Peace Offensive

Five daily newspapers are published in Belgrade these days: "Politika", Vecernje Novosti", "Ekspres", government "Borba" and independent "Borba". The "Argument" agency for social and political research analyzed how these newspapers covered the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina during December of last year.

"What surprised me was that the Belgrade press is more unified on Bosnia than I expected", says Zdenka Milivojevic from "Argument". Very different newspapers - independent and the other - give almost equal space to reports from Bosnia and similarly identify supporters of war and peace. The differences are relatively minor, but very interesting.

Last month, "Politika" devoted half of its articles on Bosnia to the peace initiatives, but less than ten percent to reports from the battlefields. Such reports are given the most space in "Vecernje novosti" (27.5%) and independent "Borba". "Vecernje novosti" gave less space to Carter's mission in comparison to the others.

There are no feuilletons about the historical background to the present situation in Bosnia, which is the official Serbian explanation of the war. Terms such as "Ustashi hordes" and "Alija's jihad fighters" have been replaced by more neutral once, except in "Vecernje novosti" which has stuck to its old policy. There was a clear feeling of confusion in "patriotic" newspapers such as "Ekspres" and "Vecernje novosti" - the same agency information was sometimes published several times in the same issue.

For this reason, "Politika" and "Vecernje novosti" gave an identical nine percent of their space to president Milosevic's statements on Bosnia, printing every single report from his office, including the famous interview with CNN. It is noticable that, with the exemption of independent "Borba", reports on Milosevic's meetings quote Milosevic first despite the actual order of speakers at the meeting.

Slobodan Milosevic, Serbia and federal institutions are generally identified as the main representatives of peace in Bosnia. This percentage is highest in "Politika" (18%) and lowest in independent "Borba" (less than 6%) and "Vecernje novosti" (6.5%).

Radovan Karadzic, Momcilo Krajisnik and leaders from Knin are mostly represented as supporters of the war option - 26.5% in independent "Borba" and a bit less in "Politika" (15.6%). "Vecernje novosti" is an exemption again - less than 6% of articles see Karadzic in that light. Muslims and Islamic countries are seen as the main obstacles to peace in Bosnia in every fifth article in "Ekspres" and "Vecernje novosti", while "Politika" and independent "Borba" share that opinion in an identical 12.4%. No one seems to believe that Milosevic does not support peace; only independent "Borba" has this assumption in a minor 1.6% of articles.

Keeping this in mind, it doesn't look like independent "Borba" was a serious threat to Milosevic's policy on Bosnia. For instance, he received more support from it than from "Vecernje novosti" and it was more critical of Karadzic than of anyone else. On the other hand, in its seven analyzed issues, government "Borba" showed more sympathy for the Bosnian Serbs. This is especially important for those who think that independent "Borba" was liquidated in order to protect Milosevic's peace initiative from nationalist attacks through the independent press. The "peace option" did not gain anything from this liquidation and the "war lobby" has not lost its main supporters, but rather its loudest critics, in the Belgrade daily press.