Reporting on Yugoslavia

For some time, there has been a great deal of inaccuracy in the reports of the Western media on the events in Yugoslavia, which is most likely a result of either poorly done homework on the part of reporters, an influence of propaganda of the regimes in the republics or both.

What is inaccurate and misleading for readers, and causing anguish and sorrow among hundreds of thousands of Serbs in the United States, is labeling Serbian people as undemocratic and as taking pride in rejecting Western ways, even saying that the hard-line stands of Serbian President Milosevic reflect the attitudes of most Serbs, while using such attributes as democratic and pro-Western when reporting about the Slovenian and Croatian people. Also, it is inappropriate to call Serbia the last bastion of communism, while referring to Slovenia and Croatia as democratic states.

True, Milosevic is a hard-line Communist. And true, there is no democracy in Serbia. The same can be said, however, for Croatia’s President Tudjman and Slovenia’s Kucan, as well as for the Croatian and Slovenian states. The fact that Tudjman and Kucan were democratically elected is irrelevant (need we remind you that Hitler was democratically elected); communists for most of their lives, they are unable to change. To better understand the situation, one must know that Serbia was an independent democratic state in the past, that Slovenia was never a state before becoming part of Yugoslavia and that the only time Croatia was a state, it was fascist and an ally of Nazi Germany; it declared war on the U.S. in 1941.

The Serbian people, who fought on the side of the Allies in both World War I and II and who suffered about 1.5 million casualties in each of them, can only be referred to as democratic, peace-loving and pro-Western. Thanks to undemocratic elections, fraught with deceit and intimidation, they still live in a totalitarian society, but to call them undemocratic is not only false but an injustice and an insult.

In conclusion, there is nothing in common between the desires and aspirations of Serbian people and the methods and goals of its undemocratically elected government. There is no real difference among the Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian governments. It is time for the media in the West to catch up with the reality in Yugoslavia--casualties of recent demonstrations in Belgrade demand it.

SVETISLAV PAUNOVIC

RAJKO TOMOVICH

Serbian National Defense Council

Chicago