YUGOSLAVIA: THE AVOIDABLE WAR: INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE BOGDANICH

New York based documentary filmmaker George Bogdanich has created a masterfully researched and overwhelmingly persuasive documentary indicting Western interference in fomenting civil war and fracturing of the former Yugoslavia, in "Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War." But apparently unavoidable was controversy and backlash for this son of a Gary, Indiana steelworker, when the documentary turned up this past February 18th at the Hague Tribunal, as part of a defense presentation by Slobodan Milosevic.
I met with Bogdanich to talk about the ensuing chain of events, including a 2/20 NY Times news article about the surprise trial appearance of the film. The publication of the article was quickly followed by an abrupt termination of the Hargrove Entertainment film distributor's Microsoft Internet service without adequate explanation, and balking by the theater set to show the documentary in NYC, with an eventual change of heart after some persuasion.
Bogdanich, who got his start in filmmaking at the progressive Chicago collective Kartemquin Films with labor documentaries like Last Pullman Car, is no stranger to uphill battles when it comes to controversial subjects and he seems more than up to the task. Yugoslavia: An Avoidable War was also named the Best Social Documentary at the Independent International Film and Video Festival in New York City.

How did you come to be a filmmaker?

GEORGE BOGDANICH: I got involved in documentary filmmaking back in the '70s, with a Chicago based documentary group Kartemquin Films, doing stories about labor struggles. I was interested in following different social issues.
And when the war in the former Yugoslavia broke out, I made a short documentary called Truth Is The Victim In Bosnia. It's about the propaganda war that was going on between the warring sides.
It was a short film, but we got some attention at some film festivals, and on Dutch television. And that gave us the idea of doing a longer, more comprehensive look at what was at stake in the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.

Why did that interest you as a film subject?

GB: I know a fair amount about the history there, and I have some relatives in the region. I traveled there a number of times. And I felt there was a disparity between what I had observed, and what I was seeing on the six o'clock news. Everything, the newspapers too, seem to be lacking in historical grounding and in perspective. Far too much attention was being paid to the local actors in the breakup of Yugoslavia.
But what makes this story different, let's say, from what's going with the Basques in Spain, is the fact that the Western powers recognized diplomatically and supported separatists in Yugoslavia. And with Western countries recognizing first Slovenia, and then Croatia and Bosnia, you had a formula for disaster. And it's that history that we looked at very carefully.

Who is this film for, and what do you want to achieve with it?

GB: We're trying to get the American public to think about intervention in civil wars. And not to merely go along with what is being promoted by the White House. I think that part of democracy is having an educated public that has some skepticism about intervention in the civil war in Yugslavia.
What was happening in Yugoslavia was clearly ethnic tension. But we believe it was a war that could have been avoided if the US and Germany in particular, had taken leadership roles and played the honest broker. Rather than providing arms and intelligence support for armed separatists.
The prevailing view is that the US came in and solved the problem. It's simply false. What happened in Bosnia, in fact, was that the US persuaded the European countries to recognize Bosnia at a time when no agreement had been worked out with any other group there. The Europeans were very skeptical, but the US pressed very hard. Then the European Union recognized Bosnia on April 6, 1982. And that same day, the war broke out in earnest.

Do you feel your own ethnic background has an influence over the film?

GB: Well, you have to see where you're basically coming from. I'm an American and a journalist first. My family has roots in the Balkans, my grandparents were Serb Christians from Croatia. But for this film we basically relied on testimony from people of real stature, and well placed observers or inside participants in the conflict.
In that way, we looked to the diplomatic players who were there, and who could be objective. And there are a number of amazing admissions. So that's the way we worked around the issue.

Were you surprised that Milosevic referred to your documentary in his trial?

GB: Milosevic will use whatever resources he can. He also showed a German TV documentary about the pretext for the US bombing. As it turns out, there are real questions about the initial version of events, which made it sound like a massacre of civilians.
In fact, all except three of the bodies found showed indications that they were armed and firing weapons. And two French reporters had come along with the Yugoslav troops, and typically troops that are about to commit a massacre don't invite reporters along.
What they found was that the town was empty on that day. But once they reached the
center of this village, they were fired upon by KLA Albanian separatist forces from the mountains. A pitched battle took place outside of town. And we had reporters on the scene that disputed the evidence.
So this is one of the segments that the Milosevic defense team used. They also showed a few scenes from my film that dealt with some of the early stages of the war. But we felt that we have a very comprehensive film that lays responsiblity for the tragedy on many different factors.

You've had some ensuing problems with censorship against your film since it was shown at the trial. What is your reaction to that, and do you feel that censorship against your film is rooted in the same kind of Western media disinformation campaign you bring to light in the film?

GB: I think what you're referring to is a distributor who has worked with us, Peter Hargrove. He found that his Microsoft Internet account was abruptly terminated after information about use of my film at the Milosevic trial appeared in a NY Times news article.

We've had this problem as well at my radio station, WBAI. Some of the on air producers have had their Internet sites dealing with issues in Cuba, Colombia and Northern Ireland shut down, following approval of the repressive Patriot Bill. This seems to be a growing pattern in this country.

GB: It is a little scary. I mean, this is supposed to be a country where free speech is paramount, and these are disturbing stories. And we have to be vigilant. Having access to a press and a variety of free speech outlets, is essential to a democracy. And in particular when it comes to foreign policy issues, there's an unfortunate conformity in a lot of their reporting.


This film could easily stand as a legal brief in itself in any trial, regarding crimes against Yugoslavia. You make the "how" more than clear. But could you talk a little about the "why" of the determined and forceful breakup of a nation, including Western corporate designs to acquire and privatize socialist industries in the Balkans. And also the US "Silk Road" legislation, envisioning the Balkans as a pipeline route from the oil rich Caspian Sea to Western Europe?

GB: Well, these are certainly considerations. One of the things we point out in the film, is that it was essentially a step backward, the breakup of Yugslavia. Instead of having a unified country that could deal from a position of strength with outside powers, now you have a group of very dependent little statelets.
And they're begging for any kind of commercial activity, and begging for loans to be forgiven, things like that. So it's a reversion to the way the Balkans were before Yugoslavia was put together following WW I. So this is going to be a dangerous period, and there are obviously companies always trying to make a buck.


We're seeing that in the context of this "Silk Road" legislation, as with it coming to light through recently released documents that the scandal ridden Enron is involved as well. Enron pressed then Texas governor George Bush to use influence to effect this envisioned Caspian pipeline through the Balkans, with Romania as an oil refining way station along a route, all the way to Rotterdam. But getting back to your film, are you braced for the challenge of facing official scorn, derision and attempted discrediting efforts in response to some your inflammatory revelations?

GB: Well, there is no way to make an omelet without breaking an egg. I'm sure some feathers will be ruffled. The truth, you know, always has that effect. But I think Americans deserve a critical look at what this country has done, and what the results are. Instead of the kind of columns I've been seeing recently about American foreign policies, that are filled with self-congratulation.

There's a new feature film, Harrison's Flowers, which dramatizes the victimization of Western journalists in war torn Yugoslavia, but doesn't say why they're so increasingly resented on foreign soil. What are your thoughts?

GB: The reporters that go out there are like that, are putting their lives in harm's way. My wife was a war correspondent, she workd for the Swedish news service. And she was wounded by a grenade in Croatia. It was in a town run by a notorious warlord. And she's told stories about how she barely survived getting past roadblocks. So it's not easy.
But I think those reporters are poorly served by editors who seldom question the government line. And unfortunately, some of the bigger news organizations often seem like extensions of the US State Department. And I think it's a disservice to those reporters who are out there risking their lives, that they are expected to hew to the conformist line, in the prevailing orthodoxy from Washington DC.

What are you up to next?

GB: There's a feature we're putting together about the Croatian born inventor and scientist, Nikola Tesla. He's the person who harnessed AC, alternating current, that runs just about everything we use these days.
Tesla was in competition with Thomas Edison, who for all his fame and many inventions, was relying on DC [direct current], which was eventually abandoned because it couldn't run our lighting system, and our industrial power and so on.
This was all happening in New York City. And Tesla was part of a group that included some of the literary lights of New York City at the time. Mark Twain was a regular visitor, and others like that.
So that's an interesting story from around the turn of the last century. They called it the war of the currents. And you had big players like JP Morgan betting on both horses, and people like Westinghouse involved.

That sounds like a different kind of war film! Do you feel movies have a role to play in transforming human thinking and changing history, and is there a role for the documentary filmmaker in correcting disinformation and enlightening people?

GB: I think documentaries have a certain power that is different, even than the written word. I've been told by one writer on the same subject as my film, that it took a viewing of my documentary to persuade some of her friends of events covered in her book.
So pictures have a certain evidentiary value that make them important in telling and documenting a story. So yes, there's got to be a role for documentaries. Even though we tend to get some weird time slots at the movie theaters!