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27 12 2005 In response to: Protest to the Guardian Over “Correction” to Noam Chomsky Interview(BI No. 15, 22-Dec-05) and Focus: Chomsky Interview Controversy by Alison Freebairn (BI No. 15, 23-Dec-05)
Are Alison Freebairn and the signatories to the "Protest to the Guardian" embarking on a witch-hunt?
The first paragraph of this "protest" tries to convince us that Mrs Johnstone is denying the Srebrenica massacre. I don't have the original edition of her book, but I have under my eyes the French translation (La Croisade des fous, Le Temps des Cerises, 2005). Johnstone puts quotation marks around "Srebrenica massacre" not because she implies it was not a real massacre, but because she is quoting the ICTY, like she is doing for the words "command responsibility" one line above. When she writes that Muslims "fled Srebrenica" and "made it to safety in Muslim territory", again, she is quoting the ICRC which was looking for a part of the Srebrenica survivors, but she is not at all meaning that all people from Srebrenica reached safely "Muslim territory". Finally, I don't see, in the French edition, any mention of 199 Muslims allegedly killed in cold blood by Serbs.
On paragraph 4, concerning the "misrepresentation" of the Trnopolje camp by ITN, it is not true that “Living Marxism's claim was proven to be false in a British court of law". The court that sentenced the LM magazine (not Living Marxism) did not issue any opinion about the facts (were refugees behind or in front of barbed wires?), but considered that ITN did not deliver this representation with the purpose of deceiving the public.
So, this smear campaign against Mrs Johnstone (and Mr. Chomsky) seems to rely basically on half truths and manipulated quotations. When I appreciate informative articles, like this one by Jeta Xharra on security, I am sorry that your magazine plays this kind of dirty game and I hope you will give the chance to Mrs Johnstone to
also give her point of view.
Regards,
Georges Berghezan
At the beginning of 2010 BIRN network published Digging Deeper - A Guide for Investigative Journalists in the Balkans, written in cooperation with Sheila Coronel, Director of the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism and professor of professional practice at Columbia University, New York.
