"Other Serbia"

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Date: Mon, 3 May 1999 11:23:14 +0300 (EET DST)
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Subject: "Other Serbia"

From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>

Original sender: Greek Helsinki Monitor <[email protected]>

"Other Serbia"

______________________________________________

When Western Television Silences the "Other Serbia"

Nafsika Papanikolatos
Greek Helsinki Monitor and Minority Rights Group - Greece
(30/4/1999, AIM Athens)

In the weeks since the beginning of NATO strikes an overview of major
Western media sources leaves one quite uncomfortable by the almost
complete or superficial information concerning the consequences of the
strikes on
Serbia. In contrast, there is an overflow of information on the
undoubtedly tragic and unacceptable daily exodus of thousands of
Kosovo Albanians who are forced to flee to the neighboring states.
This of course is most remarkably noticeable in the electronic media.
But television has after all the power to reach and to influence the
greatest number of persons and therefore holds the greatest
responsibility in making a balanced
presentation. 

An enticing example was the conspicuous silence about an important
event, which reveals the previously authoritarian and, now in war
conditions, totalitarian character of the Milosevic regime: the near
complete lack of coverage of the sad and disturbing news of Slavko
Curuvija's murder outside his home by two men wearing dark clothes and
face masks. The murder of the publisher of Dnevni Telegraph, critical
of the Milosevic regime, was simply no news for western electronic
media on 11 April. Hour after hour, CNN, BBC
World, Sky News, and, in the evening FR3 did not even allocate 20
seconds to inform their audience of the event; while, time after time,
for example, they covered the capture and humiliating parade in Serb
media of an Australian humanitarian worker, certainly an appalling
story but of lesser magnitude than the murder of a Serb independent
publisher. The latter immediately drew an avalanche of protest
statements by a dozen international and regional NGOs, As the
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) explained in its
statement: "There are many others like him still working in FRY.
Without them the Yugoslav population would not have had any
information from a non-governmental perspective. We are very concerned
that as the tension rises in the country, attacks against Serbian
journalists will increase."  Even after these reactions, the murder
remained no news for these television stations.

Nonetheless western electronic media do not hesitate to bombard us
with voices from Serbia. Voices though which help legitimize in the
West the strikes since they present an image of a society drowned by
nationalist
passions and anti-democratic sentiments. "Watching BBC I have the
impression that they seem to select on purpose Serbs who defend Serbia
in a clumsy propagandist and extremist way that can only please other
Serbs but not the average Western viewer," said a good friend and
human rights defender still living somewhere in FRY (hence the
anonymity requirement).

The same is true for the other electronic media mentioned before. This
is symptomatic of an alarming bias these media have shown since the
beginning of NATO strikes. The voices or even the fate of Serbian
genuine NGOs and/or independent media (with the exception of a few
minutes for Radio B92's closure) are of no concern.

Prime Minister Tony Blair accused John Simpson, BBC's main war
correspondent in Belgrade, for presenting Serbian propaganda about the
damages incurred by NATO air-strikes and for simplifying the truth by
presenting that this conflict in fact strengthened Milosevic. As he
recently explained in an interview to Greek television, the British
government did not want to hear about the consequences that the air
strikes
had on Serbia itself. And he added, that he ought to have been now in
Kosovo, but since Serb authorities do not allow him to go there, "in
Belgrade my duty is not to present what either the Serb regime or NATO
would like to hear, but to become the eyes and the ears of BBC world
viewers." (Mega Channel, 28 April).

Belgraders are shown merely in a naive frenzy of patriotic singing and
dancing every night in the Square of the Republic while Serbia appears
to be a homogenous society, with no individuals, no opposition, and no
democratic rights' culture. At the same time, there is an almost
complete absence of information on the new decrees and laws such like
the one issued on 9 April by the Serb Ministry of Internal Affairs.
That law transformed overnight this authoritarian state into a
totalitarian one, permitting state authorities to limit the movement
or detain for longer than 24 hours a person who is "disturbing public
order and peace" or "profiteering with food." Henceforth, people can
be sent away in detention if state authorities feel they are dangerous
for the security of the Republic, apartments can be searched and mail
can be opened. At the same time, while the large majority of the
Serbian population ignores the existence of Kosovo Albanian refugees
being displaced by the thousands daily, Western audiences have rarely
been informed on the tens of thousands of Serb refugees, who were
forced to leave because their relations with the regime were already
difficult and now in a state of war have become impossible or those
who happen to live near possible targets.

Western electronic media has also ignored half a dozen statements made
by representatives of civil society. Perhaps because it would have
been disturbing for Western audiences to hear that the committed
democratic and
pro-Western forces are opposing the strikes and feel that the latter
had as "collateral damage" the destruction of what was a just emerging
civil society.  Their statements are distributed through Internet, the
last resource they have to communicate to the West, and never seem to
reach any western electronic media, since they do not conform to the
logic of a homogeneous Serb society embroiled in its nationalist
passions and ethnic cleansing projects. Thus the western audiences
have little possibility to find out about the other Serbia which
struggled for at least the last ten years against the authoritarian
regime of Slobodan Milosevic. "In the long run", as a prominent
representative of the human rights movement in Belgrade explains, 
"the biggest collateral damage will be the shattered possibilities for
democracy in Serbia. The air strikes erased in one night the results
of ten years of hard work of groups of courageous people in the
non-governmental organizations and in the democratic opposition, who
have not tried to "topple" anyone but to develop the institutions of
civil society, to promote liberal and civic values, to teach
non-violent conflict
resolution." 

On 6 April seventeen Belgrade NGOs issued a statement. It recalled
their courageous struggle both against war and nationalist propaganda,
their support of human rights, their struggle against the repression
of Kosovo
Albanians, the necessity to respect their liberties and guarantees for
their rights, and the return of autonomy of Kosovo. They also stressed
that only through civil society institutions any connection and
cooperation was ever preserved between Albanians and Serbs. And, now
all this has been undermined by NATO military action, endangering the
very survival of the civil sector in Serbia. They made suggestions for
stopping the war and establishing conditions for the resumption of the
democratic process that
was underway. An appeal was made to the Serb and also to the
international media to inform the public in a professional manner and
not spur media war, incite interethnic hatred, create irrational
public opinion and glorify force as the ultimate accomplishment of the
human mind. On 16 April, we another statement signed by twenty-seven
democratically minded intellectuals from Serbia asked that civility
prevails. It mentioned ethnic
cleansing, the displacement of Albanians from Kosovo, Kosovo
Liberation Army's violence that is targeted against Serbs, moderate
Albanians and other ethnic communities in Kosovo, the destruction of
the economic and
cultural foundations of Yugoslav society, the destabilization of
Southern Balkans, the reinforcement of the regime by NATO attacks, the
weakening of the democratic forces in Serbia and the threats against
the reformist
government of Montenegro. With the exception of a few Western
newspapers, these courageous and very meaningful texts went unnoticed.
A false impression has thus been created that there is no civil
society and no critics of the regime left in Serbia which is
misleading the western audiences and hiding a possible democratic and
anti-nationalist alternative for the Serbs themselves

Lack of coverage of how this third sector lives the strikes and how
they are afraid that an "incident" like the Curuvija one may be what
is in line for them only makes these people even more vulnerable, as
they have been repeatedly threatened, individually or collectively, to
be punished as traitors. Moreover, those journalists and activists
that the West was heralding before but has now forgotten feel almost
betrayed by the
international community, which is shaped so decisively by the dominant
electronic media. If only to confirm these fears of Western
censorship, the Serb NGOs (20 this time) alerted international
community on 26 April that they may lose their only link with the
West, the Internet connection. Their statement is eloquent.


"We, the representatives of the Yugoslav civil society, coming
together to protest NATO bombing and ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia
now have to deal with another problem that could uncouple us from the
world and practically forbid our free expression and dissent. One
threat is coming from Yugoslav government agencies and the controlled
domestic Internet providers. For them it is important to shut up all
independent voices for which reason they banned the radio B92 and put
under control other independent media.

For NATO it appears important to cut off all dissenting people and
groups from Yugoslavia in order to maintain the image of Yugoslav
society as if it is totally controlled by Milosevic regime and made
only of extreme
nationalists who deserve punishment by bombs.

For us who are long time activists of human rights, minority rights,
union rights, free press rights, women rights, peace and democracy
activists, it is vital to maintain Internet connection to the world in
order to get information and communicate with people about our
situation.

We are using Internet with respect to the netiquette and urge all
Yugoslav users to avoid hostile and insulting vocabulary. We also
pledge to all our international contact people to exercise their
influence on
Internet public opinion to avoid aggressive language and hatespeech in
correspondences to people in Yugoslavia.

PLEASE HELP US TO STAY IN TOUCH WITH THE WORLD!"


If international electronic media want to truly stand up to the
freedom it enjoys it must turn its eyes and its ears to these voices.
And if we really want a democratic Yugoslavia because we want a
democratic Europe it is about time that we use every means that
democratic societies provide us with to support the democratic voices
of Yugoslavia, without which there cannot be a future for democracy in
Kosovo, in Serbia or, possibly,
anywhere else in the Balkans. 


_______________________________________

Alternative Information Network (AIM) - Athens
P.O. Box 51393
GR-14510 Kifisia
Greece
Tel. +30-1-620.01.20
Fax +30-1-807.57.67
e-mail: [email protected]
http://www.greekhelsinki.gr
________________________________________



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