Serbia Shocked by a BBC Documentary on Srebrenica

Beograd Jul 23, 2001

An Outrage or Purification

Seselj's Radicals demanded of Parliament to investigate who and why had broadcast BBC documentary on RTS (Radio&Television Serbia), and were unexpectedly supported by the ruling Kostunica's Democrats.

AIM Belgrade, July 15, 2001

It is generally believed that the Serbian society is in a stage of catharsis, i.e. of facing the crimes from civil wars that were waged in the past decade on the territory of former Yugoslavia. How painful and controversial is that period is best testified by reactions of citizens and politicians to the broadcasting of a documentary of the media house BBC "A Cry from the Grave" on the state RTS on July 11 about the sufferings of Moslems in Srebrenica in 1995. Apart from calls of numerous viewers, including threats to the RTS' editorial board, that film was the main topic of discussion in the Serbian Parliament the next day. It is perhaps not without significance that the film was shown in prime time on the same day the Moslems commemorated the sixth anniversary of the day Srebrenica, as an enclave under the UN protection, fell to the Army of the Republic of Srpska under the command of General Ratko Mladic.

The film "A Cry from the Grave" was shown for the first time recently by the independent Television B92 (which is received in only some parts of Serbia) within the serial "Truth, Responsibility and Reconciliation". Veran Matic, head of this media house "collected" viewers' reaction to this first showing of the documentary on Srebrenica in a text entitled "The Rejection of Truth": "I wanted to throw rocks at my TV set, but my wife wouldn't let me", "Why did you show a programme with so much lies when you have never been there yourself?", "Why are you showing everything the Americans and the rest of the gang lay in your lap", "We haven't seen such propaganda against the Serbs even during Pavelic and Hitler", "With this serial you are only spreading hate against the Serbs", "You are committing a crime against your own people".

There were even letters like the following one: "Dear Sirs, I am writing to you from dark and cold Sweden where I was forced to seek refuge in 1994. I spent most of my life in Sarajevo and as a citizen well versed in the local circumstances I would like to comment on your documentary programmes. Do you really think you can show BBC programme on Srebrenica and other documentaries of west-European media in order to show that the democratisation and opening of your country to the world has started. Gentlemen, you cannot sell such manipulations to anyone with some education. You know full well that immediately after the secession of Slovenia, Europe expressed its support to secession and division of Yugoslavia and started showing black-white news in which the Serbs and the YPA (Yugoslav Peoples' Army)were shown as main culprits for the crisis, as well as for future crimes. Not once since I came to Sweden (in September 1994) did I hear any news that could hint that crimes had been committed against the Serbian people or which tried to analyse or deepen the history of conflicts..."

According to Matic, the majority of those viewers who called to protest because of the film on Srebrenica were citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina who fled to Serbia. He told AIM that the broadcasting of the documentary about Srebrenica on state TV was the greatest success of the serial "Truth, Responsibility and Reconciliation" and added that the independent B92 production "was glad" to let the RTS have the film for showing.

Anyone who saw the film "A Cry from the Grave" could see for himself that the authors had plenty of documentary material, including scenes of General Mladic's entry into Srebrenica and his informal words and statements. It is more than evident that the footage was made by someone from Mladic's closest surrounding. Apart from the material, which was filmed at the time actual events took place in 1995, the film includes stories of several men and women who told their personal stories thus making the film more personal. They spoke about the time before war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, about the clashes when Srebrenica was the UN protected zone, what happened when the Serbian forces entered Srebrenica, and what they thought and how they reasoned after everything they had been through. The film also showed the testimony of the war commander of Srebrenica, Naser Oric, who commanded the Moslem units in the area of Srebrenica and Bratunac which, according to the data of the state authorities of the Republic of Srpska, killed over one thousand Serbian civilians during 1992 and 1993.

However, as we have mentioned, apart from viewers' reactions, on the day it was shown - July 12 - this documentary provoked a heated discussion in Serbian Parliament. Although not very inspiring Law on the Construction of Facilities(which could provoke a more lively discussion only regarding the illegally built villas of the noveaux riches in Dedinje residential area)was on the agenda for that day, the discussion took a rather unpleasant turn.

Aleksandar Vucic, deputy of Vojislav Seselj's Serbian Radical Party (SRS), requested from the Serbian Parliament the establishment of a review committee which would "determine the facts in the systematic campaign of a public medium of the Republic of Serbia - RTS against the Serbian nation". He called the showing of the film on victims from Srebrenica, a historic disgrace and hysterical propaganda against Serbian people. According to him the Review Committee should determine who had ordered the showing of the film "which is a disgrace and shame for the Serbian state, misery and plague for the Serbian nation". According to Vucic, people guilty of showing this film should be at least politically punished.

The ruling Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) of Vojislav Kostunica, FRY President, unexpectedly joined this demand of Seselj's Radicals for the formation of the Review Committee. Since the extradition of Slobodan Milosevic, former President of Serbia and FRY, to the Hague Tribunal for War Crimes, DSS has separated its deputy club from the club of eight-member ruling coalition of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) so that this was practically the first solo act of Kostunica's Democrats in Serbian Parliament.

According to Vladimir Dobrosavljevic, a DSS deputy, the move of his party was aimed at "supporting the initiative on the formation of the Review Committee not wishing to interfere in the editorial policy of any medium, including the state one, but primarily because a sort of systematic campaign has been initiated in recent weeks aimed at throwing more light on war crimes committed in the space of former Yugoslavia. The reason for which we wanted the Review Committee is the same one because of which the President of the federal state had established the Truth Commission, i.e. to establish the individual responsibility", said Dobrosavljevic.

The Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, mentioned by Dobrosavljevic, was established this March by this party's leader and FRY President with a view to organising work on "investigating the causes and course of conflicts which led to the disintegration of SFRY, bearing in mind numerous violations of war and humanitarian law and appalling dimensions of the loss of human life and material destruction in the last decade". "Only by bringing to light all facts on events that happened in the entire territory where inter-ethnic conflicts occurred, we will be able to face the truth and have general reconciliation within the country, as well as among the nations of the region", said Kostunica on that occasion.

Well-known personalities of the Serbian cultural, scientific, but also clerical circles became members of the Commission. (Radovan Bigovic, Mirjana Vasovic, Tibor Varadi, Svetlana Velmar-Jankovic, Mihajlo Vojvodic, Djordjije Vukovic, the Sumadija Bishop Sava, who died in the meantime, Ljubodrag Dimic, Slavoljub Djukic, Aleksandar Lojpur, as well as Zoran Stankovic, Svetozar Stojanovic, Darko Tanaskovic, Sulejman Hrnjica.) Until now the Commission appeared in public two times, once in mid April, when historian Latinka Perovic and the international law expert, Professor Vojin Dimitrijevic left it. Explaining his decision Professor Dimitrijevic said that his place was not in this body. He protested because of Commission's rather restricted authority which was reflected in the fact that it had no right to summon witnesses. He also objected to the Commission's excessively ambitious objectives. "The Commission is expected to establish great truths: I am afraid of Great Truths because in the past it was in the name and for the sake of spreading such truths that brutal violence was resorted to", wrote Dimitrijevic to Kostunica.

The Commission was mentioned for the second time a month ago in a story ran by the daily "Politika", describing its work that would last several years like that of similar a commission for the disclosure of racial crimes in South Africa. It was also stated that the FRY Truth Commission would be organised according to a similar principle as the South African one, with several working groups for various fields, which would engage several hundreds of researchers and scientists.

Although the Serbian public is rather critical of the way the Commission was established and its work planned, and despite opposed opinions regarding its political essence, the majority of analysts point out that such complicated work on "truth and reconciliation" could only be done with the support of the state.

However, judging by the mentioned discussion in the Serbian Parliament after the film on Srebrenica, the question is whether the Serbian state is ready to get involved in such an enterprise when, obviously, parties in power and those in opposition do not shrink from morbidly manipulating this extremely sensitive issue in their mutual skirmishes.

Thus, the leader of the new Serbian opposition, Branislav Ivkovic, chief of the deputy club of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) whose President is formally still Milosevic, assessed the BBC documentary as sheer propaganda. "I want to say that specific films and crimes are constantly chosen because their sole intention is to prepare the public opinion of Serbia and instil a feeling of shame and embarrassment in the Serbian people. TV B92, as well as the national TV are selecting crimes which have been possibly committed by a Serbian hand, and totally erase all those crimes of Shqipetar terrorists and the NATO aggressor. I never read a word about 1,300 Serbian men from Kosovo about whom no one knows anything since the arrival of KFOR, whether they are dead or alive...", said Ivkovic, adding that he did not see the film about Srebrenica.

Indeed, Cedomir Jovanovic, young official of Prime Minister Djindjic's Democratic Party (DS) stood up against the Socialists and Radicals. He mentioned that his grandfather, an orthodox priest, was burned down in a church with several hundred other Serbs in the Second World War, but also said that Parliament had no right to regulate the work of state television.

"Those who in 1995 presented the citizens of Serbia with the Serbian Srebrenica also gave them a list with 7,500 names of missing people. I still do not think that our society should bear the collective responsibility, and that is why I insist on the determination of individual quilt and responsibility and the public disclosure of names of both those who had committed war crimes, but also of the names of their victims", said Jovanovic adding that he did not mind the film about Srebrenica.

The whole affair ended in Parliament when a lady deputy from DOS left the session all in tears after Seselj's Radicals hurled insults at her that she must have been glad to see the film. If the proposal on the establishment of the Review Commission is put to the vote, it might easily be voted because DSS, SRS, SPS and SSJ (the Party of Serbian Unity - founded by Zeljko Raznatovic, Arkan, late commander of the Serbian para-military formations))deputies make a majority.

Interpreters of the political scene immediately came up with numerous secret motives the state RTS had or showing this film. Namely, someone asked Dusan Mihajlovic, Serbian Minister of the Police, whether the BBC documentary was an introduction to the arrest of the former RS President, Radovan Karadzic, and of the former Commander of the RS Army, General Mladic. "I do not have the answer to your question, because I am not in charge of the RTS' editorial policy nor of the problem of arresting people from the Republic of Srpska, but what I do know is that General Mladic is not in the Republic of Serbia".

Certain vague comments could be heard from the RTS. Director General of this house, Aleksandar Crkvenjakov, stated that if the formation of the Parliamentary Review Committee for investigating the programme activities of the RTS "is a part of the democratic environment for the establishment of which we are all working hard, then it is all right - so to say".

Perhaps the most convincing was the comment of Zarko Trebjesanin, Belgrade sociologist, who said that the reaction of society at large faced with war crimes is similar to the way an individual reacts to psychoanalysis. According to Trebjesanin, coming face to face with the dark side of his personality and bad things he has done, that provokes all kinds of resistance in a man, which are reflected in the negation of certain facts or their rationalisation or projection, i.e. in their imputation to someone else. This resistance can be overcome only individually and gradually.

Jasmina Lukac

(AIM)