Serbian state television apologises for "almost constantly and heavily" spreading propaganda

[removeduser_487563287433]

Serbia state TV has apologised to the entire former-Yugoslavia for running propaganda for Milosevic's regime. The statement on RTS's website said that the station's programmes were "almost constantly and heavily absued" by the regime aimed at attacking Milosevic's political and ethnic enemies. RTS "apologises to the citizens of Serbia and those of neighbouring countries who were subject to insult, slander and what would now be termed as hate speech".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...ses-propaganda

As Serbia emerges from political and economic isolation this is a good move, and a level of openness that will hopefully help undermine the propaganda still held dear by many in the country.

[Manuel I Komnenos]

Did they apologize for also brainwashing a number of populations in former Yugoslavia?

[removeduser_487563287433]

Yes, Manuel, that is what the provided source would have explained.

[Manuel I Komnenos]

It just doesn't mention the word "brainwashing" but that's ok. It's good that they admitted it.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Well... what do you mean by brainwashing?

[Manuel I Komnenos]

I merely refer to the Macedonian case, a product of Yugoslavian propaganda.

[removeduser_487563287433]

I merely refer to the Macedonian case, a product of Yugoslavian propaganda.

Oh God no you have enough Greek threads, take it there.

[Acco]

I merely refer to the Macedonian case, a product of Yugoslavian propaganda.

Take it to another thread. Your gripe is with RTV Skopje, which was the Macedonian broadcasting center in Yugoslavia.

[justicar5]

Technically they didn't Brain wash anyone, as that implies physical torture as well as propaganda, dehumanization and other nasties it's used in cults and was used during the Korean war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_control . They did spread propaganda but thats not quite the same thing.

[il padrino]

@ferrets

As Serbia emerges from political and economic isolation this is a good move, and a level of openness that will hopefully help undermine the propaganda still held dear by many in the country.

I absolutely adore these 101% pure BS comments.

As for the move,it's nice.Now if only the Western media,that were equally biased in these wars,would learn from this and do the same move.

[removeduser_487563287433]

I absolutely adore these 101% pure BS comments.

What part do you disagree with?

[il padrino]

What part do you disagree with?

Let's see.

As Serbia emerges from political and economic isolation...

Serbia is not isolated since the year 2000.But that's no surprise,many of your posts seem like they came from the darkest momments of the Western propaganda in the '90s.

...the propaganda still held dear by many in the country.

And this probably comes from the most precious and valuable source,that is "my own arse" ???

[removeduser_487563287433]

Serbia is not isolated since the year 2000.But that's no surprise,many of your posts seem like they came from the darkest momments of the Western propaganda in the '90s.

Well it has been limited in its efforts of joining the EU until it cleans up its mess, hasn't it?

And this probably comes from the most precious and valuable source,that is "my own arse" ???

Well the Serbian members of this board believe a variety of propaganda that can be disproven should they ever care to read into it.

[il padrino]

Well it has been limited in its efforts of joining the EU until it cleans up its mess, hasn't it?

So "no EU" = Isolation ? Nice logic.Let us all inform the citizens of Switzerland,Norway and other non EU contries that they're living in complete isolation !

Well the Serbian members of this board believe a variety of propaganda that can be disproven should they ever care to read into it.

So i was right about your "source".

[justicar5]

As for the move,it's nice.Now if only the Western media,that were equally biased in these wars,would learn from this and do the same move.

yea, they did hide how bad Serbia was for a long time....

[il padrino]

yea, they did hide how bad Serbia was for a long time....

THE MEDIA AND THE DEMONIZATION OF THE SERBS


by Marjaleena Repo
Tuesday, March 30, 1999

The Yugoslavian government has just expelled some journalists from NATO countries from its territory. This is deplored by the media as “censorship,” but in some of us it has created a strange sense of relief: perhaps now there will be a ceasefire in the 10-year disinformation campaign about the Yugoslavian conflict in general and the Serbs in particular. Or at least the “journalists” (few actually deserve the name) have to declare that what they are talking about is unverified rumour and hearsay since they are nowhere near the scene. Up to this point they have been able to create the false impression that they have witnessed the events they report on.
The Western media's relentless demonization of the Serbs of Yugoslavia has, however, produced a very predictable (and no doubt, wished-for) result: a truly genocidal assault on the Serbian people by Western military might, Canada to its eternal shame participating, breaking every relevant international covenant and treaty.
The pack-journalism over the last ten years has also succeeded in hoodwinking many Canadians into thinking that what is at stake is the good-riddance of a Serbian Hitler who has attempted a "final solution" of sorts on assorted ethnic groups in Yugoslavia. A lot of well-intentioned people are cheering the bombing of yet another pariah nation into the Stone Age. With the accumulated effects of media rumour-mongering and willful disinformation, who can blame these folks for their barely controlled blood thirst? After all, because Hitler wasn't stopped in time, millions perished in concentration camps, goes the heart-felt argument.
Yet the labelling of Yugoslavia's Serb leaders as Hitlers — and the Serbs themselves as brutal, subhuman monsters — is a familiar trick from recent history. It has been perpetuated by the various hired hands, PR firms, who have worked overtime for the various ethnic groups pushing for secession which would utterly destroy the once well-functioning, multi-ethnic Yugoslavian federation and replace it with small nation-states which ethnically cleansed themselves (Croatia, for instance, expelled between 500,000 and a million Serbs from its territory.) The media has merely carried the message of these "hidden hands" of the Balkan conflict.
The world was shocked to find out that a PR firm, Hill and Knowlton, had manufactured the "incubator babies" incident in Kuwait which precipitated the Gulf War: Iraqi soldiers ripping Kuwaiti babies out of incubators in a genocidal fashion. Phony eywitnesses to this atrocity tearfully testified in front of U.S. politicians and the media, adding to public support for the subsequent bombing of Iraq and contributing hugely to the demonization of the Iraqis, leaders and citizens alike. Even Amnesty International was taken in by the falsehood, which was later exposed as such, but only after the military damage was done.
Yet the shock of being duped soon wore off and gullibility returned. In no time another American PR firm, Ruder Finn, working for the Croatian and Bosnian separatists, publicly bragged that it had been able to turn world opinion against the Serbs. In April 1993 on French television, James Harff, the director of Ruder Finn, described his proudest public relations effort as having "managed to put Jewish opinion on our [Croatian and Bosnian] side." This was a "sensitive matter," he added, as "the Croatian and Bosnian past was marked by real and cruel anti-semitism. Tens of thousands of Jews perished in Croatian camps... Our challenge was to reverse this attitude and we succeeded masterfully. At the beginning of July 1992, New York Newsday came out with the article on Serb camps. We jumped at the opportunity immediately. We outwitted three big Jewish organizations.... That was a tremendous coup. When the Jewish organizations entered the game on the side of the [Muslim] Bosnians we could promptly equate the Serbs with the Nazis in the public mind. Nobody understood what was happening in Yugoslavia.... By a single move, we were able to present a simple story of good guys and bad guys which would hereafter play itself. We won by targeting the Jewish audience. Almost immediately there was a clear change of language in the press, with the use of words with high emotional content such as ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, etc, which evoke images of Nazi Germany and the gas chambers of Auschwitz. "
The PR firm was piling hoax upon hoax. The famous story of Serb concentration camps was built on a photo of a gaunt man surrounded by others, staring at the viewer from behind barbed wire; surely an image to chill one to the bones. It took years before a German journalist Thomas Deichman, in an article titled "The picture that fooled the world," described how the famous photo was staged by its takers, British journalists, who were photographing the inhabitants from inside barbed wire which was protecting agricultural products and machinery from theft in a refugee and transit camp; the men stood outside of it; and at no time was there a barbed-wire fence surrounding the camp. But by that time the image had done its deed, terminally slamming the Serbs as genocidal mass murderers.
There are countless other stories, all deliberately maligning the Serbs to further the ends of military intervention. These stories and photos of "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" (a la Hitler) in a civil war, in which Serbs are guilty as sin and others are their innocent victims, are repeated ad nauseam by western reporters without the slightest evidence, and have provided the ground for the public's (hopefully only temporary) acceptance of the illegal and brutal war against the sovereign nation of Yugoslavia. They continue after NATO's bombing began, unabated, with new absurdities such as the suggestion that the Serbs are really bombing themselves. Perhaps in the war crimes court there will soon be a place for journalists and PR firms who with their inflammatory reporting and fraudulent actions cause wars to begin.

a bit old,but it still proves a point.

[Rolling Thunder]

a bit old,but it still proves a point.

Yes, that certain Serbians have so massive a persecution complex that they are willing to argue themselves victims of genocide, rather than the perpetrators, and that for some reason, everyone is against them....for motives unknown to the rest of us.
Vaguely reminds me of some of the Israeli articles and comments, in regards to conspiracy by Western media and so on.

[Pielstick]

Thank you lads,nice one.Now this thread can be closed,as another failed attempt of our dear fellow member,to demonize an entire nation.

No problem at all. Having been to Serbia many times, spoken to Serbs at great length on these issues and heard the Serbian side of the story (which NEVER gets reported in the Western media) I know the story isn't as clear cut as some would like to believe.

Ferrets has created an ideal world where the Balkans are the scapegoat for everything that has happened and at the same time the Western Europeans are the civilized people who suffer because of that small region.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the Serbs are innocent... the Balkans have a lot of problems, many of which are rooted in nationalist and xenophobic sentiments. I'm just getting a bit fed up with know-it-alls who actually know nothing about Serbia or its people, yet feel compelled to take a moralistic turd on them at every opportunity.

Good for Serbia. They are moving on to a better and brighter future.

I very much hope so, the Serbian people have had a bum deal in the last 20 years and deserve much better.

Yes, that certain Serbians have so massive a persecution complex that they are willing to argue themselves victims of genocide, rather than the perpetrators, and that for some reason, everyone is against them....for motives unknown to the rest of us.

Ah yes, another know-it-all who has probably never been to Serbia or met any Serbs outside of this forum. Perhaps if you had been to Serbia, seen the problems Serbs face and understand what has happened to Serbia in the last 20 years you might just begin to understand why so many Serbs are jaded and cynical about their politicians, feel exploited and disenfranchised, and angry at the West for laying all of the Balkans' problems at their doorstep.

But then of course it's far easier to shout "GENOCIDE!" whenever a Serb comes along on these forums and start waving moralistic bollocks under their noses

[removeduser_487563287433]

It's a bit of a cowardly answer, though, isn't it Padrino? Touching on the hideousness of the reality only briefly, barely acknowledging that it is a positive move, before falling back into the attitude of the very same propaganda in lashing out against Milosevic's enemies.

I wonder whether you will ever stop fighting that war, Padrino? Perhaps your children will.

[il padrino]

It's a bit of a cowardly answer, though, isn't it Padrino? Touching on the hideousness of the reality only briefly, barely acknowledging that it is a positive move, before falling back into the attitude of the very same propaganda in lashing out against Milosevic's enemies.

I wonder whether you will ever stop fighting that war, Padrino? Perhaps your children will.

Do you even read the stuff you're writing here ?I have no words to describe it.Its just,BS.I don't care if you consider it cowardly or not.I proved just some posts above,the lack of reality in your posts that concern everything in the Balkans.For the xyz time.That's all about it.