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CROATIA: MYTH AND REALITY
by C. Michael McAdams
INTRODUCTION
It is often said that truth is the first casualty in war. In June of 1991 war broke out
in Europe for the first time since World War II as Serbia attacked Slovenia and Croatia.
At the same time another war, a war of propaganda and mythology was launched in the world
press. Identical stories surfaced with identical words in different publications and
written by different journalists throughout the war. The attack was two- pronged. One goal
was to tar the fledgling Croatian government with the brush of Fascism, despite the fact
that the President of Croatia was a Partisan war hero who fought against Fascism during
World War II. Another purpose was to mask the reasons for Serbian aggression and to blur
the realities of a war prosecuted solely to gain territory and to maintain centralized
Communism in what was Yugoslavia.
At first the disinformation was limited to the writings of avowed leftists such as
Alexander Cockburn and Serbian apologists like Congresswoman Helen Delich Bentley, David
Martin and Nora Beloff. As the war dragged on from weeks to months, the words and phrases
of Serbian mythology appeared over and over again in an ever widening circle that would
eventually include the editorial pages of such highly respected journals as the Christian
Science Monitor and New York Times. Yet few of the charges and allegations of the campaign
were new. The history of Serbian disinformation can be traced to the origins of Yugoslavia
in 1918.
The Communist Party controlled Tanjug news agency and Television Belgrade continued the
battle that was lost in the diplomatic community as one nation after another recognized a
free and independent Croatia. On November 20, 1991 headlines around the world screamed
"Croatian Militias Slit Throats of 41 Children". Reuters news agency reported:
The children, between 5 and 7 years old, reportedly were found with their throats cut in
the cellar of the kindergarten in Borovo Naselje after Croatian forces abandoned it during
the weekend". The children were, according to the report, all Serbs. This story
demonstrates mythology in the making. It was carried on every electronic network and in
newspapers throughout the world without any form of confirmation.
That the village in question had been under siege for months, that all children had been
evacuated months before, and that obviously no kindergarten classes had been held anywhere
in the war zone for some time did not seem to catch the attention of a single editor. The
following day some papers ran the Reuters retraction in small print after the twenty-two
year Serbian photographer, Goran Mikic, admitted that he had fabricated the story. In
Belgrade, the press never printed the retraction and in fact later cited the non-incident
in its news coverage as a part of its propaganda campaign against Croatia. Propaganda is
defined as information and opinions, especially prejudiced ones, spread to influence
people in favor of or against some doctrine or idea. Myth is defined as an old traditional
story or legend. Mythology represents a body of myths.
Over the past seventy years a great deal of propaganda has become mythology with a life of
its own, growing and changing with each retelling. Myths were not only resurrected and
embellished by propagandists, but by well-intended journalists and others attempting to
understand and to justify the Serbian wars of aggression. Regardless of the motivation of
those who repeat the myths, the result is always the same. Another generation is
introduced to the mythology created to keep the Croatian nation in bondage. Some myths are
new, others are very old. The myth of the forty- one children reported on one day and
retracted the next will no doubt find its way into some history book, somewhere, as fact.
It will become a part of the negative mythology or "black legend" that casts its
shadow on the Croatian nation. On the following pages both the established myths and
merging myths will be explored and exposed to reality. Some have simple explanations,
others are more complex. Some are gruesome, and distasteful. This monograph is intended to
shed light, not heat and to bring the myths from the shadows into the realm of reality.
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