IN THIS MESSAGE: REPORTERS PRESENTING DISTORTED VIEW OF WAR IN KOSOVO;
Covering Up NATO's Balkan Blunder
The Vancouver Sun April
15, 1999
A Soldier's View:
REPORTERS PRESENTING DISTORTED VIEW OF WAR IN KOSOVO
P.R. firms make combatants' cases to the public. One firm claims it
introduced the terms "holocaust, genocide, ethnic cleansing, and
concentration camps" to the lexicon of the war.
By Lewis Mackenzie
BELGRADE The media coverage of this war, which according
to NATO is not a war, is becoming less and less relevant to an
audience that would opt for balanced reporting if it had the choice.
During the Second World War and Korea there were often days
of delay between the events and their coverage. We saw clips of the
war in movie theatres before the Saturday matinee feature film.
In Vietnam there was no declaration of war and therefore no
restrictions on the media. If they could talk their way on to a
helicopter they could get anywhere.
Their reports dominated the supper-time newshour in the U.S.
War came into the living room as "entertainment."
The British learned from the American experience and during the
Falklands War kept a tight grip on the media with surprisingly little
protest from the reporters who clearly understood they could
contribute to a speedy victory.
In the Gulf War, the U.S.-led coalition, mindful of the Vietnam
experience at one extreme and the Falklands at the other, worked
out a compromise that saw the use of media pools whereby some
journalists were given access and subsequently shared their
experiences and film with their colleagues.
By the time the war in Yugoslavia exploded on to the scene,
most of the combatants had hired North American public relations
firms to spin their case to the public.
One Washington-based firm continues to brag on its Web site
that it successfully introduced the hot terms "holocaust, genocide,
ethnic cleansing, and concentration camps" to the lexicon of
journalists covering the war.
And so we arrive at the current war in the Balkans and yet
another variation on the theme. The international media in the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia are concentrated in Belgrade in
general, and the Hyatt Hotel in particular.
We all watch international and local television, monitor the radio
and newspapers, and interview local citizens and government
officials when we have the opportunity. The remainder of our
colleagues are located in neighbouring countries such as Macedonia
and Albania, with a few in Yugoslavia's Montenegro.
By now you will probably have recognized the uniqueness of the
reporting on this particular conflict: Absolutely no one, on either
side, is reporting from where the actual fighting and alleged human
rights abuses are taking place Kosovo!
It is as though the province did not exist, even though it's the
reason we are all here. I considered asking permission to drive from
one end of the province to the other, along with a CTV news crew.
However, knowing that if my request was approved we would
undoubtedly have a military escort, I decided that NATO fighters
would probably have a difficult time seeing a 12-inch PRESS sign
from a few thousand feet and at 965 kilometres per hour. Not a
good idea.
The media have a phenomenal influence on public opinion. A
few weeks ago one U.S. congressman said that although more than
90 per cent of his constituents could not find Kosovo on a map, 74
per cent wanted to bomb anyway. When it is all over, hopefully, the
media will be brave enough to judge their coverage objectively in
preparation for the next living room war.
One of these wars, we will get it right.
Retired major general Lewis MacKenzie commanded UN troops
during the siege of Sarajevo in the Bosnian civil war of 1992.
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Subject: Covering Up NATO's Balkan Bombing Blunder
http://www.transnational.org/pressinf/pf61.html
Covering Up NATO's Balkan Bombing Blunder
TFF PressInfo 61
April 14, 1999
"Western leaders are busy re-writing history to justify their Balkan
bombing blunder. The change in information, rhetoric and
explanations since the bombings started on March 24 is literally
mind-boggling. Most likely they fear they have opened a very dark
chapter in history and may be losing the plot. One way to make
failure look like success is to construct a powerful media reality and
de-construct real reality. That's the essence of media warfare and
that's what happens now," says TFF director Jan Oberg.
"For instance, you must have noticed that the The Kosovo Liberation
Army, KLA or UCK, which existed some weeks ago and allegedly
participated in Rambouillet now suddenly never existed. The 13-months
war in Kosovo/a also conveniently has been expurgated.
The last few days President Clinton, prime minister Blair, NATO General
Wesley Clark, foreign secretary Cook, foreign minister Fischer, secretary
Albright, defence minister Robertson and other Western leaders have
explained to the world why NATO bombs Yugoslavia. They made NO
MENTION of KLA or the war. Their speeches are surprisingly uniform.
Their main points are:
We have evidence that Yugoslavia, i.e.President Milosevic had a plan to
ethnically cleanse Kosovo/a of all Albanians.
One proof of this plan is that some 700.000 have been driven over the
borders; it would have been many more, if not all 2 million Albanians, had
NATO not taken action.
Milosevic deployed 40.000 troops and 300 tanks in the region even
while his delegation was in Paris.
'We have reports' and 'there are stories' about mass graves, rapes, and
endless atrocities. We have no hard evidence, but that's what refugees
consistently tell.
Milosevic is now 'a cruel dictator' and 'a serial ethnic cleanser.'
Innocent civilians are driven away 'only because of who they are and
not because of anything they have done,' as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair
express it.
Milosevic has not been in compliance with the agreement he signed with
ambassador Holbrooke in October last year.
Why is this not credible, why is this probably a 'narrative' made to
influence emotions, perceptions, enemy images, and ultimately the
behaviour of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals?
Let me give you a few facts from my own visits and repeated meetings
over the years with the civilian Kosovar Albanian leadership, the
opposition and independent intellectuals in Pristina," says Oberg. "Dr.
Ibrahim Rugova repeatedly told me, as he did everyone from the West
who cared to listen, that he feared he could not keep the Albanian people
behind his pragmatic nonviolent strategy if the West did not 'do
something' such as persuade Belgrade to participate in talks mediated by
the international community.
Years ago I met Kosovar Albanians who were very critical of Dr.
Rugova's 'passive' leadership and advocated guerrilla struggle as the only
way out, sooner or later. In 1996 I was told by well-informed Albanian
intellectuals that they would not rule out that there existed an armed
fraction. Last year advisers to Dr. Rugova told me that they had heard
about the liberation army as early as 1993.
For years, I would say, Kosovo has been a police state. The only
response Belgrade had to the legitimate Albanian grievances was to step
up police repression. I have no doubts about the fact that there were
gross, systematic violations of political, economic, cultural and other
human rights. The Albanians feared Belgrade - which insisted that it was
an internal problem but never took steps to find a solution. At the same
time, the Albanian leaders 'needed' the repression to mobilize international
support for their project of an independent Kosova. Thus, they refused to
deal with moderate, dialogue-inclined leaders such as prime minister Milan
Panic and his excellent ministers in 1993.
Be this as it may, the truth is that there was no war, no mass killings, no
systematic ethnic cleansing, no genocide. Many Albanians left because of
the repression but also because of the misery, the utter poverty and lack
of future opportunities for themselves and their children. Serbs, too, left
for such reasons and not - as they sometimes claim - because they were
victims of an Albanian genocide plan.
The conflict that was said to have started in 1989 erupted into war in
February 1998 when KLA surfaced. It can NOT be denied that KLA
activity changed the situation from repression to war. The most surprising
is a) that the West turned a blind eye to Albania's role as a training ground
and base for KLA, b) that, in its consequences, Albanian policies
amounted to de facto aggression against Yugoslavia, c) that KLA was
armed by predominantly Western sources in contravention of the United
Nation Security Council's embargo on any arms imports into the territories
of former Yugoslavia, d) that nobody thought of closing the border to
prevent spilling-in of soldiers, weapons and ammunition and the
spilling-over of Yugoslav reprisals and e) that Yugoslav armed forces, by
and large, let these incursions happen for months without taking action
against them.
US envoy Robert Gelbard said on February 23, 1998 that he was "deeply
disturbed by the UCK" and that it was "undoubtedly a terrorist
organization." One week later the Yugoslav offensive against it began. So
much for the present Western cover-up which seek to make us forget the
pivotal role of KLA in this crisis.
Next, what about the argument that Milosevic did not keep his promise to
Holbrooke of October last year? It would be a good point if that was not a
one-sided agreement. While there were two forces fighting fiercely in
Kosovo - various Yugoslav/Serb police and military forces on the one side
and KLA on the other - the agreement was signed only by Milosevic.
KLA declared a cease fire on their side, but never signed any document.
One-party cease fires are as unique as they are untenable.
We were told and saw pictures of a war that had raged in the province for
13 months. Albanians intellectuals and editors I talked with during visits to
Pristina in autumn 1998 told me proudly when asked who the KLA was
that 'that's everyone of us, we are a people in arms.' Sheltered by the
Holbrooke-Milosevic deal, KLA seized 30% of the province's territory.
Radical Albanians gave visitors the crystal clear impression that victory
was around the corner. That is, until Belgrade had had enough.
During those 13 months, around 2000 people were killed and 250.000
people displaced - about 10% of the province's Albanians and 10% of its
Serbian citizens - but few of them, fortunately, fled outside Kosovo. Two
weeks after NATO action began, suddenly 750.000 had run over the
borders and NOW we are told that there were only innocent civilian
Albanians in Kosovo who, as President Clinton stated it on April 12, are
driven away ONLY because of who they are and not because of anything
they have done.
It seems more probable to me that people run away for three reasons, not
one: a) because of ethnic cleansing by Serb/Yugoslavs who feel that the
ongoing destruction of Yugoslavia is the result of Albanian policy, b)
because of the war between Yugoslav and KLA forces, and c) because of
NATO's bombs which repeatedly also happens to hit civilian targets.
Was there a plan to cleanse the area? No one who maintains it has shown
any hard evidence. Before March 24 this year no politician had told us
about Milosevic' alleged plan. No humanitarian organizations had warned
about a major, systematic campaign to drive out 1-2 million people. If
OSCE with 1500 verifiers knew about such a plan - and they listened in
on Yugoslav communication - why did it not alert the world? If Belgrade
wanted to get rid of all Kosovo-Albanians, it could have done so at any
time since 1991. It never touched any Albanian leader or tried to prevent
the building of their parallel state. Why did NATO threaten to bomb
Yugoslavia if it would not sign the Rambouillet document but said nothing
about bombing it because of the existence of such a plan?
Are 40.000 troops and 300 tanks indicative of such a plan? Hardly.
Troops and tanks are not the prime tools to make people run away. They
were deployed in the province when NATO deceived Yugoslavia. You
see, Holbrooke probably forgot to tell Milosevic that NATO would deploy
an 'extraction force' in Macedonia. Its task was to protect the 'extraction'
from Kosovo of the unarmed OSCE verifiers in the event of NATO
bombings - an activity that could lead to them being taken hostage by the
Serbs. So, NATO's bomb threat was real from October. Would your
country do nothing if threatened for months with bombings by history's
most powerful military alliance?
With the OSCE verifiers peacefully out, NATO did not withdraw the
force but had already begun to increase it from 3.000 to 12.000 (and
forgot to consult the Macedonian parliament). Yugoslavia had very
legitimate reasons to see this as an extremely unfriendly "signal" and
moved troops down to the Macedonian border to "signal" its
determination to fight that force, should it cross the border into Kosovo.
KLA was sucked in by the presence of the Yugoslav units and fighting
intensified in an area where no fighting had taken place before. All this
BECAUSE of NATO's policies.
What is now called evidence of a grand design for ethnic cleansing by
Western leaders was nothing but the response to NATO's remarkably
unwise, clumsy and adventurous attempt to force Macedonia into the role
of an ally and major NATO base. It was a perfectly natural response to
NATO's repeated threat of a massive air campaign. It - predictably -
resulted in an almost complete political destabilization of the Macedonian
government and a socio-economic destabilization because of the
NATO-provoked refugee flows.
Finally, Milosevic is a 'cruel dictator'? Well, if so why has the West
helped him be central, relied on his signature in Dayton and never
extended any help to the opposition in Belgrade - not even when 1,5
million people demonstrated against him a couple of years ago? Why has
ambassador Holbrooke and scores of Western diplomats had 'interesting'
talks with him? Why did the West hope for a last-minute concession from
him to avoid the bombing it threatened? What do we do with 'cruel
dictators' who are elected by citizens many of whom would certainly call
him authoritarian or see his policies a catastrophic but who never saw him
as a cruel dictator? And why does NATO repeat the mistake from Iraq -
to bomb a country only to see its people unite completely behind their
leader?
In summary, NOT ONE OF NATO's
PRESENT ARGUMENTS HOLD WATER. They contradict facts, they
contradict what Western leaders themselves told us yesterday. What we
witness is a pitiful attempt at "perception management" and media war
against public opinion.
We should get suspicious," concludes Jan Oberg, "when Western civilian
and military top leaders within days seek to rewrite and falsify history,
omit well-documented facts and central actors, change the sequence of
events and forget what they stated and did only a couple of weeks ago.
It's particularly disturbing if you see a systematic bias or tendency in those
changes. And it bodes ill, indeed, when the majority of journalists ask
only politically correct questions to State Department and NATO spin
doctors and spokespersons at a time that could well turn out to be a
defining moment of history."
© TFF 1999
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