-Caveat Lector- The other side of the coin ... ---------- : From: FAIR <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] : Subject: [FAIR-L] ACTION ALERT: Rescued from Memory Hole: Background ofSerb/Albanian Conflict : Date: Wednesday, March 31, 1999 1:47 PM : : ------------------------------------------ : FAIR-L : Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting : Media analysis, critiques and news reports : ------------------------------------------ : : FAIR ACTION ALERT: : Rescued from the Memory Hole: Background of Serb/Albanian Conflict : : There is always intense pressure in wartime for media outlets to serve : as propagandists rather than journalists. While the role of the : journalist is to present the world in all its complexity, so that people : can make up their own minds, the propagandist simplifies the world in : order to mobilize the public behind a common goal. : : One basic simplification is to interpret a conflict in terms of villains : and victims, with no qualification allowed for either role. Conflicts : in the real world rarely fall into such simple categories: Particularly : in ethnic conflicts, both sides usually have legitimate grievances that : are often used to justify a new round of abuses against the other side. : : In presenting the background to the Kosovo conflict, U.S. news outlets : usually begin with Serbia's revocation of the Kosovo Albanians' autonomy : in 1989. This was a crucial decision, one of the major reasons that the : Kosovo Liberation Army was formed. It also destabilized the Yugoslavian : system and contributed to the country's breakup. : : Yet media accounts have rarely explained why Serbia lifted Kosovo's : autonomy. The attached article, from the New York Times in 1987, gives : important background to this decision. Although the article is easily : found in the Nexis database, little to none of this information has : found its way into contemporary coverage of Kosovo, in the Times or : anywhere else. : : If one read a similar history of Kosovo written today, one would likely : dismiss it as pro-Serb propaganda. Yet this was written 12 years ago, : when Kosovo was an obscure corner of the world, and the New York Times : would not seem to have any particular interest in defending Serbs or : attacking Albanians. : : It should be kept in mind that some of the charges in this article may : be exaggerated or politically motivated. Of course, the same is true : of atrocity reports that are being carried in the New York Times and : other papers today. : : ***************** : The New York Times : November 1, 1987, Sunday, Late City Final Edition : Section 1; Part 1, Page 14, Column 1; : : "In Yugoslavia, Rising Ethnic Strife Brings Fears of Worse Civil : Conflict" : : By DAVID BINDER, Special to the New York Times : : BELGRADE, Yugoslavia : : Portions of southern Yugoslavia have reached such a state of ethnic : friction that Yugoslavs have begun to talk of the horrifying possibility : of ''civil war'' in a land that lost one-tenth of its population, or 1.7 : million people, in World : War II. : : The current hostilities pit separatist-minded ethnic Albanians against : the various Slavic populations of Yugoslavia and occur at all levels of : society, from the highest officials to the humblest peasants. : : A young Army conscript of ethnic Albanian origin shot up his barracks, : killing four sleeping Slavic bunkmates and wounding six others. : : The army says it has uncovered hundreds of subversive ethnic Albanian : cells in its ranks. Some arsenals have been raided. : : Vicious Insults : : Ethnic Albanians in the Government have manipulated public funds and : regulations to take over land belonging to Serbs. And politicians have : exchanged vicious insults. : : Slavic Orthodox churches have been attacked, and flags have been torn : down. Wells have been poisoned and crops burned. Slavic boys have been : knifed, and some young ethnic Albanians have been told by their elders : to rape Serbian : girls. : : Ethnic Albanians comprise the fastest growing nationality in Yugoslavia : and are expected soon to become its third largest, after the Serbs and : Croats. : : Radicals' Goals : : The goal of the radical nationalists among them, one said in an : interview, is an ''ethnic Albania that includes western Macedonia, : southern Montenegro, part of southern Serbia, Kosovo and Albania : itself.'' That includes large chunks of : the republics that make up the southern half of Yugoslavia. : : Other ethnic Albanian separatists admit to a vision of a greater Albania : governed from Pristina in southern Yugoslavia rather than Tirana, the : capital of neighboring Albania. : : There is no evidence that the hard-line Communist Government in Tirana : is giving them material assistance. : : The principal battleground is the region called Kosovo, a high plateau : ringed by mountains that is somewhat smaller than New Jersey. Ethnic : Albanians there make up 85 percent of the population of 1.7 million. The : rest are Serbians : and Montenegrins. : : Worst Strife in Years : : As Slavs flee the protracted violence, Kosovo is becoming what ethnic : Albanian nationalists have been demanding for years, and especially : strongly since the bloody rioting by ethnic Albanians in Pristina in : 1981 - an ''ethnically pure'' Albanian region, a ''Republic of Kosovo' : ' in all but : name. : : The violence, a journalist in Kosovo said, is escalating to ''the : worst in the last seven years.'' : : Many Yugoslavs blame the troubles on the ethnic Albanians, but the : matter is more complex in a country with as many nationalities and : religions as Yugoslavia's and involves economic development, law, : politics, families and : flags. As recently as 20 years ago, the Slavic majority treated ethnic : Albanians as inferiors to be employed as hewers of wood and carriers of : heating coal. The ethnic Albanians, who now number 2 million, were : officially deemed a minority, not a constituent nationality, as they are : today. : : Were the ethnic tensions restricted to Kosovo, Yugoslavia's problems : with its Albanian nationals might be more manageable. But some Yugoslavs : and some ethnic Albanians believe the struggle has spread far beyond : Kosovo. Macedonia, a republic to the south with a population of 1.8 : million, has a restive ethnic Albanian minority of 350,000. : : ''We've already lost western Macedonia to the Albanians,'' said a member : of the Yugoslav party presidium, explaining that the ethnic minority had : driven the Slavic Macedonians out of the region. : : Attacks on Slavs : : Last summer, the authorities in Kosovo said they documented 40 ethnic : Albanian attacks on Slavs in two months. In the last two years, 320 : ethnic Albanians have been sentenced for political crimes, nearly half : of them : characterized as severe. : : In one incident, Fadil Hoxha, once the leading politician of ethnic : Albanian origin in Yugoslavia, joked at an official dinner in Prizren : last year that Serbian women should be used to satisfy potential ethnic : Albanian rapists. After his quip was reported this October, Serbian : women in Kosovo protested, and Mr. Hoxha was dismissed from the : Communist Party. : : As a precaution, the central authorities dispatched 380 riot police : officers to the Kosovo region for the first time in four years. : : Officials in Belgrade view the ethnic Albanian challenge as imperiling : the foundations of the multinational experiment called federal : Yugoslavia, which consists of six republics and two provinces. : : 'Lebanonizing' of Yugoslavia : : High-ranking officials have spoken of the ''Lebanonizing'' of their : country and have compared its troubles to the strife in Northern : Ireland. : : Borislav Jovic, a member of the Serbian party's presidency, spoke in an : interview of the prospect of ''two Albanias, one north and one south, : like divided Germany or Korea,'' and of ''practically the breakup of : Yugoslavia.'' He added: ''Time is working against us.'' : : The federal Secretary for National Defense, Fleet Adm. Branko Mamula, : told the army's party organization in September of efforts by ethnic : Albanians to subvert the armed forces. ''Between 1981 and 1987 a total : of 216 illegal organizations with 1,435 members of Albanian nationality : were discovered in the Yugoslav People's Army,'' he said. Admiral Mamula : said ethnic Albanian subversives had been preparing for ''killing : officers and soldiers, poisoning food and water, sabotage, breaking into : weapons arsenals and stealing arms and ammunition, desertion and causing : flagrant nationalist incidents in army units.'' : : Concerns Over Military : : Coming three weeks after the ethnic Albanian draftee, Aziz Kelmendi, had : slaughtered his Slavic comrades in the barracks at Paracin, the speech : struck fear in thousands of families whose sons were about to start : their mandatory year of military service. : : Because the Albanians have had a relatively high birth rate, one-quarter : of the army's 200,000 conscripts this year are ethnic Albanians. Admiral : Mamula suggested that 3,792 were potential human timebombs. : : He said the army had ''not been provided with details relevant for : assessing their behavior.'' But a number of Belgrade politicians said : they doubted the Yugoslav armed forces would be used to intervene in : Kosovo as they were to quell violent rioting in 1981 in Pristina. They : reason that the army leadership is extremely reluctant to become : involved in what is, in the first place, a political issue. : : Ethnic Albanians already control almost every phase of life in the : autonomous province of Kosovo, including the police, judiciary, civil : service, schools and factories. Non-Albanian visitors almost immediately : feel the independence - and suspicion - of the ethnic Albanian : authorities. : : Region's Slavs Lack Strength : : While 200,000 Serbs and Montenegrins still live in the province, they : are scattered and lack cohesion. In the last seven years, 20,000 of them : have fled the province, often leaving behind farmsteads and houses, for : the safety of the Slavic north. : : Until September, the majority of the Serbian Communist Party leadership : pursued a policy of seeking compromise with the Kosovo party hierarchy : under its ethnic Albanian leader, Azem Vlasi. : : But during a 30-hour session of the Serbian central committee in late : September, the Serbian party secretary, Slobodan Milosevic, deposed : Dragisa Pavlovic, as head of Belgrade's party organization, the : country's largest. Mr. Milosevic accused Mr. Pavlovic of being an : appeaser who was soft on Albanian radicals. Mr. Milosevic had courted : the Serbian backlash vote with speeches in Kosovo itself calling for : ''the policy of the hard hand.'' : : ''We will go up against anti-Socialist forces, even if they call us : Stalinists,'' Mr. Milosevic declared recently. That a Yugoslav : politician would invite someone to call him a Stalinist even four : decades after Tito's epochal break with Stalin, is a measure of the : state into which Serbian politics have fallen. For the moment, Mr. : Milosevic and his supporters appear to be staking their careers on a : strategy of confrontation with the Kosovo ethnic Albanians. : : Other Yugoslav politicians have expressed alarm. ''There is no doubt : Kosovo is a problem of the whole country, a powder keg on which we all : sit,'' said Milan Kucan, head of the Slovenian Communist Party. : : Remzi Koljgeci, of the Kosovo party leadership, said in an interview : in Pristina that ''relations are cold'' between the ethnic Albanians and : Serbs of the province, that there were too many ''people without hope.'' : : But many of those interviewed agreed it was also a rare opportunity for : Yugoslavia to take radical political and economic steps, as Tito did : when he broke with the Soviet bloc in 1948. : : Efforts are under way to strengthen central authority through amendments : to the constitution. The League of Communists is planning an : extraordinary party congress before March to address the country's grave : problems. : : The hope is that something will be done then to exert the rule of law in : Kosovo while drawing ethnic Albanians back into Yugoslavia's : mainstream. : : Copyright 1987 The New York Times Company : : ******************** : : ACTION ALERT: If you agree that the background in this article is : important for a more complete understanding of the Kosovo crisis, : please pass this post on to others. You might also contact media : outlets and ask that they present a fuller picture of the background to : the conflict. The New York Times may be reached at: : : --Letters to the editor : mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] : : --Adam Clymer, Washington Correspondent : mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] : : Contact information for other media outlets may be found at: : http://www.fair.org/media-contact-list.html : : : ---------- : : : Feel free to respond to FAIR ( [EMAIL PROTECTED] ). 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