Pen-ners,
This is about reporting and its effects on perceptions of what is
really going on in Bosnia. But first a footnote to yesterdays
post on the effect of US intervention in Bosnia. This is a short
quote from Paul Koring's article in todays _Globe and Mail_
"The statement by British Lieutenant-Gerneral Sir Michael Rose,
the UN's Bosnian commander, that the air strikes were solely to protect
peacekeepers seems little more than a fig leaf to hid a vastly
changed international posture that can no longer sustain the
pretence of UN impartiality....
The danger is that limited Western intervention will ruin the
prospects for a wider peace settlement but allow existing front lines
to harden first into ceasefire lines and eventually into new boundaries.
(which would) leave Bosnia unworkable as a patchwork of miserable
enclaves and surrounded cities. The smouldering inequities of such
a settlement would, perha;s in a few years, rekindle the next Balkan
war."
It should be noted that Koring has generally taken an anti-Serb
stance.
Now as to the media distortion of what has been going on. This account
is taken from Minneapolis Star Tribune (Dec 17, 1993) which was
originaly taken from _Foreign Policy_ , a journal publised by the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
I will paraphase for brevity.
Despite the apparent overwhelming evidence of Serb "grave offenses"
the Serbs have always claimed that the evidence of grave offenses
against Serbs has been covered up in the media and the Serbs have
been denied the right to present their side of the case. Peter
Brock, the author of the artical goes on to document the flagrant
misinformation that was spread by the western media. Including:
1. pictures of the damage in Vukovar being used on western TV to
be a picture of damage to Dubrovnik 2. BBC film of an ailing, elderly "
Bosnian Muslim porisoner-or-war in a Serb concentration camp"
being a Yugoslav Army prisoner-of-war in a Muslim concentration camp.
3. reports of Muslim children killed by Bus shooting turning out
to be Serbian children 4. Newsweek photos of "serbian atrocities
in Bosnia" being the same photos ov Serb victims of Croatian
atrocities in Vukovar a year earlier 5.CNN repots of massacres of
Muslims which turned out to be massacres of Serbs (CNN did not
correct its stories) 6. NYT picturs of croats being killed by
"Serb attacts" were actually Croats who had been killed by
Muslim attacks 7. the most famous picture of the amaciated
"muslim" prisoner of war in a prison camptwas in fact
a Serb who was imprisoned for looting and, according to his
sister in Vienna, looked emaciated because he suffered from
TB. and so on.
What about the reports of widespread rape etc. UN commision on
human rights report (Feb 10, 1993) mentioned a figure of 2,400
victims -- including Muslims, Croats and Serbs though the biggest
number had been Muslims while "Amnesty International and the
International Committee of the Red Cross concurrently declared
that all sides were committing atrocities and rape."
What has not been reported widely is either the atrocities,
ethnic cleansing of Serbs, rapes of Serb women, the number of
Serb refugees in Serbia resulting from ethnic cleasing, the
accounts of Serbs, including children, who were having
operations (including amputations, etc.) in Serbia without
anesthetic because of the embargo which, while supposed to
allow food and medicine in, has in fact delayed or prevented
medicine and anesthic from arriving.
Let me conclude this sorry tale with Brock's conclusion:
"In the wake of the negligence and pack journalism that have distorted the cover
a
distored the coverage of the Yugoslav civil war to date, the
media would be well-advised to gaze into their own mirrors
and consider their dubious records. At some point, historians or
an official international investigation will determine the
true culpability of all the actors in the Yugoslav tragedy.
But one of those actors is the media itself.
Let me also add that as academics we also have an obligation to
become properly informed and not be stampeded into supporting
US capital's goals on the basis of distorted media propaganda
not backed by the facts.
Tomorrow, I will address the claim that Serbs are the aggressors,
have seized all this territory, and peace will only reward
aggression.
In search of a balanced response,
Paul Phillips
