Re: Kosovars on NATO
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From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, 10 Apr 1999 13:39:32 +0300 (EET DST)
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Subject: Re: Kosovars on NATO
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Joost van Beek <[email protected]>
Re: Kosovars on NATO
In my earlier mail I wondered about the mainstream media coverage on
Kosovo in the US and its implications for public opinion and its
pressure on political decision-making. But while we're pondering that,
it might be useful to note that the Russian media's portrayal of the
war in Kosovo in any case is changing. Consider the forward below.
Joost van Beek
------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 15:54:56 +0400
Reply-to: [email protected]
From: "Eric S Johnson" <[email protected]>
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Russian viewers finally see case for NATO
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NTV, Russia's most independent television station, has shocked viewers
this week with its coverage of the "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbs in
Kosovo. Its recent reports from the region are the first public
admission that the Serbs, so vociferously supported in Russia, may
have provoked NATO's bombing campaign.
Konstantin Borovoi, a Duma deputy who is in favour of the NATO
strikes, ended his hunger strike yesterday when radio and television
stations finally allowed him to air his anti-Serb views. He refused
all food from April 1 in protest at what he considered to be biased
media coverage.
Only after the ground-breaking coverage by NTV did other radio and
television stations follow suit, admitting that their reports were
subject to Serbian military censorship. Novaya Gazeta ran a commentary
by Andrei Piontovsky of the Centre for Strategic Studies suggesting
that blind support for the Serbs may be misguided.
Yevgeni Kiselyov, presenter of NTV's weekly news programme Itogi,
acknowledged that his influential change in stance was in large part
related to domestic issues. "I understand that anti-Nato,
anti-Western, anti-American hysteria could lead to a situation when we
would have restored Communist Party rule," Mr Kiselyov told the Moscow
Times.
Source:
http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/Times/frontpage.html?2110286 -
The Times
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Johnson's Russia List #3226
5 April 1999
[email protected]
From: "Katherine H. Dolan" <[email protected]>
Sea Change on Itogi?
Last night on NTV's weekly news summary, Itogi, Evgenii Kiselov
signalled what could be a major change of direction in the country's
reporting on the war in Yugoslavia. Before switching to the live
coverage from Belgrade, he for the first time warned us that their
reporter there was limited in the kinds of material he could send back
to Moscow, and we saw the burning Interior Ministry building, and
again the bombed out bridge at Novy Sad. After Belgrade signed off,
we saw for the first time detailed footage of refugees arriving in
Macedonia from Kosovo and were given some numbers to put with it --
200,000 was the approximate figure. We then heard from Pavel Lapkov,
the correspondent in Macedonia, that most of those fled not from the
NATO bombing nor the Kosovo Liberation Army but from the "ethnic
cleansing". The people he interviewed described Serbians coming to
their apartments and forcing them out. "They knew who we were and
where we lived," one interviewee said. We were then shown a rather
gruesome amateur video that purported to be ethnic Albanian civilians
shot by Serbian military units. One man interviewed about the tape
said that one of those shot was a neighbor of his, not involved in any
military activity.
Then began perhaps the most interesting part of the program - a live
interview with former foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev and former vice
President and current governor of the Kursk region, Alexander
Rutskoi. Rutskoi's comments were predictably supportive of Milosevic
and critical of NATO in general and the U.S. in particular. It was
Kozyrev who delivered the surprise. He suggested that it was not in
Russia's interest to support such an "odius" person as Milosevic,
whose policies included ethnic cleansing not only in Serbia, but
earlier in Bosnia as well. He emphasized that it was not just the U.S.
involved in Yugoslavia but 19 NATO countries, and that it was surely
ridiculous to consider countries like France and England as mere
"colonies" of the U.S., without independent interests and policies of
their own. He went on to point out that three former Warsaw Pact
members, two of whom were also Slavic, had hastened to join the
"aggressor" NATO alliance as soon as possible, suggesting that most of
Europe was at least united in opposing Milosevic's behavior. He then
asked rhetorically why Russia considered its friends to be Milosevic,
Saddam Hussein and Colonel Kaddafi. Other points were touched on as
well, including the fact that the NATO attack had produced few or no
verifiable deaths, unlike the Serbian actions in Kosovo, or the
Russian war in Chechnya.
This is not meant to be an exhaustive summary of the program, a
thorough viewing of which I would say is de rigueur for American and
other NATO policy makers. For those of us who are simply observers it
also raises an interesting question. Who signalled this change and
why?
Katherine H. Dolan
American Institute of Business and Economics, Moscow
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>From the moderator: The problem of "the parallel propaganda war" seems
extremely important to me. Indeed, in many inter-ethnic conflicts
creation of "proper" images of the rivals appeared crucial to
determine opinions and attitudes of what we call an international
community. The point that some Russian media openly speak about ethnic
cleansing perpetrated by Milosevic, not only about "the NATO
agression", is of great significance, indeed. Meanwhile, I've got an
impression that recognition of Milosevic's crimes still does not, in
their view, justify the bombardments (except for some marginal
politicians like Konstantin Borovoi mentioned above, and Valerija
Novodvorskaja). I wonder if our colleagues from Russia will agree with
this conclusion. One more question related to the topic is unanimity
of the NATO member states about the air strikes. I read in some media
that Greece strongly objects the bombardments, reportedly, substantial
opposition is expressed also in Italy, and that two of the three new
NATO member states (namely, the Czech Republic and Hungary) do not
support the air strikes either. Is this true, indeed?
Boris
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