A Brave Fight to Save B-92
Robin Hamman


 

In A Brave Fight to Save B-92 Robin Hamman tells how a Belgrade radio station was able to defy Milosevic, if only briefly...

A shorter edited version of this article appeared in The Independent, 12 [Image] April, 1999: Review Section, pg.14, and it is online at http://www.independent.co.uk/net/990412ne/index.html . It is also available on CYBERSOC .



During times of war and civil unrest, governments are often keen to control the flow of information. In occupied Europe during the Second World War, strict Nazi media policies gave rise to clandestine resistance newsletters and pirate radio stations. These new channels of information were used to bypass censorship and provided an independent source of news about the war for those who were otherwise bombarded with Nazi propaganda. For nearly a decade, activists working in war zones or areas of civil unrest have had access to advanced communications technologies, such as satellite telephones, fax machines and the Internet. Not only can they use these technologies to access news from the outside world, but also to transmit their own information and views. In recent years we have seen a number of examples of activists spontaneously utilising these new communications technologies. In 1989, student protestors were seen running through Tiannemen Square with e-mail print-outs and faxes of support from around the world. During the Gulf War, unfiltered news trickled out of Kuwait through e-mail and IRC chat rooms. During recent political turmoil in Indonesia, the government heavily censored newspapers, so newspaper vendors began selling photocopies of news obtained from Western websites. In the age of the Internet, there is no way for governments to effectively stop such information being made available across national borders short of cutting off all telephone services. The ability to route around blockages or damage to the network was recognised by early pioneers of the ARPAnet, the precursor of today's internet, who suggested that the Internet could potentially survive a nuclear attack. Today, a group of online activists are exploiting the geographically distributed nature of the Internet to disseminate news and viewpoints about the war in Yugoslavia.

Radio B-92 (http://www.b92.net) is an independent FM radio station based in Belgrade which has won a number of international press and media awards, including the prestigious "Free Your Mind" award presented to them by MTV Europe in 1998. Their broadcasts of music and uncensored news were, until the 2nd of Radio B-92 Website April, heard across Serbia through a network Radio B-92 of local partner stations. Their signal was Webstream also picked up by the BBC World Service and retransmitted via satellite around the world. In December 1996, B-92 began using technology from Real Networks to stream live audio broadcasts and short video clips over the Internet.

From its start as a terrestrial broadcaster, B-92 has been a respected source of independent news in the Balkans. Its coverage of anti-government protests in Belgrade in 1996 and on recent events in Kosovo, against the wishes of the Milosevic government, has meant that it has operated under the constant threat of closure. B-92 offices have been raided on numerous occasions and members of staff have been Veran Matic repeatedly harassed or arrested. On 23 March, with NATO bombardment imminent, the transmitter of Radio B-92 was confiscated yet again by the Serbian authorities and editor-in-chief, Veran Matic, was taken and held in custody at a police station for over eight hours.


Veran Matic

B-92 stood it's ground against the government by continuing to provide music and news, in both Serbian and English, over the Internet for ten days following the confiscation of their radio transmitter. This was made possible through the co-ordinated efforts of B-92 staff based in their Belgrade studio and media activists across Europe. In early March, many of these activists met together for the Next Five Minutes Tactical Media Conference (http://www.dds.nl/~n5m) in Amsterdam. At this conference, discussions took place on how to best organise and run campaigns using the media, and plans were made for using the Internet to develop support networks and resource sharing among allied groups. At the conference, Radio B-92 staff gave a presentation about their work and the various partnerships they had already set up. According to Geert Lovink, a prominent Dutch media activist and one of the key organisers of Help B-92 Campaign, talks between B-92 and other groups throughout Europe started as early as 1992. In 1993, an organisation called 'Press Now!' was set up to support independent media production in the former Yugoslavia. This technical and financial support later proved vital to the success of B-92. Because of the dangerous political situation and frequent crackdowns against the Serbian media, B-92 decided early on to allow xs4all, an Internet service provider started by a group of Dutch media activists, to host its site from the Netherlands. By doing this, they hoped to keep the B-92 website out of the reach of Serbian officials. The Dutch ISP also provided the expertise and backbone needed for B-92 to create it's own ISP in Serbia which they used to link independent media producers throughout the country. During December 1996, B-92 supported political demonstrations against the Milosevic regime, in the process becoming the most listened to station in Belgrade, before Serbian officials banned B-92's broadcasts. In response, B-92 began streaming audio and video from its website, which the government was unable to stop since the server was based outside of Yugoslavian territory.

The Help B-92 Office at De Balie, in campaign organisers have set up a bank Amsterdam. Geert Lovink is on the phone account for donations, have been in left of picture. (Photo: Help B-92)

The Help B-92 Campaign is a well co-ordinated continuation of the support network started with 'Press Now!' In addition to providing technical support for B-92 and other independent news providers in the former Yugoslavia, publicising the plight of B-92 and are providing a contact point for journalists and others interested in the war.

This web savvy support group was able to help B-92 continue to provide Real Audio streams of music and news for ten days following the government's ban on their terrestrial broadcasts. The campaign secured a pledge from Real Networks to provide an unlimited amount of audio and video stream connections to B-92. Anonymous e-mail lists were developed to protect the identity of [Image] those wishing to express their views about the war, and Help B-92 Campaign messageboards linking to the campaign site buzzed with Website information (see http://www.eGroups.com/list/kosovo ). Encrypted e-mail services were provided for journalists and others in the former Yugoslavia who found themselves under threat. The campaign created a website banner in support of B-92, which is now displayed on hundreds of websites around the world, and over 15 million visitors are reported to have visited the B-92 site since the beginning of NATO bombardment. The Help B-92 Campaign website itself has had around 15,000 visitors per day since it opened two weeks ago and messages of support and donations have poured in from around the world. The campaign office continues working with a team of translators all over Europe who, over the Internet, translate news from the former Yugoslavia into English, Dutch and half a dozen other languages including Chinese. Other campaign members then use e-mail and fax machines to distribute these translations of news and press releases while HTML coders place them on the campaign website. Although their official headquarters is an attic space above De Balie, a cultural centre in central Amsterdam, the Help B-92 Campaign has people and organisations working for it throughout Europe. Micz Flor, a former University of Salford lecturer now based at Public Netbase to Vienna (http://akut.t0.or.at), worked with a team on one of many radio relays, recording and editing B-92's Real Audio broadcasts before rebroadcasting them on the Austrian public broadcasting network, ORF. This programme was broadcast for Austrian listeners, but according to Flor, could be received anywhere within a 1000km radius of Vienna. On the 02 April, ten days after they confiscated the transmitter of B-92, Serbian police entered and sealed their offices. All members of staff were sent home and a new General Manager was appointed by Serbian officials. The former director of B-92, Sasa Mirkovic, issued a statement through the website vowing that B-92 will "find a solution how to continue broadcasting our signal and to inform all our audience all over the world. At the end, I would like to say that we all have to keep the faith." Although the B-92 website remains online, visitors are no longer able to access live news and music streams. Drazen Pantic, a Serbian mathematics professor who was awarded the Electronic Frontier Foundation's 1999 Pioneer Award (http://www.eff.org/promo/99pioneer.html) for his work developing OpenNet and other B-92 networking initiatives, confirms that "for now there is no jeopardy of B-92 page being hijacked by regime." Pantic concedes that it appears unlikely that B-92 will be able to continue to provide live content online under present circumstances following the closure of their studios.

The Help B-92 Campaign, however, continues to raise funds for the legal challenges which B-92 plans to lodge against the Serbian government. More importantly, some members of 'Press Now!' and the Help B-92 Campaign have started a project called Open Channels for Kosovo (http://www.dds.nl/openchannels). According to Richard de Boer, who has worked as a translator with both Press Now! and the Help B-92 Campaign, Open Channels is more of an information service rather just a support group. They are working to translate and post the emails, messages, audio reports and other information coming from independent news sources inside Yugoslavia. Thus far these sources have included over a dozen journalists in Yugoslavia and outlying countries as well as several individuals about which little is known other than their stories and views about the war. Other Serbian voices are being heard on the internet, such as that of Orthodox monk Jeromonah Sava from the Visoki Decani monastery near Pec (http://www.decani.yunet.com) who has started an email list and created a web page, both dedicated to the distribution of news from and about Kosovo. By closing B-92, the Serbian regime may have succeeded in softening the voice of one independent news source in Serbia. However, because of the distributed nature of the Internet, and the well organised support networks of activists using it, the regime has little chance of silencing the entire flood of independent news coming out of Yugoslavia. NATO, Geert Lovink of the Help B-92 Campaign says, may just do it for them: "people will continue to send e-mail, as long as there are telephone switches. But if NATO bombs them [the switches] the telling of stories by independent sources in Yugoslavia will also end."


Donations made to the Help B-92 Campaign are being used to provide support and equipment for the continued broadcast of independent news in and from Serbia and Kosovo. For more details, see http://helpB92.xs4all.nl or e-mail helpB92@xs4all.nl

Robin Hamman (robin@cybersoc.com) is a freelance journalist and Internet researcher based at the Hypermedia Research Centre, University of Westminster. Issue Five of his webzine, which is on the topic of grassroots political activism online, can be found at http://www.cybersociology.com

 

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