Aleksandar Vucic,
Minister of Information
of the Republic of Serbia

Over the last years and especially over the last few months, as a country and as a nation, we are being confronted with an increasing media pressure and campaign of certain western, both printed and electronic, media which through a gross distortion of facts and open falsehoods are trying to force political decisions in the international fora and organizations against Serbian people and against the Serbian state. Such writings and misinformation of their own public by certain western media, unfortunately, are not the only ways in which propaganda war is being waged against our country.

Western political and military strategists, who aim to limit the sovereignty and even cause the disintegration of Serbia, prefer to create pressure within Serbia and the FR of Yugoslavia. One of the simplest ways to achieve this is again through the western media. Namely, during the cold war, the United States of America, but also some of its European allies, like Germany, had organized work of the propaganda media which they, believe it or not, proclaimed to be independent; maybe because they no longer depended on their own state and on their own people, but on an alien state? Examples of such media are "The Voice of America", Radio Free Europe, Die Deutsche Welle, BBC; their task was to conduct a propaganda war against their then-"enemies" living east of the Berlin Wall. Just how much the United States of America and its NATO allies counted on this type of warfare, which at the time of sophisticated information technology is often more harmful than the most costly bombs and nuclear missiles, may be concluded from the fact that the western countries were allocating millions of US dollars per year for work of the said radio and television channels. Today it is no longer a secret that, for example, the work of "The Voice of America" or of the BBC services in languages of the former members of the Warsaw Treaty, was directly financed by the American State Department, i.e. by the British Foreign Office, and that many "news" items on Radio Free Europe were conceived in Pentagon or in the head offices of the Central Intelligence Agency, better known as the CIA.

With the end of the cold war, in Washington DC, in Bonn and even in London, there were many of those who were asking themselves whether the time had come for some of the cold-war institutions, organizations or at least habits, to finally disappear. Unfortunately, just like the NATO, which in its role of the world policeman is trying to justify the enormous finances invested in the organization, the said intelligence services, and not only the intelligence ones, are today justifying their existence by actions which are being conducted against our country as well.

The creation and fomenting of regional conflicts, seem to have become the only reason for existence of NATO, but also of Die Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe, Voice of America and the BBC services.

"America Calls Serbia", "America Calls Montenegro", German radio program broadcast in Serbian language, British radio program broadcast in Serbian language, Free Europe broadcast in Serbian (plus some invented languages)... They do not broadcast their programs because they are determined to really help Serbia and Serbian people, because if they were, western countries would not be spending millions of dollars on an information and propaganda war against our country, but would spend that money on economic investments. In the program "America Calls Serbia" the most frequently used syntagma speaks actually of the threats by military strikes of their, and supposedly very dear to us, United States, against our one and only Serbia which, according to them, we should change or at least dismember. The killed Serbian policemen, in truth criminally liquidated by the Albanian terrorists, in a cowardly manner and from an ambush, according to The Voice of America, Free Europe, Die Deutsche Welle and the others, were killed by, can you imagine, armed ethnic Albanians (as if one can kill with apples and potatoes tens and hundreds of members of the security forces, without ever asking how and why someone was arming Albanian separatists in Kosovo and Metohija!). According to them, terrorists do not exist, except that often those labeled as terrorists and aggressors are the ones who are endangering their own lives in order to secure safety of all the citizens in the southern Serbian province.

The independent (funny, isn't is?) foreign media which broadcast their programs in our country even found a justificationfor for the massacre of Serbian civilians in Klecka and Glodjani; they did this in spite of a confession by Albanian terrorists that they had actually committed these crimes; the frign media are bringing in doubt the truth of the blood-bath perpetrated by their protegees in Kosovo and Metohija. Not one of these media and not for one moment had asked or appealed for a fierce response of Serbian authorities against those who had committed the most violent crimes against humanity in the 20th century.

Unfortunately, in part because of pure ignorance and often for material or for some other reasons, in our country propaganda programs of the said radio and television channels, are considered by some to be the top achievements of journalism; they quote the programs in which there are negative views not only about the leadership of Serbia and of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but of the entire people, where our history, our culture and our tradition is are undermined. In such programs which are, allegedly, prepared by the sobered-up and emancipated Serbs, and programs made for the Serbian and the Yugoslav public, the only acceptable vocabulary is the one that completely undermines and even mocks everything that is Serbian. Just imagine the situation when, for example, Television Serbia or any other channel from our country, would broadcast programs in the English language, German or French in the United States, Germany, England, France or some other western country, at the same time criticizing democracy and objectivity of their media and trying exclusively to impose itself as an independent and the only unbiased medium.

We have been reproached for speaking about the nation and about the state, but we have been reproached by those who only care about their media, their arms traders and, finally, their politicians; the goal of these politicians is to cause regional conflicts and then amass enormous sums of money and build their carriers as mediators in these same regional conflicts.

In such programs they teach us how to become better Americans, Britons and Germans. They teach us how to respect their tradition, culture and nation, but by all means to forget our own. Serbs, but also the other citizens of Serbia, have always had respect for all nations, for their freedom, their language, culture and tradition, but the greatest problem for some seems to be that Serbs do not want to renounce their own freedom and their own history. Finally, they teach us to renounce on our own and, for the moment at least, some parts of our country. Sometimes, we know more about the other countries and the other nations than they know themselves. Also it is the fact that we have always respected the wishes and interests of others. That is certainly a proof that we belong to Europe and to the world.

The problem seems to be that by listening to and watching the said media we are supposed to forget our own people, our own state and, finally, our own selves.

What is, then, the interest of those broadcasting such programs?

In our country there are many local television and radio channels whose financial means and technical skills are not adequate to produce high quality programs. And, of course, they can obtain, free of charge, programs of the already mentioned foreign stations, and will be even offered (at some later stage) material and technical support, and professional training for the leading officials of such TV or radio stations that, as a rule, takes place abroad. The outcome of such mechanisms is what some in our country hypocritically call 'independent journalism'; of course, in the entire world, such acts are prescribed by the criminal law, and punishable with the most severe penalties.

How long would, for example, in France last a radio station or a TV channel broadcasting programs from another country, if in those programs the government of the French Republic, its laws and French history were insulted, falsified, and idea of full independence for Corsica were promoted? Why then should we continue to tolerate such programs and such kind of journalism?