The Massacre On The Day Before Christmas Eve

On January 5th, the bosses at Novi Sad Television, discretely and informally, put into circulation a copy of a list of 72 employees who, on the basis of the decision by the leadership of Radio and Television Serbia, were to go on "compulsory vacation". Like all dirty business in this "information system", the "rationalization", being carried out allegedly because of the international sanctions and the narrowing down of the program, is starting off in the television's Novi Sad branch, and the, for the moment, informal nature of the list of "those who are no longer needed", points to the conclusion that Milorad Vucelic (the director general of Television Serbia) is signing a test balloon, probably expecting stormy reactions. The purge in the radio and television, at a moment when the electoral victory of the socialists and the radicals hasn't even "cooled off", is already being supported by Vucelic's associate Vojislav Seselj who has said that instead of 20%, it is necessary to dismiss 30% of unsuitable journalists in the media. And even with 20%, Novi Sad Radio and Television and its head (a certain Todorov) are to send on compulsory vacation, with a salary of 80%, around 500 employees.

When speaking of Novi Sad Television, it seems that the first criterion was for all those with a certain "public name" to be chased away. Prvoslav Maric, the president of the Novi Sad branch of the independent trade union of Radio and Television Serbia, recalls that this is a typical action that cannot be carried out without strictly abiding on the law, without official consultations with the trade union and without clear criteria. The official trade union of Novi Sad Television also met on January 6th, when the list "leaked". In its conclusions, it too condemned the action that was launched without any consultations with the employees. On Christmas Day the Independent Association of Journalists in Vojvodina issued a "Warning to the public". Apart from the assessment that this is "the final phase" of the "hunt" against journalists in Vojvodina which has lasted for three years now and which is being finalized right after the elections, it warns that it is the journalists who are always the first in line and that this action shows "what awaits the others as well" in regard to the basic rights to work and publish and to different, truthful and objective information.

The assessment that behind the rationalization lies a political showdown is also attested to by the fact that among those going on contemporary vacation in Novi Sad television alone, are the television's two former directors, a former program director, three former editors in chief etc. The claims that only those who were too much engaged in opposition parties are now being driven away are, of course, denied by the case of Milorad Crnjanin, the head of Seselj's organization in Vojvodina. Vucelic and Marko Kekovic, the head of Novi Sad Television, did not, like the head of the technical sector in Novi Sad Television, place their own names at the top of the lists for the "rationalization".