Businessmen from Kosovo want B92 to stop airing Insider

The new Insider series dubbed Patriotic Pillage is looking into abuses, smuggling and other offences in northern Kosovo.

The 19 businessmen have requested B92 to stop "accusing unselectively and without evidence all businessmen and entire industries from northern Kosovo of smuggling, tax evasion, money laundering and other crimes".

It is as if (Kosovo PM) Hashim Thaci and other Albanian separatists and their sponsors from abroad have ordered the airing of the program on B92 TV with a goal to criminalize northern Kosovo Serbs and abolish their remaining human rights and freedoms, reads the warning letter.

The 19 northern Kosovo businessmen stress that B92 will be charged with libel and violation of business reputation and their companies' creditworthiness if it continues to air the series.

They have also announced that they will request damages worth dozens of millions of euros.

The letter was published by Vesti-online.com news outlet. B92 has not been asked to comment on the issue despite the basic rules of journalism. Vesti-online.com is an internet edition of Frankfurt-based Serbian language daily Vesti.

Daily Pravda has also reported on the issue and asked northern Kosovo Serb leaders Serb National Council of Northern Kosovo President Milan Ivanovic, Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) Main Board member Marko Jaksic and B92 Editor in Chief Veran Matić to comment on it.

However, the daily published an article dubbed "Hashim Thaci finances B92?". Pravda quoted Jaksic as saying that "allegations on financiers of the series are probably true because as long as there is no defined customs there is no independent state of Kosovo". The daily added that the "series is aimed at filling Kosovo's budget".

Ivanović called on all Serbs to support the request to end the airing of the new Insider series.

"B92 is disqualifying and belittling all citizens of northern Kosovo. With their politicking and tendentiousness they are ruining the Serbian institutions in Kosovo," he stressed.

When asked who financed B92, Ivanovic said that "B92 is under the foreign influence".

Insider is looking into mechanisms that have been used for years to smuggle VAT-free goods between Serbia and Kosovo which deprived the Serbian budget of millions of euros every year.

A decision of PM Vojislav Kostunica's government from 2005 to abolish VAT on good intended for Kosovo, in circumstances of the uncontrolled administrative line between Serbia and Kosovo, allowed individuals to become rich thanks to smuggling. It also incurred enormous damages to the Serbian state budget because VAT-free goods could be returned to central Serbia thanks to the lack of control.

The Insider team proved in two episodes the absurdity of the state's decision not to have VAT in a part of Serbia.

It is also interesting that the northern Kosovo businessmen, who now want the series to be stopped, managed to win the VAT abolishment in 2005 by using barricades and political speeches given by Ivanovic.

The decision was made after Kostunica's meeting with Kosovo politicians and businessmen.

According to the first official data obtained by the Insider team, goods worth EUR 2bn have been taken to Kosovo from central Serbia since VAT was repealed. This means that goods worth EUR 840,000 was sent to Kosovo each day. The number of companies opened in Kosovo has increased six times since 2005.

The goods that came to Kosovo from Serbia were not cheaper despite the fact that no VAT was paid for them and both Serbian and Albanian individuals have made profit this way.

This is not the first time for B92 editors to get warning letters over Insider. The same happened four years ago when Port of Belgrade attorneys sent two letters to B92, requesting that the Port of Belgrade not be mentioned in the series dubbed Official Abuse. The first letter was a pre-suit warning while the second was a "warning of warnings".

Insider revealed at the time that damages worth several billions of euros were incurred to the Serbian budget thanks to abuse of office in competent institutions. However, the pre-suit warning did not stop the B92 from airing Insider. The series revealed everything that was happening during the privatization of the Port of Belgrade. Despite the warnings, no charges have been filed against Insider reporters.

The Insider team has stated, just like four years ago, that there is no need to send the pre-suit warning letters.

"If there is something that is not true in the episodes, you have the right to file the lawsuit but you do not have the right to try to prevent the public from learning who became rich by taking advantage of Kosovo Serbs' misfortune with some warning letters," the Insider reporters have pointed out.

In the continuation of the Patriotic Pillage series, the audience will be able to see how patriotic so-called leaders of Kosovo Serbs are, what privileges they have while Serbs living in enclaves can barely survive and where the money from the Serbian budget, intended for the Serbian population in the province, is going. The Serbian government allocates about EUR 650,000 a day for the threatened Serbian population in Kosovo.

"We will not buckle under pressure"

"Everything that has been said in Insider's Patriotic Pillage series has been checked and documented, it refers to concrete people, events and phenomena. The claim that we are generally criminalizing all Serbs from Kosovo or all Serbs from northern Kosovo is a rude lie and a plain fallacy," says Matic.

"In a similar manner each attempt to bring order to the area the series discusses has been declared betrayal of national interests and hostile activity," he added.

"Just like we produce and air our program with the public interest in our mind and not on anybody's orders, we will not take our program off the air on anyone's order, not even the order of the group of businessmen or ‘businessmen'," Matic pointed out.

"The real businessmen are happy because the series is clearing the name of all those who do their business honestly and in very difficult conditions and condemn all possible criminal acts and offenses that some commit by taking advantage of the very difficult position of the Kosovo Serbs," he noted.

"There is no censorship in Serbia and there will be neither self-censorship at B92 nor will B92 buckle under the pressure of any group of businessmen and take its shows off the air," Matic concluded.