had the information that they had. However, what of the others? Amongst the last to exit RTS were the producers and reporters of the German media house ARD, who had fed their material only a few hours prior to the bombing. Zoran Ikonic, a producer in this media house, believes that the American media house which had leased premises in RTS received warnings from the top, and that they had informed Komrakov of it.

"We (ARD) didn't receive any warnings from the bosses about the bombing, everyone kept quiet on that. I discussed it with ARD's correspondent, he didn't know anything about it either. We even asked ourselves, how is it possible that everyone knows and no one is informing us of it. That night we went to the feedpoint just like any other night, around 10:30 p.m., even though we knew that CNN had moved all of their equipment out of the building a few days before that, which was highly indicative. Simply, at that moment there was no alternative way to feed material, the only way to send a report to the headquarters was via RTS". Ikonic says that people from RTS's international exchange warned him that something was up, having seen CNN running from the building: "I personally didn't believe that it would actually be bombed, while people from RTS had a premonition about what would happen."

Other foreign correspondents confirm that the "bosses didn't inform them" even though "everyone knew that it would happen". Jacky Rowland, the BBC correspondent at the time, officially says that "BBC didn't receive any warning about RTS's bombardment in advance", and unofficially adds that "naturally, everyone knew, thanks to the warnings from our CNN colleagues, and Alessio spoke about it almost publicly on BBC's program". One of the producers of the American media house ABC, who insists that his name be withheld since, as he says, "he isn't informed of the editorial policies of VREME weekly", cautiously and diplomatically "washes his hands" in his Washington office, refusing to take upon himself any kind of responsibility for the death of RTS employees: "We were aware that the communication centers were military targets, and in accordance with that we could assume that RTS was also a target, but we didn't receive any specific warning from our bosses. We suspected that it could happen, we had a strong overall hunch a few days prior to it that a tragedy would occur. At that time strong propaganda was being waged and we could assume what would happen." The American says that in their everyday communications, probably spurred on by that "strong hunch", they indirectly warned RTS employees, but "since they didn't receive specific warnings, they couldn't have relayed them to the RTS people". That the bombardment of RTS is a theme which foreign reporters don' t willingly talk about, is confirmed by the stand of the leading people in Reuters who don't want to be brought into connection with the death of the unfortunate 16 employees. Following one-day-long communication of the Belgrade bureau with its London headquarters, we received an answer that "Reuters doesn't want to take part in this story because it doesn't know how we will carry their statements, and in what context"!

MANAGEMENT FIGURES: Whatever the case may be, things swung into full gear by mid April - ten days after Tatjana Lenard's combat appearance, complete with target badge on her lapel, Goran Matic is taking the reporters from the Yugoslav Army press center for a tour of the RTS building to show them that people there were just "doing their jobs". Lower level managers show no evidence of nervousness, but, according to the words of Ljubodrag Stefanovic, Milorad Komrakov "is contacting colleagues who had received information from the foreign journalists". The number of those on duty in the night shifts is reduced, and certain editors (like Branko Matijasevic, head of the tape department) are on duty every single night instead of some of their younger associates. Three days prior to the bombardment, CNN and NBC finally move out, while warnings are once again repeated to the others not to enter the building during an air raid or at night. "We had already warned all our friends from RTS of the danger, and when they saw us pack, you didn't have to be a genius to conclude what we were doing and why", stresses Vinci, describing events immediately preceding the bombardment. Natasa Tasic says that on that day, tear strained cleaning women came to see her who had watched CNN move out, but that no one in charge had reacted. RTS 's management therefore kept quiet, the employees, due to various reasons remained where they were, and foreign journalists fed their last reports in the course of the evening of April 22.

Two years later, Dragoljub Milanovic has been let off (for now) with a one-month-long detention. Tatjana Lenard (for now) not even that - she even, never batting an eyelid, explained that the aforementioned statement on Clark, on waiting and shooting was "only figurative" (Channel Three, Nov. 7, 2000). The names of those other (potentially) responsible people aren't even mentioned in the rumors. In the night between April 22 and 23, sixteen people lost their lives in the RTS building. On the monument which their families have erected for them in the Tasmajdan park, beside their names only one word is written: "Why?"