NATO to target Yugoslav TV and radio stations!

Spokesman Air Commodore David Wilby said yesterday NATO would consider the Serbian media part of Milosevic's war machine if it did not report what it considered to be accurate news. He added: "Serb radio and TV is an instrument of propaganda and repression. It is therefore a legitimate target in this campaign." (Morning Star, April 9, 1999) French armed forces Chief General Jean-Pierre Kelche said: "We are going to bust their transmitters and their relay stations." (Morning Star, April 9, 1999)

So what are the conditions NATO wants to impose on Serbian media? "If president Milosevic would provide equal time for Western news broadcasts in its programmes without any censorship, three hours a day between noon and 6pm and three hours a day between 6pm and midnight, his TV could become an acceptable instrument of public information." (Metro, Friday, April 9, 1999)

This is a threat which probably has no parallels in the history of warfare and which reflects NATO's frustration about the complete failure of their two-week long bombing campaign. They cannot understand why there is no signs of opposition to Milosevic amongst the Yugoslav population. Well, it is not hard to imagine why people's feelings are against NATO bombing when NATO missiles are raining down on their backyards, schools, hospitals, factories and bridges all the time. The Yugoslav population do have access to Western media. There are 300,000 satellite dishes in the country and some 500,000 internet users who have access to all points of view in this conflict. Not surprisingly, most of those who have access to e-mail are using it to inundate the Western mass media with emails opposing NATO's bombing and criticising the media's demonisation of the Serbs.

It is obvious that Yugoslav TV and radio stations are transmitting propaganda. But is the Western media any better? Have you seen any criticism of the bombing and its real aims recently on CNN, or in the big newspapers? With the honourable exceptions of a few courageous journalists and columnists in a few (very few) newspapers, most of what we are fed is NATO propaganda.

NATO spokesman Major Don Baggio said: "Sometimes we don't say what we are doing and sometimes we get things wrong but we never tell lies." (Metro, Friday April 9, 1999) Let's just have a look at two examples.

First of all the famous incident of the 22 teachers killed in front of their students in Goden. The story was told in this way by Reuters:

"[Albanian leader] Hashim Thaqi...reported that 37 Kosovo Albanians were executed in the Suva-Reka commune Sunday and 22 teachers were murdered in front of their students in Goden, [US spokesperson] Rubin said." (Reuters, April 29, 1999)

Most newspapers and TV stations carried the same story. The Guardian (March 29, 1999) said: "Other reports of 'ethnic cleansing' today include the murder of 20 teachers in one Kosovo village."

The same day Robin Cook repeated the story, as reported in the Guardian: "The Foreign Secretary said in one village 20 teachers had been executed by Serb forces in front of their pupils."

The most detailed report about this incident came from the Kosovo Information Centre and was reproduced without any comment by the Guardian on the same day: "Serb forces murdered 20 teachers and the director of a school in front of their pupils before driving the population over the border. The 20 ethnic Albanian teachers had been executed in the village of Goden in southern Kosova. Women who escaped and trekked into Albania told refugee officials that Yugoslav forces separated men from women and children and killed the men in front of them."

This is quite a horrifying report of Serbian brutality. But is it true? Let's look at another report published by The Guardian itself:

"What degree of proof do doubters need? There are but 20 houses in the border village of Goden, housing some 200 souls, where the only sounds to disturb the thin mountain air are the cock's crow and the donkey's bray. On Thursday 25 March, the village was in the fourth day of mourning for Bajram Morina, 75, a farmer. The children had gone to school and the men were together at Morina's house when the Serbs came at around 8 am. They were armed with machine-guns and knives. They kicked in doors, fired in the air and shot dead a dog. They forced the women and children down into a ravine or gully in the middle of the village, according to Rokmane Feraj, a mother with five children, while 20 men were lined up, kneeling, with their hands behind the heads, against the wall of the house of Hamez Osmanaj. His house, behind the wall, was burning. Osmanaj was one of the 20 men lined up against the wall, as were the head and two teachers from Goden's school. The Serbs told the women: 'The order is to execute you all,' but according to Rokmane they didn't beat the women and children. 'All the houses were in flames, the children were screaming and the Serbs took rings and necklaces from the women,' said Rokmane. The women and children were shooed away from the village and reached the border crossing some time later that afternoon. 'We don't have the slightest idea whether our men are alive, dead or massacred,' she said." (The Guardian, April 9, 1999)

So from this first hand report from refugees from Goden we learn that 20 men (not 20 teachers! Who has ever heard of a city with 200 souls having 20 teachers?) were lined up against the wall and were most likely shot dead later after children and women had already been expelled from the town. The original report is horrific enough as it is. But no. It was not enough for the Western propaganda machine. It had to be 20 teachers, and they had to be killed in front of their pupils. This way a true report of atrocities committed by Serbian forces in Kosovo becomes a plain fabrication which is then acritically repeated by Foreign Affairs Ministers, NATO generals, newspapers and TV stations without any comment. Has anyone seen a correction of that story? No.

Furthermore a Guardian reader noted that: "This sounds like a retelling of the October 21, 1941 execution, by the German occupiers, of the schoolchildren in Sumarice, Kragujevac, whose teachers insisted on accompanying them to be shot. An event now commemorated in the Monument To The Executed at that place."

In the same press conference when Jack Rubin denounced the killing of these 20 non-existent teachers he also told reporters: "We have seen credible reports that four prominent Kosovar Albanian leaders have been executed by the Serbs, including a member of the Kosovo Albanian delegation at the Rambouillet peace talks outside Paris, Fehmi Agani, and the editor of the newspaper Koha Ditore." (Reuters, March 29, 1999)

The story was repeated by Air Commodore David Wilby of Britain's Royal Air Force speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels, who said that: "Reliable sources report that...Fehmi Agani, a member of the Kosovo Albanian delegation at Rambouillet [recent peace talks in Paris]...was executed on Sunday...four other prominent ethnic Albanians were reportedly executed on Sunday, including editor-in-chief of [the ethnic Albanian newspaper] Koha Ditore, Baton Haxhiu," he added. (CNN, March 29, 1999)

By Wednesday March 31, however, NATO backed off assertions that Kosovo Albanian leaders had been summarily executed by Yugoslav security forces. "Nobody has proof, but people have talked with them recently, have seen them in the last few days, and we believe they are alive," a US diplomat said at NATO headquarters in Brussels." (CNN, March 31, 1999)

However by Friday April 2, The Guardian was still clinging to the story, or what was left of it: "There is less certainty about the fate of another activist. After initially reporting the murder of young journalist and editor, Baton Haxhiu, Nato officials retracted the information on Wednesday. Albanian exiles in Germany in contact with Pristina yesterday said they had been told that Mr Haxhiu was alive. But another source said he had definitely been killed."

A few days later nevertheless he was writing in The Guardian!

All this is not to deny that the Yugoslav forces and Serb paramilitary groups have committed atrocities in Kosovo. But at the same time there is a massive propaganda campaign being launched in order to justify NATO's bombing of men, women and children all over Yugoslavia. And these are the kind of stinking lies they want to force Yugoslav TV to broadcast! And these are the ladies and gentlemen who "sometimes we get things wrong but we never tell lies!"

NATO and the Western governments are surely more worried about the fact that they cannot manipulate in any way the pictures coming from Pristina showing a city completely destroyed by NATO bombing. They fear Western public opinion might turn against the war and that is why they are stepping up the propaganda campaign.

In another worrying development, America Online (AOL), one of the biggest internet service providers is employing 30 "monitors"  to delete postings critical of NATO's bombing in their discussion forums. So much for free speech!