In the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), one of the indictments against Serbian President
Slobodan Milošević was his use of the Serbian state-run
mass media to create an atmosphere of fear and hatred in Yugoslavia's
Orthodox Serbs by spreading "exaggerated and false messages of ethnically based attacks by
Bosnian Muslims and
Catholic Croats against the Serb people...". {{multiple image
Milošević's reign and control of Serbian media Milošević began his efforts to gain control over the media in 1986 to
1987, a process that had been completed by the summer of 1991. In 1992, Radio Television Belgrade, together with Radio Television Novi Sad (RTNS) and Radio Television Pristina (RTP), became part of
Radio Television of Serbia, a centralized and closely-governed network, which was intended to be a loudspeaker for Milošević's policies. During the 1990s,
Dnevnik (Daily News) was used to promote the "wise politics of Slobodan Milošević" and to attack "the servants of Western powers and the forces of chaos and despair", the Serbian
opposition. According to Danielle S. Sremac, contrary to the Croats and the Bosnians, Serbian public relations efforts were nonexistent, as the Milošević government held a disdain for the Western press. However, Wise Communications in Washington represented Serbia's interests by a contract with the Serbian-owned oil company Jugopetrol until sanctions were imposed by the UN embargo on Serbia. Bill Wise, the president of the firm, stated, "We arranged television interviews and placed articles in US publications for Slobodan Milosevic. Part of our role was to get some balance to the information coming out of Yugoslavia". A group of Serbian businessmen hired Ian Greer Associates to organise a lobby of Westminster, communicate the Serbian message and prevent economic sanctions by the European Economic Community. It stopped working as well when the UN imposed sanctions in June 1992. Other PR activities included Burson-Marsteller, which handled the media and political relations for the visit of the new Yugoslav prime minister,
Milan Panić, and a host of Serbian information centres and individual lobbyists from both sides. According to de la Bosse, nationalist ideology defined the Serbs partly according to a historical myth, based on the defeat of Serbia by the
Ottoman forces at the
Battle of Kosovo in 1389, and partly on the
Genocide of Serbs committed during
World War II by the Croatian
fascist Ustashe, which governed the
Independent State of Croatia. The Croatians' desire for independence fed the flames of fear, especially in Serbian-majority regions of Croatia. According to de la Bosse, the new Serbian identity became one in opposition to the "others": Croats (collapsed into
Ustashe) and Muslims (collapsed into
Poturice). Terms such as "genocidal", "fascistoid", "heir of Ustaše leader
Ante Pavelić" and "neo-Ustaše Croatian viceroy" were used by the Serbian media to describe Croatian President Franjo Tudjman. By contrast, Milošević was described as "wise", "decisive", "unwavering" and "the person who was restoring national dignity to the Serbian people". of the NATO
F-117 Nighthawk during
NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. Milošević, before the
Kosovo War, allowed independent print media to publish, but their distribution was limited. His methods of controlling the media included creating shortages of paper, interfering with or stopping supplies and equipment and confiscating newspapers for being printed without proper licenses or other reasons. For publicly-owned media, he could dismiss, promote, demote or publicly condemn journalists. In 1998, he adopted a media law that created a special misdemeanor court to try violations and had the ability to impose heavy fines and to confiscate property if they were not immediately paid. The government crackdown on independent media intensified when NATO forces were threatening intervention in Kosovo in late September and early October. Furthermore, the government also maintained direct control of state radio and television, which provided news for most of the population. It is estimated that between 50,000 and 200,000 people deserted from the Yugoslav People's Army, and between 100,000 and 150,000 people emigrated from Serbia for refusing to participate in the war. De la Brosse describes how RTS (
Radio Television of Serbia) portrayed events in
Dubrovnik and
Sarajevo: "The images shown of Dubrovnik came with a commentary accusing those from the West who had taken the film of manipulation and of having had a tire burnt in front of their cameras to make it seem that the city was on fire. As for the shells fired at Sarajevo and the damage caused, for several months it was simply as if it had never happened in the eyes of Serbian television viewers because Belgrade television would show pictures of the city taken months and even years beforehand to deny that it had ever occurred". The Serbian public was fed similar disinformation about Vukovar, according to a former Reuters correspondent, Daniel Deluce: "Serbian Radio Television created a strange universe in which Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, had never been besieged and in which the devastated Croatian town of
Vukovar had been 'liberated'".
Serbian propaganda cases "Pakrac genocide" case During the
Pakrac clash, the Serbian newspaper
Večernje novosti reported that about 40 Serb civilians had been killed in
Pakrac on 2 March 1991 by the Croatian forces. The story was widely accepted by the public and by some ministers in the Serbian government like
Dragutin Zelenović. The report could not be confirmed in other media from all seven municipalities with the name "Pakrac" in the former Yugoslavia.
"Vukovar baby massacre" case A day before the execution of 264 Croatian
prisoners-of-war and civilians in the
Ovčara massacre, Serbian media reported that 40 Serb babies had been killed in
Vukovar. Dr. Vesna Bosanac, the head of Vukovar hospital from which the Croatian prisoners-of-war and civilians were taken, said she believed the story of slaughtered babies was released intentionally to incite Serbian nationalists to execute Croats.
"Dubrovnik 30,000 Ustaše" case soldier reads the propaganda of
Pobjeda in which the newspaper describes
Ustaše hiding behind the walls of
Dubrovnik. calling upon citizens of Dubrovnik to co-operate with the
Yugoslav People's Army against the Croats' "vampired
fascism and
Ustašism" Before the Siege of Dubrovnik, Yugoslav officers (namely
Pavle Strugar) made a concerted effort at misrepresenting the military situation on the ground and exaggerated the "threat" of a Croatian attack on
Montenegro by "30,000 armed
Ustaše and 7000 terrorists, including
Kurdish mercenaries". That propaganda was widely spread by the state-controlled media of Yugoslavia. In reality, Croatian military forces at the area in September were virtually non-existent. The Croat forces consisted of just one locally-conscripted unit, which numbered less than 1,500 men and had no tanks or heavy guns. Also, there were no mercenaries, Kurdish or otherwise, fighting for the Croats.
"Fourth Reich" and "Vatican conspiracy" The Belgrade-based media sometimes reported about the alleged conspiracy of "foreign forces" to destroy Yugoslavia. In one instance, TV Belgrade showed Tuđman shaking hands with German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl and accused them of plotting to impose "a
Fourth Reich", and even the
Holy See was blamed for "supporting secessionists". As a consequence, in September 1991, the German and Vatican embassies were targets of Serbian protesters, who shouted, "
Pope John Paul II supports neo-fascism in Croatia".
Operation Opera Orientalis During the notorious
false-flag Operation Opera Orientalis, which was conducted in 1991 by the
Yugoslav Air Force intelligence service, the Serbian media repeatedly made false accusations in which
Croatia was connected with
World War II,
fascism,
Nazism and
anti-Semitism with the aim to discredit the Croatian demands for independence in the West.
1992 Tuđman quote about "Croatia wanting the war" The Serbian media emphasized that Croatian President
Franjo Tuđman had started the war in Croatia. To corroborate that notion, the media repeatedly referenced his speech in Zagreb on 24 May 1992 and claimed that he had allegedly said, "There would not have been a war had Croatia not wanted one". During their trials at the
ICTY,
Slobodan Milošević and
Milan Martić also frequently resorted to Tuđman's quote to prove their innocence. However, the ICTY prosecutors obtained the integral tape of his speech, played it in its entirety during Martić's trial on 23 October 2006, and proved that Tuđman had never said that Croatia "wanted the war". Upon playing that tape, Borislav Đukić was forced to admit that Tuđman had not said what had been claimed.
"Bosnian mujahideen" case Serbian propaganda during the
Bosnian War portrayed the
Bosnian Muslims as violent extremists and Islamic fundamentalists. After a
series of massacres of
Bosniaks, a few hundred (between 300 and 1,500 The Serb media, however, reported a much larger number of
mujahideen and presented them as terrorists and a huge threat to European security to inflame
anti-Muslim hatred among Serbs and other Christians. No indictment was issued by the ICTY against any of the foreign volunteers. However, cases of mujahideen units perpetrating war crimes, including the killing, torture and beheading of Serbian and Croat civilians and soldiers, have been documented. A former commander of the Bosnian Army,
Rasim Delić, was sentenced to three years in prison by the ICTY, partly for crimes committed by a mujahideen unit that was part of his division, which had tortured, beheaded and mutilated captured Serb prisoners.
"Prijedor monster doctors" case Just before the
Prijedor massacre of Bosniak and Croatian civilians, Serbian propaganda characterized prominent non-Serbs as criminals and
extremists who should be punished for their behaviour. Dr. Mirsad Mujadžić, a Bosniak politician, was accused of injecting drugs into Serbian women to make them incapable of conceiving male children, which in turn contributed to a reduction in the
birth rate among Serbs. Also, Dr. Željko Sikora, a Croat, referred to as the
Monster Doctor, was accused of forcing abortions onto Serbian women if they were pregnant with male children and of castrating the male babies of Serbian parents. Moreover, in a "Kozarski Vjesnik" article dated 10 June 1992, Dr. Osman Mahmuljin was accused of deliberately having provided incorrect medical care to his Serb colleague, Dr. Živko Dukić, who had a heart attack. Mile Mutić, the director of Kozarski Vjesnik, and the
journalist Rade Mutić regularly attended meetings of Serb politicians to get informed on the next steps of spreading propaganda. Encouraged by the initial
United Nations Protection Force report, Serbian media claimed that the Bosnian government had shelled its own civilians to get the Western powers to intervene against the Serbs. However, in January 2003, the ICTY concluded that the massacre had been committed by Serbian forces around Sarajevo. Although widely reported by the international media, the verdict was ignored in Serbia itself.
Kravica and Bratunac killings as triggers for the Srebrenica massacre While the
Srebrenica enclave was
under siege by the
Army of the Republika Srpska, its commander,
Naser Orić, led several attacks around the nearby Serbian-held villages, many of which had been Bosnian prior to the war but were overtaken by Serbian forces during the first months of the siege. The operations resulted in many Serb casualties. Orić was later indicted by the ICTY in his trial judgment. It was established that the regular Bosnian troops in Srebrenica were often unable to restrain the large groups of starving civilians that took part in the attacks to get food from Serbian villages. Nonetheless, the attacks were described by some Serbian media as the main trigger for the Serb perpetrated
Srebrenica massacre. A television presenter in
Pale said that "Srebrenica was liberated from terrorists" and that "the offensive took place after the Muslim side attacked the Serb villages outside the Srebrenica protected zone".
Republika Srpska organizations claim that 3,267 Serbs were killed in Bratunac and Srebrenica from 1992 to 1995 by the Bosniak Army prior to the Srebrenica massacre. Nonetheless, this number could not be independently verified. In 2006, the
Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo (IDC) compiled a list of 119 Serb civilians and 428 Serb soldiers who died in Bratunac during the war. Another revised account by IDC cites 158 Serb civilian fatalities in Srebrenica during the war and 127 in Bratunac.
Propaganda as part of the indictment at ICTY Propaganda as part of indictment against Milošević Two members of the Federal Security Service (KOG) testified for the prosecution in Milosevic's trial about their involvement in his propaganda campaign.
Slobodan Lazarević revealed alleged KOG
clandestine activities designed to undermine the peace process, including mining a soccer field, a water tower and the reopened railway between Zagreb and Belgrade. These actions were blamed on Croats. Mustafa Čandić, one of four assistant chiefs of the KOG, described the use of technology to fabricate conversations to make it sound as if Croat authorities were telling Croats in Serbia to leave in order to create an ethnically-pure Croatia. The conversation was broadcast after a Serbian attack on Croatians living in Serbia forced them to flee. He testified to another instance of
disinformation involving a television broadcast of corpses, described as Serbian civilians killed by Croats. Čandić testified that he believed they were in fact the bodies of Croats killed by Serbs, but that statement has not been verified. He also corroborated the existence of
Operations Opera and Labrador.
Bombing of RTS and aftermath was
destroyed by NATO on 24 April 1999. During the
1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the building of
Radio Television of Serbia in Belgrade was destroyed by NATO despite a controversy.
France opposed the bombing, and
Amnesty International and
Human Rights Watch condemned it as an attack on a
civilian target. When
Milošević's government was overthrown in October 2000, the RTS was a primary target of demonstrators. After attacking the Parliament, the demonstrators headed for the RTS building.
Resistance A number of independent Serbian media outlets resisted Milošević's influence and control and tried to counterbalance its nationalist rhetoric. They included
B92 radio,
Studio B Television and
Vreme magazine. The most notable dissident voice, however, came from the daily Belgrade newspaper
Borba. A team of researchers from the
University of Ljubljana studied Serbian and Croatian media during the war and found that
Borba tried to "maintain a rational attitude" towards the war that included the publishing of comprehensive information and objective reporting on the Croatian government's reactions to individual events, which was lacking in the Croatian media. It was the first newspaper to cover the destruction of five mosques in the city of
Bijeljina in March 1993 during the Bosnian War. In the Milošević-controlled press, the editors of
Borba were singled out as "traitors". The independent outlets were regularly harassed and struggled to stay afloat. ==Croatian media==