While reading Mr. Lewis' 'review' of 'Death
of a Nation' (Anatomy of disaster), Jan. 5, 1996, I considered:
If only I lived in a fair country committed
to truth and justice and to informing its citizens accurately, I would
have been able to say something about Yugoslavia these last five years.
After all, I know it better than Mr. Lewis. How often does he go there?
Does he know the language, its people, its writers, history? I do. I go
there all the time and have for many years. I could have informed you about
many things, including the existence of other camps, not just the ones
you were permitted to tell about. Near Posavina, near Mostar, etc. etc.
Many. I spoke with those who survived. Some survivors are here, all over
the country. Their villages do not exist any more. Serbs obviously. I could
have also written about the U.S. 'advisers' who were in Yugoslavia since
1992 'doing their job.' I spoke with some of the men who caught them, and
with Scandinavian journalists who saw them. And there is a U.S. State Department
declaration about Yugoslavia dated December 15, 1990. You know about that
one, right? You must also know but are not telling about the number of
children, including newborns, killed by US/NATO bombing attacks. In August
& September, 1995. Do you remember?
If only I lived in a just country, I would
have been able to say something about this TV series, instead of Mr. Anthony
Lewis, who is neither a filmmaker nor a film critic. I have made films,
including documentaries, and had been a professor of film for years. I
could have examined the series and noticed the missing parts, its shaky
structure, the absence of historical context, even of the individual history
of each protagonist in Yugoslavia. Then there are suspicious voice-overs
and editing. The absence of any mention of outside forces. In the Balkans,
there were always outside forces, manipulating, dividing, forever trying
to carve things up, to get their piece. It's the same now. Guess who.
If I lived in a free
country, I wouldn't feel so unfree, as if I am not permitted to speak,
nor would I feel like a censored author. Not in China, not in Burma or
Iraq, not in Cuba. Here, in the USA. But, since my freedom is also
internal and I'll always be free in my thoughts, as a free person I will
fight against that which is untrue, false, and unfree. Hence this letter,
which once again you will not publish but which will, like others, travel
as samizdat across the country or internationally via the Internet to be
printed in Poland, Russia, China, who knows where. It's out of my control.
After these letters are circulated, people I've never met call me, from
all over, Wisconsin, California, France, and we exchange more information
which you do not print. The truth is supposed to
set you free; I believe they told me this when I unfortunately came to
this country at fifteen.