Hague Recognises Propagandas Role in Srebrenica Genocide
.In sentencing Milan Gvero, the ICTY for the first time recognised the importance of media propaganda in the mass executions that took place in eastern Bosnia in 1995.
………..As the verdict was read out in court, the judge recalled that Gvero had issued a press statement on July 19, 1995, saying that the activities of the VRS were directed towards “neutralizing Muslim terrorists and not civilians.
“While the release of false information to the media and international authorities does not constitute a criminal act, the purpose of the release was not an innocent one,” the verdict said.
“The only reasonable inference as to the goal behind this communiqué is that it was intended to mislead, in particular the international authorities concerned with protecting the enclave, with a view to delaying any action on their part that might thwart the VRS’s military efforts,” it concluded.
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Mark Thompson, author of Forging War, a book about the role that the media played in the collapse of Yugoslavia, told Balkan Insight that it would be hard to prove the connection between specific acts of propaganda and crimes against humanity or genocide.
“Without those connections, it is impossible to claim that ‘direct and public incitement to commit genocide’ took place,” he said. “The statutes of the [Hague] Tribunal do not criminalise propaganda or even incitement through the media, as such. If they did, think how many journalists would have been indicted!” he added.
“We may choose to criticise this as a shortcoming of the statutes, but that is a different matter,” he continued.
Thompson said connections between the media and decision-makers in the war had been established “on a massive scale” in the work of a number of researchers. But establishing connections was not enough for indictments.
(Emphasis added)