Crime in Klecka

Propaganda Instead of Piety

After the terrible crime in Kosovo village of Klecka, stirring up of nationalism and verbal patriotism has two goals: the attempt to prevent re-examination of the policy of the regime in Kosovo and propaganda directed towards foreign countries

AIM Belgrade, 9 September, 1998

On 28 August, the public learnt about cremated remains of an undetermined number of civilians in the village of Klecka in Kosovo, most probably Serbs kidnapped by armed Albanians in the past months. In the central news program of Belgrade TV station Studio B, it was at first broadcast that more than one hundred killed Serbs had been found. A day later the police issued a statement that it had discovered about twenty corpses, and that it was difficult to determine the exact number of victims because the bodies had been cremated in the nearby limekiln. That is how it all began. In the period that followed, pictures of charred bones - without any doubt human - were broadcast many times - arranged on a piece of white cloth, as well as investigators wearing rubber gloves on the spot, remains of shoes of the victims, the limekiln... Spectators could also see the indicted Luam and Bekim Mazreku who had been brought to the place of the crime and who were confessing to the investigative judge in detail how they had participated in torturing, raping and finally shooting of the victims.

But that is not all. In its program called Otisak vremena (Stamp of Time), Studio B broadcast a previous interrogation of one of the indicted Mazreku brothers by investigative authorities, and a journalist of state Radio-Television Serbia in a program called Aktuelnosti (Current Events) personally investigated the other in Klecka. To be precise, to the journalist's question whether he had raped and killed, the indicted briefly answered: "Yes".

There is no doubt that a major and ghastly crime was committed in Klecka. However, majority of media - state-controlled ones primarily - treated it with a certain unspeakable morbid gloating and triumph. Finally, they implied, it became clear what the Liberation Army of Kosovo (UCK) was like, and it must now be clear to the whole world who are the terrorists and criminals. Compassion and piety towards the victims, even if there had been any, were pushed aside and ignored. The politicians were the ones who determined the main tone in the media. This can rightfully be said both about those in power and those who call themselves the opposition. Secretary general of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) Gorica Gajevic, established that "vandalism and killing of the Serbs and the Albanians who wished joint life met with more or less approval and support of the Albanian political leaders and those in the world who are the loudest in the struggle against terrorism as the greatest evil of the modern world when it is aimed against their own states and nations".

Vuk Draskovic, president of the Serb Renewal Movement (SPO) - the only major parliamentary party which is not in the government of Serbia - thunders about "the most powerful states in the world shutting their eyes to the terrible crimes of nazism in Kosovo and Metohija, and persecuting Serb planes, bent on forbiding them to fly (...). Serbia should not let either NATO, or any threats intimidate it to withdraw in front of modern followers of Eichman and Artukovic". One could go on forever quoting such and similar statements. Characteristic for most of the statements is that "gangs of Albanian separatists have unveiled their genocidal faces" (statement of the SPS), that this is "the most serious and most bloodthirsty discovered crime of terrorists committed according to the recipe of the Nazists (statement of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs), that "the only name that would be suitable for the UCK is a terrorist gang for committing ghastly mass crimes" (statement of the Serb Radical Party)...

These "wrathful righteous" people did not wait for results of investigators and pathologists, they were not interested by the fact that the indicted spoke in front of the cameras without the presence of their lawyers and none of them felt the urge - with sincere concern - to address the families of more than one hundred and fifty Serbs and Montenegrins kidnapped by the UCK in the past few months in Kosovo. Names of the victims found in Klecka have not been made public yet, and it is not difficult to imagine how families and friends of the victims feel. In no way has anybody questioned the policy in Kosovo initiated more than ten years ago by the president of FR Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic, the ultimate consequence of which is the province in flames with killings, demolitions, refugees, and ultimately - Klecka. They had more pressing things to do.

One need not be especially ingenious to realize what the main aim of this competition in nationalism and verbal patriotism actually is. On the one hand are internal political, and on the other the foreign political goals. Is there any politically relevant person in Serbia who would dare after everything revealed open the question of correctness of everything that the authorities have done and are still doing in Kosovo? Who dares question even a part of police operations in which civilians were also killed? The regime has begun this "game" - well known ever since the time of the "anti-bureaucratic revolution" and wars in Croatia and B&H - well aware where it would lead, and its zealous followers can do nothing but join in the game hoping that their participation will be noticed and adequately appreciated.

On the other hand is the propaganda addressed to the world. The most favourite phrase of the regime politicians is like for who knows how many times before "double standards". There is, for example, the statement of Ivan Matkovic, spokesman of the Yugoslav United Left (JUL): "This crime is, among other, a direct consequence of hypocritical and unprincipled policy of double standards of a part of the international community which distinguishes terrorists depending on who the victims are". In other words, when the Americans in retaliation fire "tomahawk" rockets at Sudan or Afghanistan, the world applauds, and when the regime in Belgrade establishes order in Kosovo, it is threatened by sanctions. Klecka should open everybody's eyes that when fundamental principles are concerned, there is no difference between Washington and Belgrade. The same is the sense of the invitations to all the best known journals and TV stations to come and see for themselves what it is all about issued by minister of information in the government of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, who is obviously convinced that all media operate on the same principles as the regime-controlled ones over here. It is clear that this will have no effect, but from the standpoint of the regime, it is worth trying if for no other reason, at least to make it clear to the confused public once again that "the whole world is against us".

It is believed that this can also explain the catastrophic drop of the standard of living and everything else. Klecka, therefore, like numerous crimes similar to the one committed in it, due to this ardent "exploitation" will not receive the attention it deserves. Instead of morbid gloating - if for no other reason for the sake of the victims and all the unfortunate people in Kosovo - an international expert team should have immediately been invited and domestic judiciary should have been permitted to do its job. Journalists, regardless of who they work for, should also have been permitted to do their bit. There is no other way to judge a regime and its opponents but by the truth, by what they really are. Crime does not work in anybody's favour, regardless of calculations and combinations. The main thing is consistent following the principles which prevent them to happen or be repeated. It is high time for everybody to realize this over here that no other kind of "propaganda" exists..

Philip Schwarm

(AIM)