Summary of the October-December 1996 Monitoring. Part C: Albania and Romania.

(This summary is based on the reports of the first three months for most countries (by mid-January 1997, no reports were available from Macedonia, and only the October 1996 report from Turkey); because of its length, it comes in three parts.)

Mariana Lenkova

In the period October-December, 1996, the greater part of the Albanian media treated the other Balkan states and their peoples in a neutral way. Information about Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey came primarily from the foreign news agencies and was factual and to the point. Thus the media covered the problems of the Bulgarian government and the vote of confidence it got, while the news on Romania concerned the elections taking place in the country. The corruption scandals in Turkey also got their coverage without any interpretations and comments. However, there were occasional exceptions to this when it came to countries in which there are large Albanian minorities which face numerous problems.

GREECE is a country in which there is a great number of Albanian immigrants. That is why when the Albanian press presents that country, it is usually in order to show what the problems of those immigrants are: "Greeks shoot clandestine. Greek police opens fire, one of the wounded comes back paralyzed." (KJ, 02/10). At the same time Rep. (08/12) wrote about the debates between the Greek Ministry of the Interior and the Media on the declarations of Minister Romeos that Albanians must be thrown out of Greece, because they are alleged drug-traffickers and because 256 Albanians are imprisoned in Greek prisons on charges of drug-trafficking: "Romeos seeks to crucify Albanian immigrants - Greek Media in support of Albanians." However, as time went by an interesting change took place - the press started presenting the process of the Greek public becoming aware of the negative role of their media in the building of negative stereotypes of the Albanian immigrants: "Thousand of emigrants, victims of the Hellenic opinion; I would consider as criminal the way the media and the press of my country, Greece addresses the Albanians. " (KJ, 21/11). This trend was continued when the Greek workers spoke in solidarity with the Albanian immigrants on the latter’s legalization and against the "broom" operation started by the government. "Democratically in the birthplace of democracy" (ZP, 02/12).

MACEDONIA has its own "Albanian problem". It concerns the large Albanian minority there, which is not given an equal opportunity for development: "The Albanian language is being persecuted. 2.5 tons of books in Albanian are destroyed in Macedonia." (RD, 02/10). In fact even when KJ (17/11) presented in a positive way the situation on the eve of the local elections in Macedonia, reviewing the policy of each political party, this was done with the aim of criticizing the Tirana government for "being unable to play the role of the Patriarch in the solution of the problems of Albanians, both in Macedonia and Kosovo." On the same day the independent paper Albania published an article under the title "Today the local elections in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Once again stones under the wheels for the Albanians." (17/11) in which it spoke about the unfavorable climate for the Albanian political parties in the elections. In dealing with problems like those, the press reached the conclusion that the "non-solution of the inter-ethnic problems endangers the country’s [Macedonia’s] stability; [I]nternational observers criticize Macedonia."(RD, 12/12)

SERBIA also got its usual "bad publicity", especially in regards to its treatment of the region of Kosovo, which is within the boundaries of that country and has a large Albanian minority: "Seselj, stay away from Kosovo!" (Rep., 03/10). [The paper noted that the leader of the Serb Radicals, Voislav Seselj, has declared: "We, the Serbian Radicals, will establish five divisions of Chetnicks in Kosovo... The Albanians who will not obey to the Serbian state, will be thrown away from Kosovo, beyond the Bjeshkeve te Nemura (the name of the mountains) in Albania.] "As long as the criminals of common graves in Bosnia are not really judged, Seseljs will plow violence and will mine the peace". Many papers raised their voice against the fact that "Serbia is trying to prolong the Kosovo occupation for one more century" (Rep., 29/10) making "Kosovo [a] typical colony of Serbia" (RD, 13/11). "The situation in Kosovo is intolerable", because there is "Serbian persecution of the Albanian Tradeunions." (RD, 30/11), "[T]orture kills Albanians" (GS, 13/12) and "[T]he Media in Kosovo [are] under the cruelest Serb discrimination" (RD, 04/12). The leitmotif of all these articles was summarized in large letters on the front page of RD (06/12) "Repression should stop in Kosovo." There were even reports on open threats from the Serbs "I’ll kill all Albanians; [A] Serb shoots a gun in an Albanian school in Gjakova" (RD, 23/11) which lead to the conclusion that "the address of terrorism in Kosovo is Belgrade" (R, 29/11). Still, it is interesting to point out that apart from the usual negative presentation of the Serbs "[A]rmed Serb civilians threatened and beat Albanian students" (RD, 27/12), there were some positive nuances as well "[D]emaui: I have never lost faith in the Serbian people" (KJ, 06/12).

The daily rallies and demonstrations in Belgrade were another event which got a very large coverage. The whole range of the Albanian media supported the Serbian opposition and pictured Milosevic as the last dictator in the Balkans. However, the media were quick to report that the supporters of the Serb opposition addressed Milosevic’s supporters as "Albanians, thieves, go to Albania", and said to the Serbs of Kosovo "We shall sell you just as we sold Krajina and Bosnia, are you conscious of this?" (RD, 27/12, quoting Borba).

Turning to the image of the internal minorities, the presentation of the Albanian ROMA is particularly interesting and unusual from the point of view of the other Balkan media. GS (17/11) dedicated a whole special page to that ethnic group, discussing with concern the integration of its members in the Albanian society, their desire to have a better life and higher living standards: "Now the Roms do not lead their special life. Are they going to be assimilated? Though some of them are accommodated and say ‘Here, in Albania, everything is very nice’, what about the others, do they feel themselves equal citizens?". At the same time the efforts of the Roma community to defend their culture and language were presented in a favorable light: "Don’t call us Gypsies, we are Roms and we speak the Roma language, the head of the Roms says".

Guide to newspaper initials: RD Rilindja Demokratike (the paper of the Democratic Party); ZP Zeri i Popullit (the paper of the Socialist Party); Rep Republika (the paper of the Republican Party); PQ Poli i Qendres (the paper of the Social Democratic Party and the Party of the Democratic Alliance); GS Gazeta Shqiptare (independent); KJ Koha Jone (independent); A Albania (independent); R Rilindja (independent).

In the period October - December, 1996, the media in Romania showed a tendency to present the news from the neighboring countries in an objective and informative manner. Thus the most important events in the other Balkan states were dealt with but there was a specific way of coverage, due to the fact that the media were constantly trying to juxtapose the events to similar ones in Romania. It is important to point out that this was a period of elections for Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia, so those elections were compared and conclusions were drawn. The other Balkan countries, the ones which did not have any major events taking place (Albania, Greece, Turkey), were not present in any other way than in the usual neutral correspondences from the news agencies.

BULGARIA is usually presented to the Romanian public as a good example of economic collapse caused by unfinished reforms: "Bulgaria: the deadline of delayed reforms (CN, 10/10). This tendency to use Bulgaria as the basis for a comparison in favor of Romania was seen even from the translated versions of self-ironical articles from the Bulgarian press: "[W]e will not ask ourselves how to overtake the Americans but how to overtake the Romanians" (Standart, Sofia), in an article titled "The press in Sofia is concerned about Romania becoming a model for Bulgaria" (Z, 20/11). However, the problems of the neighboring state which were dealt with were not only the economic ones, especially after the assassination of Former Prime Minister Andrey Lukanov: "Lukanov was assassinated. Bulgaria is in a state of shock" (CN, 03/10); "Lukanov’s assassination brings Bulgaria on the fringes of political chaos" (by Plamen Stefanov from Novinar, Sofia, in A, 04/10). Apart from that the Romanian media showed concern for the good image of their country after the appearance of articles accusing the French ex-minister Charles Hernu of having been a spy in the service of the Communist East and especially the Bulgarian and the Romanian secret services: "The Bulgarians drop the story of the spy Charles Hernu in Romania’s courtyard" (EZ, 02/12).

SERBIA was the other Balkan country which attracted the attention of the Romanian media, especially after the cancellation by the state authorities of the opposition’s victory in the municipal elections, and the rallies which followed. The latter invoked some direct references to the mass protests against the Communist rule in the University Square in Bucharest in 1992: "The Serbian Opposition is protecting its electoral victory in the capital. The University Square phenomenon in Belgrade" (RL 27/11). The whole range of the media were reporting on those demonstrations in a favorable light, stressing again and again the similarity of the evens with the ones which had taken place in Romania: "The rope is tightening around Milosevic" (CR, 06/12); "Milosevic and his wife, a kind of Ceausescus" (CR, 10/12);"’Romanization’ in Belgrade?" (RL, 06/12).

It seems that the tendency of the Romanian media to present the other Balkan states in a neutral way does not hold for the presentation of the internal minorities within the boundaries of the country which get mainly biased and negative coverage. The ROMA minority was shown in the traditional light of criminality and asocial behavior: "The Gypsy Mafia stole billions from state factories and plants" (A, 24/10) and "Threatening them with a gun, 2 Gypsies forced several young women to prostitute themselves" (JN, 24/10); "A Group of Gypsies threaten to occupy abusively another building in Bucharest" (RL, 01/11). Thus the public is led to believe that all Roma are criminals and dishonest people who cannot be trusted: "A group of dangerous Gypsies kidnapped a citizen of Bucharest whom they kept in terror for 5 hours" (JN, 23/11); "Two Gypsies put a whole family in hospital" (JN, 17/12); "The Gypsies protected by police take over by abuse the apartments of the heroes of the Revolution" (Z, 09/12). However, there was a particularly interesting occasion when the press said something new and unusual about the Roma: "The Roma demonstrated on the Human Rights Day" (CR, 11/12).

Even though there are some stable negative stereotypes in regard to the Roma, the stereotypes which are used for the HUNGARIAN minority have the potential of becoming even more dangerous, due to the fact that they address a very large group of people with their political power and their close relations Hungary. It is exactly due to this support that the Romanian press was so negative to the extent that it sounded scared: "When we face preparations for aggression against the territorial integrity of Romania and of the Romanian people, shall we pretend not to notice, like the Radio, Television and part of our press generally do, the anti-Romanian direction, dominant today in Hungary, as well as among Hungarians everywhere, including their political organism in our country?" (CN, 26/10). The Romanian media showed an even greater concern when the fact that the UDMR (the Hungarian minority party) was to participate in the new government became known: "[W]hat is important is that during the meeting of the UDMR Congress autonomy was demanded, and it can lead to a model of a federal state" (CR, 08/11). This was viewed as really dangerous because the UDMR is "in a position to dictate the future policy of the country" (CR, 9-10/11). As time went by and as the appointment of ministers from the UDMR was already a fact the media kept looking suspiciously to the minority, even more so when a Hungarian prefect was appointed to a Romanian county: "The denationalization of the Romanians in Covasna county reached alarming levels. The county prefect declares: in their heart of hearts the UDMR leaders are agents of ethnic separatism." (JN, 16/12). The fear of the Romanians that they might be deprived of their national identity was escalated by reminiscences of historical facts as well: "The appointment of the UDMR representatives to the office of prefects in Satu Mare and Salaj is a grave political error of the current governmental coalition. The last Hungarian prefect in Salaj was ?. appointed in December 1940. But this happened when Salaj was under Hungarian occupation. I refuse to believe that at present the situation is similar." (JN, 17/12). However there was an attempt to look at the situation from a more rational point of view which was presented in RL (19/12): "Accepting to participate in the new Government, UDMR understood that it annulled any chance of future protest before European fora against persecutions of the Hungarian minority in Romania. This means that UDMR accepted the role of an honest and responsible participant in the political life of the country. Obviously, the demands of the Hungarian voters will continue to be pursued, but this can no longer exceed reasonable limits."

Apart from these ethnic minorities, the Romanian media are the only ones in the Balkans who are producing abundant materials concerning the JEWS, the underlying idea behind most of the articles being that there is an international Jewish conspiracy against Romania. The Jews were discussed in relation to one of the presidential candidates: The Iliescu regime favours the Jews in exchange of pro-Cotroceni lobby." (Cotroceni is the presidential palace and signifies the presidency) (Z, 14/10) and after that the leader of the legionnaire group Serban Suru put into words the suggestion that the international Jewish circles aim at subjugating Romania by indebting the country to the "Romanian and international Jewish community with sums between 20 and 40 billion USD as reparation for the Holocaust and the fascist regime in our country during WW II. Considering that in Romania there was no Holocaust against the Jews and no fascist regime and that it would be a mistake on the part of the power to admit to the West that there was, the Legionnaire Movement wishes that the Romanians themselves be paid damages by the Jews who brought the communism to our country." (CR, 29/11)