N. America Media Bias against Serbs in Bosnia? Details and Facts.
Michael Sells
Allegations have been made that US and Canadian press and media are
biased against Serbs in Bosnia. Both Milan S. and Branko R. have cited
the atrocities committed last summer near Srebenicaas an instance of
inadequate attention by the press to Serb victims. While I agreed that
the attention was not adequate in provide background context, I mentioned
that it was more attention that most atrocities against Muslims had
received in the press (no attention at all) and that the media in the
U.S. is particularly poor at providing background context (they are
interested in "action news" and dramatic photos).
Because this charge is so serious and so emotional,it is imperative to
have some details and facts. The U.S. media attention to the Serb
victims of the Srebenica attacks last summer is inadequate, but it is
far, far more attention that has been given the VAST majority of similar
attacks on Muslims. Milan S. accused me ad hominem of callousness
towards Serbs victims on this, but a sincere disagreement about alleged
press bias has no necessary relationship to what I feel toward Serb
victims of atrocities. And I will not rush to the similar conclusion
that Milan S. or Branko or anyone else is callous to the unimaginable
suffering that the list below gives us a tiny glimpse of.
Here is a list of major atrocities committed by Mladic forces against
Muslims, that to my knowledge have not received ONE IOTA of attention
from U.S. media. If anyone knows of any of these cases that have
received attention please let me know. These incidents are taken from
the 6th and 8th U.S. State Department reports on War-Crimes in Bosnia,
and thus represent only about 1/4 of the incidents detailed (time, names,
places, etc) in the 8 State Department reports.
Whenever the word "ethnic cleansing" is used, you can supply rampant
torture, killings, burning, looting, rapes and kidnapping.I estimate that
between 50-500 people are killed in most of these cleansings, but some
involve much more killing.
From 8th Report:
1) The Ethnic Cleansing of Sanski Most by JNA army
2) The Ethnic Cleansing of Donja Puarska
3) The Ethnic Cleansing of Llubija
4) The Ethnic Cleansing of Brisevo
5) Killings of Muslim Civilians at Dimaci
6) at Milinari
7) at Groarac
8) near Buzuci
9 on west bank of Sare Nitsa
10) south of Lisina
11) Concentration camp at Vlasenica called Susica
12) Conctrentation camps at Doboj
13) Drina Bridge Massacre of 450 Muslim Civilians at
Visegrad
14) Ethnic Cleansing of Lakat and massacre of elderly
residents at Borci and Borasnica mountain (see today's posting)
15) Ethnic Cleansing of GAcko
16) White Eagles Tortures and Killings at Samacki Hotel
17) Beatings-to-Death, Tortures, and Starvations at Bilec
18) Ethnic Cleansing of Vlasenica by trrops from Novi Sad,
Serbia.
19) Beatings, Tortures, and Killigns at Batkovic Concentration Camp
20) Ethnic Cleansing of of Bosanski Novi road near Prijedor
21) Ethnic Cleansing of Divic
22) Atrocities in the Celopek Detention Camp where prisoners who could
not pay guards 2000 marks were systematically killed
23) Killings of Sons in front of Fathers at Celopek
24) Ethnic Cleansing of Mtalkjko
25) Massacre of Up to 50 Muslims at hunting lodge between
Mataljka and Cajnice
26) Ethnic Cleansing of Grapska and Sjenina.
27) Death March from Grapska to Doboj, with prisoners shot along the way.
28) Ethnic Cleansing of Zvornik including burning of 200 houses (there
was a minor reference to violence in Zvornik in the NYT, but nothing
about the burning of homes)
29) Mass graves of Muslims at Maly Zvornik and southwest Zvornik.
30) Ethnic Cleansing of Djulci. Shooting of 10 residents on site and 50
people hiding in a garage.
31) Betoniarka Torture Camp (near Sanski Most)
32) Hasan Kikic School Torture and Killing Center (near Sanski Most)
33) Gradska Dworana Torture and Killing Center
34) Narodni Front School Torture and Killing Center
35) Krnic Factory Torture and Killing Center
36) Ethnic Cleansing of Borajno in Cajnice District by Serbian forces
from Plevjlja.
37) Ethnic Cleansing of Doboj by Arkan's troops, some native of area,
some from Knin region of Krajina, including in addition to standard
killings and atrocities, the shelling of two mosques and the Roman
Catholic church.
6th report
38) Ethnic Cleansing of Harambine
39) Ethnic Cleansing of Matrici by White Eagles and Arkanovici, led by
two men from Fornji Orlovici
40) May 1992 Serb atack on Mostar, with torture and mass killings of
captives from Mostar at Gacko
41) Ethnic Cleansing of Rizvahovici by White Eagles and local Serb
soldiers.
42) Ethnic Cleansing of Sanica Gorija on June 1, 1992 by the Sixth
Serbian Brigade from Sanski Most.
43) Shelling and Ethnic Cleansing of Kozarusa
44) Ethnic Cleansing and looting and burning of Modrica, including the
Catholic Church and 500 year old mosque that was dynamited, with mass
killings at a nearby power/transformer stations, and behind the Sutjesk
Junio High School.
45) Beating and torturing to death of 50 Muslim and Croat prisoners at a
stadium in Teslic, Slatina.
46) Ethnic Cleansing of Sanica Donja, near Kljuc following occupation by
JNA. Cleansing carried out on 6/3/92 by Sixth Krajina Brigade
headquarted at Palanka.
47) Decapitation of 100 prisoners at Ojedninostvo school in Tomina.
48) Ethnic Cleansing of Agici on 6/22/92, killings near the Japra valley.
Robbing and abuse and killing of Agici prisoners at Bosanski Novi.
49) Ethnic Cleansing of Blagaj-Japra,with several massacres in the
vicinity of Bosanski Novi. Torture and torture deaths at the staium in
Bosanski Novi.
50) Ethnic Cleansing of Divic area by Arkanovici, with beatings, robbery,
torture of family members in front of one another, in order to get them
to reveal where there was more money.
51) Ethnic Cleansing of Zecovi, massacre of men, and later of wives and
children.
52) Ethnic Cleansing of Bogosca, with torture of women and children at a
hotel near Bogosca. Mass rapes and gang rapes.
53) Ethnic Cleansing of Teslic by White Eagles. Continued, nightly rape
of at least 60 women and children at a motel complex of small cabins near
Teslic. Mass rapes. 10 year old girls raped as, in the terms of the
White Eagle rapist, "a delicacy."
54) Daily rapes at the Doboj Middle School Complex which held 600
female prisoners.
55) Ethnic Cleansing of Dabovci. Beatings and tortures of Dabovci
captives at Kotor Varos. Gang rape of women at Kotor Varos, many
returned bleeding and badly beaten.
56) Continued Mass rape of female prisoners in the Pijeskovi section of
Doboj, carried out by Serbian soldiers with SMP on their uniform. Each
women raped by an average of four soldiers a night.
56) JNA attack on April 10, 1992 on the Mostar Cigarette Factory, with
killings of man and women handed out to soldeirs "for entertainment."
--
Michael Sells, Department of Religion, Haverford College
Haverford, Pa 19041-1392
Branko Radosavljevic
>Allegations have been made that US and Canadian press and media are
>biased against Serbs in Bosnia. Both Milan S. and Branko R. have cited
>the atrocities committed last summer near Srebenicaas an instance of
>inadequate attention by the press to Serb victims. While I agreed that
>the attention was not adequate in provide background context, I mentioned
>that it was more attention that most atrocities against Muslims had
>received in the press (no attention at all) and that the media in the
>U.S. is particularly poor at providing background context (they are
>interested in "action news" and dramatic photos).
>Because this charge is so serious and so emotional,it is imperative to
>have some details and facts. The U.S. media attention to the Serb
>victims of the Srebenica attacks last summer is inadequate, but it is
>far, far more attention that has been given the VAST majority of similar
>attacks on Muslims.
The point was that there were dozens of articles, radio reports, and TV
reports on Srebrenica (here in the US), and only two or three mentioned
(in an incomplete way at that) that the Serbs in the area had been
'cleansed' from the area in two separate offensives.
As far as listing undocumented atrocities from other locales,
I can think of a few committed against Serbs that weren't covered
in the US news, and that's without the benefit of the one-sided
'information gathering' by the US State Department for their reports.
(I've given my opinion previously of why those reports would
be one-sided.)
Here are a few: a massacre of Serbs at Vlasenica [the BBC World Service
interviewed an independent American journalist who saw the aftermath],
various camps for Serbs run by Muslims and Croats with torture
and killings [two separate reports on the BBC World Service---
in the US, it's thought these other camps don't even exist];
and many other atrocities that I've seen covered by only one
source in the US, in contrast to the saturation coverage given
to atrocities committed by Serbs.
As far as the US media being one-sided in the coverage of the
war, one major reason I thought that was the almost complete
lack of interviews with 'average' Serbs over there. At least,
it was like that for a year and a half (fall 91 till spring 93).
When the fighting between Croats and Muslims really started
heating up, I began to see a lot more interviews with people
on the Serb side of the lines, at least on CNN.
This lack of 'man-on-the-street' interviews of Serbs was admitted to
by Jonathan Landay, the UPI bureau chief in Belgrade, when I talked
to him on a radio show. As noted before, his explanations were:
it's dangerous for reporters to cross lines there (so they spend
their time on the Bosnian Govt. side), Bosnian Serbs were hostile
to American reporters (after months of being demonized), and that
it was sufficient to just interview the Serbs' leadership (which
is totally inadequate to get the human side of the story).
Interestingly, I brought up to him how Grbavica (a Serb-held
neighborhood of Sarajevo) was being shelled by Bosnian Govt.
forces, and how this was hardly being reported in the US
(true back then), though that week the MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour
showed excerpts from a BBC TV report on it (that's why I brought
up the subject). Landay got quite hostile at that point,
ignored my question, and said that it had been brutally cleansed
of all non-Serbs, and he knew because he had been in Sarajevo.
I thought this interesting because months later (12 May 93),
CNN did a report on Grbavica saying many Muslims still lived there
and were treated well by the Serbs.
[M. Sells followed up with a list of atrocities against Muslims
taken from US State Dept. reports.]
--Branko R.