Frau Steinacker complains that a small band of journalists, writers and public figures are attempting to "distort " facts about the Yugoslav civil war by questioning past and ongoing reporting and bias of the international media in regard to the Serbian side.

The Serbian Unity Congress invites the readers to make their own judgment on the validity and strength of Frau Steinacker's arguments. Nonetheless, since she demands facts and allegedly fights for the truth, we must correct her distortions and inaccuracies in regard to us.

First, Serbian Unity Congress has never paid any fees to Gen. MacKenzie as she asserts. Nor has Serbian Unity Congress had any contacts with him or organized paid "lecture tours." Secondly, journalist Peter Brock contributed to our quarterly magazine Unity Herald; but so have Sir Alfred Sherman, Nora Beloff, Dobrica Cosic and Matija Beckovic, to mention a few. She uses transparently illogic and "goebbelsque" techniques in attempting to smear and refute Brock's article in Foreiqn Policv in 1994 on account of his contribution to the Unity Herald in the Fall of 1993 on a matter unrelated to the lies and deceits of the international media! Thirdly, the Serbian Unity Congress is not, nor ever has been a "lobby group" in the USA. Our organization is a non-profit corporation strictly involved with humanitarian efforts and activities pertaining to the promotion of Serbian culture and tradition. In addition, as the good Serbian name has been purposely and progressively demeaned and demonized, we had to counter many lies and insidious propaganda with our own information flow.

As for Frau Steinacker, we have a simple and unpleasant message for her and her "goebbelsque" ilk: Our President Lincoln said, ". . . It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." [Alex K. McClure's "Lincoln's Yarns and Stories"]

The thesis of the book is that the German and the American media have conveyed a distorted and untrue picture of the conflict in ex-Yugoslavia. Hence this picture is anti-Serbian. Thanks to clever propaganda as well as the assistance of American public relations firms (Werbeagenturen) and non-governmental organizations, such as the Society for Threatened Peoples (Gesellschaft fur bedrohte Volker), the Croatian and Bosnian government - according to the author - influenced the media, and even the political policy of western governments, in its favor.

What is the author's evidence for this thesis? Is it the official documents, such as the United Nations report on war crimes in former Yugoslavia, the eighteen reports of the UN Special Commissioner Maziowiecki, or the reports of the UHCR?

None of this. The author's sources are the commissions and institutes in Belgrade, which yet have to demonstrate that they are sound. Furthermore, she refers to the American journalist Peter Brock, who in the first issue of Foreign Policy in 1994 has made claims which are similar to the ones Mr Beham puts forth. But Brock's evidence for the alleged one-sidedness of the media was not only disproved. He was also shown, in the Fall 1993, to have proposed a new propaganda strategy to the Unity Herald, the publication of the largest Serbian lobby group in the US, the Serbian Unity Congress (SUC), in order to "correct" the Serbian image in the media. It was above all the Diaspora Serbs who were to play a role in this.

Mira Beham also makes reference to, among others, the Canadian Unprofor general, Lewis MacKenzie, the American intelligence officer, John s. Sray, who was stationed in Bosnia in l994, and a professor from Carleton University in Ottawa (Canada), Carl Gustav Jacobsen.

Since his return to Canada, MacKenzie is on lecture tours paid by the Serbian agency of the SUC, and, like Peter Prock, can be seen in videos that are produced by Serbnet. Each one quotes one another. Professor Jacobson, in an article in the Neue Gesellschaft (New Society) in December 1995, refers to Peter Brock. Sray, in his report which since the end of 1995 is making its course through Internet, refers to MacKenzie and Jacobson. Sray's report, in turn, was being made reference to in far-away Norway by a pro-Serbian publicist on the occasion of a controversy with an expert on the Balkans which was published in the journal Dag of Tid.

These persons have one thing in common: They accuse the western media of being one-sidedly anti-Serbian. At the same time, they deny the responsibility of large sectors of the Serbian elites (government, bureaucracy, army, intellectuals, and the Serbian Orthodox Church) for the events in Croatia and Bosnia in the last four years. By no means do they contest the occurrence of Serbian crimes, but nevertheless relativize them by claiming that they were committed in response to threats of ³Croatian fascism² or ³Muslim fundamentalism" directed against the Serbs. The responsibility and blame for this "civil war" are placed on all the "war parties² involved. They reject the charge of the UN Tribunal at The Hague that genocide was perpetrated against the Muslims of Bosnia.

But independently of the propaganda practiced by all sides, there is a truth, which in the case of the genocide that occurred in Bosnia is being demonstrated by innumerable documents and pieces of evidence. Mira Beham and her allies (Mitstreiter) are attacking this truth. In the German media, there were good and there were bad reports, those who were knowledgeable and those who were not. Altogether, however, most journalists in Germany have tried to achieve a truthful picture, thereby also making a contribution to the search for truth (Wahrheitsfindung). The alleged anti-Serbian attitude of the media is an invention of Serbian propaganda.

According to the chief prosecutor at The Hague, Goldstone, and the Norwegian human rights expert, Hanne Sophie Greve, who is also one of the authors of the UN report on war crimes in former Yugoslavia, truth is the imperative prerequisite for justice and reconciliation in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Nothing else need be added to this.

Gudrun Steinacker is acting departmental director in the [German] Foreign Office [Bonn]. This article reflects her personal view.

*This article appeared in the German weekly Die Zeit, 26 July 1996 and was translated from German.