Eastern European Maze: We Will Have to Look for a Way Out Ourselves
Strausberg, a town not far from Berlin, hosted the international conference, Media and Power Structures: Cooperation and Containment of Corruption, on June 23-36, sponsored by the Bundeswehr’s academy of information and communications and organized by the George Marshall Center for Security Studies. Among the participants were German, British, US experts, officials from military and security ministries and agencies, as well as journalists from twelve Southeast and Eastern European countries. Such attendance was no coincidence, and the fact was stressed at the opening ceremony, as most postsocialist countries in the region are currently determined to integrate into European and Euro- Atlantic structures. There are, however, quite a few obstacles to surmount; otherwise their prospects look rather vague.
In the 1990s, the George Marshal Center, according to Bundeswehr Colonel Franz-Xaver Lauterer, Director of the Marshall Center’s Conference Center, while studying conflicts in the Balkans and CIS countries, noted the problem of organized crime which was like a malignant tumor suppressing economic growth and social reform. Further study of organized crime in the region, Colonel Lauterer went on to say, brought forth the problem of terrorism and especially corruption affecting postsocialist governmental structures. The Marshal Center organized a special conference in Sofia to deal with the latter issue, yet experts believe that combating corruption requires efforts by power structures as well as the entire potential of civil society, with the media acting a go-between and mobilizing public opinion against corruption. Colonel Lauterer compared looking for a formula of such cooperation to seeking a way out of a labyrinth – he also suggested it as a logotype for the conference in Strausberg.
Despite the absence of a comparative analysis of the causes and levels of corruption in various Southeast European countries, most participants admitted the presence of the problem of abuse of authority for the sake of improper private gain. Moreover, none objected to the assessment of the situation offered by Janos Barabas, first secretary of the Hungarian Embassy in Romania, who declared that corruption in Eastern European countries has long turned from a domestic into an international problem. Examples of corruption affecting the development of separate countries were cited. Bulgarian journalist Krasimir Dobrev stated that polls in his country pointed to corruption being a problem second only to those of poverty, low wages, and unemployment. He added that corruption could become a serious obstacle in the way of Bulgarian NATO and EU membership. Worse still, corruption is a “serious risk factor curbing foreign investment, thus undermining domestic potential.” Similar opinions were voiced by Romanian, Albanian, and Slovak delegates.
Quite a few conference participants referred to corruption within state structures as a separate problem. Krasimir Dobrev, relying on official data, told those present that there was “at least one police officer involved with each such gang” in Bulgaria. Others speaking at the conference expressed concern that power structures in Southeast Europe were trusted by a mere 40% of the population and that the army was considered the least corrupt organization. Yet cases of corruption have been registered in the Hungarian army, despite the country’s NATO membership. The press insists the military conceals facts of desertion.
Norbert A. Bauer of the German defense ministry’s special investigation department, gave an interesting account of the history of struggle against corruption in the Bundeswehr. In his words, the situation looked especially grim in the 1950s when the armed forces were just being organized, meaning heavy military contracts and a high nutrient medium for corruption. It came to the point that the defense ministry’s logistics department became popularly known as a “federal agency of defense technology and bribe-taking.” The situation was remedied and the good name of the military restored largely thanks to the agencies combating corruption and mustering the courage to cooperate with the press, said Mr. Bauer.
Examples of fruitful cooperation between the media and power structure in investigating corruption cases were also provided by US Defense Department analyst Christopher A. Corpora and Swen Gareis of the Bundeswehr’s Institute of Social Studies, both experts on corruption and conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Herzegovina with UN peacekeeping contingents. The conference agreed that corruption more often than not emerges and develops in the shadow sector and that media exposures help combat the abuse of power and improve the social climate.
Meanwhile, establishing cooperation between the media and power structures is easier said than done. Experts compared their relationships in different countries to those between rivals and even described them as dog-eat-dog. Dr. Albert Pierce, an expert on professional military ethics at the US Naval Academy, noted that media-military relations mean not only different professions, but also different cultures. While power structures are a form, hierarchy, closeness, and conservatism, the press is the exact opposite. A journalist operates under market conditions and is suspicious about all closed organizations; his main business is to collect heretofore unknown facts and opinions and make them public knowledge. There is no coincidence about people representing both professions – and actually doing the same thing, investigating – treating each other with suspicion; they often find themselves at odds and sue each other. Lawsuits were a separate topic at the conference. It transpired that all Southeast and Eastern European countries had registered the same trend of late, with state structures trying to fence off their activities by laws enhancing secrecy, while persecuting journalists en masse, suing them for libel and slander. In addition to media people, Richard N. Winfield, member of the US Bar Association, expressed concern over the situation. US journalist Laura Kelly quite categorically urged her Eastern European colleagues to perform a kind of self-repentance, admitting to separate facts of lack of professionalism and even corruption.
“Building bridges” between power structures and media at the Strausberg conference was seen in the working out of a package of recommendations to enhance cooperation for the benefit of fighting corruption, including measures to upgrade legal culture, expand business and personal contacts, elaborating codes of conduct for both power structures and the media, and the mutual recommendation to provide truthful information or no information at all. The conference organizers believed that all this would eventually help establish a kind of partnership between power structures and the media as two influential forces in the struggle against corruption.
Whether jokingly or seriously, the Eastern European delegates proposed their Western partners adopt a new Marshal Plan capable of improving the socioeconomic situation in Eastern Europe as a whole, thus reducing the crime rate and abuse of power. Some said that curing this disease requires not half measures but a complex approach. However, no large scale projects were in evidence except separate programs to help combat corruption. All things considered, we have to rely on our own resources to seek a way out of that labyrinth.
