April 12, 1999
ASSASSINATION
Gunmen Kill Opposition Publisher in Belgrade
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By STEVEN ERLANGER
ELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- In a vicious message to the few remaining
independent news outlets in Yugoslavia, gunmen on Sunday shot and
killed a well-known opposition publisher outside his apartment
building in central Belgrade.
Slavko Curuvija, the owner of the Dnevni Telegraf, or The Daily
Telegraph, and the news biweekly Evropljanin, was shot as he
returned home from an Easter lunch with his wife, historian Branka
Prpa.
Ms. Prpa told police and friends that two gunmen dressed in
black, including black leather jackets, fired several bullets into
Curuvija's back. They then pistol-whipped her, opening a large cut
on her head, she said, before firing more shots into Curuvija's
head.
"I can't believe that they're killing journalists," Ms. Prpa
said afterward in her apartment, clearly stunned. "Was he so
dangerous for the state? He was just doing his job."
In the widespread crackdown by President Slobodan Milosevic
against the independent news media, Dnevni Telegraf and Evropljanin
were heavily fined last year for breaching Serbia's restrictive
information law, passed only in October, and then the publications
were banned.
Curuvija reregistered them in Montenegro, Yugoslavia's second,
more liberal republic. They were printed in Croatia, but their
distribution in Serbia had been widely curtailed.
In recent weeks, the Yugoslav government has moved to shut down
all independent media here, closing radio station B-92 in Belgrade
and reopening it under more compliant leadership, as well as
closing Radio 021 in Novi Sad. All independent Albanian-language
media in Kosovo have also been shut down or destroyed.
Curuvija and two reporters were fined last month for linking
last year's killing of a Belgrade doctor to the Serbian vice prime
minister, Milovan Bojic. Later, a police investigation concluded
that it was not linked to Bojic. Curuvija, who refused to pay the
fine, was sentenced to five months in jail, and was awaiting the
results of his appeal.
Last Monday, state television read an open attack on Curuvija,
accusing him of supporting NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia. The
commentary said: "Today when these bombs that were desired so much
are killing Serbia, the traitors are silent. If they expect Serbs
and Serbia to be enslaved, they're waiting in vain. And if they
hoped their treason would be forgotten they hoped in vain."
The next day, in the newspaper Politika Ekspres, a headline
read: "Curuvija has finally got his bombs." The article quoted
Milosevic's powerful wife, Mira Markovic, as saying: "The owner of
a Belgrade daily newspaper said he supports the United States in
its desire to bomb Serbia." The writer of the article then
continues: "This is of course Slavko Curuvija."
Curuvija denied making any such comment.
The official Yugoslav news agency, Tanjug, reported on Sunday
night that Curuvija had been killed "by unknown perpetrators,"
and added, "The police are intensively searching for the
perpetrators."
Curujiva, who was about 50, was a tall, elegant man with a small
gray beard. He and Ms. Prpa recently gave an interview for a story
that was published in The New York Times.
"He will go to jail for five months, and after this bombing,
who will care?" Ms. Prpa asked. "The West can't help him, that's
another effect of this bombing. Milosevic can act like a dictator
and lock us all up, and who will care for us? I agree the West
should care for the human rights of ethnic Albanians, but do they
also care for mine?"
Curuvija, said that it is impossible now for democrats or
dissidents to raise up their heads in this war fever. "The Serbs
feel under a collective guilty verdict, and the democratic forces
are pushed into their mouse holes because of this permanent state
of emergency," he said. "In this moment, you cannot say you want
to change something, or bring Serbia closer to the West, which is
bombing your country -- it makes you a traitor."
"All this helps Milosevic," he added. "Everything Western is
terrible right now."
Ms. Prpa said softly: "The worst of all is to feel you have no
future. What kind of future do we have?"
