 In sentencing Milan Gvero, the ICTY for the first time recognised the importance of media propaganda in the mass executions that took place in eastern Bosnia in 1995.
| I think the world has known about the importance of propaganda for much, much longer than that ... |
On July 11, 1995, a TV presenter in the Bosnian Serb headquarters in Pale announced on prime-time news that the Bosnian Serbian army, VRS, was "liberating Srebrenica in a strong attack".
The news continued: "This took place after the Muslim side attacked the area outside the protected zone of Srebrenica and burned down some villages around the town. At this moment, the reception of the civilians and UNPROFOR representatives is going on. Everything is under control and in accordance with the Geneva Conventions.
"Every armed man will be treated in accordance with international conventions. At this moment, the [Muslim] soldiers are giving up their arms. During the night, it is expected that even paramilitary forces around Zepa will give up fighting... Muslims, especially those who did not commit any kind of crime, have no reason to be afraid."
The same announcement was read out three times during the half-hour news broadcast. No pictures from the town were shown.
| Sloppy, sloppy. Should have burned out a village somewhere and used the pics. |
That day, Milan Gvero, Assistant Commander for Morale and Legal and Religious Affairs of the Army of Republika Srpska, VRS, spoke with Radovan Karadzic, supreme commander and Bosnian Serb president, also saying that "everything is going according to plan".
| Morale, legal and religious affairs? Lot of hats for one man. No wonder he slipped up. |
Almost 15 years on, the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, ICTY, on June 10 pronounced a first-instance verdict for Gvero, sentencing him to five years' jail for his role in the genocide committed in Srebrenica.
| Carla del Ponte would have waited for Gvero to die in a plush holding cell at the Hague Hotel. Better for justice that way, it can be more abstract ... |
As the verdict was read out in court, the judge recalled that Gvero had issued a press statement on July 19, 1995, saying that the activities of the VRS were directed towards "neutralizing Muslim terrorists and not civilians.
"While the release of false information to the media and international authorities does not constitute a criminal act, the purpose of the release was not an innocent one," the verdict said.
"The only reasonable inference as to the goal behind this communiqué is that it was intended to mislead, in particular the international authorities concerned with protecting the enclave, with a view to delaying any action on their part that might thwart the VRS's military efforts," it concluded.
| That's why they call it 'propaganda', yer Honor ... |
Mark Thompson, author of Forging War, a book about the role that the media played in the collapse of Yugoslavia, told Balkan Insight that it would be hard to prove the connection between specific acts of propaganda and crimes against humanity or genocide.
| Yes, yes, the propagandist always claims that he or she had clean hands. They were just talking, you see, just musing out loud when they told the Hutus to kill the Tutsis or the Serbs to kill the Muslims or the Germans to kill the Jews. Never really met any of that, it was just a rhetorical exercise. Any cultured person understands this. |
"Without those connections, it is impossible to claim that 'direct and public incitement to commit genocide' took place," he said. "The statutes of the [Hague] Tribunal do not criminalise propaganda or even incitement through the media, as such. If they did, think how many journalists would have been indicted!" he added.
| Carla del Ponte isn't this obtuse ... |
"We may choose to criticise this as a shortcoming of the statutes, but that is a different matter," he continued.
| Oh, entirely different. We'll need several working group meetings over dinner to figure that one out ... |
Thompson said connections between the media and decision-makers in the war had been established "on a massive scale" in the work of a number of researchers. But establishing connections was not enough for indictments.
| We didn't have any problem dealing with the Nazi propagandists after WWII. Most everyone saw the connection back then, but of course back then we weren't as sophisticated as we are now, so it could be entirely different today. |
The prosecutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Kosovo have until opened no investigations into the role of the media or of those who controlled the media in war crimes committed in the 1990s.
| Might want to wait another decade or so, wouldn't pay to be hasty ... |
The war crimes prosecution office in Serbia opened an investigation into the role of the media last March but the results of this probe have not been released.
This could be a monumentally important precedent, IF we don't let it slip through our hands.
For instance, in spreading willful lies about starvation and suffering in Gaza, Al Reuters and other whorehouse media outlets are engaged in a calculated effort to break the Israeli blockade and facilitate arms deliveries to Hamas with the eventual (and openly stated) goal of genocide.
Remember Julius Streicher, media shills: Follow his path, share his fate.
| That's likely why it's taking so long to establish the value of propaganda ... |
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