News-from-the-media

Except for two families. They remember every detail. That was the day their lives were uprooted, left hanging in the grasp of that invisible hand of evil. To this day, their lives have not yet found their place, their soft landing and calm.  

Journalist Đuro Slavuj and driver Ranko Perenić got into the blue "Zastava 128" and headed to the Sveti Vrači (Holy Healers) monastery in Zočište, a village near Orahovac, to make a report on the return of kidnapped monks. 

They have been missing ever since. Even the car they were in - the blue "Zastava 128" - has never been found.

It has been 25 long years. For all that time, families and friends have been waiting for one accurate and real piece of information - where are they?

In the beginning, there were many promises, reactions, noises, and then everything went silent. All that remained was the eerie, heavy and painful silence that comes after the leaden question "is there anything new?".

"I don't know what words to use to describe how I feel after all these years of waiting and searching," Snežana Perenić, wife of Ranko Perenić, said quietly.

A New York Times reporter saw the car

Milivoje Mihajlović, then director of Radio Pristina and the Media Center, replayed the day when two of his colleagues went missing a million times in his head.

There were also several hundred foreign journalists in the Media Center on those days, and the practice was that before the journalists went to the field in “dangerous areas", Mihajlović would check with the police which roads were safe.

"And that day, I was traveling. The next day, their editors informed me that Ranko and Đuro had not called in the newsroom. I called the police and found out that the day before they passed by several police checkpoints near Orahovac. I called all the hospitals and clinics; I asked KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) spokesman Adem Demaçi to help me in the search. He said that he would be engaged, but he did not manage to get any information," Mihajlović remembers.

Starting private investigation, he tried to reconstruct the movements of Ranko Pernić and Đuro Slavuj. Many foreign journalists wanted to help. The New York Times reporter at the time, Mike O'Connor, bravely went to the region where the journalists of Radio Pristina disappeared.

"In the evening, Mike asked me exactly what car they were driving and what tape recorder they had. When I answered, he showed me a piece of paper on which he wrote down the type and serial number of the voice recorder he saw in a car in Bela Crkva near Orahovac. The number corresponded to the one brought by Ranko and Đuro. Local KLA commanders told Mike that they have no information about what happened to the journalists and that they found an abandoned car."

Mihajlović underlines that he understood that the last chance to find them was by keeping their names mentioned in the media and the public:  

"I alerted the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) headed by Kati Marton, the wife of American diplomat Richard Holbrook, at that time the most powerful man in the Balkans. The Committee called for the release of Slavuj and Perenić. For almost two months, it was daily news in most of the leading media in the West (media). Unfortunately, there was no news about their fate".

Dismissed 

Snežana Perenić, the wife of Ranko Perenić, stayed in touch with everyone who could help, including international organizations, as well as the then head of the American Diplomatic Observer Mission in Kosovo, Shaun Byrnes.

Retired American diplomat Shaun Byrnes shared his memories of those events:

"When we toured the field, we came into contact with KLA soldiers, and through them with their commanders. We always asked them about the missing crew of Radio Pristina, but we never got a satisfactory answer".

The wall of silence surrounding the missing was broken on November 28, 2017, when a blue envelope arrived for the Perenić family from the EULEX mission (European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo) in Pristina. 

"The investigation is terminated", it was written. It was also stated that the investigation had been concluded back in 2013, now informing the family four years after the denouement:  

"While it is likely that the victims' status as missing persons after so many years indicates that they are no longer alive, there is an absolute lack of evidence as to what happened. Moreover, the identity of the alleged kidnappers is unknown and there is no reasonable prospect that their identities will be revealed through further investigative measures. There are no investigative findings to suggest further investigative actions... Therefore, the police report must be dismissed."

Snežana Perenić was in shock. Neither her family nor Đuro Slavuj knew that EULEX had been conducting an investigation. They were never invited to submit a statement. But, she added, this was the first time someone officially said that her husband and his colleague had been kidnapped.

The evidence based on which EULEX opted for the dismissal of the investigation were never presented. 

A pandemic of impunity

The names of Ranko Perenić and Đuro Slavuj are among a tragic series of uninvestigated disappearances and murders of journalists in Kosovo. 

While performing their work, between 1998 and 2005, 20 ethnic Albanian and Serbian journalists and media workers, as well as the team of the German Stern magazine, were killed, kidnapped or "disappeared" in Kosovo. Only one crime was resolved in court proceedings before the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia).

The investigation of murders, kidnappings and disappearances of journalists and media workers was in the mandate of the Serbian police and prosecutor's office in 1998, and from June 10, 1999 under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), which until 2008 had executive authority under Resolution 1244.

Since 2008, executive authority for the rule of law, and thus responsibility for investigating and prosecuting crimes, has been in the hands of the European Union Mission for the Rule of Law (EULEX). From 2014, EULEX handed over in stages the executive mandate in the field of investigation and justice to the Kosovo authorities. 

Crimes against journalists, crimes against basic human rights, affect the overall feeling of safety of journalists and therefore have implications for media freedom and public access to information.

Every attack on a journalist is a new darkness for democracy. Every unsolved murder comes with a thicker blackness while we stand defeated in front of the pandemic of impunity - according to the data of United Nations experts - nine out of 10 murders of journalists worldwide are never prosecuted.

Combating injustice

Crimes should not be allowed to go uninvestigated, unindicted and unprosecuted. Killed and missing journalists in Kosovo, whatever their nationality, should not be allowed to be forgotten.

In 2016, when the Norwegian diplomat Jan Braathu assumed the post of head of the OSCE in Pristina, the topic of murdered and missing journalists between 1998 and 2005 was not on the Mission's agenda.

"I raised the issue of murdered and missing journalists, believing that the fight against impunity and the search for justice are in accordance with the previous obligations and decisions of the OSCE and that solving these issues would in some way contribute to confronting the past," Braathu stated at the time. 

He added that he believes that learning the truth about the murders and disappearances of journalists in Kosovo from 1998 to 2005 is important for "facing the conflicted past and as part of the reconciliation process."

"Impunity for one crime can encourage other crimes." The preventive aspect is central, as are trials for war crimes", Braathu pointed out.

In May 2018. the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) adopted a motion on investigations into the killings of journalists in Kosovo, tabled by the Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS), the Kosovo Journalists Association (AGK), the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia (NUNS) and Journalists' Union of Serbia (SINOS).

In December 2018, the OSCE Ministerial Council adopted a Decision calling for a public and unequivocal condemnation of attacks and violence against journalists and for effective measures to end impunity for crimes against journalists. 

In October 2021, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) adopted a new motion, calling for the prompt establishment of an International Commission of Experts to investigate the killings, kidnappings and “disappearances” of journalists and media workers in Kosovo between 1998 and 2005. 

By passing this resolution, IFJ and EFJ members send a powerful message against impunity for crimes against journalists and media workers. This is crucial and essential for the administration of justice, but also necessary for the further protection of media professionals, and that bringing those responsible for these crimes to justice is a key element in preventing future attacks. 

At the beginning of 2023, the rapporteur of the European Parliament for Kosovo, Viola von Cramon, was the first high-ranking EU official to publicly mention the topic of crimes against journalists in Kosovo.

Regarding her report submitted to the EP Foreign Affairs Committee, she stated on Twitter that "the long-term impunity for the murder and disappearance of Serbian and Albanian journalists in Kosovo must become a priority for the Government."

No shortage of expressed determination and dedication. No effective investigations yet in sight. 

We are looking for them

Ranko Perenić, a native of Lipljan, near Pristina, got a job at Radio Pristina in 1980. Đuro Slavuj is one of more than 200,000 Serbs who came to Kosovo in 1995 as a refugee from Croatia as a result of the Croatian army's operation "Storm". Immediately he was hired. 

Both of them remained in Kosovo even though in 1998 the security situation deteriorated, with a great escalation of clashes between Serbian forces and the KLA.

"Both of them, that was the general opinion at Radio Pristina, are great people, honest, professional, true friends", remembers Milivoje Mihajlović.

"Ranko Perenić - hard-working, quiet, good man, beloved among his colleagues, very brave. Đuro Slavuj - an excellent professional, very quickly became one of the best journalists of Radio Pristina. Dedicated to work, hard-working, educated, with an excellent accent... We saw each other almost every morning, drinking coffee after the morning program he hosted. Open, warm-hearted, always smiling, positive... He looked with optimism at his own refugee situation, but also at family drama and at the escape from Croatia to Kosovo, which brought significant changes in his life."

Ensuring justice is paramount for victims and their families. But equally important for any society that wants to step out of the darkness, free itself from fears and move forward.

Ranko Perenić and Đuro Slavuj have become emblematic

In the fight against oblivion, in 2012, the Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS) placed a plaque on the road between Zočište and Orahovac to the memory of missing colleagues Ranko Perenić and Đuro Slavuj. The plaque, which reads in Serbian and Albanian: "Here on August 21, 1998, they were kidnapped our fellow journalists. We are looking for them".

The plaque was torn down eight times and was re-installed for the ninth time in May 2022. 

On 21 August 2023, again the Journalists’ Association of Serbia (UNS) reminded that Ranko and Đuro have not been forgotten.

We remind that when crimes go unpunished; freedom of speech becomes a bleeding target. 

And for justice? We continue to wait for the black blindfold to come off.

This article has been written by investigative journalist Jelena L. Petković. She has been working for many years on combating impunity for crimes against journalists and has over many years conducted research into the killing and disappearance of journalists in Kosovo. She has conducted interviews with more than 200 interlocutors: relatives, colleagues, acquaintances and members of international missions, disclosing new information on the disappearances and killings