Subject: YWS 9/5 From: ddc@nyquist.bellcore.com (D.D. Chukurov) 05. SEPTEMBER 1995. YUGOSLAV WEEKLY SURVEY A D D I T I O N A L I S S U E CONTENTS: - "THE FOURTH ESTATE" TARGETED BY ALL - ON PERISHING OF ROBERT FRASURE - A WOULD-BE TITO HELPS TO DISMANTLE HIS LEGACY - CROATS ARE PROMISED SERBIAN LAND - ETHNICAL CLEANSING AND OBLITERATION - THE SCENES FROM THE TWENTIETH CENTURY - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR FROM DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN PRESS WHY IS THE WAR IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA DANGEROUS FOR JOURNALISTS ? - "THE FOURTH ESTATE" TARGETED BY ALL (by Dragan Milinkovic) That 75 journalists and members of various reporting teams have been killed in the war so far is one in the series of information reaching the British public from the former Yugoslavia every day. This has almost topped the number of journalists killed in the much longer Vietnam war and will soon reach the number of all journalist victims in entire World War Two. The latest on this black list, one of our even blacker lists, was British journalist John Schoffield who was killed during the recent Croatian offensive against Knin. Much time had passed before the Croatian military authorities decided to give his body to his family. They also denied any responsibility of the Croatian side and blamed the Croatian Serbs for his death. How come the "Serbian killers" were wearing Croatian military uniforms, burned down their own houses masquerading as Croats and used a Croatian ambulance to bring the unfortunate man to hospital - the Croatian authorities did not explain. Unlike some of his colleagues, John did not seek fame and fortune and did not like risk. He was always quiet and careful and spoke about his reports as if they were regular activities in the head office. He possessed endless enthusiasm and a sense of humour and, above all, the capacity to stay cool even under attack from the news editor. John did not deserve to die from a Croatian bullet, wrote John Schoffield's colleague and friend Neil Bennett after this death. The Foreign Office officially requested from Croatia to carry out an investigation and submit a report on the death of the British journalist, but no one believes that anything serious will be done in this connection. Why is the war in the former Yugoslavia so dangerous for journalists and their job, asks another of Schoffield's colleagues, the veteran and frequent BBC correspondent from the "Balkan slaughterhouse", John Simpson. Primarily, one would say, because it's taking place close to events. Many more press agencies have sent their teams than anywhere else before. Anyone who has a wish and inclination to write or film can come to the scene of events easy and cheap, while agencies dispatch more people than usual because it costs them little. This is best seen in every-day scenes in hotels in Zagreb, Split and Sarajevo whose bars have never worked so well, says Simpson. * * * I reported from various wars, but this is the most unpredictable war of all. More than of anything else, it reminds of Afghanistan, because of the presence of roaming gangs of mujaheddins. And the worst thing is that journalists are safer in Africa, he says calling the events in the former Yugoslavia a "primitive process", the "conflict of the Third World", which is somewhat more complicated because of the existence of three major armies and several rebel units. Therefore, it seems that there is almost no difference between small groups of soldiers encountered on roads and roaming bandits. Sometimes they are satisfied with few cigarettes and sometimes they ask for money. If they are not drunk, which is usually in the afternoon, and if there is no fighting, soldiers are rather peaceful. They are very undisciplined. They can kill you without blinking their eyes, for they know that they will have no problems because they have removed an undesirable eyewitness. John Schoffield and his pals from BBC World Service were touring the area in a car, filming Croatian soldiers burning down the houses by the road. Had John been a radio reporter, he would have been alone and would not have had to stop. Slowing down the car would have been enough for him to see what was going on and his armoured vehicle would have protected him against a possible warning bullet. But his television colleagues had to take pictures. The problem is that television is nothing without pictures and in order to take them the team had to stop and get out of the vehicle. Bullet-proof vests they wore were only a partial protection (John Schoffield was hit in the neck). The panicking soldiers, feeling guilty for what they were doing and afraid that they might be filmed and seen, shot at the team and killed John. His colleagues in London began a long, instinctive post- mortem analysis usual in such cases: he was too young, too inexperienced, insufficiently protected, under too much pressure? A reporter, interviewed by a news agency, accused greedy editors at home who (according to him) asked for more and better pictures regardless of risk, wrote Simpson on this occasion considering it all wrong. For, neither was John Schoffield too young since he was to be 30 in September, nor was he inexperienced, because he had reported from the most dangerous points in the former Yugoslavia before and it is a real nonsense indeed to think that BBC editors request from their reporters to take additional risk. The pressure to go on comes from inside, from the reporter himself. And since there are no classic positions and lines in this war, it is never known where the real danger lies. * * * The unpleasant fact is that war reporting is dangerous. There can be no real security in places where each and every policeman who had his uniform donned only yesterday carries the most dangerous arms. The only precaution is to send fewer people to the war zone. Statistically, the chances that they be killed or wounded must be smaller. But there are no guarantees - concludes John Simpson, BBC foreign policy editor. Our attention has been drawn by the list of 75 names of killed persons, including over 50 local journalists and associates. According to scanty information, they were mainly young and inexperienced people, most frequently engaged as guides, drivers, interpreters or consultants. Attracted by the possibility to earn some money and hoping that foreign journalists could get them out of the local inferno and probably inadequately protected, they would perish almost uncontrollably. How to suppress their inside tensions and instincts? How, for precautionary reasons and the reasons of reducing the number of victims, is their number in the war zone to be reduced? Perhaps the only answer is the proposal of Robin Cooke, British Shadow Foreign Minister, repeated by this prominent Labour MP in Parliament and to the media on several occasions. Cooke considers that Europe must direct its efforts towards eliminating the root causes of nationalistic propaganda in former Yugoslav republics. In that case, beside strangling the nationalistic viper, Simpson's idea about a reduced number of foreign journalists in the former Yugoslavia could be realized and, as a consequence, the need for the services of local associates would no longer exist. ("Nasa Borba", Belgrade, August 28, 1995) TRACKING THE MISFORTUNE OF PERISHING OF ROBERT FRASURE (by Milos Colic) "Dear General Mladic, today I have received the message of gratitude from the U.S. Government for the assistance UNPROFOR provided in removing the consequences of the tragic accident that took place on 19 August 1995. Part of that assistance was made possible by your cooperation and I wish to thank you", says Lt- Gen. Rupert Smith, UNPROFOR Commander for former Bosnia- Herzegovina, in his letter to Gen. Ratko Mladic, Serbian forces Commander. What is the reason for this letter in view of the fact that past experience shows that thus far the Serbs in Bosnia have mostly been threatened and condemned by all sides - from Muslims to the United Nations? As the Belgrade newspaper "Politika Ekspres" has been informed by reliable sources, after the accident of the U.S. delegation on Mt. Igman in the Muslim-held territory, the Army of the Republic of Srpska was requested to provide "free skies" for a faster and more effective evacuation of the wounded members of the U.S. delegation and a member of the French crew. The approval was received immediately after the request. UN helicopters took off. The air space controlled by the Serbian forces in Bosnia was opened and the evacuation took place without problems. According to UN sources in the field, the speedy intervention, approval of the Army of the Republic of Srpska and the evacuation saved the life of one of the wounded members of the U.S. delegation who was in the transporter with Robert Frasure. This is also one of the reasons for Gen. Smith's letter to Gen. Mladic. It is possible that this correspondence between generals, unusual in the present circumstances, will be entered in some ledgers on Rupert Smith's debit side. The time will show the size of it. In his reply to Gen. Smith, Gen. Mladic wrote, not for the first time, about the preparedness of the Serbian side to ensure safe passage and reminded him that two safer routes over the territory of the Republic of Srpska had been proposed. The first, from the eastern side via Zvornik and Pale, and the second from the western side via Kiseljak and Ilidza. This was not the first time that these routes were offered to international delegations. They had been also offered on many occasions not only by Gen. Mladic and other members of the Army of the Republic of Srpska, but also by Radovan Karadzic, Nikola Koljevic and Aleksa Buha in their diplomatic encounters. However, their offers were always refused. As a rule, the route under Muslim or UN control was used, which had, as practice showed, uncertain and dramatic consequences, borne out by the latest case. These uncertain routes took Robert Frasure to the road of no return. Javier Solana, Rupert Smith, Francois Mitterrand... were shot at in the territories controlled by the Muslim forces. However, one thing must be clear: passage of international delegations and convoys over the Serbian territory would mean more than a way through. For, not only diplomats and the media but also the international public would see that the Serbian side in Bosnia fully controls its territory, that the roads are safe and secure, that there are no "uncontrolled members of the armed forces"... Briefly, that in the chaos of war the Serbian State and administration are functioning in the way which cannot be ensured by "the only internationally recognized Bosnia- Herzegovina", "a full-fledged member of the United Nations...". Maybe this correspondence between Generals Mladic and Smith reveals a mild change in the U.S. course towards the Serbs in Bosnia, let it be even of a "transport" nature. For, General Mladic reminded Rupert Smith that at the request of the U.S. delegation through the competent authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Military Headquarters of the Army of the Republic of Srpska had suggested the two already known safest routes to Sarajevo. Who disregarded a reply to one own's request and decided to take the risky Igman route - remains a secret. ("Politika Ekspres", Belgrade, August 24, 1995) A WOULD-BE TITO HELPS TO DISMANTLE HIS LEGACY (by Raymond Bonner) When President Franjo Tudjman of Croatia appeared recently in public decked out in the white military dress uniform that was Tito's trademark, it was life imitating theater. In a long- running, highly popular play here, Mr. Tudjman is lampooned for emulating the vain leader who ruled Yugoslavia for nearly 40 years. President Tudjman has adopted Tito's villa on the island of Brioni, and like Tito he is fond of going to the wine cellar and getting a vintage bottle from the year of his guest's birth. But though the 73-year-old President emulates the style of the man he once served as a general, his policies are diametrically opposite. Tito was the father of a Marxist, multiethnic Yugoslavia. Mr. Tudjman has given birth to a conservative, predominantly Roman Catholic state of Croatia for Croats. The lightening military strike this month that drove more than 100,000 Serbs from their homes in the Krajina region reduced the number of Serbs in Croatia to less than 3 percent of the population. And Mr. Tudjman has made in clear that the 30,000 Muslims who recently fled into Croatia from Bosnia will not be allowed to stay. "The disdainful manner in which Tudjman talks about the Muslims and Serbs is very disturbing to me", said a senior United Nations official who has met with Mr. Tudjman frequently. While Western leaders may deplore Mr. Tudjman's ethnic policies, they have been reluctant to critize him, beacause he has become a useful partner in efforts to resolve the Balkans wars. His defeat of the Krajina Serbs has effectively ended the drive toward a Greater Serbia, and when the Croatian Army helped lift the Serbian siege of the Bosnian enclave of Bihac, the West was spared the need for NATO bombing. "Because the international community cannot give the Serbs a bloody nose, they are extremely happy to see a proxy doing it", a senior diplomat here said. For Mr. Tudjman, who declined repeated request for interviews, the Croats' recent victory is the culmination of a life in which he went from fervent Communism to ardent nationalism. Born in 1922 in the hills north of Zagreb. Mr. Tudjman was still a teen-ager when he joined Tito's Communist resistance to the pro-Nazi Ustashe Government that ran Croatia during World War II. After the war, he quickly rose to the rank of general in the Red Army, but at the age of 39 he abandoned the military to become a historian. As a history professor at the University of Zagreb, he was a leader of a movement for greater autonomy for Croatia, and for this exercise in nationalism. Tito jailed him for two years. Two decades later, the end of Communism opened the way for his political ascendency. In 1990 his right-wing party, the Croatian Democratie Union, won the first elections, helped by financing from anti-Communist Croatian emigres in the United States and Canada. On becoming President he purged the old Communist apparatchiks and in stalled his own Croatian loyalists. During the election campaign, Mr. Tudjman made no effort to hide his racial, ethnic and religious intolerance. The President's prejudices against Jews, Serbs and Muslims are not out of step with public sentiment in Croatia, where his popularity has remained consistently high. In one recent pool 30 percent thought Mr. Tudjman should be named President for life, as Tito had been. Though Mr. Tudjman fought against the facist Ustashe in World War II, he later chandged his opinion, writing that Serbian and Communist propaganda intended to tarnish Croatia's good name were behind the charges that the Ustashe had conducted a progrom of Jews and Serbs. In his book "Wastelands: Historical Truths", published in 1988. Mr. Tudjman wrote that the number of Jews who died in the Holocaust was 900,000 - not six million. He has also asserted that not more than 70,000 Serbs died at the hands of the Ustashe - most historians say around 400,000 were killed. Under Mr. Tudjman's leadership, Croatia began discriminating against Serbs in 1990 when it adopted a Constitution that declared Croatia "the national state of the Croatian nation". Under the old Constitution, the Serbs had had equal status with the Croats. Then the Government adopted a currency and flag associated with the Ustashe Government, a move that helped drive many moderate Serbs into the arms of the Serbian nationalists. Mr. Tudjman has now regained most of the territory he lost to the Serbs in 1991. Only the region of Eastern Slavonia remains in Serbian hands, and Mr. Tudjman has vowed to recapture it. That leaves the bigger question of what Mr. Tudjman will do in Herzegovina, a region of the Bosnian republic where Croats are a majority. Two years ago, Mr. Tudjman's Government assisted the Croats in Bosnia who were waging their own war against the Muslim-led Bosnian Governement, a war in which the Croats committed atrocities and engaged in "ethnic cleansing" on a par with the Bosnian Serbs. At one point, Washington threatened sanctions against Zagreb. But then Mr. Tudjman shrewdly supported Washington's plan for a federation of Bosnia's Croats and Muslims, and a confederation of Croatia with Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Clinton Administration embraced him. But no diplomat here believes that Mr. Tudjman is deeply commited to the alliance. Nothing in his back-ground suggests a tolerance for living with Muslims. And ecerything suggests an obsession with Croats being united in their own state. Indeed, Mr. Tudjman has often expressed his desire to carve up Bosnia between Serbia and Croatia, and in a widely publicized incident at a dinner party in London recently, he drew a map showing how it would be divided. ("New York Times International", August 20, 1995) CROATS ARE PROMISED SERBIAN LAND (by Uli Andenes) President Tudjman asks Croats abroad to move in to the recaptured areas which the Serbian population have fled from. President Tudjman's move comes after that all independent observers have confirmed extensive ravaging and burning of proprety, villages and towns which the Serbs left in fear after Croatia's recepture of the Serbia rebels land. Much of the ravaging in Krajina has been carried out and tolerated by Croatian soldiers and police, according to the reports from U.N., the human rights organizations and international press. From western diplomatic quaters it is said that the sympathy for Croatian case and the Croatia's E.U. membership has recieved a death blow after these misdeeds. Now President Tudjman wishes to fill the land with Croats from abroad in the Serbian villages which have been deserted. The time is ready for the Croats from all the corners of the world. Come home and populate the liberated areas, he said in a speech at the week-end. "We can offer them farms and land", he offered them. Tudjman said that also the fleeing Serbs could return back. That offer few Serbs wish to take advangtage after the events that have taken place, even though their people have lived in the areas for 400 years. Tudjman disociated himself from the actions of violance against Serbian proprety. But he alloved himself a tone of triumph over the beaten enemy, which now lives in misery as refugees. The Serbs that disappeared so quickly did not even have time to take with them "their dirty money and dirty underclothes", he said in a paragraph of the speech which carried few traces of the victors' magnanimity. The public was 100 000 jubilating countrymen in the town of Split. The sympathy for that which is Serbian is not on the top after the Serbs' far more brutal driving out of the Croats from Croatian land four years ago. The President had travelled to Split under huge national festivities to the reopening of the train from Zagreb to the Dalmatian coast. This main artery in the country's transport has been closed for four years because it crossed disputed land. It was the same train line that the negotiators Thorvald Stoltenberg and Kai Eide tried endlessly to get opened, which lead to a peaceful agreement between the parties. In the end it came to a decision with blood and iron. President Tudjman threatened with military attack also against another area, East Slavonia. "During the course of the next months" recapture shall take place, "either with negotiation or with military means", he announced. ("Aftenposten", Oslo, August 28, 1995) ETHNICAL CLEANSING AND OBLITERATION (by E. Concepcion) The inter-ethnic war being fought in the former Yugoslavia is perhaps among the most complex wars, which makes it difficult to understand who and where the warring parties are. This is what transpires from the fighting in Bosnia- Hercegovina, the Republic inhabited by the Serbs, Muslims and Croats. The two latter groups are united in a Federation which was set up by the United States and which aspires to negotiate by arms and to the detriment of the Serbian side. The other Republic is Croatia, with about 4 million people, 600 000 of them Serbs, who have lived in Krajina for more than 500 years. The map of Croatia, seceded from Yugoslavia in June 1991, includes Krajina, also established as an independent Republic since it does not want a common life under the tutelage of the Croats once out of the Yugoslav federation. The conflict between the Krajina and Croatia dates back to the 1941-1945 period when the Croats established the so-called Ustasha Republic recognized by Hitler and Mussolini which accepted the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia and was guided by the terror of Ante Pavelic, the leader of the fascist organization of "The Ustasha Croatian Movement". Those times saw the adoption of various racist laws, drumhead trials, concentration camps and the expulsion of all non- Croats. About 2 million Serbs, accounting for almost one half of the population of Croatia, were outlawed. During World War Two, about 1 200 000 Serbs were killed in the concentration camp Jasenovac alone, in the northern part of Krajina. I believe that this is a good enough reason for the Serbs from Krajina to demand to be part of the Yugoslav federation or an independent Republic, but never under the rule of Croatia. Yet, like at the time when the Nazi occupation was in full sway, the region of Krajina was brutally attacked, in an invasion by Croatian forces, which in recent days brought about new changes on the Yugoslav map as 250 000 Serbs was expelled from Krajina, while their homes were burned down. Even the caravans of civilians fleeing to the neighbouring Republics were shelled and strafed by Croatian forces. "The Washington Post" wrote on that occasion that the Serbs were expelled from Krajina where they had lived more than 500 years, much longer than the Americans lived in North America. The paper went on to say that the Serbs had established a State separate from Croatia and started the war for independence only after Croatia seceded from the former Yugoslavia. The Serbs started this war only for one powerful reason: they did not want to live under the rule of those who had massacred their fathers. Croatia's aggression has fully justified this fear. "The Washington Post" wondered whatever happened to US protests against the Croatian crimes against the Serbs. Croatia's occupation of Krajina has added new elements to a conflict which, according to the Government in Belgrade, can be solved only at the negotiating table. Today, the Yugoslav Federation plagued by United Nations sanctions, feels it its duty to manifest its solidarity with the Serbs expelled from Croatia. There is no doubt that the situation is difficult in view of the fact that even before the latest Croatia's aggression, hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Croats and Muslims had found shelter in the Yugoslav Federation, fleeing a war which some internal and foreign factors are interested in continuing rather than in ending. Krajina re-lives its World War Two history all over again. ("Granma", Havana, August 25, 1995) THE SCENES FROM THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (by Venceslav Karavanov) Look at the eyes of the people photographed in refugee caravans. They display despair and many, many ordeals they have lived through. Some of them lost all their property, their homes and their kin: husband or wife and children. And all of this is happening at the end of the twentieth and and at the cusp of the twenty-first century, bang in the middle of Europe. Who could have assumed five years ago when the fateful changes began in this part of the world that we would witness mass expulsions of hundreds of thousands of people, mass killings and nameless graves, even without crosses, all over again. Carried away with joy that a world of hopelessness had come to an end and that an era of democracy ensued, we failed to pay attention to the price that would have to be paid for this transformation. The most frequent victims in a fratricidal war are innocent people. Such conflicts do not differentiate between those who are less and those who are more to blame. But, the so-called democratic world continues stubbornly to lay the blame on one side in the conflict alone. A priori on the Serbs, because they wanted to live all in one State. And the "Greater Serbia" would, allegedly, constituted a threat to other, smaller surrounding States and regions. And bent on proving this untenable contention of theirs, the mighty and powerful that rule the world and stage-manage events seem to be blind to the tragedy of hundreds of thousands of Serbs expelled from the lands in which they lived for centuries. At the end of the twentieth century somebody has come to the bright idea that, in addition to nationality, people should be divided also by religion. So was created the "Muslim ethnos" as well. Never mind that in most cases the Muslims, the Orthodox and the Catholics had common forefathers! Since the outbreak of this war more than 500 000 refugees from various parts of the former Yugoslavia fled to Serbia. After the recent Croatian offensive, aimed at "reintegrating" Krajina into Croatia, another 160 000 fugitives came to Serbia. About 20 000 of Krajina men and women probably fled to various countries of Central Europe. It is assumed that many Croats and Muslims also have left their homes and this act, too, cannot be condoned. Anywise, it was deplorable indeed that, three weeks after the termination of "Storm", the Zagreb-Belgrade motorway swarmed with refugee caravans which never arrived in Serbia. While some circles in the world are shedding tears over the fate of some 11 000 Croats and Muslims who "probably were compelled" to leave Banjaluka and some nearby villages. In doing so, they are quick to forget the exodus of 160 000 Serbs before the Croatian charge. There are critics even in Bulgaria who chastise Belgrade for allowing the refugees to seek shelter in Kosovo or to settle in towns and villages of Vojvodina and in southern Serbia. They allege that the ethnic balance is being disturbed in that way in the regions in which Serbia's national minorities live. In doing so, they seem to be deliberately oblivious of the fact that Kosovo was the cradle of the Serbian State. Surprisingly, these critics have been joined by Skopje and the voices of disapproval are also heard in Sofia. And they tend to forget that hundreds of thousands of Albanians who had never lived there before were at the same time settled along the Bulgarian-Macedonian border. We therefore should not close the eyes to the events that concern us Bulgarians and not protest because of the settlement of few hundreds of Krajina Serbs in the western parts of the present-day Yugoslavia. Regardless of our historical right to the separated parts of the Bulgarian territory torn away by the will of big powers, we cannot disregard the recognition of the existent borders provided for by international law. Yet, we can help our Serbian neighbours within the framework of the possibilities permitted by international law. It is our moral duty to help our neighbours accommodate and feed thousands of refugees and people in need rather than cavil at the unfounded disturbance of the ethnic purity of some provinces inside Serbia. ("Duma", Sofia, August 1995) LETTERS TO THE EDITOR We write to condemn unequivocally Nato's intervention into the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. Nothing can justify the massive aerial and artillery bombardment which will certainly have caused civilian casualties. The massacre of civilians in Sarajevo must be utterly condemned along with every other outrage that has taken place in Bosnia. But the international community loses all moral authority when it adds to the many atrocities which have already taken place. The one-sided nature of Nato's intervention is breathtaking. Just weeks ago, 150 - 200,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed from Croatia. But there were no Nato air strikes to stop what was the largest ethnic,cleansing operation of the entire war. In fact, the U.S. government treated the Croatian offensive as a step towards peace. The only road to peace in Bosnia is for all military action to cease. That is the basis on which all,inclusive peace talks should be convened. (Sgd. Tony Benn M.P., Tam Dalyell M.P., Lord Jenkins of Putney, Nikki Kortvalyessy, Alice Mahon M.P., Lord Soper. - Committee for Peace in the Balkans, c/o House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. - "The Guardian", London, September 1, 1995) * * * So now we know, genocide is wrong unless practised by the side you agree with. Make no mistake about it. The NATO bombing was publicly declared to be disproportionate to the attack on Sarajevo; that is unlawful under international law. The attacks were targeted at Serbs because they are Serbs, that is genocide. Britain's military presence was supposed to be defensive; the action taken was offensive. The U.N. Secretary-General has abrogated control to the military on the ground; that is loss of political control and unlawful under international law. Many people were executed by the U.N., NATO and Britain without a fair trial, on very suspicious evidence. Retaliation per se is unlawful under international law. There is a prima facie case to be answered under the UK Genocide Act, and this needs to be answered by all the senior politicians and military who have been party to the decision- making. The Attorney-General should resign as he should understand that Britain now stands in breach of international law. (Sgd. Geoffrey Darnton, 34-36 The Square, Titchfield, Fareham, Hampshire PO14 4AF. - "The Guardian", London, September 1, 1995) =============================================================== -- I speak for no one and no one speaks for me -- D. D. Chukurov ddc@nyquist.bellcore.com ===============================================================