Some bits of info

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Some bits of info are just too choice not to share with you. They say so much about this city.

You may remember that back during the Balkan Wars one of the contested spaces was the part of Croatia called the Krajina. This was essentially an ethnic Serb enclave within the borders of Croatia and as you might imagine this became a volatile crisis point in the fighting between Serbs and Croats. In any case, United Nations peace-keepers were sent into the region in the beginning of 1992 to maintain the peace. And did a reasonably good, though by no means perfect, job at it.

For a while, the matter was thus placed in suspense, until 1995 when then-Croatian President Franjo Tudjman gave the UN Mission an ultimatum to leave. Eventually the Croatians rolled in and retook the region with some quite ugly consequences.

But not, it turns out, without a good media strategy!

In an agreement signed on February 24th, 1993 the Washington foreign lobbying shop of Jefferson Waterman International agreed to help the Croatians deal with whatever bad press might ensue from reasserting their ethnic rights in the region. For instance, according to the proposal JWI submitted to the Croatian government, they advised …

“Should the time come when it is necessary for Croatia forcefully to assert control over Croatian territory currently hosting a United Nations presence, a wave of criticism must be anticipated and countered. The groundwork to justify such actions should be laid now, not after the fact.”

also

“A number of articles and individuals have articulated the viewpoint that both Croatia and Serbia are to blame for the current carnage, and that both are conspiring to carve up Bosnia. This viewpoint must not be allowed to go unchallenged.”

Even ethnic cleansing needs a good PR campaign.

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