In recent years, no other event has been so extensively - as well as so unbalancedly - reported in the media as the civil war in Yugoslavia. From the very beginning, it seemed apparent that it was a destructive attack by the Serbs - first against the Croats, and then against the Muslims. National-Socialist methods have been attributed to the Serbs, while the secessionist war has been compared with Auschwitz; the war in which the European civilization and human rights were questioned. In order to corroborate these attitudes, facts have been forgered, fictitious stories about massacres have been launched, and events have been misrepresented. Thus the media have created a reality inconsistent with the complex situation in the civil war. However horrific the events in the Balkans may be, they bear no similarity with Auschwitz whatsoever.
In Austria the war about Yugoslavia began with banner headlines in the newspaper Kronen Zeitung: "Yugoslav bombers over Graz!" The soldiers of the Yugoslav federal army were at the border crossings with Austria, attempting to prevent Slovenian separatists from running up their flag. The Austrian tabloid with the biggest circulation in the country was aghast: "The bombs which fell on the parking lot of the Ljubljana airport destroyed at least ten automobiles belonging to Austrian air passengers," complained the joumalists of Krone.
I was just about to think that the whole of Austria would rush to the stores in a spree of panic buying - as had been the case a few months earlier, at the beginning of the Gulf War. However, Krone, a newspaper reflecting Austrian official views? Then realized that the Serbian government in Belgrade had not been considering an attack on Austria for a single moment.
Since the soldiers of our Alpine republic were able to retum to their barracks without firing a single shot, everything ended as a war waged on paper. First it was necessary to clear up the confusion which had been created on the southem borders, to see who was friend and who was foe. People were not sure just exactly which Yugoslav nation lived where and what distinguished them from one another. Obviously the "Tschusch," as guest workers from Yugoslavia are collectively referred to in our country, had become a split personality: on the one hand, there was the well-liked "Tschusch," Franjo Tudjman, who was supposedly going to lead the Catholic North (of Yugoslavia) into a democratic future, and on the other the bad "Tschusch" Slobodan Milosevic, the tyrant of Belgrade, acclaimed by the wild mountain peoples of Orthodox faith.
This division was also based on a model of behaviour coming down to us from the time of our forefathers. Ever since 1914, when Serbs assassinated Austrian crown prince Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, whenever they hear the word "Serbs," the Austrians have the knee-jerk reaction of immediately adding the phrase, "must die" (Serbien muss sterbien). This small Catholic state in the heartland of Europe has never forgiven the Orthodox Christians to the south for not allowing the Hapsburgs to enslave them. At the very beginning (of the crisis), young Austrians did not even know where Serbia was located. However, it is just as well that they have been reminded. Even our grandchildren have quickly leamed how to read a map. Kronen Zeitung knows what is best for the Austrians. "The Viennese is accustomed to being left to his habits," says Karl Kraus to a petit-bourgeois in the book, "The Last Days of Mankind". Then he adds: "Vienna remains Vienna. A dangerous threat." It was thanks to the active support of this mass circulation Austrian daily that Kurt Waldheim was able to become president.
He is not just the personification of lies about the Austrian past. As a soldier of the Wehrmacht, he was a cog in the machinery of German and Austrian involvement in the Balkans. Austria, which harbours ambitions of becoming a superpower, has already twice in this century met its comeuppance precisely in the Balkans. First the rulers of Central Europe, squeezed into the confines of a small state in 1918, saw Yugoslavia created out of the ruins of Austria-Hungary. Then in the 1940s, Tito's partisans fought against the Gemman and Austrian ammies. It was in the Balkans that Gemman-Austrian dreams of creating a super power were shattered. Therefore it is no wonder that the grandchildren of Franz Josef and the children of Adolf Hitler cannot help but gloat, if furtively, that the Serbian empire under the pseudonym of Yugoslavia has now disintegrated.
It is no wonder that a large section of the Austrian press from the very outbreak of the war took the side of the Croats and Slovenes. In June 1991, it seemed to the Austrians that the war had come to Yugoslavia as suddenly as the Yugoslav bombers had appeared over Graz. Those who had been interested could have followed the career of Slobodan Milosevic back in 1987, in his efforts to create a nationalist regime. It was logical that in his propaganda for unification, Milosevic would play upon the fears of the Serbs in Croatia. It was no secret that the Serbs would not stand idly by and watch Slovenia, much less Croatia, secede. But we were living- in this brave new Europe in which communism was dead and the future belonged to the democratic nations. The Austrian media refused to recognize the truth that communism in fact had long been dead, and that Yugoslavia fell apart because of the nationalism of its peoples. "Serbian tank brigade communism" (coined by Kronen Zeitung) became a stock phrase which appeared in all its editorials. In 1991, the Slovenes and Croats leamed a few more lessons than the Serbs from the textbook of democracy. But ultra-nationalist Slobodan Milosevic did not have any plans which included communism.
However, the "Red menace" was not stopped until Austria focused its remaining anti-communist passions onto the nearest enemy at hand. Thus, Austrian high circles were saved by a terrible truth: the Balkans, a region of the world which is one of the most fraught with violence, survived Tito's regime relatively peacefully, but not his death. Austrian politicians conversant with Balkan affairs knew that Ljubljana and Zagreb were playing with fire. They weighed the pros and cons: if the two northem republics remained in the federation under the Serbian rod, there would be no war, but neither would there be democracy. Admittedly, the Austrian foreign minister Alois Mock and the people around him were a bit annoyed by the fact that Croatian president Franjo Tudjman did not wish to give the Serbs in Croatia enough rights. However, they were sympathetic to the Slovenes and Croats and closely followed how the members of the Catholic opposition emerged from obscurity and began to assume the positions of ministers and presidents in the first free govemments. They gave them advice. How trifling Tudjman's mistakes appeared compared with Milosevic's sinister activities!
The majority of Austrian editorial writers agreed with the opinion of their minister of foreign affairs. Krone was touched that Slovenia's sovereignty meant that it was finally achieving its "thousand-year-old aspiration." Hans Rauscher, the standard bearer of Austrian liberalism, wrote an article in the second largest daily Kurier praising Austrian far-sightedness in the matter of Balkan affairs: "It goes without saying that the Serbs are not the only ones to blame, but their intolerance and their, 'greater Serbian' dreams are precisely the reason that the others do not feel comfortable in present-day Yugoslavia. Austria saw this fact much more clearly than the European Community or the United States." The 26 June 1991, issue of Kurier had no qualms about putting the following caption above Rauscher's front-page piece: "Two New States on Austria's Borders! Austria Salutes Slovenia and Croatia."
But it was not just the militant Serbs who contrived to spoil the jubilant mood of the Austrians. The European Community also proved to be obtusely balky. The liberal newspaper Der Standard wrote that the other Europeans were "small-minded and shortsighted." How can all the inhabitants of the East who aspire to the West particularly Slovenia, be denied access to the Western European alliance, especially when we know that "their standard of living (of the Slovenes - ed.) is only slightly below the Western standard?" Paris and London, for their part, did not want to see things our way, and not for the first time in this century either.
It would have been nice if Europe had taken a united stand in support of the Gemman-Austrian initiative for recognition. In making this initiative, Austria was not merely heeding the moral imperative that the right of nations to self-detemmination must be championed. Even if its support were to increase the risk of war. If the northem Balkan republics were to become integrated with Westem Europe, the capital of Vienna would have an opportunity to combine Austrian influence in Central Europe with integration into the European Union. Up until the 1980s, it seemed as though these two concepts, which were particularly favoured by local conservatives, were in fact irreconcilable. But then, alas, the European governments denied recognition not just to the Croats but even to the Austrians!
The conservative Die Presse quite openly showed sympathy for the young states. At the same time, it shook an admonishing finger: "Vienna will fommally recognize them only when it becomes clear that Laibach (Ljubljana) and Agram (Zagreb) have full governmental control over their territories. Until such time, make no mistake, sympathy is one thing and the reality of intemational law is something quite different." The conservative Austrian professors from Die Presse had spoken. Comment number one: A year and a half later, the Republic of Croatia still did not exercise full authority over all its state territory - the Serbs in Croatia to this day de facto control one-third of Croatia - but then the Gemman-Austrian initiative for recognition of Croatia rode roughshod over intemational law. By February 1994, disenchanted supporters had long since renounced the Croatian president Franjo Tudman. "The Croats have the bad luck to have this man, of all people, as head of state," I was told by the foreign policy spokesman for the National Party, Andreas Khol, in one of Profil's "Interviews" on Austrian Balkan policy. Comment number two: For all Gemman readers who have not read their Viktor Meier in theFrankfurterAllgemeine Zeitung, in Austria the Croatian capital of Zagreb is referred to as Agram. I am reminded of a heated discussion held by a group of reporters in March 1993, in a freezing cold hotel dining room in northern Albania. In order to get warm, we decided to discuss Croatia a bit. One colleague from the Austrian news agency APA insisted that Zagreb should continue to be called by its Gemman name. I felt that in view of tradition it would be inappropriate to include the Croats in the community of Gemman peoples. The APA correspondent supported Viktor Meier, while Flora Lewis was on my side. "Agram?" piped up a puzzled French colleague from Liberation - "What's an Agram?" Let us retum to the successors of Karl Kraus. It is not surprising that the representatives of the Austrian media condemned Serbian aggression against the Slovenes. The Serbian political establishment really did first boycott discussions on reform and then send federal army tanks to force the northem members of the federation to stay. Of course, doubt is raised by the fact that from the very beginning little consideration was given to the background of these events. There were a few exceptions: the 1 July 1991, issue of Profil devoted its lead article, entitled "Tragedy," to the internal political situation in Croatia, summing up the situation in a few paragraphs. The newspaperArbeiterzeitung wrote on 27 June 1991: "Does the right of nations to self-determinatio n necess ari l y mean the right of republics to self- determination when the peoples are mixed and sp rc ad into areas outs ide the (republican) borders?"
Lilac was then in bloom in Vienna's Prater. Instead of cooling off with a glass of wine and complaining about today's God and world, the nation got all hot under the collar over "Serbian tank brigade communism." It was an exciting time. Those for and against the recognition of Slovenia and Croatia would come to blows within seconds. Because of the emotional charge of the discussants, it was impossible to conduct a serious discussion.
At Arbeiterzeitung, where I then worked, the telophones were ringing off their hooks. We insisted that we were not taking sides in the conflict. However, the Austrian public took what was happening in Slovenia and Croatia as their personal concern. Old Social Democrat subscribers told us afterwards that we had obviously succumbed to American propaganda. The outraged readers were particularly fond of such epithets as "Serbian agents," and "East Coast." Was this a reference to the East Coast of the United States, a synonym for the Jewish world conspiracy? It certainly was.
Whoever is acquainted with the Austrian media scene knows that - thanks to a tabloid press mentality - conclusions are drawn very superficially. Obsessed with the Serbian tanks in Croatia, no one was prepared to discuss the consequences that the recognition (of Croatia) might have for Bosnia and Herzegovina. In effect, no one really knew where Sarajevo was located or that in this town something else might happen other than the assassination of the crown prince or the Olympic Games. It was not just the Yugoslav peoples who were clashing but old passions as well. This spread to the Austrians in the north. In his "Balkan Ghosts", American Robert D. Kaplan had good reason to begin the account of his Balkan travels in Vienna. He stood on Karl Lueger-Platz and marvelled that to this day the Austrian capital city could honour with a square and statue one of the precursors of anti-Semitism in politics. Within a stone's throw of the square is the beginning of Rennweg street. "Metternich said," muses Kaplan, "that the Balkans begin at Rennweg street, for it takes one out of Vienna in the direction of the east and south."
And then can anyone wonder why the reporting by journalists from the Germanspeaking area, subgroup Austria, took the wrong turning? In the media debate on the Balkan war, I only read about "oversimplifications," as being to blame for much of this. Perhaps it is true that newspapers do not want to burden their readers and therefore try to simplify complex conflicts. But this need not in itself result in lies. It would be nice if we were able to debate in Austria whether such noble weaknesses as oversimplification are to blame for the fact that so many ghastly stupidities are being written about Yugoslavia. The shortcomings in the reporting are primarily caused by a fundamental lack of understanding and conscious and unconscious manipulation.
Moreover, the Anglo-American journalists were faster than we were , and we are authorities on this region. It was a bitter pill that the ITV television crew discovered Omarska and confronted us with the existence of detention camps in Bosnia. The humiliation we felt because the British and the Americans were first on the scene was responsible for our subsequent reporting of every gruesome detail, even if it could not be corroborated. The idea of "concentration camps" had a suspicious, biased ring to it. Since our fathers had slept through, forgotten about, or been in charge of Auschwitz, we, their upstanding descendants, are obsessed with uncovering planned genocide. Besides, it is not bad to discover that not just Hitler's lackeys but also the Serbs, whom we have always suspected of having a lust for murder in their blood, are also capable of such crimes. What a fine diversionary manoeuvre the Serbs have provided for us ! In Germany the skinheads are burning up Turks alive. In Austria the local eloctions in Vienna were conducted with extremely xenophobic slogans. "Vienna must not become another Chicago " - stated a campaign poster of the right-wing populist Liberal Party of Austria, which won almost one-quarter of the votes. The war in the south naturally was worse than anything that was happening in the civilized north.
In October 1992, when Omarska had already become a synonym for the Serbian killing frenzy and when these very horrors had already begun to bore the public, we journalists turned our attention to the matter of mass rape. "I was raped so much that my womb fell out," a woman told me in a refugee camp in eastern Croatia. Behind her, another woman made a rapid gesture with a finger to indicate that the first woman had lost her nind because of everything that she had been through. After that I sat for several hours with the Bosnian peasant woman who had made the signs. When she had been given the choice of being raped herself or of her fourteen-year-old daughter being raped, she had sacrificed herself. Several days later I was sitting in a Viennese cafe reading an article by Croatian authoress Slavenka Drakulic, who was writing about the suffering of several women who had been raped by Serbs. One Muslim prisoner who was in the process of nursing her baby when the Serbian soldiers began their orgy had the child snatched from her arms and his head torn off. "Now you can feed your baby," they said to the woman before raping her. There in that Viennese cafe, safe from the madness of war and far away from the horrors which none of us had experienced, and far from the faces of the raped women, I vowed to cut off the testes of all Serbian soldiers. Personally. I thought that all potential Serbian bullies should be neutralized with Allied bombs.
Before I managed to pour out my anger on paper, I spoke with activists from the women's shelter in Belgrade. It provides refuge for Serbian women who had fled from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Along with their luggage they carried memories of the Croatian and Muslim soldiers who had raped them. The Serbian feminists were also taking care of Muslim, Croat, and Serbian women from the Serbia who had run away from their husbands. The hatred of humiliated Muslims or the aggression of Serbian soldiers who, after returning to Serbia, did not know how to cope with their unleashed aggressiveness in civilian life, took out their frustrations on the bodies of their wives. That is what I was told by Serbian social workers in Belgrade.
I had no reason to believe them any less than I believed the rape victims in the refugee camps of Croatia or the people in the Bosnian governrnent's press bureau. I was reminded of the Italian United Nations employee in the Croatian town of Karlovac, who told me that on the first day she had saved a Bosnian refugee woman from the embrace of a Croatian soldier on leave, who had dragged her into the bushes in the centre of Karlovac. A delegate from Helsinki Watch in New York, in charge of women's affairs, whom I contacted upon her return from the Yugoslav war zone, advised me to be cautious. She had been collecting reports of rape on all sides, and it could not be proven that sexual harassment was carried out on orders from the highest government circles as a means of driving out the population, even though because of their military superiority the Serbs undoubtedly comrnitted the greatest number of rapes. That is when I gave up the idea of castrating every Serbian soldier individually. All the articles that I have read about "lies by newsmen in the Balkans," cite the example of personal experience. There is no journalist, male or female, who is devoid of emotions. Whoever has lived for months in Sarajevo during the siege must have hated the Serbs at the gates of the town. Everyone who met with civilians must have hated the militarists. However, hatred is not a journalistic category. Those journalists among us who do not try at least to make their reporting impartial should take a vacation. War correspondents from the battle zones abroad are even more exposed to the danger of writing untruths. Namely, readers, and to some extent editors, could hardly corroborate the actual events. Ignorance, journalistic megalomania, and unverified information which is so tempting to journalists to use for a scoop make for an explosive combination. Misha Glenny, the former BBC Central Europe correspondent and today a Balkan expert for Profile, concluded one of his articles on the topic of "lies by Balkan journalists" by wondering aloud why more is expected of the journalist than of one's own president. "It is fortunate that at least we do not have to take decisions. However, that fact does not absolve us of responsibility."
However, the topic of this media controversy is not the raw nerves of war correspondents. Bosnia is not the first place where newsmen have roamed. The fact that the debate blew up precisely because of the war in the Balkans shows above all that the reporting from the German-speaking area in this region presents a special problem. Sarajevo is a traumatic place, but not Kigali. Here on this little patch of land called Europe are the Germans' impotence of today, vision of tomorrow, and guilt of yesterday. Dear colleagues, we have not covered ourselves with glory in this Balkan war.