CBS Report Criticized
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica's office on Thursday disputed CBS News reports that quoted him as acknowledging atrocities committed in Kosovo under the government of his predecessor, Slobodan Milosevic.
The complaint concerns an interview on 60 Minutes II by CBS News Correspondent Scott Pelley and a report on the interview published on this Web site.
CBS News defends its report.
Tanjug news agency says Ljiljana Nedeljkovic, head of Kostunica's cabinet, wrote a letter to the president of CBS News criticizing the way the network carried the interview, saying Kostunica's reply to a question had been taken out of context.
It was a sign of how sensitive the issue of war crimes committed during the violent collapse of old socialist Yugoslavia remains after the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic, indicted in 1999 by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague.
The interview was considered the first time a Yugoslav leader publicly acknowledged that Yugoslav forces committed widespread killings in Kosovo last year.
Milosevic, who was forced from office this month, never admitted wrongdoing in Kosovo or former Yugoslav republics where he helped instigate armed conflicts.
Kostunica, considered a nationalist in his own right, came to power accusing Milosevic of ruinous policies that harmed many nations in the region, including Serbs.
In the interview on CBS, released Monday, Kostunica was asked if there was any doubt that the Yugoslav army and police were guilty of genocide in Kosovo.
"Well, the situation in the Yugoslav army was something different. There were so-called paramilitary forces that exist even today. But those are the crimes and the people that have been killed are victims," Kostunica responded, adding: "I must say also there are a lot of crimes on the other side and the Serbs have been killed."
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In the letter to CBS, Nedeljkovic demanded an explanation for what she described as the "unprofessional and unethical behavior of your company"relating to the Kostunica interview.
She complained that the television crew had recorded an interview lasting around 100 minutes but had broadcast only a few minutes and "the president's reply to only one question in that interview, and that being taken out of the context."
The president's office specifically protested excerpts of the interview released on this Web site a day before the broadcast.
That contained "a series of untruths and words which President Kostunica did not use," his office said.
Given the huge amount of publicity the CBS broadcast received in other media, it "could have inflicted much political damage to the president and the forces leading the democratization in Yugoslavia," the statement said.
Kostunica's office said Thursday it felt "compelled to demand an explanation regarding the unprofessional and unethical behavior of your company in connection with the interview."
CBS News spokeswoman Kelli Edwards says, "Our report was absolutely fair and accurate. We asked all the questions that needed to be asked and that were foremost in everyone's mind, among them the fate of Slobodan Milosevic."
Pelley says the story was edited to concentrate on whether Kostunica would move against Milosevic and whether he acknowledged war crimes.
"He was very evasive, particularly on the Milosevic question," Pelley explains. "We had to go back to him again and again and again to get a straight answer."
Pelley believes the interview, as aired, was "absolutely fair." And he says he wasn't surprised by Kostunica's statement criticizing CBS.
"He is trying to stabilize a government with enemies conspiring all around him. When he took the courageous steps to be frank in our interview, I think he knew that telling the truth was going to cause trouble for him."
"One way to look at the letter might be that it provides him with some cover at home, back in Serbia, because he said some things in our interview that were very hard for Serbians to hear," Pelley notes.