The Washington Post
(Editorial Page)
21 July 1992
From remarks by Yugoslav Crown Prince Alexander yesterday on
ABC's "Good Morning America"
"Our problem was that under the reign of Tito, we were the pretty face
of communism, the buffer against the Soviet Union and the satellites' access
to the Mediterranean. And today you have the successors who are in power;
mainly in Milosevic and Tudjman, who are using super nationalism to their
ends, who have used propaganda machines, for example, Belgrade TV, Croatian
TV, the apparatus, to maintain their power base, and all the games that
are going on.
And the West has accepted these people initially. Now (British) Foreign
Minister Douglas Hurd visited the former Yugoslavia and he made a point
to visit with the leaders of the democratic movement.
This is a new beginning, but this should have taken place a long time
ago because it would have given a balanced view.
Everybody is to blame in this conflict. I don't think you can apportion
it to one single side. You can apportion it maybe to collective madness.
The whole history of the area is, of course, quite tragic. But if people
are continuously reminded by propaganda machines of their religion, their
ethnic origin, and then the bully factor comes in, that if don't toe the
line, we'll come and do some nasty things to you. This is the horror of
it, that the pressure is on the people, and the people only have access
to limited objective media. You see, in Serbia, only about 20 percent of
the people view objective media. The rest of the country is subjected to
a propaganda machine. And the same thing in Croatia. This is the tragedy
of it."
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