The Army and Publicity

The times are changing so quickly that hardly anyone can keep the pace. The polemics arose between the favourite Army newspaper "Borba" and the Army spokesman Milan Gvero. It concerns the fact that "Borba" published the report of the group of European obserevers which colonel Gvero considers "non-existant". It turned out that the report indeed exists, as well as that Dubrovnik got more than a "speck of gunpowder dust" as colonel Gvero claimed. Something similar happened to general Marko Negovanovic who attacked the TV network "SKY News" that it had invented the attack on Dubrovnik, after which admiral Jokic confirmed the news, saying that one unit "without the permission of its command" bombarded the city.

What is happening with the Army? Is it a matter of misunderstanding, bad communication system, command and control failure (the ever more prominent weakness of the Army) or is it something more serious? Is it perhaps to do with the systematic failure of the Army to accept the reality it does not agree with? The inability of the Army to draw lessons from the war in Slovenia concerning publicity is worrying. It is a general opinion that the Slovenian side won the war during the thirty minutes of live coverage it got through the main world satellite networks. The truth, however, is a little bit more complex: the Slovenes were, apart from the expert territorial defence and the skillfully chosen tactics, very aware of the role of the media in this war and of the journalists in the field. The Army has either never understood the need for sending as many journalists and cameramen with every unit in action as they can possibly get, or , alternatively, has understood only too well the risk of such an attempt. The risk is considerable: the reporters will be sent to the battlefield by the one who is totally convinced in the rightness of his war and who is aware that the benefit from independent coverage will be greater than the unavoidable damage. The war, namely, is a dirty business even when it is justified, and the press can not ignore this, although it is trying to be impartial. The reasonable kind of army (if it exists at all) which is used to civilian control and to being accountable to the democratically elected government is also used to the constant watchful eye of the publilc. This approach pays off in the long run: the Army thus gets freed from the allegations that it is keeping secret the real state of affairs; the mechanism of responsibility is then stiffer and more efficient, the incompetent officers are easier to dismiss and the capable ones to promote; the political reflexes are quick and efficient.

The second approach is typical for the real-socialist regimes: the Army is closed, ideologically brainwashed and xenophobic; its vocabulary is coded, ideological and charged with emotion. The personnel policy is based on negative selection and their attitude towards the domestic and world public is irresponsible, since no one has ever been allowed to question the actions and the statements of the Army. The life in the ivory tower has dulled the political reflexes : instead of acting in the capacity of the armed forces of the state, the Army has become the armed arm of the Party and thereby it is sharing its fate.

The operations in Dubrovnik and Vukovar are the shining examples of the wrong approach of the Army to the so-called public relations problem. That is, above all else, yet another illustration of the importance of the unity of all the aspects of the military operation: the operation which could not be explained to itself certainly can not be explained to others. Drawn into the war which it claims it did not want, the Army is increasingly resorting to ideological justifications.

Since it has found itself in an unexpected and sudden situation, the Army has instinctively turned to its "moral and political" sources. it has gone back to using the Second World War language as if that vocabulary will bring about the reality of that war. But what we are having in Croatia today is no "Second World War 2"; this is an entirely different kind of war. The repeat of the Second World war is not possible even on the verbal level. That language has been dead for a long time now. Apart from this, the little democracy that Serbia is now enjoying has brought negative emotional aspects to certain attributes of the Second World War: the role of certain politicians is being questioned, whereas Vuk Draskovic in person (the leader of the Serbian Revival Party) is using the political aspect of that conflict in his best interests- aspect referring to the civil war.

All the above mentioned gives the language of public statements of the Army a certain air of unreality and a hollow sound which the foreign reporters can not overlook. That would not be such a problem - the Croatian side is, at any rate, clumsily using the inappropriate ideological and ethnically insulting jargon (the Serbocommunists, chetniks, bolsheviks etc.). The problem lies in the fact that the Army has been systematically avoiding giving the crucial information. As if it is possible to answer a series of crucial issues with the obsolete phrase concerning the "anti-fascist battle" in which, of course, everything is permitted, since we are here dealing with "ustashi" and "chetniks". Thus the systematic destruction of whole populated areas with random artillery fire (Slavonia, Vukovar, Dubrovnik) is explained with the sentence which aims to cover it all: "Well, the ustashi are there". Some of them even exhibit a taste for subtlety. "They are worrying over the citizens of Dubrovnik, whereas nobody is concerned with our Army men cut off in the barracks"; it is generally viewed that "The Europeans hate us", so that every report of the European observers which is contrary to our interests is immediately branded as being biased or even "non-existent" (colonel Gvero). Reports like the one from the beginning of this article which is considered to be "non-existent", could teach the Army a lesson: if we wish for the world to understand us, we should not be doing unreasonable things. The world is not made up of the enthralled mass of spectators of the Army moral and political education, who have to trust the major's word that "God has been abolished, and that is that".

There is more to come. Mister Cyrus Vance, the former secretary of the USA and a special envoy of the UN Secretary General has lived to hear with his own ears that he did not see what he saw with his own eyes and on the film of espionage satellites whose cameras can distinguish the insignia on the lieutenant colonel Slivancanin's shoulder from a big distance. The withdrawal of key information is much more detrimental to "the image of the Army" than the dead language and the stiffness of various Army spokesmen. The Yugoslav public has not yet got the data on the human losses of the Army, the territorials and other formations fighting on their side: how many casualties, how many wounded (and how) and how many have disappeared; their distribution according to age, nationality, education and all other statistically relevant data concerning this war. The data concerning the ammunition discharge would be even more forthcoming, since they would indicate the efficiency of the armed forces in action.

Instead of this, the Army is insisting on its statement that the cease-fire is always being violated by the other side, whether that is true or not; they all know that certain units are not under full time control, but the Army does not admit this, with the exception of the "arbitrary" attack on Dubrovnik for which even an apology was offered (which is unbelievable). The mistaken bombarding of Bac was especially worrying, but it was settled with an apology without an answer to the logical question: would the apology have been given if a Croatian village had been hit?

In the meantime, the Army has somewhat composed its ranks: taking under its wing the various "volunteers" and instilling discipline into them, it has first forbidden their commanders to give statements without permission. There is no general agreement even on this point, since certain officers claim that "the Arkan men" (Arkan is the leader of the Serbian irregulars stationed in Erdut) are involved in the looting, and "Seselj's are not"; other officers accuse Seselj's irregulars of "damaging the reputation of the Army", whereas others praise Arkan's men for being "exceptionally disciplined".

One aspect is of special interest here: concerning the constant accusations concerning the massacres, the Army has been reserved and fair in their official statements, although they were somewhat delayed and inconsistent.