ICG Yugoslavia Briefing
The aim of this brief is not to provide
a thumbnail history of Serbian-Albanian relations. Rather, the purpose
is to explain how Serbia's state and pro-regime media 1 have
portrayed the Kosovars since the crisis in Kosovo escalated in February
1998. Understanding how Kosovo's Albanian population is depicted in the
Serbian state-run and pro-regime media assists in one's coming to realise
how Belgrade plans ultimately to resolve tensions within the province.
No discussion of Belgrade's role in contributing to crisis in Kosovo...
Firstly, what is not said about the role of the Belgrade government in the Kosovo crisis is just as important as what is said about the Kosovars. That is, whenever reporting on violence in Kosovo, the state media go to great lengths to avoid ascribing any responsibility to the federal or Serbian authorities. Absent from coverage of Kosovo developments is any reference to the revocation of Kosovo's autonomy in 1989 which was followed by Belgrade's resolve to govern the province through brute force and a systematic suppression of basic human rights. Also missing is any balanced comment about Kosovar leader Ibrahim Rugova who checked Belgrade's aggression by becoming the main proponent of peaceful resistance and the head of a parallel state structure, the so-called Kosovar "shadow state". In Serbia's state media, Rugova is held among those most accountable for unleashing "terrorism" 2
... crackdown portrayed as bringing terrorists to justice
Arguably at its least inflammatory, coverage of Kosovo events begins and ends with demands for so-called terrorists to be brought to justice. On 29 October 1998, for example, press conference remarks by Serbian Deputy Premier and head of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), accused war criminal Vojislav Seselj, were featured widely. According to Seselj, "All armed terrorists [KLA] will be disarmed and brought to justice. The withdrawal of police [from Kosovo] does not mean the end of the fight against terrorism".
The call to justice is frequently repeated, with the state media at all times avoiding even the slightest suggestion that the Belgrade authorities may be accountable for any incidents or for creating a political environment in which violence could be perpetrated. A typical statement, such as one carried by state news agency Tanjug, involves reporting of Belgrade officials appraising sympathetic foreign dignitaries of the realities of the Kosovo situation. A Russian Duma delegation was received in December 1998 by president of the provisional executive council of Kosovo-Metohija, Zoran Andjelkovic, who accused Kosovars of waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing, noting "ethnic Albanian terrorist gangs attacked, provoked and killed innocent civilians in order to make non-ethnic Albanians leave the province, just as pressure had been exerted over the past few years also by means of majorisation and inequality in all walks of life" 3.
... ethnic Albanians cast as violent enemies of the state
A key purpose of official coverage has been to prepare psychologically the Serbian public to regard ethnic Albanians as enemies of the state. While Albanians may themselves have little or no capacity for organised violence, and arguably pose no or little threat to state security acting by themselves, it has been repeated that their support and strength lies in the international community. Comments attributed to Serbia's parliamentary speaker, Dragan Tomic, highlight the point graphically. "They [Kosovars] are no force at all, as the terrorists were defeated last summer and last autumn. Therefore they are treacherously killing and attacking innocent people. [They are] ambushing people at their front doors with the international community supporting them" 4.
An even more sinister aspect of the media's coverage of the Kosovo situation has been the periodic resorting to aggressive hate propaganda, portraying ethnic Albanians as sub-human and congenitally bent on violence. Among the least offensive of such depictions, still managing to appear in one of Serbia's most widely circulated and read dailies, noted, following the recent killing of three Roma in Kosovo, that "Shiptar bandits killed three Roma in... Mitrovica. Next in line, that clearly means, are the Jews" 5.
Radmila Visic, deputy minister of information in Serbia's government, has gone on record saying that among the offences for which a media outlet may be fined is "breaching of the guaranteed freedoms and rights of a man and citizen, i.e. that invokes national, race or religious hatred..." 6. Thus far, state dailies and electronic media have not been called to task for "breaching" or slandering Albanians' "racial" identity.
Perhaps no Belgrade daily has been charged for vilifying ethnic Albanians because it is very likely that official Yugoslavia fails to recognise Kosovars as "citizens". A survey of the press reveals that the regime has tended to portray the Kosovars as a united group aiming to destabilise the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). They are treated in fact as foreigners and aggressors, and not as citizens or individuals with a long history of residing in the province who must be accorded basic human rights.
... supported by hostile foreign powers
Seselj himself has been explicit in linking the Kosovars to some alleged international conspiracy, saying repeatedly that no single Kosovar leader is "the problem," as his capture or ouster would lead only to his replacement by other virulent "terrorists" sponsored by foreign powers aiming to destabilise Yugoslavia's borders 7. Taken to its logical conclusion, any conflict with Kosovars must be regarded as a conflict with the international community. Thus the Serbian public is portrayed as the innocent victim of international threats and force. Any one of a flood of statements issued by the SRS and carried by the state media stress the 'international' dimension of the situation in Kosovo and is served up as irrefutable proof that:
"Once again - using false reports in the media - the Western powers are trying to convince us that their highly totalitarian and repressive methods are democracy at its best. On the other hand, the very same powers portray the fight a sovereign country is waging against terrorism - the worst evil of the 20th century - as a threat to freedom and human rights, the statement says. The so-called fighters for democracy, embodied in the representatives of the US administration, hypocritically claim that they are committed to a peaceful and democratic solution to the crisis in the southern Serbian province [Kosovo] while at the same time they openly protect the Albanian separatists and terrorists who openly call for the secession of Kosovo-Metohija from the Republic of Serbia and the destruction of the legally elected institutions of our country, the Radicals say 8 ".
Again, the Serbian public is invariably portrayed as the victim of Kosovar aggression, which does not act alone but is shored up by the full might of the international community. Thus, should Kosovo indeed achieve independence or any measure of greater autonomy, Milosevic may aim to justify the new political situation and cling to power in Belgrade with some measure of public sympathy if not outright support by keeping true to spirit, and claiming the world powers, and not his policies, wrenched Kosovo from Serbia.
Conclusion
What emerges crystal clear is the point that while Serbian ministers and the regime may use the state media to call for justice and a just solution to the Kosovo crisis, such claims are undermined when one is attuned to how conditions in the province are reported. A survey of the Serbian state media informs an observer of Balkan affairs that Belgrade is opposed to accepting responsibility and for treating the Kosovo crisis as a matter for an impartial judiciary observing of human rights.
Official media accounts have emphasised the likely resort to force. On 8 January 1999 the daily Borba cited Jovica Jovanovic, a ranking official of the Kosovo-Metohija Executive Council and "legal affairs expert," noting that "the competent government organs would further on use all ... available means to suppress ethnic Albanian terrorism, in order to protect the territorial integrity of the state". A further indication that Belgrade's definition of "justice" hinges on violence and warfare is provided by a widely reported statement made by ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) spokesman, Ivica Dacic, who said the "SPS fully and decisively supports the state organs in all their activities in curbing terrorism for the total annihilation of the terrorist gangs" 9.
A Post Script - the Racak massacre
In January 1999, international media reported an escalation of violence in Kosovo. According to numerous accounts, Serbian forces massacred 45 people, including women and children, in the central Kosovo village of Racak on 15 January 1999. Western news agencies say many of the victims were slain "execution-style" and a number of bodies were severely mutilated.
For its part, the Belgrade state-controlled media opted to give credence only to select and perverse aspects of the story. Firstly, a statement by Serbian President Milan Milutinovic was given wide play in which he denounced international coverage and reaction to developments, saying the deaths in Racak were the result of "combat" between security forces and "terrorists". In addition, the state media featured remarks by Seselj, in which he alleged that mutilated corpses and the bodies of children were part of a conspiracy and thrown into the field of battle by the KLA in an attempt to discredit Serbia 10.
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Footnotes:
- For the purpose of this analysis, all "pro-regime" media, whether nominally independent or private will be lumped together with those wholly controlled by the government and shall be referred to as "state". All such pro-regime outlets champion the political line of the Milosevic administration and the substance of their news reporting varies little, if at all, from the propaganda featured on Belgrade's main network carrier, the state-controlled RTS and RTV 1.
- Palma Plus TV, 5 December 1998.
- Tanjug, 6 December 1998.
- Borba, 4 January 1999. See also comments attributed to spokesman of the ruling Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), Ivica Dacic, reported in Borba, 30 December 1998.
- Vecernje novosti, 20 December 1998. The term Shiptar, meaning an ethnic Albanian, is often used as a slur in Serbia.
- Remarks cited in Borba, 5 January 1999.
- See Seselj's interview on BK TV, afternoon of 22 December 1998, news program GEA (repeat).
- Reported by Tanjug, 6 December 1998.
- Borba, 28 December 1998.
- See RFE/RL Newsline, 18 January 1999.
International Crisis Group: http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/