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Country Profile

19 07 2005  BIRN SaM Mission
BIRN SaM aims to assist citizens to play a more active and positive role in determining their country's future and to enhance the role of the media as a mediator between political, social, economic and ethnic groups.

BIRN SaM Mission

BIRN SaM aims to assist citizens to play a more active and positive role in determining their country's future and to enhance the role of the media as a mediator between political, social, economic and ethnic groups. Our long-term aim is to advance Serbia and Montenegro’s political, social and economic transition through information, training and public dialogue.

Challenges

More than five years after the ouster of former Serbian president and wartime strongman Slobodan Milosevic, the country still suffers from the fall-out of a decade of dictatorship, warfare, rampant crime and corruption, ethnic bigotry and human rights abuses.

Recent decisions of the European Union have brought Serbia and Montenegro a step closer to the distant goal of EU membership.

But serious obstacles remain. Although Serbia has improved its level of cooperation with the Hague war crimes tribunal, it has yet to take serious steps to apprehend one of the court’s most notorious fugitive indictees, Ratko Mladic. Debate on Serbia’s leading role in the wars of the 1990s in former Yugoslavia is lacking in the mainstream media, political leadership and public. However, the efforts of civil society organisations to buck this trend are being stepped up.

Other challenges are the continuing political strength of radical nationalism and the weakness of the State Union. While the government in Montenegro is unwilling to tackle the issue of organised crime and remains preoccupied with achieving separation from Serbia, question marks continue to hover over this constitutional arrangement, further slowing progress towards European integration.

With talks on the future of Kosovo approaching, there is concern for South Serbia, an area with a majority Albanian population whose future its leaders hope will also be put on the negotiating table. Bosnian and Serbian communities in Sandzak, an area straddling Montenegro and Serbia, are radicalising. The northern province of Vojvodina, long held up as an example of inter-ethnic harmony, has seen in recent times frequent confrontations involving ethnic Hungarians, Croats and Serbs. Roma continue to face widespread discrimination throughout SaM.

BIRN SaM’s approach

BIRN SaM is a leading journalism training organisation, with substantial reporting and public dialogue activities.

Our project - Minority Training and Reporting – funded by the British Embassy in Belgrade aims to improve journalism standards in all regions of Serbia and Montenegro with substantial minority populations, and increase awareness of issues concerning these communities amongst the public, nationwide.

This three-year programme combines theoretical media training with practical reporting experience to create a wide and varied journalist network, which gives local and minority journalists throughout the country an opportunity to cover major issues plaguing their areas and challenge current misunderstandings, neglect and suspicion.

The long-term aim of the courses is to create investigative teams throughout Serbia and Montenegro that will link BIRN Serbia to the wider BIRN network in the Balkans, bringing increased opportunities for joint work on issues common to many Balkan states such as war crimes and corruption.
The project’s reporting for BIRN’s Balkan Insight covers the key political, social and economic issues which are facing Serbia and Montenegro today.

Its investigations and analyses provide in-depth coverage of its wartime legacy, territorial issues, international intervention and domestic reform progress. Involvement in the BIRN Network ensures these reports are researched and published in a regional, cross-border context.

BIRN SaM places special attention to the situation in Kosovo, war crimes, and military, police and judicial reforms, as well as minority rights. Quarterly roundtables in Belgrade, based on BIRN reports, will take place on the issues of transition, transparency, rule of law and the media's role in society, in order to raise public awareness of these questions.