Humanitarian Law Centre, Serbia

Monitoring period: June, 2001

THE MEDIA ON MASS GRAVES IN SERBIA

In June, both the print and electronic media reported the discovery of mass graves and related developments in Serbia. All the main media carried official reports on the locations of graves, exhumations and estimates of the number of bodies contained within, plus statements from government officials and judicial experts. But on issues such as responsibility for the killings, the victims, and the impact of the discovery on society, there were major differences within the media. Very few media seriously considered the questions of collective responsibility and the accountability of society as a whole. This was particularly true of the electronic media, including RTS and BK Telecom, the most influential television stations, which covered the discoveries briefly and without any attempt at independent investigation.

Although the victims were correctly identified as being from Kosovo, the media show no compassion for their suffering and fate. The media accepted the existence of the mass graves and - indirectly - responsibility for the crimes, but did not take the opportunity to deal seriously with the issues of crime and accountability in general.

Reports on mass graves appeared almost every day in the Danas, Glas Javnosti and Politika dailies, apart from June 11, when they did not carry a single item on the topic. Mass graves were the lead reports and cover stories in two issues of Vreme and one issue of the NIN news magazine. Since Serbian Radio-Television (RTS) and BK Telecom reported only the discovery of new mass graves and accompanying government news conferences, several days then passed before they mentioned the topic. Thus RTS had no coverage on mass graves between 24 and 27th June.

• QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

The dailies printed 97 items on mass graves in June: Glas Javnosti 38, Danas 31, and Politika 23. In the first half of the month, the reports were front page items which carried over to the inside pages. In the latter half, items on the topic appeared on the inside pages with the exception of reports on the discovery of new grave sites or the controversy between the police and the military as to which of those two forces was in charge in Kosovo when the killings occurred.

RTS's prime time news program - Dnevnik 2 - totalled 16.52 hours in the period monitored, of which 20 minutes, or 2% of total time, was given up to the mass graves and related topics. BK Telecom's Telefakt 4 amounted to 4.30 hours, in which the topic took up five minutes (or 2%) of total time.

• MEDIA ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE DISCOVERY OF MASS GRAVES

All the media reported the discovery of new graves sites, their location, details relating to exhumations, and carried official releases and statements on the subject. The approaches adopted by the dailies, however, were substantially different. Thus Glas Javnosti mainly carried press releases issued by the law enforcement agencies and statements by politicians with no other comment, while Danas also featured analytical and critical reports: "The Serbian public may therefore expect to be confronted more and more frequently with instances of monstrous crimes committed in an era which is still fresh in its memory. This, unfortunately, is the tragically cruel reality, one that can no longer be concealed or, still less, justified" (Danas, 2 June).

Politika's attitude was this: "It is not easy to descend from heaven to earth. But this nation is much underestimated ... when it is imputed that it believes itself to be the chosen people. It is time to give this nation proof that it was right. The people of this country do not deserve to literally to walk unaware over bodies that have been loaded, reloaded, dumped out and then buried" (Politika, 10 June).

NIN and Vreme magazines ran investigative reports and interviews with senior law enforcement officials in which their reporters posed very direct questions. The articles were critical of the police: "The fact that the grave is located in the police's own yard casts doubt on the inability of the 'new Serbian police force's' investigative bodies to disclose who carried out the final stage of the attempt to cover up the traces of the crime. The number of eyewitnesses of the sinking, floating up and pulling out [from the Danube River] of the refrigerated truck, the discovery of its horrendous freight and its reloading, the destruction of the truck, the 'handing over' of the new truck and the 'burial' of the victims must run into hundreds, and the number of officers involved in Operation Depth 2 into at least dozens" (Vreme, 7 June).

RTS and BK Telecom reported new details of the investigation by carrying official statements and showing footage of the location at which the remains were exhumed, but without any comment, interviews or investigative reports of their own.

• IDENTITY OF THE VICTIMS

Danas published the findings of the Humanitarian Law Centre's investigations into the killings of ethnic Albanian civilians in the Suva Reka, Glogovac and Djakovica areas in Kosovo, which included information on the identity of victims based on witness accounts. The paper announced the publication of the first part of the HLC report on the front page with a headline, but placed it inconspicuously at the bottom of the page. None of the other monitored media carried the HLC report or commented on it.

RTS broadcast a statement by Public Prosecutor Miroslav Srzentic that the bodies in the refrigerated truck pulled out of the Danube were of Kosovar Albanians (RTS, 16 June). In its own reports on the exhumations, RTS used the terms "bodies brought from Kosovo" (19 June), and "victims whose identity will be established by the investigators" (23 June). BK Telecom described the victims as "bodies which have not been identified thus far " (15 June) and "bodies originating from Kosovo" (18 June).

Glas Javnosti cast doubt on this when reported a statement by an unidentified person who took part in the exhumations at the Batajnica location, without quoting directly. The unidentified source allegedly "throws into question claims that all the victims are from Kosovo, since there are indications that the remains are more than two years old and might be from Bosnia..." (Glas Javnosti, 16 June).

The paper also quoted journalists and politicians as saying the victims were from Kosovo: "The bodies were taken from mass graves, of which there were several in Kosovo territory. One of the biggest was in the Djakovica cemetery. According to Vitomirovic, the editor of Timocka Krimi Revija, the magazine that first disclosed the existence of the refrigerated truck full of bodies, the former chief of the Serbian Public Security Department Vlastimir Djordjevic and a certain 'Beli' of the State Security Department were in charge of the operation of transporting the bodies" (Glas Javnosti, 20 June).

Toward the end of the month, a semi-official report on the origin of the bodies was publicised: "The available data indicates that they were Albanians from Kosovo and Metohija, people from Suva Reka. There were leaks from several sources that personal documents belonging to people from that town were recovered from the Batajnica grave. The Humanitarian Law Centre had earlier published information indicating that the refrigerated truck contained the bodies of Albanians killed on 26 March 1999" (Politika, 29 June). Danas also carried this semi-official report while Glas Javnosti carried nothing on the subject that day.

Following the discovery of the first mass grave and the start of the exhumations, a recriminatory exchange began between the military and the police over the responsibility for the crimes. The media covered their respective news conference but also aired their own views about the relationship between the Yugoslav Army and police, and their involvement in the crimes and the destruction of evidence: "However unreal it may seem, the conflict did not break out over sharing responsibility or the doubtful technicality of who was in command and who was subordinate in Kosovo. Invoking the traditional naive warrior's excuse 'I was only carrying out orders' is therefore no defence" (Politika, 15 June).

In its own investigative reporting on the chain of command in Kosovo, Danas published confidential military documents: "According to a photocopy of an order marked 'Strictly confidential,' Chief of General Staff Nebojsa Pavkovic ordered the engagement of Ministry of Internal Affairs units, i.e. police, during the NATO intervention against FR Yugoslavia. The document Danas obtained from a reliable source shows that on 8th May 1999 Pavkovic issued an order titled 'Engagement of Yugoslav Army and Ministry of Internal Affairs forces on combat control of territory'" (Danas, 14 June).

RTS and BK Telecom covered the military and police news conferences without comment or any inquiries of their own.

In an interview with Serbia's Minister of Internal Affairs Dusan Mihajlovic, NIN posed very direct questions and criticized the Ministry's silence on the removal of evidence: "Why did you wait so long to give the public details on the removal of traces of crimes in Kosovo and why did you let the facts be covered up until somebody else disclosed them?" (NIN, 7 June). The weekly expressed doubt that the whole truth about the crimes committed would ever come out: "The public was first shocked by the disclosure of many details of the operation codenamed 'Depth 2.' Then questions and dilemmas arose - will the new government and the new police authorities be able to win the battle (ie with the criminals and those in whose interest it is to cover up the crimes...) on which they have embarked?" (NIN, 7 June).

Politika published an interview with General Lazarevic, one of the top Yugoslav Army commanders in Kosovo during the NATO campaign, who said the removal of bodies from Kosovo was a subterfuge: "Asked about the 'mystery' surrounding the order to sanitise the ground in Kosmet after combat actions, of which there has been much talk these days, he just said a 'subterfuge and big issues, which have a backdrop, were involved'" (Politika, 15 June).

In the opinion of Vreme, both the Army and police bear responsibility: "Why were Official Secret acts signed where these bodies are concerned? Why is everyone so scared when these bodies are mentioned? The Army and the police are now busily passing the buck, shifting the command responsibility in Kosovo onto each other" (Vreme, 21 June). In another investigative report on the mass graves, the weekly noted: "You don't have to be very smart to conclude that Minister Dusan Mihajlovic, Chief of Public Security Sreten Lukic, and Captain Dragan Karleusa, a senior official of the Serbian Ministry of Internal Affairs, are working with information received from participants in covering up the evidence of the crimes. Dusan Mihajlovic shielded the latter from the curiosity of reporters by saying the public had no need to know who was informing the police 'as many unwilling participants in these events, who were on the payroll, are now the chief sources of information.' The public should instead focus on the issue of who ordered, organised and declared the cover-up a state secret. Captain Karleusa, however, answered this question back on 25 May this year when he said the operation was ordered by Slobodan Milosevic in March 1999" (Vreme, 21 June).

• RESPONSIBILITY

The media monitored reacted differently to the issue of collective responsibility. Glas Javnosti did not analyse or deal directly with the subject, while Politika and Danas treated it in signed articles but from a different angle.

Politika considers the responsibility of individuals who represent the system to be greater than any collective responsibility: "What we are dealing with is much more important than a general national catharsis and the realisation that such a crime is possible: namely, how and on what bases did a system that covered up such crimes function? Before that, of course, the same apparatus committed the crimes or it would have had no reason to invest so much effort and dilettantish callousness in desecrating the bodies and endlessly prolonging the horror" (Politika, 15 June).

Danas focused on the reaction of society as a whole: "Bodies are surfacing all over the place. First hundreds, then thousands are mentioned. They are coming up out of the water, the soil. Like the Last Judgment. Instead of exchanging greetings, neighbours ask each other, 'Do you believe there really was a refrigerated truck loaded with bodies?' Ordinary people are confused. For ten years and more - much more - they have been fed lies about the immaculate conception of the Serb being and its heavenly essence. And now such an obscenity, dark and terrible. To a nation which closed its eyes to the truth for a long time, the truth is appearing as a nightmare which does not end when they wake up. The crime is real and so are its consequences" (Danas, 22 June).

Vreme interviewed one of the drivers of the truck in which the bodies were transported from Kosovo to Serbia, endeavouring to gauge his feelings and sense of responsibility: "His story is simple and terse. He sticks to what he himself heard and saw at first hand. He realises that one brief, decisive moment changed the rest of his life. There are things with which a man cannot live" (Vreme, 21 June).

In their news programs, RTS and BK Telecom did not delve deeper into the issue, restricting themselves to covering the exhumations and carrying statements made by politicians and officials in charge of the investigation.

source: http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?balkans_humanrights.html 
published by: Roland Brunner rbr@medienhilfe.ch date of release on this site: 16-08-2001

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