Tuesday, June 8 1999

The Rambouillet accord and the media

Francois, csdm.qc.ca

    Q: The Rambouillet accord (appendix b in particular) seems to me like it was phrased to be rejected by Yugoslav parliament. Did state media reported the facts about NATO wanting to occupy all of Yugoslavia militarily and without UN control? (In Canadian media, I never heard a single word about Yugoslavs giving access to NATO to all the ports, airports and immunity for all NATO personnel but if they would have, I'm sure Canadians would have been outraged. Media is keeping a tight lid on stuff like this. Regarding Washington's logic towards media propaganda, we should have our media outlets bombed).

    As well as they're doing today, lying about the military-technical agreement signed by Yugoslav military officials and UN military officials (instead of NATO representatives) they had catastrophic media coverage of the negotiations on Rambouillet. It was often repeated that the agreement would be a violation of the Yugoslavia's sovereignty and territorial integrity, that it practically gives independence to Kosovo but the document or it's details weren't presented. I don't think that anybody could grasp what the Rambouillet agreement actually consisted of. Something similar is done today. Repeating that we succeeded in defending our country, that we didn't lose Kosovo, that we won the war when actually our government agreed to something very similar to Rambouillet but after two and a half months of destruction.

    As for the Canadian media (or some of the international media for that matter), all I can say is this: in times of war (or prior to war) media are the strongest weapons available. But I don't think we should bomb them. That would make us, ordinary people, very similar to those we despise - thinking that every problem could be solved by bombs.