VREME Sues Serbian Radio-Television

A certain Miroljub Jeftic, introduced in the TV News Program as a "specialist for relations between politics and religion," who is in fact a senior lecturer at the Belgrade Faculty of Political Sciences, department of Total National Defence, in a studio talk with Rada Djokic (who viewers believe to be reporting from Pale), full of unscrupulous fabrications, without arguments and one single fact, accused VREME for the death of tens of thousands of people and for the war in Bosnia.

We bring here a part of the stenograph report of this talk with excerpts we believe to be the most relevant ones.

"... It is absurd to talk of a Moslem war which is not Jihad. Things are very clear... Since few people know this, and since influential newspapers like "Borba" and VREME have published the greatest number of texts with such lies, flagrant lies, the people could deceive themselves into believing that something else is at hand in Bosnia, and not the realization of a sinister plan aimed at turning Bosnia into a medieval state... Jihad and the Moslems are inseparable. Do you understand? Therefore, by publishing such information they have misled our public. Thanks to this, our public is not aware that Jihad and Islam are twins... a mass of people have been deceived and they did not wish to believe that what happened in Bosnia would happen, and they ended up in their graves. Absolutely, "Borba" and VREME, in the last two-three years, have constantly been publishing such material untruths... Their texts have allowed Alija Izetbegovic to prepare more easily and better for the war. They have made it possible for the Serbs to be less prepared when the war started, and made it possible for all these massacres in which tens of thousands of people were killed to take place. Therefore, if anyone is responsible for the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina then it is the media such as "Borba" and VREME who persist in repeating untruths."

Our only connection with this "specialist for relations between religion and politics" can be found in the November 2 issue of VREME, when we quoted Jeftic's following statement: "Serbs are not responsible for the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. They are also not responsible for the crimes they committed against the Moslems."

This quote which takes up less than four newspaper lines, speaks sufficiently of this "specialist" who has been engaged to attack "Borba" and VREME. It is pointless to sue Jeftic, because his concepts of responsibility, justice and crime are hopelessly muddled up. However, we do believe that TV here should, for once, be held accountable for its irresponsible work and distorted presentation of reality.

The only truthful thing said in the News Program was that VREME is an influential paper. All the rest are untruthful and shallow-brained fabrications aimed at damaging us, and that is why the editorial staff has decided to seek the protection of its reputation in court and demand material satisfaction.