--- In Questo indirizzo email è protetto dagli spambots. È necessario abilitare JavaScript per vederlo., "decani3" wrote:
Politika daily, Belgrade
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
CROATIAN FORMER BALKANS CORRESPONDENT CLAIMS
UN "dressed up" reports
World organization "adjusts its reports" prior to "bombing uncooperative
regimes so they come to their senses", emphasizes reporter Tonchi Percan
Stockholm, November 17 (Tanjug) - There are indications that the United
Nations exaggerated the Serbian evil and demonized the Serbs in a report
that served as the basis on which the international community formulated
its policy toward the Balkans and military activities in the region in
the last decade of the previous millennium, says an article published
this weekend in the Swedish daily "Svenska Dagbladet".
In a text entitled "Can we believe the United Nations" the author, a
Croatian TV correspondent who lived in and reported from the Balkans
during the 1990s asks the question whether the world organization is
"adjusting its reports" prior to "bombing uncooperative regimes so they
come to their senses," as Washington and London recently did in Iraq,
where the danger from Saddam's weapons of mass destruction was
exaggerated.
Percan claims that the so-called Final Report of the UN Expert
Commission from December 1994 accused the Serbs of carrying out genocide
against the Bosnian Muslims in Prijedor in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the
summer of 1992. Namely, the report states that the Hague tribunal for
crimes committed in ex-Yugoslavia will probably determine the following:
"It will probably be determined in court and according to law that these
events represent genocide." However, the UN war crimes court in The
Hague released the indicted in this specific case, says the article.
"The United Nations attempted to convince the global community that
genocide had occurred through formulations such as 'the total number of
killed or deported persons totals 52,811 out of a total population of
112,470'. The fact that the UN did not make any distinction between the
number killed and the number deported suggests that the world
organization wanted to 'dress up' the report on Serbian crimes," assess
the author.
Percan also recalls the mention of three concentration camps run by the
Serbs in the region, two of which were allegedly "death camps". One of
them, Omarska, with pictures of the malnourished Fikret Alic behind
barbed wire, became the symbol of Serbian brutality.
However, Percan goes on to write, those who took the photographs seen
around the world were probably the ones behind the barbed wire, not the
prisoners; and the pictures were taken in the village of Trnopolje, not
in Omarska.
The author further cites Christian Palme's book "Evil in Our Time" and
an award-winning Swedish documentary film from the year 2000 that also
concern themselves with the crimes in Prijedor. All of them base their
texts or reports on the aforementioned UN report.
The author of the article concludes that the accusations that the Serbs
committed genocide in Prijedor are unsubstantiated. Nonetheless, those
accusations served at the basis for military action by the UN and NATO
in the Balkans.
Tonchi Percan was born in Pula. In the 1980s he worked as a program
editor for Swedish television on current problems of immigrants. During
the Balkan wars he worked with many Swedish journalists in the region of
the former Yugoslavia.
Translated by www.serbian-translation.com (November 18, 2003)
--- End forwarded message ---
Politika daily, Belgrade
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
CROATIAN FORMER BALKANS CORRESPONDENT CLAIMS
UN "dressed up" reports
World organization "adjusts its reports" prior to "bombing uncooperative
regimes so they come to their senses", emphasizes reporter Tonchi Percan
Stockholm, November 17 (Tanjug) - There are indications that the United
Nations exaggerated the Serbian evil and demonized the Serbs in a report
that served as the basis on which the international community formulated
its policy toward the Balkans and military activities in the region in
the last decade of the previous millennium, says an article published
this weekend in the Swedish daily "Svenska Dagbladet".
In a text entitled "Can we believe the United Nations" the author, a
Croatian TV correspondent who lived in and reported from the Balkans
during the 1990s asks the question whether the world organization is
"adjusting its reports" prior to "bombing uncooperative regimes so they
come to their senses," as Washington and London recently did in Iraq,
where the danger from Saddam's weapons of mass destruction was
exaggerated.
Percan claims that the so-called Final Report of the UN Expert
Commission from December 1994 accused the Serbs of carrying out genocide
against the Bosnian Muslims in Prijedor in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the
summer of 1992. Namely, the report states that the Hague tribunal for
crimes committed in ex-Yugoslavia will probably determine the following:
"It will probably be determined in court and according to law that these
events represent genocide." However, the UN war crimes court in The
Hague released the indicted in this specific case, says the article.
"The United Nations attempted to convince the global community that
genocide had occurred through formulations such as 'the total number of
killed or deported persons totals 52,811 out of a total population of
112,470'. The fact that the UN did not make any distinction between the
number killed and the number deported suggests that the world
organization wanted to 'dress up' the report on Serbian crimes," assess
the author.
Percan also recalls the mention of three concentration camps run by the
Serbs in the region, two of which were allegedly "death camps". One of
them, Omarska, with pictures of the malnourished Fikret Alic behind
barbed wire, became the symbol of Serbian brutality.
However, Percan goes on to write, those who took the photographs seen
around the world were probably the ones behind the barbed wire, not the
prisoners; and the pictures were taken in the village of Trnopolje, not
in Omarska.
The author further cites Christian Palme's book "Evil in Our Time" and
an award-winning Swedish documentary film from the year 2000 that also
concern themselves with the crimes in Prijedor. All of them base their
texts or reports on the aforementioned UN report.
The author of the article concludes that the accusations that the Serbs
committed genocide in Prijedor are unsubstantiated. Nonetheless, those
accusations served at the basis for military action by the UN and NATO
in the Balkans.
Tonchi Percan was born in Pula. In the 1980s he worked as a program
editor for Swedish television on current problems of immigrants. During
the Balkan wars he worked with many Swedish journalists in the region of
the former Yugoslavia.
Translated by www.serbian-translation.com (November 18, 2003)
--- End forwarded message ---