Milosevic Tactics Shake Up Propaganda Expert

In a demonstration of his skills in distortion and manipulation, Milosevic shook the confidence of the Prosecution's expert witness on propaganda. The Accused also showed his own lack of familiarity with the concept of a free press.

Renaud de la Brosse, senior lecturer at the University of Reims, France and author of a 97 page report on Serbian political propaganda, testified over several days at the trial of Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. CIJ's analysis of that Report, 'The War of Words: Expert Report on Propaganda Released,' may be found on this website, dated 24 February 2003.

Milosevic went after de la Brosse for characterizing a directive from the Serbian Ministry for Information to all Serbian media as a propaganda tool. In the directive, issued March 10, 1998, media were instructed to use 'band of terrorists' when referring to the KLA (Kosova Liberation Army), to describe their activities 'as criminal,' while describing Serbian police actions as 'operations to maintain law and order' and 'to keep the peace.' 'What if it's true?' Milosevic demanded.

What Milosevic failed to understand is that the truth or falsity of the information was not the issue. The directive shows the government's attempt to control the press to 'influence the fundamental attitude of the individual and in this sense 'is an attempt to influence the opinion and behaviour of society in such a way that people adopt an opinion and specific behaviour.'' In other words, it perfectly fits the definition of propaganda. Where the media is independent, the government doesn't tell it what to write or how to interpret events, and more than one view is tolerated and should be welcomed.

Milosevic provided another example of his failure to comprehend the non-propaganda role of the media when he asked Mr. de la Brosse why he considered broadcasts of unproven facts to be propaganda, when they might be true. The witness explained that professional journalists require corroboration and favor eye witness testimony before publicizing stories, such as those in the Serb media about Serb children being fed to the lions in the Sarajevo zoo.

The Accused then turned the tables on the witness, accusing him of demonizing the Serbs and stereotyping Croats and Muslims. Milosevic asked de la Brosse to find an example in his report where he [Milosevic] or anyone from Serbia equated all the Croat people with Ustashe or all the Bosnian Muslims with extremists. While the witness could have pointed to Vojislav Seselj's speeches, he did not. Nor did he explain the broader way in which stereotyping works. When, for example, the media only focus on Croat nationalist extremists to the exclusion of Croats who have different opinions, and repeatedly run stories about Ustashe atrocities in WWII, they create an image in the mind of the public that equates Croats with Ustasha. They don't have to say the Croatian people are fascist Ustasha. Similarly, when the majority of news stories portray Serbs as victims -- of the Ustasha, the Turks, the Kosovar Albanians --, Serbs become predominantly victims in the public's eye. Rather than explain this, de la Brosse, apparently rattled by Milosevic's aggressive questioning, replied, 'I'm very aware I'm not an expert on the history and chronology of the conflict.'

Milosevic also cited propaganda used by other parties against the Serbs. In his report, de la Brosse acknowledged that propaganda is universal in war and that in the Yugoslav wars it was used by all sides. That, of course, does not make it any less reprehensible. Article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states 'any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law' and 'any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.' The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia signed and ratified the Covenant.

The Accused went on to attack the witness for his lack of knowledge about Balkan history, particularly between the Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo. In response, Mr. de la Brosse acknowledged there were limitations to his study. It was prepared in a short time; it necessarily required a selectivity in sources; it was limited in time; he doesn't speak Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian.

Milosevic responded: ' Don't you think you have just listed reasons which completely disqualify the competency of this report of yours. From the fact you haven't read certain articles, it's an enormous job, the time was too short, others prepared sources that you used. I really have the impression that your conclusions are completely erroneous. You have no grounds to make them. You have just given an explanation of why it is impossible to do.'

The witness defended his methodology. The major news sources for the majority of the Serbian population were the primary focus of the study: Politika with a circulation of 200,000, Politika Ekspres with a circulation of 100,000 and Radio Television Serbia news at 7:30, prime time viewing, which reached 90% of households in Serbia. He also said that his lack of knowledge of BCS and cultural nuances likely favored Milosevic, as he was unable to'reconstitute the entire scope and complexity of the propaganda at work.' In addition, he supplemented his study of the news by meeting with media people and intellectuals in Belgrade and other places.

Under persistent criticism by Milosevic, however, de la Brosse crumbled. Referring to the Serbian media, he agreed with the Accused, 'it should have been analyzed in an exhaustive fashion.' He also apologized for relying on a report from Reporters Without Borders which Milosevic claimed misquoted his wife, Mira Markovic. 'I used in good faith the information I found in the report. Obviously wrongly so. I think it's an error made by the team responsible for drafting [his report]. . . . So if the quotation is taken out of context, I apologize, but it must be put back in the context of other of Markovic's statements.'

One of Milosevic's more astonishing statements was in response to a distinction de la Brosse drew between propaganda used in a democracy and propaganda used in a totalitarian state. 'All politicians and governments naturally seek to establish their legitimacy, gain support for their ideas and obtain the backing of the greatest number of people possible. The use of political propaganda, as means to achieve this, is therefore employed everywhere, irrespective of the political regime under consideration. Propaganda becomes harmful and reprehensible when it is used in a totalitarian manner to promote political objectives flying in the face of the respect of human rights and international law.' Milosevic demanded that the witness tell him how he can link totalitarian use to Serbia: 'How can you talk about it in a multi-party system with democratic rights, secret ballot elections and every two years different extraordinary elections?' Readers will be excused if they fail to recognize that Milosevic is referring to Serbia under his rule.

Milosevic then provides an opening for the witness to more fully explain how stereotyping works by asking whether any nation is stigmatized in the quotations cited in the report. De la Brosse points to several articles in Politika which describe the high birth rate of the Kosovar Albanians as an expression of their political will to seek a Greater Albania. In one article, Djordje Jankovic writes the high birth rate must be considered an act of violence against the social order. In another, Dr. Gavro Marjanovic describes it as a 'hellish plan to conquer the territory of the Slouth Slavs. . . .' These articles, both in number, content and tone, present the Kosovar Albanians as a group whose actions are intentionally harming Serbs; indeed, their actions are characterized as genocide against the Serbs.

Mr. de la Brosse also referred to the work of Jovan Raskovic, a Croatian Serb psychiatrist, who propounded the theory that Croats had a genocidal nature. Raskovic was a frequent guest on Serbian TV and his theories were relied on and cited by others, such as Radovan Karadzic and Vojislav Seselj.

Milosevic diverted the cross examination onto irrelevant or marginally relevant issues. For example, he asked the witness why he had put the word 'genocide' in quotes when he refers to the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Serbs by the Ustasha during WWII. The witness tried to explain that he merely wished to indicate there is historical uncertainty over the numbers. At this point, Judge Robinson intervened to chastise the witness as well, 'Perhaps your report would have been strengthened if your explanation you just gave would have been inserted.' In his response, Mr. de la Brosse once again shows his willingness to accept criticism, 'Yes, I should have. When I prepared the report, the objective was to describe propaganda mechanisms. It's true I wasn't aware of the need or significance in dealing with certain historical facts about which I didn't feel qualified. It is something clumsy on my part. If I were to redo it, I would include a footnote.' While the willingness to listen to and examine criticism is a commendable trait in a researcher, one wants a bit more certainty and ability to defend his research from an expert witness.

Despite Mr. de la Brosse's drawbacks as an expert witness, the effects of more than a decade of Serbian propaganda were graphically demonstrated when Branislav Tapuskovic, amicus curiae, sought to cross examine him. 'In 1996, it was established that it [the Markale marketplace massacre in Sarejevo] was perpetrated by the Muslim side,' Mr. Tapuskovic pronounced, parroting the myth widely disseminated in Serbia that Bosnian Muslims bombed their own people to generate international sympathy and intervention. He implied the same about the earlier massacre of 17 civilians standing in a Sarajevo breadline and the widespread rape of Bosnian Muslim women by Serb forces.

None of these have been established to be lies. In fact, there is credible evidence supporting each of them, including reports by UN experts. That Mr. Tapuskovic fervently believes these atrocities have been disproved reflects the degree to which Serbian propaganda has taken hold.