Posted on 09/27/2001 8:38:14 AM PDT by Voronin
REGIONAL REPORT: Media Crimes
Will Balkan journalists suspected of encouraging war crimes escape prosecution?
By Amra Kebo in Sarajevo (TU No. 236, September 17-22, 2001)
The Hague tribunal is being urged to start prosecuting journalists who incited ethnic hatred and genocide in the former Yugoslavia.
So far prosecutors have shown no enthusiasm for hauling journalists before the tribunal, insisting there's not enough evidence to do so.
The matter, though, is being taken seriously by sections of the general public and press associations in the Balkans, and was prominently aired at a round-table conference examining the role of media in the conflict, in Mostar, on September 6.
Organised by the Sarajevo Media Centre and The Hague Tribunal Outreach Programme, the meeting drew large numbers of journalists from Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Croatia along with eminent local intellectuals.
Most of the participants agreed it was necessary to establish a journalistic code of ethics to prevent media incitement in the future. No decisive steps were promised but there was a general wish to see The Hague act against journalists suspected of crimes. Many considered the media just as responsible for the Balkan conflict as the politicians and their military commanders.
One of the worst cases of media incitement was a Bosnian Serb TV programme about victims of the 1994 massacre at the Sarajevo Markale market, where a120mm shell fired from hilltops surrounding the city killed 66 people and wounded 140.
The programme's late editor, Risto Djogo, first said the victims were Serbs, then claimed the bodies shown on TV at the time were actually mannequins, placed there to discredit Serbs besieging Sarajevo. He subsequently brought mannequins into the studio to demonstrate his theory.
Cases of media-inspired hatred still arise today. This month the Serbian Oslobodjenje published an article which the OSCE and the Office of the High Representative said was "filled with paranoid anti-Semitic phrases unworthy of any media in Europe". Unlike the electronic media in Bosnia, which is supervised by the Communication Regulatory Agency, there are as yet no penalties for print media misconduct.
Legal experts argue there's no legal impediment to The Hague prosecuting journalists. They point out that editors of radio stations and newspapers stood trial at the Rwanda tribunal for violations of humanitarian law. The entire media structure in that country was held responsible for incitement to massacre.
Participants at the Mostar meeting agreed the media in former Yugoslavia were also an instrument for the dissemination of ethnic hatred. Mehmed Halilovic, an ombudsman for the media in the Bosnian Federation, later told IWPR, "Without them (the journalists) the politicians could not do what they did. Journalists carried out half the task, the soldiers did the rest. They led poorly educated people to commit crimes and encouraged them to behave like criminals."
The journalist Zlatko Dizdarevic believes The Hague should prosecute those suspected of carrying out such a policy, as a means of preventing inflammatory wartime propaganda in future.
Tribunal spokeswoman Florence Hartmann said, however, that the court's official position is that "direct indictments against journalists in former Yugoslavia have not been envisaged because there is a big difference between a direct call for killing and the dissemination of hatred."
But Mirko Klarin, editor of the SENSE news agency, is optimistic that journalists guilty of crimes will ultimately be brought to justice. "The fact that they still have not been summoned to The Hague, does not mean that they have been given an amnesty," he said. "I am sure tribunal prosecutors are investigating those cases, and we have to rely on their assessment that they do not have sufficient evidence at the moment."
More doubtful observers, however, believe the tribunal already has its hands full in prosecuting men like Slobodan Milosevic and will have to relegate any consideration of pursuing journalists to the back burner.
Amra Kebo is an IWPR assistant editor in Bosnia, and a member of IWPR's war crimes reporting network. She is also editor with the Sarajevo daily, Oslobodjenje.
If this ever comes to fruition, you won't see a westerner on there. Roy Gutman is prime choice because he deliberately compared the camps in Bosnia to Auschwitz (etc. etc.), only gentiles could come up with something like that (& Ruder Finn).
VRN
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Oh wait am I guilty now? Hague here I come!
And you know that for sure? There is no doubt that Muslims killed their own people in Markale? Were you there? Or because Bosnian Serb TV said you, its true?
Mystery of the market massacre
THE TIMES (London)
March 28 2000
by Eve-Ann Prentice
SIXTY-EIGHT people died and more than 200 were injured when a single shell exploded in a small Sarajevo market. The ghastly scenes were filmed and a horrified world was left in no doubt that the Serbs were to blame. The slaughter brought deeper American involvement in the Balkans, with the formation of the US-led Contact Group and an American-negotiated alliance between Bosnia's Muslims and Croats.
The massacre also ultimately paved the way for American airstrikes on Bosnian Serb positions in late summer, 1995. Furthermore, the killing brought about a deal whereby the Serbs pulled back their heavy guns from the mountains surrounding Sarajevo and the Muslims reluctantly signed a ceasefire. The easing of the siege, and the relief for the people of Sarajevo, was a notable achievement.
To this day no one knows who fired the deadly mortar round on Markale market in February 1994. Survivors and witnesses said they heard no characteristic whistle of an approaching missile; this later led to suggestions that a bomb had been placed under a stall. A Western diplomat who was in Sarajevo at the time told me in 1999 that he was convinced the bombing was perpetrated by the Muslim-led Government. The Muslims were sure that the Serbs would be blamed and hoped that outrage at the carnage would lead to airstrikes against their foes and increase pressure for a lifting of the arms embargo that was in place against all the warring sides. Britain and France were vehemently opposed to lifting the embargo, although America had shown signs of wanting to arm the Muslims.
"On the morning of the explosion some people were told that it was not a good day to go to the market," the Western diplomat said. "There was also no shelling from the Serb positions that day, and the injuries were mainly from the waist down, as if a bomb had exploded in situ." The diplomat said that another sign that the Muslim-led Government had been responsible was that government media with cameras were on the scene "within seconds", as if poised in advance to record the full horror of the carnage to gain as much world impact as possible.
The suggestion that the Muslims shelled their own people began to be discussed by diplomats, politicians and a few journalists after the UN's investigation into the massacre concluded that no one could be sure whence the shell had come. But most people recoiled at the idea of such self-inflicted mutilation. The majority of the world's press and politicians accepted the instant suggestion that the Serbs were responsible; questions were not encouraged and the general view was that the end justified the means: the siege of Sarajevo was eased. But blaming the Serbs without proof set a precedent, and the process of demonising them took deeper root.
I watched the documentary on Sereajevo, I also watched some time later a documentary from the muslim perspective,"Yugoslavia the avoidable war," was an account from all kinds of professionals, whereas the other one was purely anecdotal, just as it was in all Christane's reports.
Evidence for you (note the time of publication. More has come out on this incident since then that back the diplomat up).
The Times: "There was also no shelling from the Serb positions that day, and the injuries were mainly from the waist down, as if a bomb had exploded in situ." The diplomat said that another sign that the Muslim-led Government had been responsible was that government media with cameras were on the scene "within seconds", as if poised in advance to record the full horror of the carnage to gain as much world impact as possible.
bluester said: You have to prove that someone kills his own people just for fun
It was not done for fun, bluester.
The Times: The Muslims were sure that the Serbs would be blamed and hoped that outrage at the carnage would lead to airstrikes against their foes and increase pressure for a lifting of the arms embargo that was in place against all the warring sides.
Come on, you don't think I don't see what's going on. It's all very clear to me.
All the B.S. around Markale will be eliminated when Galic makes it to the Hague for his trial.
05 February 1994: A 120 mm mortar shell hit a crowded open air market called "Markale" situated in a civilian area of Old Town Sarajevo, killing 66 people and wounding over 140. The origin of fire was VRS held territory NNE at Spicasta Stijena or Mrkovici.
Hence all the furor to discredit the ICTY - it's making some people's work difficult.
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