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"EURO-BALKAN" INSTITUTE ON MACEDONIAN CRISIS 31-03-2001
MACEDONIAN JOURNALIST'S VIEWS ON SOME ASPECTS WESTERN EUROPEAN JOURNALISTS
REPORTING ABOUT MACEDONIAN CRISIS
WHO PLANTS POTATOES IN FEBRUARY?
by Aleksandar Damovski
Planting potatoes in the middle
of February, “TV recordings” of Macedonian women loading magazines for the
Macedonian Army or devious and clever Albanians, and military and with lack of
sense of humor Macedonians, are just part of the sentences that the
international public was exposed to, watched or read from their “highly
professional” reporters who, these days, are reporting on the happenings in
Macedonia. Surprisingly easy and with lack of responsibility, part of the
reporter stars of the large media houses, took over the Kosovian scheme on the
good guys and the bad guys from the crisis in 1999. Everything, since then, has
been flowing with ease, and continues to flow in that manner. Simply, they
copied the Kosovo scheme in their reports on the latest occurrences in Macedonia.
The model is here, except that now, everything is transferred a bit more South,
but the actors are pretty much the same ones: the orthodox, always in the mood
for combat Slavs, and the poor, discriminated and deprived of their rights,
Albanians. So, in the renown British newspaper “Independent” from the ink of
its reporter Justin Huggler we read: “The Macedonian onslaught began at 4.00pm
just hours after the rebels offered peace talks. The guerrillas had warned that
their attacks would continue if the Macedonian government did not respond to
their offer. The government's response was the huge flames leaping from the
crown of Baltepe hill and the shattering explosions that rebounded off the
rooftops of Tetovo.” Without bothering to check if his information was correct,
the reporter sends his clear message - it is obvious who should be declared the
proponents of peace in this case! The rebels, of course. They offered peace but
the Macedonian State did not accept it and started shooting indiscriminately, is
the obvious message. However, the facts are somehow different: several hours
after the end of the ultimatum period proposed by the Macedonian State calling
upon the rebels to lay down their arms, two mortars were shot from Tetovo
fortress injuring 5 civilians. The Tetovo fortress was at that point the
stronghold of the rebels. We read the following outburst of sentimentalism by
the same author: "In the town below, cars raced along the streets as some
of the few remaining residents fled. From the deserted children's playground a
row of soldiers fired mortars up into the hills as the blue and white swings
swayed in the breeze beside them. Petrified conscript soldiers patrolled the
city streets, presumably in case any of the rebels made it down into the town.
There has so far been no sign of civil unrest in the town." It should not
be a problem for a publisher of such high reputation to try to observe the
golden rule of journalism, namely "representing both sides". Had this
golden rule been observed, I suppose, we would have been reading something in
the sense of: "Rebels claim they are fighting for the improvement of the
rights of ethnic Albanians, being less than a quarter of country's population.
Although there are no signs of illegal persecutions, there is great
dissatisfaction among the Albanians, as a result to, as they claim, the general
discrimination against them in Macedonia." Huggler's fellow reporter, from
the same newspaper, Mr. John Sweeney, in obviously complete accordance with his
house's editing policy, goes: "Tetovo, this week, is a town fizzling with
fear. Heads turn too fast at the slamming of a car door, people stare transfixed
at the spiral of dirty gray smoke rising against a blue sky from a burning
Albanian home." Now, how does the author know that the "burning home"
was Albanian? On the hill near Tetovo fortress there are many cottages almost
all of them belonging to ethnic-Macedonians. What scares me most, in the case of
this reporter as in the case of many others too, is the simplicity with which
they report forgetting to mention the most important issue at stake. Namely,
that some armed persons have enterd a country and attacked it. Then the
celebrated BBC reporter, Paul Wood, began his first Tanusevci story with the
death of the 22 years old boy, brutally killed in the field while planting
potatoes. Have you ever heard of a spot on this globe where, at 1500 m up in the
mountains, covered by snow, in the middle of February, one plants potatoes? And
again the reporter Sweeney, who knows everything, but merely supposes that the
first victim under the Tetovo fortress received a bullet of the Macedonian Army:
Until today, reports Sweeney, one ethnic-Albanian civilian was killed, shot in
his head, most probably by the Macedonian Army. Also, an Albanian-policeman was
killed in a battle with UCK. These are two dead Albanians. Well, this report was
published to without any effort by the author to check who really killed the
first Albanian. The Chief of Tetovo police, of ethnic-Albanian origin himself,
in his statement given to Newsweek, claims that he was killed by a sniper from
the direction of Tetovo fortress, unquestionably at that time a strong-hold of
the rebels. Again falsity in facts: "Under this hills is Tetovo, inhabited
by 80% of ethnic Albanians, but under the rule of the Macedonians, in many
aspects similar to their orthodox friends, the Serbs. Under the hills is the
Macedonian Army, better armed, but less motivated than the rebels."
Nevertheless, the local government of Tetovo is under a complete rule by the
purely ethnic-Albanian party DPA. The second part of the sentence, however,
insinuates that the rebels have a fairly strong motive to fight, namely justice.
The others, on the other hand - do not!!! The other day our paper received an
invitation, precisely by BBC, to a seminar about war reporting. I, on the other
hand, suggest that we, the Macedonian journalists, finance the seminar and have
it held in Tanusevci, with Western European journalists as its participants.
Maybe in May, the right season for planting potatoes. (The author is editor of
the Macedonian daily, "Dnevnik")
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