The propaganda war moved into top gear yesterday as Nato threatened to destroy Serbian television transmission systems and its secretary-general, Javier Solana, accused Serbian troops of turning back Kosovo refugees to use them as human shields against the bombing.
The refugees' plight triggered Nato's decision to send fresh reinforcements to the region. Eight thousand more troops are to be sent to Albania, under Operation Allied Harbour, to establish and run five new refugee camps. Their dispatch strengthened suspicions denied in Brussels that the alliance was moving inevitably towards a ground war in Kosovo.

The 8,000 troops will be known as ACE and will be made up of contingents from the 14 participating Nato nations. They would provide military support for humanitarian aid.

It was not immediately clear what the British contribution to the force would be, though it was described yesterday as `relatively small' because the UK was already providing the largest part of the Nato force based in Macedonia.

Nato's warning - that unless the Serb media stopped being `an instrument of hate' and started transmitting three hours a day of Western news bulletins it would target TV and radio relay stations - reflects its conviction that it can destabilise the Milosevic regime.

Belgrade yesterday hit back, claiming that the Yugoslav army's offensive against the `terrorists' of the Kosovo Liberation Army was over, and that the promised ceasefire was now in force. Nato immediately countered this, citing evidence of continued fighting.

As claim and counter-claim bounced between Brussels and Belgrade, even the bombed-out shells of buildings in Pristina became a point of dispute. A tour of the Kosovan capital, arranged by the Serb army for Western journalists, led to the rebuke by Nato commanders that Pristina had been damaged by the Serb army as a cynical propoganda ploy. `I am sure closer forensic investigation will reveal the truth,' said Air Commodore David Wilby.

The prospect of the release of the three American soldiers being held by the Serb army receded last night when a move by Cyprus was stalled. A transport plane flew to Belgrade to pick up the soldiers but it was unclear when or if they would be allowed to go. Earlier, the Pentagon announced it would postpone air attacks to allow the soldiers to be transported safely.

The French defence minister, Alain Richard, said that Nato air strikes had shattered the Yugoslav military command and reduced its ability to reinforce its troops in Kosovo. The air campaign had achieved `substantial results' and had also limited the mobility of Yugoslav forces within Kosovo, which are now more exposed to Nato attacks, he said.

The decision to intensify the bombing campaign, to double the number of sorties and to target Serb fuel supplies, was moving the war into a new and decisive phase in which air power alone might now expect to achieve Nato's objectives, officials in Brussels insisted. Nato spokesman Jamie Shea claimed `irrefutable evidence' that bombing fuel dumps and oil refineries was starting to immobilise Serb forces.

The alliance received unprecedented endorsement from the European Union, whose four neutral foreign ministers Ireland, Sweden, Finland and Austria signed an EU declaration that the bombing was `both necessary and warranted... the responsibility lies entirely with President Milosevic and his regime'. For the first time, the EU yesterday formally endorsed all the Nato war aims, including a complete withdrawal of all Serb troops from Kosovo and the stationing of an international force in Kosovo.

President Milosevic would be held personally responsible for the survival of the refugees herded back into Kosovo, the EU declared. `It is just as unacceptable to compel the refugees by force to remain in Kosovo as it is to deport them,' the EU Council said. Clare Short, Britain's international development minister, yesterday described the refusal to let refugees leave as a `worrying change' in Serb tactics.

It was estimated that up to 30,000 ethnic Albanians had been taken back from the border with Macedonian. The Serb media said that the Kosovans were returning voluntarily because of the ceasefire against the KLA.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said the Yugoslav authorities were turning people at borders around and telling them to go home following the unilateral ceasefire in the Serb war against the KLA.

Meanwhile it emerged that Europe and the United States are considering offering Yugoslavia and all the other Balkan countries membership of Nato and the EU as the incentives of a post-war stability pact for the region. The plan would include debt relief.

`The prospect of EU membership is a key incentive to reform,' the stability pact plan says in a copy obtained by the Guardian.

According to the first part you read i m gonna post a second part!
this is a studie of Sabrina Ramet about the dissection of the serb propaganda!
please follow carefully.


WORTH READING!

DISSECTION OF SERBIAN PROPAGANDA


Dobrica Cosic Former Serbian PresidentMarch 2008

UNDER THE HOLY LIME TREE:The Inculcation of Neurotic & Psychotic Syndromes as a Serbian Wartime Strategy

This article by Dr. Sabrina P. Ramet looks at some of the recurrent themes in Serbian propaganda 1986—95, examining their operation in inculcating collective neurotic and psychotic syndromes and noting the relevance of those syndromes for the war against Croatia and Bosnia, 1991—95. It also is relevant to Kosovo Issue. here are some of her points:

Six pivotal themes in Serbian propaganda are examined:

1. Victimization, in which Serbs were constructed as collective victims first of the NDH, then of Tito’s Yugoslavia, and more specifically of Croats, Albanians, Bosnians, and other non-Serbs.

2. Dehumanization of designated ‘others’, in which Croats were depicted as ‘genocidal’ and as ‘Ustaše’, Bosnians were portrayed as ‘fanatical fundamentalists’, and Albanians were represented as not fully human. These processes of dehumanization effectively removed these designated ‘others’ from the moral field, sanctifying their murder or expulsion.

3. Belittlement, in which Serbia’s enemies were represented as
beneath contempt.

4. Conspiracy, in which Croats, Slovenes, Albanians, the Vatican,
Germany, Austria, and sometimes also the Bosnians as well as the U.S. and other foreign states, were seen as united in a conspiracy to break up the SFRY and hurt Serbia. In this way, the Belgrade regime’s obstinate disregard for the fundamental standards of international law was dressed up as heroic defiance of an anti-Serb conspiracy.

5. Entitlement, in which the Serbs were constructed as ‘entitled’ to create a Greater
Serbian state to which parts of Croatia and Bosnia would be attached, under the motto,’ All Serbs should live in one state.’

6. Superhuman powers and divine sanction. The Serbs were told that they were, in some sense, “super”. They were the best fighters on the planet, they could stand up to the entire world, and they were sanctioned by God himself, because of Tsar Lazar and the fact that Lazar had chosen the heavenly kingdom. Moreover, since Lazar had chosen the heavenly kingdom, the Serbs, encouraged to view themselves as Lazar’s heirs, were entitled to the earthly kingdom which Lazar had repudiated, as their patrimony.

Very interesting.


Apart from butchering civilians, spreading propaganda has been another thing Serbs have been good at.


Spoken like a true Serb.

Thanks Suljoti! I posted mine, but it was too long lol so they deleted it due to no commentaries or such...