(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF report: War in Yugoslavia: Nato’s media blunders Kosovo is being used as a pawn in a media war planned by strategists on both sides. The workings of the propaganda machine hold no secrets for the Serbs: the Belgrade government is fundamentally opposed to press freedom and does not […]
(RSF/IFEX) – The following is an RSF report:
War in Yugoslavia: Nato’s media blunders
Kosovo is being used as a pawn in a media war planned by strategists on both
sides. The workings of the propaganda machine hold no secrets for the Serbs:
the Belgrade government is fundamentally opposed to press freedom and does
not hesitate to “eliminate” dissenting voices. Serbian Radio and Television
(SRT), Serbian citizens’ main source of news, has for the past ten years
been under the complete control of people close to the government and is
used as a weapon in the war. After passing a particularly restrictive
information law in October 1998, the Serbian government took advantage of
the start of the Nato air strikes to silence independent media in the
country and to keep foreign journalists out of Kosovo (see the report
“Yugoslavia: A State of Repression” published by Reporters Sans Frontières
in May 1999).
Nonetheless, the “communications strategy” used by the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation (Nato is made up of 19 democratic countries) since the start of
the conflict has also given rise to a number of questions both from western
correspondents and from independent Serbian journalists. Veran Matic, editor
of the radio station B92, which has been banned by Belgrade since the start
of the bombings, wrote on 2 April: “As a representative of the free media, I
am only too aware of the need for information, whatever side you are on in
the conflict. People inside the country should be kept up to date with
international debate as well as with what is happening at home. Those abroad
ought to be told the truth about what is going on here. But instead of
detailed, uncensored facts, all we hear is war propaganda, including western
rhetoric.”
The reporting of rumours and exorbitant figures that are impossible to check
by certain western political and military officials, and their use of
aggressive vocabulary, have strengthened doubts about their goodwill. “Nato
should drop this information strategy,” Pascal Boniface, director of the
Paris-based Institute of International and Strategic Relations, said on 29
March. Other observers have been even more critical, putting the blame
squarely on both sides. “What the Serbs and their television are currently
doing is absolutely repulsive,” said an analyst with the Mass Media Research
Centre at the University of Leicester, England, “but the propaganda put out
by Nato is scarcely better.”
Many journalists who have attended the Nato press conferences in Brussels
are also very sceptical about the truth and accuracy of the informations
supplied by officials of the organisation. “What London and Brussels offer
to journalists as facts are usually only rumours,” Kevin McEderry of the
French news agency AFP wrote on 22 April. On the same day, the French daily
Libération summed up the situation as follows: “Since the start of the air
strikes, at press conference after press conference, Nato officials have put
out false reports and rumours.”
What is the truth of the matter? Has Nato made blunders attributable to
confusion and haste, or have there been deliberate attempts at
disinformation? In a propaganda leaflet issued in Yugoslavia, showing a B52
bomber dropping bombs from a high altitude and aimed at encouraging Serbian
soldiers to desert, Nato refers to: “Thousands of bombs… and the
determination, force and support of the whole world to continue to drop them
on your units.” To make sure of this “support”, which in democratic
societies depends on public opinion, might Nato officials have taken a few
liberties with the truth? Using some examples of these “media blunders”,
Reporters Sans Frontières will try to get to the root of the matter.
General Wilby’s “very reliable source”
On 29 March 1999, a few days after the start of the military operation
against Yugoslavia, Nato announced in Brussels that the chief adviser to
Ibrahim Rugova, Fehmi Agani, and five other well-known Kosovo Albanians, had
been murdered by Serbian troops. They included Baton Haxhiu, the young
editor of the Albanian-language Pristina daily Koha Ditore. Earlier that
day, the managing editor of the daily, Veton Surroi, had been included in
the list, but his name was later withdrawn. The day before, Nato had said
that Rugova himself was in hiding and that his house had been burned down.
Such reports caused widespread consternation and indignation among both
journalists and the public at large: Fehmi Agani, a professor of sociology
aged 66, is regarded as one of the most moderate and respected Albanian
officials in Kosovo. The report of the murders made the front pages of the
international, and particularly American, press (see the International
Herald Tribune, 30 March). British and Italian dailies published
praise-filled obituaries of the victims. Yet many high-ranking European
diplomats had expressed surprise about the report and refused to confirm the
murders. The French foreign ministry spokesman said he was afraid they might
have taken place, but could not be sure. British general David Wilby,
questioned at Nato headquarters about the circumstances of the murders, said
the report came from a “very reliable source” in Kosovo, which his
department had checked carefully. The killings had apparently taken place
after the five intellectuals attended the funeral of an Albanian lawyer,
Bajram Kelmendi, who was murdered along with his two sons by Serbian
soldiers (or paramilitaries) during the first night of the air strikes, the
general added.
AFP correspondents in Kosovo were unable to confirm the Nato announcements.
The independent Belgrade news agency Beta reported strong denials by the
Serbian authorities. A journalist posted to Belgrade told Reporters Sans
Frontières: “If they had any responsibility in this matter, Serbian
officials would have blamed the murder on the KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army]
or kept quiet about it, as they usually do.” On the Albanian side, no-one
was sure of the facts either. Journalists in Tirana learned the news from
the American news channel CNN. Kosovan political leaders in Europe referred
to the Nato report without giving further details. When the report was
checked, General Wilby’s “very reliable source” turned out to be the
London-based Kosovo Information Centre, which is run by Kosovan exiles. One
of them, Hafiz Gagica, had said the same day that Ibrahim Rugova had been
wounded and his whereabouts were not known.
Two days later Ibrahim Rugova spoke to foreign correspondents from his
Pristina home, saying he was in good health and his house had not been
damaged. SRT broadcast news of his “cordial” meeting with Slobodan Milosevic
in Belgrade. Thus, by exploiting the weaknesses in Nato’s communications
policy, the Serbian president staged a media coup, showing himself with the
leading Kosovan advocate of a peaceful solution to the conflict.
Renate Flottau, correspondent of the German weekly Spiegel, who spent a week
with Rugova in Pristina in early April, spoke about the pressure to which
the Kosovan leader had been subjected by the Serbian authorities: he was
being held hostage in Pristina and he was virtually kidnapped to be taken to
Belgrade. But nothing that Nato had said about him was true either.
The report of the murder of the five Albanian intellectuals also turned out
to be incorrect. Baton Haxhiu learned of his death on the radio. Passing
through London on 7 April, and later in Paris, he told how he had fled to
Macedonia and said the other four people reported dead were in good health.
Fehmi Agani was in fact killed three weeks later by the Serbian army, in
circumstances that are still not clear, as he was trying to flee from Kosovo
with his family. The Serbian government immediately blamed the killing on
the KLA, while Nato officials never mentioned the subject again. Nor did
they ever deny the initial report. Making a rumour official in this way,
during the first week of bombing, would appear to be less the result of a
mistake than of a deliberate decision: to tip the balance in favour of Nato
air strikes on Yugoslavia at a time when public opinion was still very
sceptical about their effectiveness.
Blunders by the military…and the media
The bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on 8 May left western leaders
seriously embarrassed. The building was hit by three missiles fired by Nato
planes, leaving four people dead, including three Chinese journalists, and
several injured. On 10 May US president Bill Clinton apologised to the
Chinese government, describing the attack as a “tragic accident.” Meanwhile,
the Nato spokesman tried to explain to reporters that “a system, not an
individual” was to blame. In Washington, defence secretary William Cohen and
the head of the CIA, George Tenet, said an inaccurate piece of information
had caused an error in the targeting of the building. To put it more
clearly, they were admitting that the CIA had not bothered to record that
the Chinese embassy had moved to a different building several years earlier,
even though the new address is listed in the Belgrade telephone directory.
China rejected this explanation. An official said: “The western media
themselves wondered how the intelligence service of the world’s leading
power had failed to recognise a huge diplomatic building, with a courtyard,
a nameplate on the door and a flag.” On 11 May, Nato Secretary-General
Javier Solana promised a “formal investigation,” the results of which would
be annonced as soon as possible. So far they have not been published.
The bombing of a convoy of journalists on 30 May provided a further
challenge to Nato’s communication skills. Two vehicles carrying journalists
were targeted by Nato bombers on the road from Prizren to Brezovica, in
Kosovo. The correspondent of the British daily The Times, Eve-Ann Prentice,
a journalist with Portuguese national television, Elsa Marujo, and a French
author, Daniel Schiefer, were injured in the attack, and one of their
drivers was killed. Eve-Ann Prentice told her newspaper how the raid had
taken place. (Nato officials said on 31 May that despite checks they had “no
information” about it). Nato spokesman Jamie Shea commented: “Of course, we
cannot guarantee the safety of journalists or individual vehicles in
Kosovo.”
The attack on a convoy of Albanian refugees on 14 April, the biggest
military blunder so far, highlighted the limits of Nato’s attempts at
justification. Nato planes bombed two groups of refugees in the Djakovica
region of south-western Kosovo, killing 75 people, according to Serbian
sources. At first the German defence minister, Rudolf Sharping, accused
Serbian planes of the bombing. The next day, in a press release issued by
its Brussels headquarters, Nato acknowledged that it had bombed a civilian
vehicle by mistake: “Following a preliminary investigation, Nato confirms
that apparently one of its planes dropped a bomb on a civilian vehicle
travelling with a convoy yesterday.” Nato said the attack was made because
military vehicles were presumed to be in the area. “Serbian police or army
vehicles might have been in or near the convoy,” the press release added.
On the same day, the AFP correspondent in Kosovo, Aleksandar Mitic, the
correspondent of the daily Los Angeles Times, Paul Watson, and two Greek
television crews were able to go to the scene of the bombing. They found
scenes of disaster, with “bodies charred or blown to pieces, tractors
reduced to twisted wreckage and houses in ruins.” According to Mitic’s
report, two convoys, one to the north and one to the south of the town of
Djakovica, were the target of the bombings. He quoted one refugee as saying
the groups had been bombed three or four times, “the planes circling
overhead as if they were following us.”
On 16 April, Nato spokesman Jamie Shea and military leader General Giuseppe
Marini insisted several times that “in one case and one only, we have proof
of civilian loss of life. Otherwise, we are sure that we targeted military
vehicles.” The media were already talking about “Nato’s biggest blunder” and
underlining the “confusion” in the Nato press release. Public opinion,
shocked by film of the bombings, was so outraged that the London government
was quick to stress that the bombs used were not British. It was only on 19
April that Nato changed its version of events, admitting that it had hit two
convoys with the help of about a dozen planes that dropped a total of nine
bombs. It made public a recording of one of the pilots responsible for
bombing the first convoy, who said the vehicles in question were “of a
military type.” As for the second convoy, Nato claimed it had been targeted
because its “pace and formation were of a typically military nature.” On the
same day, the British Daily Express revealed that one of the American pilots
responsible for the bombings had been warned by a British pilot that the
convoy included civilians. Two days later, Nato officials admitted that the
recording made public on 19 April had no connection with the bombing of the
convoys. Belgrade rubbed salt in the wound by broadcasting a supposed
recording of a conversation between an American pilot and an AWACS radar
plane, encouraging the pilot to continue with the bombing despite his
suspicions that there were civilians in the convoy. Nato immediately
condemned the tape as a fake.
Where western communication went awry
Nato officials apologised for the bombing of the convoys near Djakovica and
said they regretted the death of civilians. They even apologised for having
given inaccurate information. On 16 April, for example, Rudolf Sharping told
the press that he had “at best, spoken too soon” about the incident. He had
at first accused the Yugoslav armed forces of being behind the bombings on
the basis of “the information available at the time”. In fact, the minister
was repeating the words of General Wesley Clark, who had referred to
accounts by refugees claiming the convoys had been attacked on the same day
by Yugoslav bombers. “A monstrous lie,” the Yugoslav foreign ministry
spokesman retorted.
But while acknowledging their “mistakes”, western officials systematically
emphasised that the government of Slobodan Milosevic was “entirely
responsible” for the incidents. This gave them the opportunity to make daily
mention of violence committed by Serbian troops, the Albanians’ flight from
Kosovo and the nature of the Milosevic government. Roger Silverstone, a
media specialist with the London School of Economics, subsequently commented
that Nato officials had “so far led a good propaganda war, highlighting
ethnic cleansing operations by the Serbs to cut short their critics.” In
this respect too, the information supplied by Nato seems not to have been
carefully checked. “Villages attacked by artillery,” “towns razed to the
ground,” “human shields” and “mass graves” were all reported without any
evidence of their existence being given. Naturally, the Serbian authorities
were delighted to show film proving that the Nato allegations were wrong,
scoring valuable points in the news war. When Nato was caught red-handed
blundering – or lying – it was quick to recall the lack of independence in
the Serbian media. On 18 April, shortly after the “media disaster” of the
bombed refugees, Nato spokesman Jamie Shea made a long statement condemning
the Milosevic government’s stranglehold on the press. “Night and day, I am
under pressure from journalists to justify Nato’s actions, but I am struck
that Slobodan Milosevic is not asked to justify anything,” he complained,
adding: “Milosevic is unaware of the constraints connected with the media.”
Military officials also hit out at the Serbian media, accusing them of
conducting disinformation campaigns: on 19 April, as Nato admitted to
bombing the two convoys near Djakovica, the organisation’s spokesman in
Skopje, Commander Eric Mongnot, denied reports of deaths among the Nato
forces put out by the Serbs, and accused them of “lying propaganda.”
Others features of western communication are approximate figures, debatable
historic references and the use of vocabulary that has the aim of making the
adversary appear monstrous. For instance, Jamie Shea described Slobodan
Milosevic as “the organiser of the greatest human catastrophe since 1945”
and also as “the instigator of a flight similar to the evacuation of Phnom
Penh by the Khmers Rouges.” Rudolf Sharping said on 28 March that “genocide”
was going on in Kosovo, while Jamie Shea reported that 500,000 people had
been driven out of Kosovo – conveniently omitting to mention that this
figure covered a full year of clashes in the province and not the period of
the Nato military campaign. The term “genocide” has been used systematically
by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and in Germany officials have compared
the Milosevic government to that of Hitler. These historical references have
led to protests from experts. Historian Wolfgang Benz, the director of the
Research Centre on Anti-Semitism, speaking in Bonn on 22 April, warned
against comparing the Belgrade regime with Nazi Germany. He condemned the
“indiscriminate and fateful use of the word Holocaust” and accused western
politicians of “dipping at random into a mixed bag of historical terms.”
Shortly beforehand, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook had referred to a
“final solution” being implemented in Kosovo by Slobodan Milosevic.
From 30 March onwards, the British government adopted an even tougher tone
in its “communication” to counter “the propaganda of the Yugoslav army and
its thugs,” in the words of Robin Cook. Defence Secretary George Robertson
described Slobodan Milosevic as a “butcher” during his daily press briefings
in London. Other British ministers depicted the Yugoslav president as a
“diabolical lout,” aided by “corrupt and sadistic henchmen.” Serge Halimi of
the French monthly supplement, Le Monde diplomatique, said these expressions
were deliberately thought up to make the front pages of the British
tabloids.
Kosovan leaders in exile were invited to London to explain the Nato air
strikes and call for them to continue. More discreetly, government sources
accused British journalists of giving too much weight to “Serbian
propaganda” and of “doubting too systematically the validity of the Nato
armed operation.” The comment was directly aimed at the BBC’s correspondent
in Belgrade, John Simpson. The daily The Times said on 16 April that he had
been accused by British government officials of “passing on Serbian
propaganda indiscriminately in its coverage of the Nato bombings.” He was
also accused of “over-simplification” and even latent pro-Serbism, for
claiming that the conflict had succeeded in rallying the Serbian people
behind their president. Unofficial government sources have hinted that an
official complaint could be filed against the BBC. The corporation’s deputy
director, Richard Ayre, defended the journalist, saying: “I pay tribute to
the courage of John Simpson and the objectivity of his reporting. (…) It
is essential that the public should be able to hear a true account of the
atmosphere in Belgrade and not simply what Nato governments would like
people to hear.”
Conclusion: Has Nato lost this war?
Reporters Sans Frontières has collected many statements from journalists who
are indignant about Nato’s communication strategy. Alexandra Schwartzbrod,
of the French daily Libération, believes that communication about the
bombing of the two convoys was “scandalous,” and has a general recollection
of “confused,” if not deliberately false, information being put out by Nato.
“They gave the impression that they didn’t really know what they were
talking about,” she said. Moreover, since the end of April, her newspaper
has not seen any point in keeping a permanent correspondent at Nato
headquarters in Brussels.
On 27 April Nato officials themselves admitted – although not in so many
words – that their communication strategy had failed. They said
communication policy should be “thoroughly reviewed (…) particularly in
the light of the disaster of the bombing of convoys of refugees.” London
then sent some of its leading specialists in press relations to Nato
headquarters, including Tony Blair’s chief adviser, Alastair Campbell, who
was one of the main architects of New Labour’s election victory in the May
1997 elections.
In an internal report to the organisation, revealed in the Spanish daily El
Mundo on 31 May, Nato recognised that “Nato headquarters does not have the
mechanisms, resources or experience necessary to conduct an information
campaign in wartime.” The report said that public opinion should be prepared
for three possible scenarios: “a long period of air raids; more intensive
raids, not solely against military targets; and a land invasion,” and
recommended the use of “all possible channels” to improve communication,
including non-government organisations and the media. It is to be feared
that the strengthening of Nato’s communication system is aimed at increasing
manipulation of the media rather than improving the quality of information.
In the third month of their military campaign, Nato officials have made
practically no mention of “collateral damage” – only of “legitimate targets”
such as television buildings and relay stations, post offices, power
stations and bridges – without provoking any major movements of protest or
indignation. But at what price? While remaining the defender
of a “just cause” in the eyes of western public opinion, Nato has not shown
goodwill in its relations with the media and has distorted the truth on
several occasions. The officialisation of the rumour about the killing of
Albanian intellectuals and more or less deliberate attempts to confuse the
media about the bombing of civilians have severely
damaged the organisation’s credibility. The British government’s pressure on
the BBC’s Belgrade correspondent is a violation of the freedom to inform.
The bandying about of historical references and use of aggressive
expressions are unworthy of officials of democratic countries.
It is obvious that in time of war, the information provided by one side or
the other may be liable to be used as a propaganda tool. Just as inevitably,
communication can also be used as a weapon, be it political or commercial.
But it could still be hoped that a coalition of
democracies, which claims to have right on its side, would behave with more
integrity than the dictatorship it is fighting against.
