Tag: Disinformation

Yugoslav Media War Mongers Evade Justice

24 June 2009 Court cases have confirmed the key role of the media in spreading hatred in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, yet no journalist has been tried.

By Nidzara Ahmetasevic

Trials for war crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia have been ongoing before local courts and the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, ICTY, for more than 15 years.

But although many indictments, verdicts and expert witnesses’ statements mentioned the key role of media in the war, no journalist or editor has been indicted to date.

For the first time, however, an opportunity has now appeared to try journalists who served the Milosevic regime in Serbia. See: Milosevic Media Face War Crimes Spotlight

Serbia’s war crimes prosecution recently said it intends to investigate whether grounds exist to open investigations into the role that certain media played during the war.

This idea has been prompted by statements of former soldiers and witnesses who appeared at trials in Belgrade for the crimes committed in Vukovar, eastern Croatia, and Zvornik, eastern Bosnia, a short time ago. Some of these volunteer soldiers said that they had decided to join up as a result of media coverage of the conflict.

One example of this media influence came in a piece of reportage broadcast by Serbian Radio and Television, RTS, in autumn 1991. This showed a young woman, dressed in uniform and carrying a rifle, among a party of volunteers.

Asked what she was doing among the volunteers, she said she had decided to go to war after watching TV reports on events in Vukovar. She had left behind three children.

Expert witnesses, who appeared at several trials conducted before the ICTY concluded that media propaganda prompted many people to fight.

Professor Renaud de La Brosse, from the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne in France, in a report presented at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, said that some politicians had “deliberately made the media change its focus from the provision of information and entertainment to purely spreading propaganda, thus serving their goals”.

Disinformation, not information:

Court files contain abundant evidence of the important role some media played during the war. In his report of August 1992, Tadeusz Mazoviecki, the Special UN Commissioner for Human Rights, wrote that the deliberate spreading of rumours and disinformation formed a “crucial element of the current situation, greatly contributing to ethnic animosity.

“With a few exceptions, the national media in the countries I have visited aim towards presenting the news on the conflict and human rights violations in an upsetting manner. Consequently, the general public does not have access to reliable, objective sources of information.”

Mazowiecki compiled a special report on the media two years later, in December 1994. In it he wrote that the information published by the media in the former Yugoslavia primarily consisted of “nationalistic discourse and omnipresent insults and offences aimed at other peoples”.

At the request by the Hague Prosecution, during the Milosevic trial, de La Brosse delivered a report entitled “Political Propaganda and the ‘All Serbs in one Country’ Project: Consequences of Using Media as an Instrument of Ultra-nationalistic Goals”.

Among other things, the Professor determined that “the atmosphere of distrust and animosity towards other peoples, fed by various fears and extreme nationalism for ages, gradually started manifesting itself in all republics in the former Yugoslavia from the late Eighties”.
While De La Brosse focused on Serbia in the Milosevic era, he suggested politicians used the media in the other republics in much the same way during the war.

“The authorities in each republic tried to control the media on their territories; particularly the television stations,” he said. “They turned the media into the instruments of their regime propaganda, whose aim was to ‘bring over’ the general public to their political ideas and actions.”

British author Mark Thompson drew similar conclusions in his book “Forging War: The Media in Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Hercegovina”. He later appeared as a prosecution expert witness at the trial of Momcilo Krajisnik. His report and testimonies mainly focused on the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Thomson wrote that in early 1992 the Serbian Democratic Party, SDS, “successfully gained control over the media on its territory, using it to scare the Serbian population… telling them that they would be exterminated and persuading them that the Croats and Bosniaks had genocidal intentions.

Describing how the SDS gained control over the media in Bosnia, Thompson said that this was done in stages. The first consisted of a drive to ethnically divide up Radio Television of Sarajevo, as well as attacks on the daily newspaper, Oslobodjenje. Taking control of the transmitters in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which began in August 1991, was another important step.

Speaking of the media and its uses as a propaganda instrument in the war, Thompson said many outlets acted as official “megaphones”,. The proper role of the media is to provide space for discussion and debate and “make relevant information available to the public, enabling it to make informed decisions on issues of concern,” he said.

“[But they were megaphones. They were just political tools used for conveying certain messages”, Thompson said.

Serbian propaganda the most extreme:

The relations between the media and politics are mentioned in several ICTY indictments. One is the indictment against Milosevic, which alleges that he “controlled, manipulated and used Serbian media… with the aim of spreading excessive and false messages on ethnic conflicts initiated by Bosnian Muslims or Croats targeting Serbs, in an attempt to create an atmosphere of fear and animosity among the Serbs who lived in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“This largely contributed to the deportation of the majority of the non-Serbian population, especially Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from their homes in parts of Bosnia”.

De la Brosse cautioned against considering the role played by the media in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia as equal.

“If we compare Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian nationalistic propaganda, we can conclude that the first one exceeded the two others by its scale and content of media messages,” he said.

The indictment against Krajisnik mentions the control of media in the section referring to a joint criminal enterprise.

It alleged that the media “supported, instigated, enabled and participated in spreading information among Bosnian Serbs about the threat of being tyrannized by Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats, telling them that the territory on which Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats live actually belongs to Bosnian Serbs; spreading information with an aim of generating fear of, or animosity towards, Bosnian Muslims and Croats among Bosnian Serbs… and ensuring their support and participation in achieving the goals of the joint criminal enterprise”.

The allegation that the media were used as “megaphones”, as Thompson said, is supported by the fact that the SDS established a Committee for Mass Communications in October 1991. This information can be found in ICTY documents. This body was tasked with developing plans to establish a news agency, daily newspapers and choose journalists loyal to the SDS’s goals.

Dorothea Hanson, an expert who appeared at the Krajisnik trial, described how the various “crisis committees” established on Bosnian Serb territory controlled radio stations and other media outlets.

Use of the media for propaganda purposes was included in the indictment issued against the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. This alleges that he “substantively contributed to the goal of the permanent extermination of the Bosnian Muslims and Croats from the areas controlled by Serbs”, among other things, by “spreading, instigating and/or enabling propaganda distribution”.

The role of the media is mentioned also in the indictment issued against the Bosnian Croat Jadranko Prlic, and others. This alleges that, following the establishment of the Bosnian Croat statelet, Herceg-Bosna, in November 1991 and particularly beyond May 1992, the leadership “became involved in permanent and coordinated efforts aimed at establishing domination and ‘Croatising’ the municipalities that were allegedly parts of Herceg-Bosna,” and to that effect, “the authorities and forces of Herceg-Bosna gained control over the media, inflicting Croatian ideas and propaganda”.

Impacts on ordinary lives:

Testimonies by victims who appeared at war crime trials reveal how ordinary citizens interpreted the propaganda broadcast over the media.

The media was frequently mentioned before the War Crimes Chamber of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina. For example, Redzep Zukic, a witness at the trial of Nikola Kovacevic, a former member of the Serbian armed forces from Sanski Most sentenced by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina to 12 years’ imprisonment, recalled how “radio Sana broadcast offensive songs and called Muslims offensive names”. It also called on Muslims to “display white flags on their houses” in 1992, he said.

Enes Kapetanovic, who appeared at the trial for crimes committed in Omarska detention camp, told a similar story.

“In late April 1992, after the Serbs gained control over Prijedor, they informed us via the media every day that we had to wear white bands around our arms if we wanted to show we were loyal to the new authorities. All of us, adults and children alike, had those bands around our arms,” Kapetanovic said.
Witnesses at the trial of Gojko Jankovic, sentenced to 34 years’ imprisonment for crimes in Foca, said the media in Montenegro also issued calls for volunteers to go to the battlefields in Bosnia during April 1992.

The indictments against members of the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on the other hand, rarely mention the role of media.

According to Thompson, the propaganda dictated from Sarajevo was not of the same character as that which came from Belgrade or Zagreb.

Nevertheless, propaganda existed, considering that the then editors of public broadcast services in Sarajevo, like their colleagues in Belgrade in Zagreb, were appointed on the basis of their political affiliation and not as a result of professional standards.

Although the role of media was often mentioned before the ICTY and is now often brought up in trials before local courts, no indictments have been filed, as has been stated. Asked why no indictments have been filed, Hague officials answer that there is not sufficient evidence on the role of media to proceed.

Nidžara Ahmetašević is BIRN – Justice Report editor. [email protected]. Justice Report is BIRN online weekly publication.

BIRN

June 25, 2009
Is Soner Çağaptay Walking the tightrope between morality and subservience?

Op-Ed

[An open letter to Newsweek]

Is Soner Çağaptay Walking the tightrope between morality and subservience?

by MEHMET YILMAZ*

As an enthusiastic Newsweek reader, I would like to express my disappointment over a recent article titled “Behind Turkey’s Witch Hunt,” written by Soner Çağaptay

I would like to state at the outset that this article has surely cast doubt on your credibility as a renowned journal, for anybody who is familiar with the societies and politics of Turkey and the United States would instantly notice that most of the author’s arguments are flawed and were written with less than benevolent intentions. Evidently, by penning this article, the author has tried to ingratiate himself with certain circles in Turkey that have been trying to dilute and obscure the ongoing Ergenekon case, in which a significant number of white-collar people have been arrested for their alleged involvement in various terrorist activities, aiming to ultimately overthrow the government by plotting a military coup.

The author’s main argument is that the current Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government is trying use the Ergenekon case as a means to curb freedoms and more importantly to edge out people who seem to be opposing the AK Party’s policies. The author indicates that there is a symbiotic relationship between the AK Party and the Gülen movement, a pacific spiritual social movement which the author wrongly calls a “tarikat” (Islamic order), and that the Turkish National Police Department is nothing but a tool for the realization of the AK Party’s goals. The author implies that: i) The National Police Department works under the command of the AK Party government; and ii) The Gülen movement supports the AK Party; so iii) The Gülen movement must also support — and since it is a powerful movement, it must control — the National Police Department. Doubtless, the syllogism here is way too simplistic, lacking credible evidence to substantiate it. Still, in an effort to undergird his arguments, the author uses some statistical data selectively and manipulates them to serve his purpose. Such efforts indeed run counter to his expected goal as one cannot help but think that this article is nothing but a manifestation of the author’s lack of moral and ethical scruples. For example, in regards to the number of people who are under surveillance, he wrote the following: “On April 26, Turkey’s justice minister said that police intelligence listens to the private conversations of 70,000 people; almost one in every 1,000 Turks lives under police scrutiny today. In the United States, that ratio is one in 137,000.” The author is wrong about the numbers as evidenced by the justice minister’s response at the Turkish Parliament to an interpellation vis-à-vis the number of wiretappings. In his response, the justice minister stated that he has no statistics regarding the number of wiretappings and instead sufficed to say that 12,888 recordings from the years 2006, 2007 and 2008 had been destroyed.

Although the abovementioned ratio, not the numbers, were articulated by Fethi Şimşek, president of the Telecommunications Directorate (TİB), there are two problems with the citation of Mr. Şimsek’s statement. First, the author used the information in a self-serving manner, disregarding the fact that Mr. Şimşek also said the number of wiretappings in Turkey is not beyond European standards. Second, not only in this quote but throughout the article, the author deliberately used the term “police” in the discussions of surveillance of people’s private communications, when he is expected to know as a “Turkey expert” that the National Police Department is not the only organization involved in surveillance activities in Turkey. For instance, in Turkey all interceptions of wire, oral and electronic communications follow a legal process, i.e., applications are processed by the TİB; accordingly, not only the National Police Department, but also the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) and the gendarmerie are granted permission to implement these interceptions. In addition, in order to listen to the private conversations of 70,000 people simultaneously, there would be a need for 70,000 people. Since the number of officers in the National Police Department is about 200,000 and the majority of them are not involved in intelligence activities, it is practically impossible for all wiretappings to be done by the police.

Moreover, in recent years there has been a significant improvement with regard to Turkish law enforcement agencies’ adherence to democratic policies and implementation, due perhaps, largely, to these agencies’ conspicuous efforts to adapt themselves to the globalizing world, as well as to the positive influence of the democratic reforms made for EU accession. Contrary to Çağaptay’s portrayal of the situation in Turkey, I feel confident in saying that the common perception among people in Turkey is that the National Police Department, especially, has been working meticulously to make sure that all wiretappings and other surveillance activities are done within the confines of the law. In fact, this kind of work in turn has borne fruit in the sense that the National Police Department was able to capture documents and tapes containing private information, conversations and video recordings that belong to nearly 2,500 prominent Turkish citizens. These data were illegally stored by an army general while he was working as the head of intelligence at the gendarmerie who aimed most probably to use those recordings for blackmailing purposes, or in other words, for his own “witch hunting.” In parallel, he was arrested based on his involvement in the Ergenekon group, allegedly a terrorist organization. But somehow, the author and the like choose to remain aloof to these facts and still try to obscure the Ergenekon case by saying that it is not possible to plot a coup with the “few” bombs that were found by the police, while the numbers indeed are flabbergasting.

On the other hand, the author mentions that the ratio with regard to the people under surveillance is one in 137,000 in the United States while it is one in 1,000 in Turkey. This, however, is another demonstration of fact distortion by the author, given that in Turkey almost all interceptions are done because of terrorism-related crimes, whereas by a simple Google search, a careful and well-intentioned person would realize that people involved in terrorism-related crimes are not included on the list of people under surveillance in the United States.

In fact there is an enormous body of literature, as well as serious debate, over the issue of unlawful wiretapping in the United States, which has reached alarming levels, especially after the Sept. 11 attacks in New York City. What is ironic, as much as stunning, is not only the distortion of the facts about the figures in the US, but also the author’s comparison of Turkey with the United States in the first place. For the notorious civil rights violations under the rubric of “pre-emptive” anti-terrorism measures by the quondam US administration led by former President George W. Bush left indelible marks on the US’s image as a benign hegemon or the leader of the free world, and his successor, President Barack Obama, the man of hope, and his security team’s efforts to restore that tarnished image seem only to be exacerbating the damage caused by his predecessor.

To give an example, despite some positive initial attempts with regard to upholding individual rights and freedoms, President Obama has lately started to recoil from that position as he has recently suggested the notion of “prolonged detention” on a perilous premise that prolonged detentions are necessary for some people who cannot be incarcerated for their past crimes because the evidence may be tainted. When the euphemisms are stripped away, what President Obama suggested is “indefinite detention without charges” or “preventive incarceration,” which is nothing but the continuation of the same old policies of the Bush administration. Thus, as the author has been living in the United States for a long time and following the sociopolitical developments of the country as an expert at a well-known think tank, his indifference to the omission of terrorist-related crimes from the above-mentioned list and his selective usage of the data seem to be more than carelessness on the part of the author.

All in all, while the author’s intention, by singling out the police from the group of organizations involved in the interception of private communications in Turkey, seems to serve his attempt to endear himself to the known circles via building a case by creating a link between the police and the Gülen movement — i.e., the former is controlled by the latter — you can rest assured that his unsubstantiated arguments have done nothing but marred the impartiality and credibility of your publication. Moreover, I have to admit that given the author’s perception of the Gülen movement, i.e., he claims not to share the sinister view of “most Turks” about this movement’s spiritual message, the abovementioned link that the author suggests between the police and the Gülen movement perplexes more than it clarifies the reader about the nature of that supposed link. While trying to manipulate the reader by portraying the movement as a pernicious one, mentioning that the court filed a case against Gülen and that Gülen left Turkey and settled in the US, he does not mention that Gülen was acquitted of the charges of creating an illegal organization for the purpose of overthrowing Turkey’s secular state and replacing it with one based on Shariah. This, too, stands as another example of the author’s selective use of information.

On a penultimate note, I would like to attract your attention to the author’s attempt at offering remedies, which is even more problematic, as he suggests that “there is a way out of this conundrum if the AK Party turns Ergenekon into a case that targets only criminals.” Clearly, the author presents nescience, or simply acts pretentiously, about the notion of the independence of the judiciary and advocates instead the kibitzing of the ruling party with the ongoing legal process.

Finally, as I urge you to triangulate the information presented in the articles of this author that you plan to publish in the future in your magazine, I hope that you will take this letter merely as constructive criticism.

*Mehmet Yılmaz is the assistant editor-in-chief of Zaman daily.

Source: www.todayszaman.com, May 27, 2009

May 27, 2009
Talking Turkey About Israel

Philip Giraldi *

The Israeli invasion of Gaza and the slaughter of civilians was such an egregious error in judgment that the usual suspects are working overtime to make it all look like a heroic defense of democratic values. The expected beneficiary of the “defensive action,” the ruling Kadima Party, so miscalculated that it is now likely to lose today’s election, with the Israeli electorate convinced that an even more extreme right-wing government is the only solution to the moderate right-wing bungling.

Israel will likely choose hard-right nationalism by electing Bibi Netanyahu as the next prime minister. Netanyahu has never let any values, democratic or otherwise, stand in his way in his quest for a Greater (Arab-free) Israel encompassing all of the West Bank and running from the Litani River in Lebanon in the north to the Suez Canal in the south. He has already promised that if elected he will not turn any occupied land over to the Palestinians.

There have been numerous signs that the world is no longer buying into the Israeli creation myth, even in the United States, where the suffering of the Gazans, neatly concealed by most of the mainstream media, nevertheless produced an outpouring of sympathy. The beleaguered little state of Israel founded as a homeland and refuge for the victims of persecution in Europe has become a regional military superpower ruled by a corrupt political class, with a socialist economy kept afloat by the U.S. taxpayer. Israel continues and even expands its occupation of the lands of its neighbors and engages in the brutal suppression of those who resist. Far from seeking a political solution that would create two states side by side, it has deliberately aborted every genuine peace initiative and now seeks absolute regional hegemony, pressing forward with racist policies that marginalize its own citizens of Arab descent. Most of the world has finally realized that claiming perpetual victimhood as a shield against criticism does not work very well when you can muster Merkava tanks, helicopter gunships, and white phosphorus against a civilian population.

The sharp exchange between Israeli President Shimon Peres and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan at Davos on Jan. 29 exemplifies Israel’s public relations problem and also casts light upon what steps the Israeli government and its friends in the United States are taking to counteract the negative press. Media reports suggest that Israel preceded its attack on Gaza by alerting a network of supporters to post comments on blogs, saturating the Web with the Israeli government’s justification for its action. This was evident on a number of blogs, including Huffington Post and the Washington Note. Many of the posters were Israelis, and it is believed that a number of them were active-duty military personnel selected for their fluency in English and other European languages as well as their familiarity with the Internet.

The coverage of the Erdogan-Peres exchange was carefully managed in the U.S. media, but less restrained in Europe and the Middle East. In a one-hour discussion of Gaza moderated by David Ignatius of the Washington Post, an odd choice for such an important discussion, Peres was allowed 25 minutes to speak in defense of the Israeli attack. Erdogan and two other critics on the panel were given 12 minutes each. The YouTube recording of the debate shows Peres pointed accusingly at Erdogan and raised his voice. When Erdogan sought time to respond, Ignatius granted him a minute and then cut him off claiming it was time to go to dinner. Erdogan complained about the treatment and left Davos, vowing never to return. Back in Turkey, he received a hero’s welcome.

Four days later the Washington Post featured an op-ed entitled “Turkey’s Turn From the West” by Soner Cagaptay, a Turkish-born, American-educated academic who is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). WINEP was founded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Cagaptay is also on the board of the American Turkish Friendship Council, one of several Turkish lobbying groups that are supportive of the Israel-Turkey relationship. A review of Cagaptay’s writings reveals that he is AIPAC’s go-to guy for any argument that Turkey is becoming more anti-Western and religious.

That Cagaptay is a genuine expert on the country of his birth is clear, but his view on developments there is very much shaped by who pays him. He finds anti-Semitism lurking everywhere in Turkey and being “spread by the political leadership.” He is astonished by Erdogan’s assertion at Davos that Israel is “killing people.” He finds inexplicable the prime minister’s belief that there was “Jewish culpability for the conflict in Gaza” and that the “Jewish-controlled media outlets were misrepresenting the facts.” For good measure, Cagaptay believes it “doubtful whether Turkey would side with the United States in dealing with the issue of nuclear Iran,” and he sees a regrettable Turkish “solidarity with Islamist regimes or causes.”

AIPAC’s Turkey expert might be surprised to learn that most of the world, which saw the images of dying Palestinian children on nightly television, would probably agree with Erdogan. Israel planned its invasion of Gaza six months in advance, timed the assault for maximum political benefit for the ruling party and to engage the incoming U.S. president in its policies, committed war crimes against a largely defenseless civilian population, and then kept journalists out of the combat zone so it could lie about everything that it was doing. The U.S. media in particular chose to ignore the carnage and present the Israeli point of view. Though it would be unfair to claim that the media is controlled by any ethnic or religious group, it is certainly true that Jewish organizations mobilized to make sure that pro-Israel commentary far exceeded any reporting of Palestinian suffering.

Cagaptay likewise fails to see what the rest of the world sees regarding Iran. No one admires Iran’s government, but America’s European allies, not just Turkey, will not support yet another war in the Middle East, even if Tehran does move closer to acquiring a nuclear weapon. Turkey’s development of closer ties with the Islamic world, which Cagaptay tellingly insists on calling “Islamist,” is also an understandable response to being repeatedly snubbed in its bids to join the European Union, something that even WINEP’s reliable scholarly claque surely knows to be true.

Efforts to control and spin the narrative, to turn black into white, have been unrelenting since the Israelis decided to attack Gaza. Cagaptay is only a part of that effort, but his smearing of Turkey and its elected leaders is unfortunate, particularly as his newspaper audience probably knows little about Turkey and will assume that the analysis is credible. Anyone who knows Turks well knows that they are an exceedingly stubborn and honorable people who will invariably say what they think to be true. Prime Minister Erdogan spoke the truth in Davos and has been speaking the truth about the invasion of Gaza. Attempts to label him anti-Semitic and to denigrate the Turks in general will certainly have some impact, most certainly on the U.S. Congress, which will rapidly fall into line and comply with AIPAC’s instructions on an appropriate punishment. But Israel’s attempt to portray itself as always the victim of a global anti-Semitic, anti-Western conspiracy just will not stand any more, no matter how many Soner Cagaptays are paid by AIPAC to write for the Washington Post.

Source: www.antiwar.com, 10.02.2009

* Philip Giraldi is a former officer of the United States Central Intelligence Agency who became famous for claiming in 2005 that the USA was preparing plans to attack Iran with nuclear weapons in response to a terrorist action against the US, independently of whether or not Iran was involved in the action. He is presently a partner in an international security consultancy, Cannistraro Associates.

February 10, 2009