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===*=== ILUSTROVANA POLITIKA (Belgrade, Yugoslavia), Issue 2197, February 24, 2001 Who is Florence Hartmann-Domankusic? Her favorite word is sanctions! Few people know that this Frenchwoman, now the spokeswoman of Carla del Ponte, lived and worked for a long time in Belgrade as the correspondent of the Paris "Le Monde". Her "favorable reporting" on Yugoslavia in the past earned her the withdrawal of her reporter's accreditation by Ozren MILANOVIC In the past we have been threatened with sanctions by countries, international organizations and military alliances... Now we are being threatened by a woman who is the press representative to a prosecutor: Florence Hartmann-Domankusic, a Frenchwoman, the spokeswoman to Carla del Ponte, an Italian, in a court located in Holland. Like an angry Smurf, at press conferences held every day she lifts her finger and points at the southeast of Europe: "The Yugoslav government must not delay extradition of persons accused of war crimes. This preparation of a law on cooperation with the international tribunal seems like a bid to buy time. If cooperation doesn't begin within the foreseeable future, we will request the reinstatement of sanctions against Yugoslavia. Some of those sanctions were only temporarily suspended anyway until we see what the new government is going to do." Deafened by threats, frequently we don't put much effort into figuring out who is threatening us and why. Warning from Paris Dr. Marisa Marie Matei of the Paris "Teleobjektif" recently wrote an open letter of warning to the Serbian media: "How is it possible that no one has bothered to investigate Florence Hartmann-Domankusic's methods of work during the time that she was "Le Monde's" correspondent in Belgrade? To what extent she is objective and neutral, and consequently, the Hague tribunal as well, can best be seen by her articles on Gospic and Vukovar (a city whose residents were 67 percent Serb before it was taken over by Croat Tomislav Mercep) before the bombing, as well as on Marin Selo and Pakracka Poljana, Paulin Dvor... while at the same time she searched Vojvodina with a magnifying glass looking to find a Croatian victim somewhere; and when she would find one, she would show all her foreign reporter colleagues whom she personally met and "joined" regularly at Belgrade Airport after learning of their arrival from her husband, one of the airport's directors. Isn't it strange that the file on the murder of Serbs in Gospic in 1991 disappeared from the tribunal archives at the same time that Mrs. Hartmann-Domankusic became Carla del Ponte's press assistant?" Mrs. Matei has a point; in the West, one's previous work is a very important determinant to one's further career. The fact that it is possible among the Serbs for someone to say and do one thing today and then to change it all tomorrow, the fact that our memories are short and we forget things quickly says more about us than about others. But let's take a look whether it is indeed Florence Hartmann-Domankusic who is threatening us with sanctions for lack of something better to do or whether there's more going on than meets the eye. This 37 year-old lady, who carries a French passport, received her first identity card for foreigners in Belgrade on June 2, 1989 as the wife of Engineer Emil Domankusic, employed at Belgrade Airport in Surcin. Emil is the son of General Stjepan Domankusic, a native of Slobodnica near Slavonski Brod /Croatia/, who served as deputy chief of the Security Department of the State Defense Council, who as a counter-intelligence officer was known in certain circles by the codename of Omega. Half a year later, on January 1, 1990, Florance Hartmann-Domankusic became employed by the Paris paper "Le Monde" and immediately became its correspondent in Belgrade. Then 26 years old, she was nevertheless a beginner in the difficult and responsible role of correspondent from a volatile region such as our own. She submitted a request for permanent accreditation to the Federal Ministry of Information and very quickly received a positive response thus becoming on April 20 of the same year an accredited correspondent of this influential French newspaper. On her application for accreditation she stated that she had been living in Belgrade since 1985 and that she spoke Serbian, Croatian, Italian, Spanish and English which in addition to her native French was a very decent number and a good recommendation for the whole world. At that time she stated that she was born in the small town of Neville on the Seine while later she would say she was born in Paris. Since accreditation must be renewed every two years, on the next application she filled out she stated that she had been living in Belgrade since 1987. Her "position" Her first articles in "Le Monde" hardly require reading between the lines and are clearly the work of an author with a predetermined "position". Thus, according to Florance Hartmann-Domankusic's writing, the Serbs occupied a third of Croatian territory, were illegally armed and (the still unrecognized republic of Croatia) needed to crush the ultranationalists relentlessly if it wanted to join Europe. Of course, readers of "Le Monde" could not learn from her articles that these Serbs were native to the region, that they had lived here for centuries, that they owned houses and property there, and that they did not come here from Serbia to occupy someone else's land. In her articles at that time, the Yugoslav People's Army, in which her father-in-law Stjepan held a truly enviable position, was written in quotation marks because it was not considered to be really Yugoslav. And when generals were replaced, Serbs and non-Serbs alike, she immediately interpreted this as a form of ethnic cleansing without bothering to mention who had worked for whom, who had spied, revealed state secrets or simply failed to follow orders. She was among the first to rush to Hrtkovce, a village in Srem, and to call what occurred there (a clash between Serb refugees from Croatia and Hrtkovce Croats) "the shame of Serbia". "The Croats of Hrtkovac fear for their lives. They are being threatened. Especially at night. Franjo Bericevic and his family are preparing to leave and go anywhere while the Maglic sisters have already left the house they have taken years to build... Mobilization is purposely being conducted here. They want to force the Croats into the Serbian Army and send them to the Croatian front line," wrote Florance Hartmann-Domankusic at the time, calling the Hrtkovce case "an attempt to frighten and expel all Croats from Serbia". She did not mention the fact, discovered at just about the same time, that prior to this, 32 young Croatian men from this village had gone and signed up for the Croatian National Guard. When clashes began in Bosnia, Zvornik was "liberated" from the Serbian paramilitaries, according to Hartmann. The cry to the world that Serbia must end its aggression against "Bosnia" had the same effect as the previous "occupation" by local Serbs of their own villages in Croatia. "The Muslims want a multiethnic, democratic Bosnia; the Serbs want to make it a part of a Greater Serbia"; this sentence in the influential "Le Monde" was a special message for the world. "Civilization of lies" Florence Hartmann-Domankusic then quoted a survey which she conducted herself and proved that "if the Serbs in Bosnia continue in the same fashion, they won't last for more than a few months. Their imaginary fairy tale will collapse like a house of cards". She predicted the same thing for the Serbs in Serbia. The name of Slobodan Milosevic was always linked with the attributes of strongman and butcher... She wrote that the opposition was weak and powerless and upheld the Greater Serbian aspirations of the strongman. She wrote in her newspaper about the young people and students who rebelled on March 9, 1991 that "even though they rebelled, the majority of them represent captives of a civilization of lies". And here is how she proved it: "Surveys show," she wrote, "that 40 percent of those surveyed blindly believe everything they see on state television news broadcasts. And a far greater number believe that the isolation of Serbia is the result of a world conspiracy against this nation, not the result of Serbian nationalist policies which resulted in bloody clashes in the region of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia." She said the following about the "other side": "The Bosnian Territorial Defense only ordered a blockade of JNA barracks and their disarmament...And then the Yugoslav media jumped to the following conclusion: Bosnia and Herzegovina has declared war on the JNA." When the United Nations debated whether to allow imports into Serbia for humanitarian reasons, she opposed it with her commentary: "By doing so the UN would agree to feed the propaganda apparatus of Slobodan Milosevic which, according to the commission of the world organization for human rights, played a primary role in spreading nationalist hate." In her 1993 interview with the commander of the Yugoslav Air Force at the time, General Bozidar Stevanovic, Florence Hartmann-Domankusic said that "the bombing of Serbia" was not excluded and asked whether his air force were ready to defend the country. Caught off guard, the general thought a bit and replied: "We are ready to defend ourselves but I don't believe that this could ever happen. Should it happen, there would be heavy casualties on both sides." Among the first world reporters to start calling Croatia a country before its recognition, she also rushed to be the first to call Bosnia a country before its formal recognition in the United Nations. In an interview with Ibrahim Rugova she was full of praise for him and called him a cosmopolitan, tolerant and a democrat at heart. Our protest "Le Monde" is read by few people in Serbia and consequently her articles drew more attention in France and the rest of the world than at home. Thus among the first to react was Nedeljka Gluscevic of the Yugoslav Cultural Center in Paris, who had the opportunity to see and to read every issue of "Le Monde", and who addressed our officials and influential institutions both officially and unofficially, pointing out the malice in the writing of the correspondent from Belgrade. Mrs. Gluscevic's comments were also echoed by many Serbs living abroad, Serbian cultural clubs and various organizations. Many letters of protest were sent directly to "Le Monde" but very few of them passed, in shortened form, through the editorial sieve. In several direct responses to the writers of those letters, "Le Monde" defended itself citing freedom of the press, everyone's right to their own opinion and so on. It was as a result of these complaints by Serbs living abroad that the federal information minister at the time, Slobodan Ignjatovic, refused to renew Florence Hartmann's accreditation in April of 1994. According to one version, when she filed for another two-year renewal of her accreditation her application was simply rejected; this corresponds with the date her accreditation was originally issued - April 1990 - and renewed for the first time - April 1992. Thus in April 1994, however it happened, Florence Hartmann-Domankusic was denied the right to continue reporting from Belgrade. Three years later, in May 1997, she told the Belgrade magazine "Intervju" that she had been denied the right to stay in the country which is not true. "The withdrawal of accreditation, in fact, meant automatic expulsion from the country because most foreign correspondents are non-citizens and their right to stay in the country depends on their reporter's accreditation. My life in Belgrade was not based only on journalism. I also had the legal right to stay in the country on the basis of marriage with a Yugoslav citizen. Nevertheless, the Belgrade authorities refused to allow me to return to the country where I had lived for eight years and where two of my children who also had Yugoslav citizenship were going to school. Four months after I was expelled I was allowed to return for 15 days under the condition that I report to the Federal Ministry of Information and sign a decision according to which I couldn't work according to Article 130-something of the Criminal Code which was generally used against Albanians and similar 'terrorists' because I allegedly conducted activities detrimental to Yugoslavia's imagine in the world. I didn't sign because I didn't feel it applied to me." We found no trace regarding her expulsion in the above-cited ministry but in the meanwhile, the "terrorists" have come to be called that by the entire world - with the exception of Florence Hartmann-Domankusic. A year after her "expulsion", that is, in 1995, Engineer Emil Domankusic resigned from his job at Belgrade Airport and moved out of the country. His apartment in Svetozara Corovica Street, which served as "Le Monde's" office, was sold, as was the other apartment he received a while ago in Karnegijeva Street. Through the Internet we discovered that he is now employed as one of directors of an airport in East Timor. Let's work together That Florence Hartmann-Domankusic liked to help her colleagues from abroad is proven by numerous collaborative reports from our region. Thus she visited Prevlaka with the female correspondent of "The Financial Times" and visited Vukovar and many other places with another female correspondent. In an interview with the magazine "Intervju" in May 1997, she said: "I never went after the scoop. I always shared information. If you work together, you collect more data. Besides, you cross-reference and compare information, you weigh different positions, you have access to more sources; all of this is necessary, especially in conditions under which it is difficult for reporters to work. I was frequently in dangerous situations and it is always better to be with someone then. For example, another female correspondent and I discovered Ovcara in November 1992. Before that the only information that was available was that there was a mass grave near Vukovar. And nothing more. No one wanted to say who the victims were." So it is thanks to Florence Hartmann-Domankusic that the story of Ovcara was heard around the world, that is, the Serbs were accused of conducting mass executions of Croats. Much later ,by the time the truth was finally revealed and it was discovered that the victims were, in fact, Serbs, Croats, Russians and Slovaks killed during the maelstrom of war, that they had been buried there due to fear of disease, and that their number was hundreds of times less than initially speculated, Florence Hartmann-Domankusic was no longer working for "Le Monde". Two years ago in Paris she published a book, "Milosevic: The Diagonal Moves of a Pawn", but did not get the publicity and earnings she expected. In the book her treatment of this politician is to accuse him of everything ugly that has happened in the Balkans in the last decade. However, this turned out to be just the ticket to get into the Hague tribunal. As an expert of Milosevic, she became the spokeswoman of Carla del Ponte last autumn - suddenly and to the surprise of many because the position did not previously exist. Louise Arbour, Carla del Ponte's predecessor, did not have a spokesperson. Many liked the charming and pleasant way in which the new official, Florence Hartmann, who quietly ignored the second surname of Domankusic still in her passport, rolled her "r's" when speaking either Serbian and Croatian, according to need. When she began to lecture President Kostunica and to threaten the entire nation with sanctions, Dr. Marisa Marie Matei of "Teleobjektif" spoke up to reveal who she was and to express doubts concerning the expedient disappearance of the Hague file on the Serbs massacred in Gospic ten years ago. At the same time in Croatia, 33 year-old retired general Mirko Norac, a former waiter from Sinj, is facing The Hague for crimes committed in Gospic ten years ago when he swore he was only accountable to Maks Luburic and no one else. Norac is now in hiding somewhere in Herzegovina, demonstrators in Croatia are preventing his departure to The Hague, declaring him to be a national hero, and the Croatian press is speculating that the secret file against him was "discovered" in time and that he was advised to "disappear". It would be interesting to hear Florence Hartmann-Domankusic comment on "the Norac case". She might start by explaining why she is not demanding that Croatia extradite him and why she is not threatening the country with sanctions if it fails to do so. This would be an objective and unbiased gesture on the part of the spokesman of an unbiased court. Anything else might be differently interpreted. Translated by S. Lazovic (May 31, 2001) /NOTE: After disappearing for two weeks, Mirko Norac turned himself in to Croatian authorities on Feb. 21, 2001 "after the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague said it would not attempt to try him" (BBC, Feb. 22). He and four Croats have been indicted for war crimes against Serb civilians by a Croatian court./ ****** HARTMANN: BELGRADE SHOULD FULFILL ITS OBLIGATIONS HAGUE, April 10 (Beta) - The Hague-based International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) spokesperson Florence Hartmann told BETA on April 9, that the Belgrade authorities should recognize and fulfill their obligations in respect to full and permanent cooperation with the ICTY. "Things are very simple. Obligations, which Yugoslavia must respect as a member of the UN, derive from the statute of the ICTY," Hartmann said regarding announcements from Belgrade that a law on cooperation with the ICTY could be adopted soon. "The cooperation should be full and constant. We expect that Belgrade will recognize and fulfill its obligations and that it will not create new obstacles to full cooperation and fulfilling all ICTY's orders, either now or in the future," said Hartmann. DRAFT YUGOSLAV LAW ON COOPERATION WITH THE HAGUE UNACCEPTABLE, HARTMANN WASHINGTON, April 9 (Tanjug) - Spokesperson for the chief prosecutor of The Hague tribunal Florence Hartmann said that the draft Yugoslav law on cooperation with that tribunal was unacceptable. Hartmann told the Voice of America that for now as it has been represented, with the details that are know, the law is unacceptable. Pointing out that Yugoslavia has its obligations and must comply with them, Hartmann said that there can be no conditioning with the law, there cannot be a difference in treatment under such a law, because then some would be extradited to The Hague, and some others would not be out of arbitrary and unknown reasons, so that conditioning is absolutely unacceptable and as whole does not observe obligations, or the primacy of obligations that exist in the Statute of The Hague tribunal. Hartmann recalled that the tribunal prosecution has on a number of occasions established that such a law is not necessary and that they work under the Statute of the tribunal and will continue to demand from Yugoslavia to fulfill its obligations under the Statute of the tribunal. --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
