Slavko Ćuruvija

Slavko Ćuruvija (Serbian: Славко Ћурувија), born August 9, 1949 in Zagreb, Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was a Serbian journalist and newspaper publisher. His brutal murder on April 11, 1999 in Belgrade, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia provoked international outrage and wide condemnation. It is still not known exactly who carried out the assassination, nor who ordered it.

In the years since his untimely end, his murder has become one of the widely cited examples of Slobodan Milošević's regime's alleged brutality.

Early career

After graduating from University of Belgrade's Faculty of Political Sciences, Ćuruvija found employment as a business secretary and PR assistant at Mašinogradnja company in Belgrade. He soon became the contributor to Zagreb's "Danas" weekly magazine, as well as to the Social Research Center (Centar za drustvena istrazivanja).

Between 1984 and 1986, he worked as an analyst in Federal Interior Secreteriat and State Security.

Career in journalism

In 1986, Ćuruvija joined the staff of "Borba": initially as commentator, then advancing to the position of domestic political section editor, and eventually becoming "Borba"'s editor-in-chief. He stayed with the daily paper until 1994 while regularly contributing to "Komunist", "Vjesnik", "NIN", "Večernji list", "Nedelja", "Pobjeda", TV Belgrade, TV Politika, TV Sarajevo, and some foreign publications.

In 1994, after the regime's unofficial takeover at "Borba", Ćuruvija, along with many other staffers decided to leave the daily. While some of them quickly reconvened to form "Nasa borba", Ćuruvija took another career route, hooking up with Momčilo Đorgović to create "Nedeljni telegraf" - a weekly tabloid newspaper. In 1996, the duo founded "Dnevni telegraf" - Serbia's first privately owned daily in more than 50 years. Ćuruvija was "DT"'s director and editor-in-chief, and eventually, after splitting with Đorgović, it's sole owner.

In 1998, Ćuruvija additionally started a bi-weekly magazine "Evropljanin" where he gathered some notable names of Serbian journalism such as Aleksandar Tijanić, Ljiljana Smajlović, and Dragan Bujosevic.

Initial friendship...

Both Curuvija-owned publications undeniably benefited from his access to Mirjana Marković, wife of Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic. Not many specific, established details that would indicate the extent of their relationship are publicly accessible. Most come from second or third hand accounts.

In RTS produced 2006 TV documentary "Kad rezim strelja", Aleksandar Tijanić refers to it as a "non-aggression pact between Mira and Slavko allowing him access to many relevant pieces of information that ultimately greatly increased" "Dnevni telegraf"'s "readership", while Ćuruvija's common-law wife Branka Prpa who was with him at the time of his murder attaches less significance to this friendship saying that it "revolved around conversations that many other journalists engaged in with Mira Marković hoping to manipulate her into revealing more than she'd originally planned". Prpa went on to add: "However, I think they became the ones being manipulated as the time went on".

...and subsequent fallout with Mira Marković

Whatever it was, their relationship was deteriorating by the day in late summer and early fall of 1998. Yugoslav army and Serbian police were in various stages of a crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Serbian southern province of Kosovo, the threat of NATO bombing was hanging over everyone's head, and both of Curuvija's publications reported extensively on all of these issues, all of which earned "Dnevni telegraf" a ban on October 14, 1998 under a special new decree.

Furious with the new developments, Ćuruvija demanded to see Mira Marković and a meeting was arranged at her party's (Yugoslav Left) offices during the week "Dnevni telegraf" was banned as the new Information Law was being prepared. The meeting, reportedly quickly turned into a heated exchange.

According to Predrag Popović's book "Oni ne prastaju" (written from the author's subsequent interviews with Slavko), Curuvija was shouting: "What the hell do you think you're doing. If you continue down this crazy path, you can be sure you'll all be hanging off lamp posts in Terazije".

Visibly flustered Mira, reportedly responded: "How can you say that Slavko, after all we've allowed you".

Slavko's later comment was also published in the book: "Evidently she thought she'd done me a great favour by allowing me to live a normal life and publish newspapers all those years".

The meeting, their last ever, ended with Ćuruvija saying: "Say hello to your husband for me"." To which visibly shook up Mira responded: "I will not do that, but I will tell him everything you said"."

People who happened to be in the building said Mirjana Marković was crying after the meeting.

In April 2006 piece on B92 TV, commemorating 7 years since the unsolved Ćuruvija murder case, Branka Prpa recounted few more details of the Ćuruvija-Marković exchange: "He was shouting 'What are you doing this for? You're going to cause a widespread war!' Mira then told him 'Oh, so you want them to bomb us.' He responded 'Well, maybe they should bomb you, it's the only way for us to finally get you out of power!'". [http://www.b92.net/info/emisije/istrazuje.php?yyyy=2006&mm=04&nav_id=194699]

"Evropljanin" trial on October 23, 1998

Ćuruvija's response to the unpleasant exchange was a scathing blast of the ruling couple from the pages of "Evropljanin" co-written with Aleksandar Tijanić. [http://www.ex-yupress.com/dtelegraf/evroplj1.html] The issue came out on October 19, 1998 - one day before the infamous Information Law was passed, which didn't stop the authorities from putting Ćuruvija and his paper on trial 4 days later and persecuting them using that law. The culmination of the day-long trial was a crippling DM350,000 fine.

References

* , April 17, 1999