pying forces. In many such areas, they were not disturbed ifrnthey did not constitute a threat to the occupation army.” Anotherrnfriend was anxious to tell me that, of course, rapes wererncommitted by all sides, but, he said, “there is not a shred ofrnevidence that rape was ordered by anyone in authority, andrncertainly not as policy.”rnA Serbian writer from Belgrade, who had been with Serbianrnforces in Bosnia and Kraina, wanted to tell me of Muslim prisonsrnfor Serbs in Sarajevo, as well as of Sarajevo Muslims killingrnSerbs so that they could take their apartments. “Your pressrntalks about harmony in Sarajevo and Bosnia generally, but, yournknow, a Serb apartment dweller in Sarajevo does not darernshow his face on his balcony for fear of being shot, on therngrounds that he is signaling Serb forces.” “But,” he shouted,rn”you won’t read about these matters in your press, even thoughrnAmerican newsmen know about them. After all, they are reportingrnfrom Sarajevo, and if they reported these things thevrnwould soon be on their way out. That’s like getting your newsrnof World War II happenings from Berlin,” he said, with emphasisrnand a note of bitterness in his voice.rnAnother Serbian friend wanted to know why the Americanrnmedia were concentrating all of their attention on Sarajevo.rn”Why don’t they tell your people about the long Croat shellingrnof Trebinje, or the Muslim and Croat shelling of Mostar, as wellrnas many smaller places?” And, he added, “why no mention ofrnthe Croats placing guns alongside the cathedral in Sibenik?”rnThis prompted me to ask about the shelling of Dubrovnik.rn”The fighting around Dubrovnik,” said a Serb who was born inrnthat area, “was prompted by the Croatian forces’ attack on ourrnnaval facilities at the base of the Prevlaka peninsula, not farrnfrom Dubrovnik.” In addition, he continued, “the Croats hadrnplaced their troops in the hotels around the old city, so thatrnthey spied on our signal station on top of the mountain, sornsome of the buildings and boats by the old city were hit. ButrnSerbian forces did not destroy Dubrovnik. At least one Americanrnprofessor, and Roman Catholic at that, visited the old cityrnand confirmed that there was only minor damage inside the oldrncity. The major damage was to the Serbian church library.” Hernasked me if I had seen any pictures showing the destruction ofrnDubrovnik, and I had to admit that 1 had not—and neither hadrnany of my friends.rnOn one occasion I turned to an old acquaintance—I couldrnnot call him a friend, because when I first knew him most of myrnfriends viewed him as close to the regime—and asked what thernsituation was like in 1991, when it seemed that Slovenia andrnCroatia were about to secede. I got a learned lecture. “Yournknow,” he began, “we thought that the government couldrnhandle the situation. We had become accustomed to viewingrnthe dictatorship as all-powerful. And there was the YugoslavrnNational Army, which Tito always told us could be countedrnupon to save Yugoslavia in any emergency.”rn”But,” I asked, “who was in charge?”rn”Well, maybe if we Serbs had been in charge,” he noted withrna tone of resignation, “things might have been different.”rn”Where were the Serbs?” I demanded. “The Americanrnmedia almost always speaks of the ‘Serb-dominated Yugoslavia,'”rnI asserted.rn”Your media is absolutely wrong. When Slovenia seceded,rnthe Yugoslav government was mainly in the hands of non-rnSerbs. Just look who was prime minister. Ante Markovic, arnCroat. And who was minister of foreign affairs, Budimir Loncar,rnanother Croat. The minister of defense and supremerncommander was General Veljko Kadijevic, son of a Serb-Croatrnmarriage, and his deputy was Stane Brovet, a Slovene. Thernchief of the air force was Zvonko Jurjevic, another Croat. Doesrnthat look like a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia?!” “And,” myrnfriend continued, “it was Ante Markovich who signed the orderrnto have the army take over frontier posts on Slovenia’s borders,rnas he was ordered to do by the Federal Executive Council.”rn”What puzzles us,” he went on to say, “is why your leadersrnwere in such a hurry to help those who wanted to destroy Yugoslavia.rnAnd after the dismemberment began, why were theyrnso determined to perpetuate Tito’s greatest injustice to usrnSerbs? Instead of seeking to resolve disagreements here, theyrnwere willing to have communist Miloshevitch be the only defenderrnof Serbian interests. Why?”rnAnother friend took up the question of sanctions. “Yournwent to the U.N. and got sanctions against us and againstrnno one else. Why? You knew that there were 50,000 Croatianrntroops in Bosnia, but no sanctions against Croatia. Is thisrnwhat you call a fair and impartial policy?”rnThe wife of a Serbian doctor, recently on a visit to Belgrade,rntold me of the suffering that the Serbian people are enduring.rn”My friends asked me,” she said, “if you Americans realizedrnwho the sanctions were hurting. Don’t they know thatrnthe rulers here are not hurting, but the common people?”rn”And,” her companion chimed in, “it is the children who arernsuffering the most. They tell you that medicine and medicalrnsupplies are exempt from sanctions, but those at the U.N.rnwho write the sanctions rules and procedures have made lifernimpossible; they keep changing the rules. Our doctors arerndesperate, but do you care?”rn”Your press,” observed a professor friend of mine while visitingrnrelatives in the United States, “keeps talking aboutrnrefugees from Bosnia in Western Europe, but not a word aboutrnSerbian refugees. And what about all the refugees we havernhere? Don’t you Americans know that we have over a halfmillionrnrefugees in Serbia? And thousands are Muslims, whornwould rather come here than go to Croatia. And we havernCroats, too. Somehow, we think you know but just don’trncare.” I admitted that I do not have any answers.rnThe same professor wondered out loud, while we were havingrnour after-dinner coffee: “Where are your intellectuals, yourrnprofessors and specialists on Eastern Europe? They must knowrnwhat is going on. Are they not outraged by the lies being purveyedrnby your media? You know, we had our weak-kneed intellectuals,rnbut under a communist dictatorship what could yournexpect? But you pride yourself on being a democracy, a placernwhere independent inquiry and dissent does not send you tornjail. What has frozen the mouths of your intellectuals?”rn”A few have spoken up,” I responded, “usually in letters tornthe editor, but for the most part major media channels havernnot been open to them, certainly not the columns of such influentialrnnewspapers as the New fork Times, Wall Street journal,rnLos Angeles Times, or Washington Post.” I did not like to admitrnthis, but I knew it to be true. I was glad that he did not askrnabout the major network TV newscasts.rnWe returned to the topic a few days later, and I was able tornshow him an article from Foreign Policy, written by Peter Brock,rna politics editor of the El Paso Herald-Post, entitled “DatelinernYugoslavia; The Partisan Press,” wherein he detailed the distortions,rnand even fabrications, of certain correspondents andrntheir editors. Some had unashamedly engaged in “Serb-rn30/CHRONICLESrnrnrn