PEOPLE MUST NOT BE PILLORIED

By Thomas Fleiner

"Die Weltwoche", Zurich, April 14, 1994

By the publication of the article of the American journalist Peter Brock on the questionable role of the media in the Yugoslav conflict (Issue No. 3, 20 January 1994), "Die Weltwoche" has unleashed a fierce controversy with waves reaching beyond the state boundaries.

The more power the media obtain and are able to influence, through public opinion, political decision-making also in important foreign policy matters, the greater is their
responsibility. As far as the war in Croatia and Bosnia is concerned, it is suspected that local and international media helped the division of peoples and incitement of hatred. And now when the end of the war in Bosnia is in sight - despite the escalation of the conflicts around Gorazde and the NATO air strikes on the Serb positions, the question is raised what contribution the media can render to a lasting peace.

Professor Thomas Fleiner, expert for state and international law, has dealt over two years now, as Chairman of the CSCE Human Rights Commission for the former Yugoslavia, with the complex root-causes of the conflict there and then proposed that "media blue helmets" be sent to the war region. The Institute for Federalism in Freiburg, whose director Fleiner is, carries out a research, at the request of EDA and in cooperation with the Belgrade Institute for European Studies on whether the multiethnic experience of Switzerland could help in the quest for peace in the Balkans.

In the former Yugoslavia, just as in many other post-communist countries, we are confronted with specially radical and gruesome nationalism. This nationalism is totalitarian, radical and contemptuous of man, regardless of whether it is expressed by a national majority or minority. However, it can be neither overcome nor eliminated if the international community or the media side with the exponents of one nationalism against the exponents of the other.

In its overall radicalism, every nationalism seeks opportunistically and heedless of human rights, to terrorize, by using all means, members of other nationalities, to intimidate and persecute them, uses every opportunity to present itself to the world public in a lamb's hide in order to attract the media and international community to its side. Whether the nations, led by nationalistic exponents, are the majority or whether they have big or small armies is not at all important. The nationalists of the minority in South Africa, for instance, are equally dangerous as nationalistic tendencies of the majority. The international community must not allow itself to be misled by these exponents attempting to present themselves disguised with the constitution of a genuinely law-governed state.

Since the Vietnam War, there has been almost no conflict in which the big powers or the United Nations have intervened in which, in great measure, the media have not been involved. The United Nations got involved in Somalia only after the CNN set its
tent over there. From the Sudan, from Tibet, from Rwanda, from Burma and from any other battlefields, we only receive background reports, getting to know hardly anything of the headlines on papers' front pages or in CNN prime-time news. When last February, the massacre in Sarajevo was reported in great detail, no one noticed, for instance, that practically at the same time the Sudanese government troops shelled refugee camps. If this news was genuine, how much greater the bloodshed must have been that the government troops caused by their bombardment of defenceless refugees?

The dispatch of blue helmets to Somalia would probably not have taken place had not the pictures of starving children been carried throughout the world. The sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro were imposed, to a great deal, also under the influence of media reports on the grenade fired at the people queuing for bread in Sarajevo. NATO would have hardly issued its ultimatum without the massacre at the Sarajevo market. In both cases, the media and the world public proceeded from the
assumption that the grenades had been fired from the Serb positions. However, there are ever more reports that they have been fired from the Bosnian positions.

Precisely because of this, we should stop and think. If the media can influence the political decisions of the international community on major foreign policy issues through public opinion, then conversely, through targeted violations of human rights or through targeted reports of such violations, the same media, belonging to nations, states or belligerent parties, can be instrumentalized for achieving certain military or political goals. Should the influential international media, which must fulfil the expectations of their "consumers" and PR agencies and which, due to the capital concentration all over the world, will soon be controlled by a small number of billionaires (e.g. the Australian Murdoch), be able to decide on war and peace? How slim are human rights, if warring parties do not stop short from violating them in their own ranks in order to win support of the international community? How often will cynical machiavellists be able to emulate Hitler's Kristallnacht, until it is eventually requested that international punitive actions must not be taken before the guilt is clearly established?

Western countries are immoral since they have not become aware of their responsibility in the Yugoslav conflict, protests Claude Julien in "Le Monde Diplomatique". Are the media to decide what is morally good, what is morally objectionable for states? In this way, presidents of a few concerns (who controls CNN?) can influence, through a targeted selection of reports and headlines,
the most important political decisions of big powers, without being subject to any political and democratic control.

The March issue of the Sudanese monthly "Sudanow" published a confidential letter of december 1993 sent from the British Foreign Office to Lord Owen in which it is said that the population should be denied even food in order to force the Bosnian government to accept the peace plan. The latter goes on to say that Sarajevo must not be allowed to fall into the hands of Bosnian Serbs, so that the population should be exhausted by starvation and war in order to force them to long for peace. For
the same reason, food should not be sent to the eastern part of Mostar. In this way, the British allegedly succeeded in postponing the transportation of a field hospital intended for Mostar.

Who has the right to which state?

If this letter is authentic, then it shows once again how cynically respectable countries treat human dignity: people are consciously exposed to suffering so that political and strategic goals could be achieved. In this way, the creation of a Moslem state should be prevented. If the letter is forged, then this shows that, through false reports about the alleged cynical violations of human rights by western governments, the media and the world public should be made allies of certain nationalistic aspirations.

The media credibility, which rightly call for respect for human rights, depends decidedly on whether their states are equally committed to the protection of human rights and on whether they are reproachable that under the pretext of the protection of human rights, they pursue other political goals. However, it was precisely this credibility which is in the case of the international community in question. For, by recognizing Croatia and Bosnia, it sided with two nationalisms contemptuous of man in order to fight the third nationalism equally contemptuous of man.

The international recognition of certain states was not an act of the protection of human rights nor were minorities better protected that way. It was only a response to nationalistic expectations of one side which needed the support of the international community in order to fight the nationalism of the other side.

How could one think that by supporting one nationalism human rights and minorities could be protected at the same time? How could and how can one talk about the inviolability of borders of all CSCE participating states on the one hand and, on the other, change the borders of the state territory of the former Yugoslavia by recognizing certain republics?

The creation of new national states has accounted for the creation of new minority problems for the solution of which the international community has no recipe. Neither the international covenant on human rights, CSCE documents nor the draft charter of
the European Council on minorities contain solution arrangements for the minorities which, like Serbs in Croatia or Croats and Serbs in Bosnia, do not want to have the minority seal stamped on their forehead.

Why do Croats have the right to a state, and not Serbs in Krajina or Bosnia, and why Croats in Croatia, and not Croats in Bosnia or Albanians in Kosovo or Macedonia? Where does the right to self-determination lead in Eastern Europe, when each nation can have its own state? Should Abkhazis in Georgia and Georgians in Abkhazia or Abkhazis in Georgian Abkhazia, etc. etc. gain national independence and obtain state recognition by the international community? The policy of the international community has manoeuvred itself into a blind alley from which there is almost no way out, and the media influenced and supported it in taking this step.

Croats were given a state in the belief that the members of the Serb minority living in this territory would accept the minority status having been previously recognized as an equal nation together with other five nations. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, the state was given to a nation which did not even constitute the absolute majority in the territory of this state, while in Macedonia one people was given the state to which in the same way aspire Albanians who account for 40 or 25 per cent of the population (depending on the Albanian or Macedonian standpoint). Besides, Greeks see in this state an aggressor since it has implicit territorial claims against the macedonian Territories in Greece.

As long as readers and viewers do not know the root-causes, they cannot understand the conflicts. They naturally side with the victim of the conflict while forgetting that by punitive actions and revenge against one warring party peace cannot be established, for only if causes of the conflict are eliminated, i.e. nationalism of all parties, the war can gradually vanish from people's heads.

Everybody would like Bosnia to continue to exist as a multi-national state. But, is this still possible after, in this conflict, the media also repeatedly divided the three nations and after they have allowed themselves to be influenced by "ethnicized policy"? Thus, for example, they continuously speak about Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats and, as of late, about Bosniacs.

Would Switzerland still exist if the media spoke about Swiss French, Swiss Italians and Swiss Germans? We only know of German, Italian or French Swiss and the cantonal state recognizes Italian cantonals and Romansch- or German-speaking cantonals, but not "cantonal Italians" or even "cantonal Germans". If such terms were accepted, the Romansch-speaking cantonals would have to look like genuine cantonals, as Bosniacs understand them as genuine Bosnians. Is co-existence possible if different identities exist in the same state? Could Switzerland survive if the genuine Swiss and members of the second-rate minorities existed in our country?

In the chapter on Turkey and the Christian peoples of South-East Europe, Rambaud writes in his history of the world published in Paris in 1897, that Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs belong, in fact, to the same nation which is divided in three religions and was never able to fully unite itself.

For centuries has the gap between the East and West run through the middle of this nation. However, the unfortunate front-line conflicts have always spread beyond the local conflict and spilled over to entire Europe, including Russia, Turkey and Greece. In this century it was possible to create but one state which certainly was not ideal but which also provided no motive for wider conflicts in Europe. No sooner had this state disintegrated than, with the recognition of republics, Europe hastened to create the foundations for conflicts which had held in apprehension this continent for hundred years until the beginning of our century.

It was once averted that the recognition should bring about peace. For, with such a recognition, Serbia could be identified and internationally condemned as the clear aggressor. This condemnation did indeed follow. But, has it brought peace? A civil war cannot be internationalized by the state recognition of warring parties, nor can one nationalism be eliminated by rendering support for another nationalism. Could not Europe, for example, using the same recipe, solve the problem of Kurds and by recognizing a state of Kurds condemn Turkey, Iraq and Iran as aggressors?

Under the charter of the United Nations, the condemnation of a state is possible only if it is condemned as an aggressor. This means that, if certain political goals are to be achieved within the United Nations, a way must be found to declare an opponent as aggressor. In doing so, the media should persuade the world public that one side is white and the other black.

Complexity of thinking almost does not exist in foreign policy. In case of conflicting situations, the opposition and the government almost always agree. This attitude is also reflected in the media. They can report on foreign policy issues much more ruthlessly since they rarely run the risk of being confronted with a different presentation or criticism of PR agencies and government or opposition parties. The public opinion often has prejudices in assessing other nations and many media encourage such sentiments. If it is true today just as it was in the past:

"They ... are not polite people, as they are usually thought of. As people, they resemble the people from our lower classes. They are simple and brutal, violent and gain reputation in their midst by rude and violent behaviour..the Italian people is much more talented than... the people, only there are less of them".

These words could not be heard in the French embassy in BOnn when speaking about Germans. They are 120 years old and were pronounced by Bismarck. They could not possibly refer to Germans, but to French! They were supported by the German public and they were meant to justify the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine!

From hatred in minds to conflicts among nations

Even today, governments seek to obtain support from the public opinion through their conscious influence on the media or by their selective information the media seek to influence their  governments to take decisions that would be in accordance with
the public opinion. Already during the Gulf War, a great part of the public opinion was influenced by governments through media reporting. It was even said that at the beginning of air strikes against Baghdad the moment of the US massive involvement was determined, whereas the intervention was purportedly carried out at the orders of the United Nations! The entry of the United Nations troops into Mogadishu was also carried out in accordance with media reportings and even tactical US landing plans had to be sacrificed in order to harmonize them with TV filming! No sooner had United Nations troops arrived than the media began to criticize them and it cannot be established precisely how much they influenced the departure of Americans and Europeans from Somalia.

Each reporter, anchorman, editor and correspondent must be aware of this responsibility today. The importance of media reporting today far exceeds the responsibility which they can eventually assume. For, someone can bear the responsibility only for what one is able to achieve. The media can cause an intervention and trigger off an "avalanche", but can they stop this "avalanche"? Admittedly, they can help find a peaceful solution, but they must leave the Sisyphean task to the people in the field. For, only they can bring about peace. Above all, foreign correspondents need not live all their lives in the countries from which they report, nor have they to think about the members of their families when criticizing certain measures or making well-intentioned proposals. In the period of over 10 years, the media in the former Yugoslavia fabricated hatred in people's heads in a war of words, until this hatred turned into open fighting between peoples, nations, neighbours and families. The media turned each conflict and each interest struggle back to ethnic contradictions. This "ethnification" of policy, culture, history and even family ties began already in Tito's time. In 1971, Moslems were recognized as another nation in the Yugoslav state and the 1974 constitution gave, for the first time, each individual nation its territory of the appropriate republic.

Following the outbreak of the open conflict and the internationalization of the civil war, the warring parties have sought, by using the same means of ethnification and the black-and-white presentation, to find allies in the western world. In this, many western media allowed themselves to be engaged for this ethnification of information. Unlike in the Gulf War, when they pilloried Saddam Hussain as the evildoer of all happenings, almost from the very beginning they have not put in a pillory for war crimes individual criminals, soldiers, guerilla fighters, officers or generals for the commission of individual acts, but have almost always spoken only about Serbs, Croats and Sometimes Moslems, as if a whole people could be held collectively responsible for the horrors of this war.

Such media reports have resulted in an equally undifferentiated and generalized defensive attitude in almost all Serbs. It is a question whether they are right or wrong. For, in their eyes the media are a part of the international community. In the eyes of the world public opinion, Serbia and Montenegro are aggressors in Bosnia because they support the Bosnian Serbs, while Croatia has never been punished for its aggression although it has been long known that it has supported the Bosnian Croats. The right of Croats and Bosniacs to self-determination has indeed been recognized, but not the right of Serbs in Croatia or Serbs and Croats in Bosnia. The borders of the former Yugoslav state were unilaterally violated by the creation of new states and no one was accused of aggression, while now Bosnia's and Croatia's borders are unalterable.

The charter of the United Nations proceeds from the fact that difference should be made between the "evil" war of aggressor and the "good" war of "international policemen". This has led states to try to put the media completely in the service of defenders. They must prove the aggressor's immoral behaviour and what is necessary for defenders to protect themselves against the aggressor's crime. But, since there are no clear criteria for determining an aggressor, the state on whose behalf no big power in the Security Council is prepared to use its veto becomes an aggressor in the eyes of the world. In this new monopolar world we thus run the risk of having the states which control the United Nations Security Council being able, by selecting an aggressor, to realize their strategic goals with the help of the entire international community. The once undoubtedly correct and well-intended ban on wars of aggression enshrined in the charter of the United Nations resulted in having the world watch, like hypnotized, aggressors picked up by selection. Other countries like the Sudan, Rwanda, Burma, China (Tibet) and perhaps soon many African countries remain in the shadow of the CNN and thereby of almost all western media.

Thus, many Serbs see double morality in the international community. They cannot be persuaded that the media, whose correspondents report from the spot, do not select news and information without prejudice: why should the media be better than the politicians of these countries?

However, not only does this fact matter; what does matter is whether the reports are believed. "Justice must be seen to be believed"; justice can exist only if the person concerned feels it justice and this legal wisdom is also true of the reports about the conflicts in which each party is convinced that it is right.

The reports on concentration camps and rapes startled the world and led governments to take counter-measures. But, they also led to a collective moral condemnation of an entire people. today, such reporting is becoming in part -

- one-sided as it is predominantly restricted to only one side,

- unreliable because it is too much based on hearsay and too little on clear evidence,

- tendentious because it is prejudiced,

- superficial because it never deals with the true causes of the conflict.

Diktat of the public opinion

According to US surveys, such reporting is explained primarily with the following reasons: correspondents interpret the causes of certain events with inadmissible simplifications, disregarding the more complex, subtle and but much more decisive factors. Often are the reports also coloured with the editor's or publisher's prejudices and often must they correspond to the "wishful thinking" of their viewers and readers.

Such criticism is primarily based on the fact that media are viewed as part of the international community which overtly or covertly allows itself to be directed by the nationalism of one side against the nationalism of another. On the other hand, the journalists concerned deny and question this as untrue and tendentious. Today nobody can ascertain which information corresponds to facts. But, the legal wisdom is that one can come near truth only if the person affected can also say something on account of what he is reproached for. In view of such reproach, would it not be the task of the media to allow, through objective and independent instances, that it be clarified to what extent such allegations are justified?

But at least equally decisive seems to me to be the question why the media published such reports in the first place. Many want to fulfil the expectations of their readers and viewers who formed their black and white picture long ago. In addition to those journalists who published their horror reports to arouse the desire for revenge in the public opinion in order to attract the world public to the side of one nationalism against other nationalism, there have been and there are certainly many of those who wish to alarm the world by such reporting and thus force governments to do something.

They rightly sided with the victim, sometimes overlooking the fact that there are both victims and perpetrators on all sides. They want to do all to force the international community to act more energetically. Who can blame them for occasional one-sidedness in the pursuit of their holy goal? But isn't it too great a price paid by the innocent victims, for instance, children, the ailing and the old in hospitals of Serbia-Montenegro, who are deprived of adequate medical care and cannot survive because of the imposed sanctions?

Humanitarian assistance to the victims of this war, irrespective of nationality or religion is the priority task (generous acceptance of refugees, assistance to the civilian population on the ground, protection of prisoners, reconstruction assistance in the sense of "causes communes", protection of the humanitarian actions of the ICRC, UNHCR, Blue Berets, etc.). unrestricted promotion of respect for human rights would have to be the priority foreign policy goal of states. However, a humanitarian intervention frequently demanded by the media should be strictly separated from humanitarian assistance.

Humanitarian intervention as an act of punishment or vengeance will not bring about a peaceful solution to the conflict before it is accepted by a great part of the population of all the belligerencies as a humanitarian intervention, i.e., as an action whose sole objective is the restoration of respect for human dignity. As long as there is least suspicion that a humanitarian intervention serves as a pretext for the accomplishment of other political or economic goals, it will be doomed to failure.

In the German-French war of 1870, the German public opinion demanded that Napoleon iii be punished more severely for the moral injustices he had committed. Bismarck disapproved of such demands:

"We do not share this opinion at all. However, the public opinion tends to request that in conflicts between two states, the victor, the moral code in hand, brings the vanquished to court and punishes him for what he himself may have done to others. Such a demand is completely unjustified; to put it out means to completely misunderstand the nature of political issues which do not include the notions such as punishment, reward, vengeance, while to accede to such a demand would be tantamount to falsifying the essence of politics. Politics should leave the punishment of possible sins committed by princes and peoples in contravention of the moral codes of divine providence to the leaders of battles. However, it is neither authorized nor obliged to assume the role of the judge, but in all circumstances it must raise the question: what brings here an advantage to my country and how best can I achieve that advantage. Politics should not take vengeance for what has happened, but make sure that it does not happen again".

However, media reporting have produced just the opposite effect - culprits are looked for and reports are being published so that punishments and vengeance could be meted out, whereby not much thought is spared for finding the ways and means to "prevent it from being repeated in the future". It is for this particular reason that the media run the risk of becoming the instrument of one side or another. Even governments which are aware that the public opinion can be influenced by reports on massacres and horrors will, if they are cynical enough, themselves order that such crimes be committed so as to attribute them subsequently to their adversaries. Ever since hitler organized the Kristallnacht, that most cynical and dirtiest weapon has also become an instrument of modern warfare.

In adopting political decisions, many heads of state rely too much on the public opinion of their countries, while giving too little thought to the real interests of people in the countries concerned. In this way they are putting obstacles on the road which should be taken in the quest for a way to prevent similar developments in the future. Their policy is based too much on the reactions of their country's public opinion, and too little on the quest for the legitimate interests of various peoples, which alone could bring about lasting peace.

Whoever has taken an effort, for example, to hear, in addition to the statements of clan chiefs and their "Foreign Ministers", also other informed personalities of integrity who live in these countries? Which foreign governments, which intermediaries, which media have ever taken an effort to include in the quest for a solution also the representatives of thousands of refugees of all the three parties and to take into consideration their interests in the consultations?

For centuries have the Balkans and its peoples been the political football of big powers. Once it was the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, Germany, France and England. Today it is the European Union, United States, Russia and Turkey. They are trying to bring about an early peace by their intervention, primarily to calm down the agitated public opinion in their own countries. If peace is reached, it enriches the reputation and popularity of presidents and foreign ministers of countries in question, and if not, it will be the sign that the "people" going wild are unable to reach peace.


Instead of party there rules an equally totalitarian nation

In all this, one nationalism is being sided with to fight another nationalism. They are trying to exorcize the devil with the help of his assistant. In doing so, however, they withhold support to those forces across all republics, which are fighting both their own and other nationalisms. But a durable peace will be possible only if cooperation is established with all the forces which have always been opposed to nationalist tendencies in those countries, but which recognize and are able to perceive the roots of these nationalisms and know which solutions could restore the necessary confidence of the population and eliminate mutual hatred in the entire region. There are such people on all sides. However, they are not devoted much attention by the ruling circles of western countries and in the media.

At the Vienna Congress almost 200 years ago, the European countries had a completely different attitude towards Switzerland. In principle, the Swiss were being heard and it was intervened in only one major point. In order to compensate the
citizens of Bern for the loss of Aargau and Vaud, they were given Jura. We all know of the problems which Switzerland and the canton of Bern had because of the consequences of this fatal gift (danaergeschenk). The interference of European powers at the Vienna Congress created for us the greatest and longest-lasting domestic policy problem. Fortunately for Switzerland, this interference did not continue in the 20th century. How much more problematic the question of Jura would have been had the neighbouring countries continued to interfere and had not, for example, President de Gaul proclaimed only the "free Quebec" in Canada, but also a "free Jura" in Switzerland?

This example should have been a lesson how problematic it is when foreign powers interference from outside in a multinational state, and believe that they can show it the way how to solve its problem. In doing so, these great powers are by and large not multinational states, and - if they have problems with their own minorities - they have not yet found the final solution to calm down their own conflicts (Northern Ireland, Corsica, South Tyroll; foreigners, particularly Turks and Germans in the east).

Some media lack the knowledge and the awareness of the importance of the communist past to be able to adequately assess the legal flows in these new "states". The communist "states" were not states in the western sense, but "para-states", i.e. societies ruled by one party in a totalitarian way. The communist party has now been replaced by the nation which is just as absolutely totalitarian as the communist party used to be, contemptuous of man as an individual. For this reason the constitutions and laws of these states are hardly worth mentioning. They are frequently used only as an alibi and a smokescreen to calm down the international community and to conceal the reality and the power structure.

"La France - C'est la Guerre", cried Bismarck a hundred years ago, and the French ambassador to Bonn admitted today that the European Union countries are extremely suspicious of Germany. Germany's integration into the European Union was one of the major arguments of all those, from Denmark to France, who fought for Maastricht. Are the French, Germans, Serbs, Croats, Moslems, Palestinians, Jews war-mongerers, are they brutal, aggressive and militant? Such attributes are primarily based by and large rested on historical prejudices, on the basis of which collective guilt is attributed for the mistakes for which only individuals should be held responsible.

"To study history and to use experience"

When the media bring out allegations about concentration camps, rapes, genocide, etc. and do not point to those responsible but attributed the acts to an entire people, then it is not surprising that such reports provoke appropriate counter-reactions. If, it is established that official reports contain false data, if inaccurate reports are published, if onesided selections are made, if inflammatory headlines are fabricated and only half-truths are presented, the members of the accused people become ever more convinced that the entire international community, including the media, has conspired against their people.

In order to provide better information in the future, journalists from all over the former Yugoslavia have rallied together. They exchange information and check the news and reports. The media can consult this aim (alternative information network) organization any time.

The fall of the iron curtain has suddenly re-opened the history of the past century. The assassination in Sarajevo that triggered the first world war has suddenly received new topicality. The historical facts that used to be in agreement to their standpoint influence above all the people who live in the former Yugoslavia, who went to school there and who received the history through the eyes of their parents and by word of mouth. In addition to information about war events, the media should have informed the outside world more extensively about the historical roots of the conflict and of the historical awareness of the population. Since many experts for this region are frustrated by the lack of historical sensibility of governments and the media.

When through his envoy the ruler of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Moustafa III (1757-1774) asked Frederic II, for three good astrologists who would advise him in the adoption of political decisions, instead of sending him the astrologists, he informed him of the three principle pillars of his political decision-making:

1. to study history and to use experience;

2. to have a good army in war and in peace.

3. to watch and preserve his own treasures.

These, thought, Frederic II were his three astrologists, he had no others.

If we turn to media reports on the conflict in Yugoslavia and to the attitude of the great powers in this war, we cannot but note with surprise how hastily and carelessly the media can pass judgments on a region, without having accurate knowledge of history. The media report on the developments and facts often withholding the truth about the facts.

Only in this way was it possible to support the recognition of Croatia without thinking of the consequences for Krajina and especially for Bosnia; how was it possible to recognize the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina without knowing what has happened to this region and its peoples in the past 600 years,  how was it possible to believe that peace could be reached without the participation of Russia, first at the hague conference and subsequently in Geneva, which would prevent the outbreak of such bloodshed in the future.

Federal structures for a multinational state

Only if one knows the truth of the facts can the current fighting around Gorazde be understood, as well as the recriminations between the Bosnian ambassador and the president of the Security Council as to whether the fighting was provoked by Serb units or not. The "Neue Zuriche Zeitung" of 17 April 1994 carried without comment the Bosnian government version."Ever since the beginning of the Serb offensive", Gorazde has been of central importance because it is possible to establish a link with Sandzak via Gorazde. Some Moslem leaders in the area would like to separate Sandzak from Serbia-Montenegro and to integrate it into their new federation. Over Sandzak leads a continuous link with Kosovo and the Albanian part of Macedonia. This area is of greatest significance for the future of war and peace in the entire region. The reader needs such and similar reports from the field since he most often misinterprets pure agency reports.

Since the beginning of the 19th century, there was no peace in the region without Russia, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. The European Union and nato represent only part of those powers which intervened in the Balkans for centuries. The Russian Czar Alexander participated in the Vienna Congress in 1815 and Russian representatives also attended the Berlin Congress in 1878. Without Russia, there was no peace in this region neither will there be one in the future. A Balkan solution without Russia will not divide Europe with an iron curtain, but will parcel it out with a firewall of nationalism.

History must not be an argument to justify annexation, vengeance and ethnic cleansing. But history helps us understand such behaviour - not for the sake of justifying it, but to be able to see the limits within certain solutions. Changes can be made only if the people concerned believe that they are understood. And to that belongs also the knowledge of, and respect for, history.

How is it possible to let Germany direct the Balkan policy over the question of recognition if one knows what historical legacy this country has in the Balkans even today. It is therefore difficult, if not impossible, to convince a Serb that today's Germany is interested only in human rights and that it cannot be compared with Nazi Germany. Serbs still remember the wild behaviour of German troops in Yugoslavia in the Second World War. They know, for example, that from the end of the Second World War until the 1960's the town of Kragujevac prohibited every German to approach the town. In many Serbian towns under German occupation, including Kragujevac, the occupying troops killed 100 civilians for every killed german and 10 for every german wounded. They chose their victims wilfully amongst the male population, including boys over 12 years of age, whom they brutally pulled out from their classrooms and took them to the place of execution. Only in Kragujevac, 7,000 people were killed in this way.

Recently, the security council decided that Turkish troops should also join the blue berets in Bosnia. However, on 9 July 1875, or 120 years ago, began the last uprising against the Turks in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The rebels distributed flyers of the following content:

"He who has never experienced Turkish barbarity, on his own skin, he who has never seen with his own eyes the suffering and torture of Christians, cannot divine what it means to belong to  the "raja": a mute person living worse than an animal, a man born to be for ever enslaved...

Every inch of our country is soaked with blood and tears of our forefathers...now the raja has decided to fight for its freedom to the last man."

He who knows how deep is history engraved in the awareness of this people can hardly agree with such a decision of the security council. in all that, it really does not matter whether Turkish soldiers will behave correctly. No one should question their integrity in advance. But what does matter is the way this decision was received by the population. "Justice must be seen to be felt".

Media contribution to the lasting peace: a wall or bridges in Sarajevo?

A peace solution can eventually be reached only by those who are affected and who know how the population in the region looks upon history. For this particular reason, the media should make an effort to give the opportunity to the experts and connoisseurs of this region to demonstrate political responsibility and take care of the well-being of their peoples.

In all the former Yugoslav republics there are exceptional personalities who can show the direction towards genuine and lasting peace.

Journalists, experts, scientists and politicians, still thinking like statesmen, are genuinely concerned about the well-being of their people, but they are aware that a political, democratic and legal community can be established only on the basis of the equality of all people, irrespective of their race, nation or religion.

A people of a multi-ethnic state should comprise of all people living in it. The state itself should be propped up by individual nations which equally identify themselves with it and which can develop their own culture.

Only federal structures will enable the establishment of a common structure which can be the homeland to various nations.

If the media and governments rely only on nationalist exponents, that have come up to the surface due to the autistic blindness of broad masses, it will be possible to find out only the solutions by which the exponents will be able to satisfy the masses.

But, in this way, the bridges of hope in Sarajevo could turn into a wall of desperation. That wall could replace the Berlin wall and gradually divide the entire Europe with a border separating Orthodox Christians, as a result of which both sides would be infected with the poison of nationalism for many, many more years.