From: ddc@nyquist.bellcore.com (Daniel Chukurov 21324)
Subject: Re: Democracy
Organization: Bellcore
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 05:02:28 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.011356.16297@hpcvca.cv.hp.com> scott@hpcvccl.cv.hp.com (Scott Linn) writes:
>ddc@nyquist.bellcore.com (Daniel Chukurov 21324) writes:
>: 
>: 	Scott, Scott lighten up! And what are you doing posting the articles
>: 	during the work hours? Don't you have anything better to do? No
>: 	wonder that the HP products are so expensive. I'll tell you, from
>: 	now on I am bying only Tektronix products, even Tek Spectrum and
>: 	Network analyzers! There you go!
>
>Well, over here in HP-land, we have times known as "breaks".  You know,
>when some people drink coffee, some people smoke cigarettes, and others
>read notes.  Is that too complex for you?

	Don't be so defensive Scott. That was just a personal touch.
>
>: 	Now, I guess that the 'media' is getting to you. Don't you know
>: 	that in every war there has to be a bad and good side, and that
>: 	the 'media' is TELLING YOU who that is, which is not necessarily
>: 	the truth, but that is the official government line.
>
>The media doesn't necessarily pander to the official govenment line.  Quite
>often, it doesn't.

	I think that I will have to disagree with you in this case. In the
	case of 'national interests' the 'media' does follow the official
	government line. The 'national interests' are the issues that are
	brought up at CSPAN-televised press briefings from Washington, D.C. 

>
>: 	You seem to have your mind made up on who the bad guys are.

>
>Convince me.
>
	At this point I would like to offer you excerpts from an article in the 
	anti-Serbian, Belgrade-Rijeka based, weekly magazine Vreme. Please note
	that in this article the author while blaming the Serbian side
	for majority of rapes in B-H also states that the other side is
	guilty of the same of crime. Inference to Western MEDIA BIAS can be
	found in the first paragraph. I would also like to add that the
	authors, of the articles featured in this magazine, are the ones who
	are often interviewed by the Western media in their effort to bash
	the Serbian side.

 
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     "Vreme" News Digest Agency (5 of 5)            No. 67, January 4, 1992
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------


    War And Rape
    ------------


                           A CEREMONIAL BATTLEFIELD


           Historians  say  that  all  wars  have  three  things in
           common: death,  destruction and rape. Just  as there are
           no reliable data as to  the number of people killed, the
           number of  historical buildings destroyed,  there are no
           data on the  number of women who have  been raped in the
                           war in Bosnia-Herzegovina

    Borislav Herak, a Serb and a POW in a military jail in Sarajevo, reached
    the pages of the "New York Times", "CNN" and other leading international
    media.  The authorities  in Sarajevo  liked to  parade him  in front  of
    journalists because he would recapitulate in detail how he had butchered
    scores of  people, and give exhaustive  descriptions of his pathological
    sexual aberrations. "Raping Moslem women  is good for raising the morale
    of  Serbian  fighters,"  Herak  told  US  journalists.  He  did not say,
    however, if anyone had ever ordered him  or his comrades at arms to rape
    Moslem  women. But,  his Commander  had "advised  him several  times" to
    visit  a motel  which served  as  a  jail for  Moslem women.  Herak also
    "recalled" that  he and his "comrades"  killed some of the  women. It is
    impossible to check the truth of  his testimony, but the world has added
    another  war crime  to the  list of  those being  committed by  Serbs in
    Bosnia-Herzegovina: the mass rape of Moslem and Croatian women.

    Historians  say  that  all  wars  have  three  things  in common: death,
    destruction  and rape...
    ... Data given  by the West European and US  media come mostly from
    (official) Zagreb, and were sent there by the Bosnian government.

	....

    Both  sides grasped  the propaganda  value of  women's suffering when it
    became necessary to use all means in forcing a military intervention, or
    rather, in proving one's "innocence" and in "justifying the struggle for
    freedom." Director  of the Islamic  humanitarian organization "Merhamet"
    in Zagreb Faruk  Redzepagic told the German magazine  "Der Spiegel": "If
    Europe wishes  to help women in  Bosnia then it must  send arms to their
    men."

	...   

    In spite of the unreliability of various sources, two things need not be
    doubted: rape is a mass occurrence  in Bosnia-Herzegovina and it is more
    frequently practiced  by the Serbian side,  which is militarily superior
    to the other two and also  holds more territory. Foreign media have made
    differences   here,  according   to  which   the  Serbian   side  "rapes
    systematically", while the others "do so sporadically."

	...
    

    Women's organizations  and peace organizations from  Belgrade and Zagreb
    demand  that rape  be treated  as a  war crime  and be  placed under the
    competency of the International Court of Justice, and that in accordance
    with this, section IV of the 1949 Geneva Convention, which refers to the
    legal protection  of women, be  changed. It would  be possible to  bring
    rapists  and  those  who  ordered  rape  (even  if  they only gave tacit
    approval)  before court  with the  existing evidence.  At the  Nuremberg
    Trials, the prosecutor submitted extensive documentation regarding rapes
    committed  by  German  soldiers  in  France  in  retaliation for actions
    undertaken by  the Resistance Movement. The  rapists were not convicted.
    Will this be the case after the war in Bosnia?
                                                             Snezana Bogavac

        Since  time immemorial,  rape has  been  a  part of  war. The  Bible
        mentions it in Chapter 21, when it speaks of distressed women. Greek
        and  Roman conquests  were always  followed by  mass rapes. When the
        Turks  took Constantinople  in 1453,  captured and  bound women were
        taken  in  great  numbers  to  Turkish  camps, writes the chronicler
        Runtziman. Catholic  soldiers took over 10,000  women to their camps
        after Protestant Magdeburg fell in 1631 in the Thirty Years War.

        Arnold Toynbee writes about rapes committed in Belgium and France at
        the end of World War One  by German soldiers. The Nazis and Hitler's
        soldiers  raped detainees  in  concentration  camps in  the occupied
        territories  during  World  War  Two.  On  entering  Germany, allied
        troops,  Russian  and  French  soldiers  raped  German women. Around
        200,000 Chinese women had been raped by the Japanese by 1945.

        US soldiers faced very strict punishment for rape, but officers were
        known to turn a blind eye to such acts. Abortion was allowed for the
        first time in Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion, which left some 5,000
        raped women.

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     "Vreme" News Digest Agency                     No. 67, January 4, 1992
    ========================================================================

>: 	muslim or Croatian side did not open the doors to all of their camps
>: 	neither? I can name some of them for you. But you would not be
>: 	interested. Would you?
>
>Go ahead and name them.
>
	I don't think that I will get involved in the line by line, back and
	forth discussions with you. I would just like to point to you that
	not only one side is the guilty one. And in order to get a better
	understanding of this unfortunate war one should keep his/her mind 
 	open and not rely on the information comming from just one side.
 
>: 	And, I will also
>: 	tell you that one-on-one, we the people from opposing natioanalities
>: 	in the Yugoslav conflict do get along with each very well.
>
>People seemed to get along well when I was in Yugoslavia 3-4 years ago,
>but even then there were ethnic flare-ups over quite a large area.  Things
>weren't (and aren't) quite as rosy as you make them out to be.
>
>Also, if the opposing nationalities get along so well, why are there
>problems with Serbs and Croats in the US?  A Serb couple were going to
>be married in Portland, OR, and they canceled the wedding because the
>band was Croat.  Go figure.
>
>Another couple canceled their marriage because they were Croat and Serb.
>
>: 	So, buddy, please ease off the bashing of just one side and use your
>: 	head in trying to establish more understanding between the parties in
>: 	conflict. You can do it!
>
>Funny, earlier you said I couldn't do it.
>
>
>Scott Linn
>scott@hpcvccl.cv.hp.com

	I still stand by my statements from the above two paragraphs.

Regards,	DDC.

p.s.	Do READ the article "Understanding the Media," by Peter Brock, posted
	by me on Sunday, Jan. 3rd.