MILOSEVIC, HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE NEW YORK TIMES
For some generations now, American diplomacy has attempted to focus on human rights. Now, there is a dearth of outstanding American diplomats and a public which has other interests on their mind. For example, while much of the European press spends column after column on the Balkans, and now the genocide trials in The Hague, as far as the American press is concerned, he current problems of human rights, in Kosovo, Serbia, Croatia and now at the International Court at the Hague, are limited to a few sound bites, and some human interest stories of horror, survivors, and the desire for revenge in that region. It is therefore up to the nation's leading newspapers, like the New York TIMES, to provide more details and consistent coverage for the few who are truly interested and involved. In following some stories about Slobodan Milosevic and the entire genocide problems in the Balkan regions in the New York TIMES one can come to grips with the fact that American involvement is, at best peripheral (aside from troops sent to keep peace in Kosovo many months ago). It is obvious in reading a number of articles in the TIMES that the concern featured in the vast majority of stories is with the leaders, like Milosevic and others, and not their followers who are as guilty of murder and human rights violations as the leaders they followed. In a sense, the American public is not vitally concerned, since there is at least a wide expanse of land and ocean separating Kosovo, Serbia, and Croatia and Albania from the U.S. mainland.
In beginning this overview of some of the TIMES articles on human rights violations and the eventual trials, there hangs this feeling of secondary importance about the entire subject. From the first article utilized in this assessment of TIMES articles and news stories, written in 1999 it is obvious that even the Clinton administration sent in a "second team"- in thi...