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At War in Yugoslavia:
Seeking Perspective Through Technology

(Published in the TechEdge, 1998-99)

by Wesley A. Fryer
www.wesfryer.com

 

The military actions launched by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in late March, 1999, against the government of Serbia were the first in world history to prompt widespread email reporting from the front lines. Unlike the Gulf war of 1990, when press reporting was highly regulated and censored, the conflict in the Balkans presents opportunities for actual participants and observers to communicate with the world via the internet. When the Serbian government closed down the radio transmitter of station B92 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia’s most respected source of independent news, B92 immediately shifted its reporting from radio broadcasts to webcasts via a server located in Amsterdam (http://www.b92.net/).1 The voices of friends and foes, attackers and victims, can now be heard as never before from the front lines of conflict thanks to telecommunications networks and computers.

From an educational standpoint, these same technologies provide opportunities for teachers to access current curriculum materials absent from textbooks adopted on a 5 year cycle. These resources include a wealth of textual information, but also include gripping photographs, interactive maps, sound clips, and movies. By accessing these materials, students are afforded the chance to read and consider viewpoints of individuals and groups not given a substantial voice in the mainstream Western media. This article presents a series of lesson ideas and internet resources which can be used to teach students about the continuing conflict in the Balkan peninsula. Links to referenced resources and printable lesson handouts are available at http://www.wtvi.com/teks/yugoslavia.

Considering Other Perspectives
Citizens of the United States as well as other countries have not historically enjoyed a significant amount of choice in selecting their news sources. While there are a multitude of newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and television stations, most of these media outlets rely on the wire services and other shared producers of raw news material. As a result, the US media is relatively monolithic in its presentation of current events. Dissident views might be aired from time to time, but not consistently. One result is that citizens who rely strictly on what major television networks report during the evening news may not obtain a balanced perspective on a pending crisis, such as the one in Yugoslavia. In the extreme, some critics maintain that the media is used by the US government and commercial elites as a propaganda tool and means to manufacture consent for public policy.2

Most Americans following US involvement in the NATO military campaign against Serbia are aware of announced US objectives to stop “ethnic cleansing” in Yugoslavia and prevent Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic from becoming “another Adolf Hitler.” Many Americans are NOT aware, however, of the scale of the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo compared to other international emergencies, like the Rwandan genocide of 1994.3 Similarly, many people may not be aware of the manner in which the United States bypassed the United Nations charter (using NATO to initiate airstrikes against Serbia), potentially undermining the legitimacy and role of the UN in international conflict resolution.

Thanks to the internet, teachers and students can access alternative perspectives such as these when studying a current conflict like the war in Yugoslavia. An example of this is provided on CNN Interactive’s webpage, “Where Countries Stand” (http://www.cnn.com/interactive/specials/9903/kosovo.flashmap/content.html). This webpage, which requires a “Shockwave” plug-in (http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/), features an interactive map showing countries (at the time of creation) supporting or opposing NATO military action against Serbia. When the mouse moves over a country, a quotation from a respective national leader is displayed in the lower right corner of the map. The quotation for the United States, made by President Bill Clinton, is “...The dangers of acting are outweighed by the dangers of allowing this conflict to continue.” The quotation for South Africa, a nation opposed to the military campaign, is “The erosion of the United Nations Charter and the authority of the UN Security Council cannot be tolerated by the international community.” Resources like this interactive map are essential tools for educators “seeking perspective through technology” in the war in Yugoslavia.

Many voices of people directly involved in the Balkan conflict are also accessible online thanks to email. This note was sent by an ethnic Albanian correspondent in Kosovo in a March 29, 1999 message: "When darkness comes, I will have to leave my home again and find some place to hide...I will take my blanket, stay awake the whole night and hope not to hear a knock on the door. I'll listen to the roar of the jets, the anti-aircraft guns, the machine guns, and the shouting. Every shot sounds to me as if it's coming from the direction of my home. It fills me with a killing fear."4 Personal quotations like this one can help students relate more personally to the events they are studying, and potentially avoid obtaining a one-sided viewpoint.

On the topic of viewpoints, the Serbian government is certainly one actor in this conflict which is not afforded many opportunities to share their opinions in the Western press. Serbian perspectives are just a few mouse clicks away, however, at the Serbia Info-News website (http://www.serbia-info.com/). Articles here include titles like “Concern, cynicism and hypocrisy - German Defence Minister says the captured American soldiers enjoy immunity according to UN rules, forgetting that according those very same rules they did not have the right to come to Yugoslavia.”5 This headline would certainly not be found in the New York Times or USA Today. An “Interview with Mr. Slobodan Milosevic - President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” is online at http://www.sps.org.yu/engleski/documents/Intervju/index.html, further defining the Serbian perspective in this conflict, as does the official website of the Socialist Party of Yugoslavia (http://www.sps.org.yu/).

Contrast these Serbian views with the press releases of the US Department of State (http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/kosovo_hp.html) and the message of US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to the people of Serbia on March 26, 1999 (http://secretary.state.gov/www/statements/1999/990326c.html). If it is not “down” as a result of mass email cyberwarfare initiated by Serbian nationalists, the official NATO website (http://www.nato.int/) contains a wealth of information about the war in Yugoslavia in French as well as English from the Western point of view.6 The text of President Clinton’s video address to the Serbian people is available online (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/10/kosovo/transcripts/clinton.html) as well. Updated press releases from the White House can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/New/.

The following classroom lessons are designed to utilize various internet resources to help students develop a realistic perspective on the war in Yugoslavia. A region with a complicated, recorded history spanning hundreds of years, Yugoslavia is a challenging topic for classroom study. Armed with these lesson ideas and background information, however, accurate and effective classroom lessons about conflict should be easier to put together. Before starting one of the classroom lessons below, it is helpful to review some background information and events which led to the present situation in Yugoslavia. A synopsis with additional links is available at www.wtvi.com/teks/yugoslavia/background.html.

Lesson 1: Understanding the Historical Context
One of the most difficult things for American students (as well as US citizens in general) to understand about the Balkan conflict is the historical context in which present events are set. Leaders on both sides of the conflict have been misleading in their use of historical references. While Slobodan Milosevic has supported a morally intolerable campaign of ethnic cleansing against Albanians and other ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia, portraying him as a “modern day Adolf Hitler” overlooks the significant fact that he lacks the military force (and apparently the resolve) to expand Serbia’s national boundaries by invading his neighbors. Milosevic is guilty of historical misrepresentation as well. Since the early 1980s, he has used a wide range of racist arguments to fuel anti-Albanian sentiment as well as references to the defeat of 70,000 Christian Serbs in 1389 at the hand of Muslim Turks to justify military campaigns. Many Americans have the impression that ethnic hatreds have been actively simmering for hundreds of years in the Balkans, not realizing that regional leaders have manipulated history to their political advantage. In addition to misleading propoganda, these leaders have used drastic measures to generate public support for militaristic policies. According to Dusko Doder, author of The Yugoslavs, these actions include both Serbian and Albanian military leaders actually ordering their generals to fire upon their own troops at times to cement their resolve to attack opposing civilian populations.7 While many atrocities have been committed in the Balkans in the past, current violence is not merely a continuing response to historical antagonisms as some leaders argue, or an imminent threat to global stability.

One effective lesson for helping students gain perspective on the agendas and opinions of the different actors in the Yugoslavian war is to use a “jigsaw” strategy to identify likenesses and differences (IDLD). To do this, first divide students into “expert” groups, and assign each group member a number. This will be the number of the “home” group of each student in phase two of the activity. Print the individual testimonies found at http://www.wtvi.com/teks/yugoslavia. These include summarized perspectives of:

Members of each “expert” group should read the testimony/perspective of one person, and fill out the IDLD worksheet accordingly. Then, students should break into their “home” groups (which include one representative from each "expert" group) and fill out remaining parts of the IDLD worksheet. Representatives from each expert group should report on their person for others in the “home” group.

In addition to using these individual testimonies provided on the lesson website, additional links are provided so that students may further explore these perspectives. The teacher may want to develop several questions for home groups to answer after they have completed the IDLD worksheet. These could include:

  • What similarities do you see between the people in each category? Explain.
  • What differences do you see between the people in each category? Explain.
  • Whose testimony do you relate to or agree with the most? Why?
  • Based on this information, do you think the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia was justified? Why?
  • What should world leaders learn from the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia?

Lesson 2: The Geography of the Balkans
The Balkan Peninsula, which includes Yugoslavia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania, and Macedonia, has been a historic crossroads between Europe and Asia thanks to its geography. When most people think of geography, they think of place location: identifying political boundaries and capitols. Yet the geography of a region includes much more. Geography can help describe the distribution of ethnic groups within a region, physical land features which affect refugee flows, and the food distribution routes available to international relief organizations.

For each phase of this geography lesson, have students obtain a simple, black and white map of the Balkan peninsula using the Xerox PARC Map Viewer located at http://mapweb.parc.xerox.com/map. This interactive map tool allows visitors to click on a region of the world and either zoom in or out. By requiring students to obtain their own map of the Balkans in this way, instead of simply providing them with a ready-made map, they can become more familiar with Yugoslavia’s relative location on the earth. Using a globe, teachers can have students label lines of latitude and longitude on this simple map.

Once this map is obtained and correctly labeled, have students copy it into a pixel based graphics program (like ClarisWorks Paint) for modification. Students can repeatedly use this blank map to make several detailed maps showing different political and cultural features. Possible topics for these maps and corresponding websites which can be used as resources include:

 

Teachers can opt to divide students into groups and complete different kinds of maps, sharing the results with others after they are finished. As an alternative, if sufficient computers are not available for every student or group of students to digitally modify their maps on a computer, the basic map from the Xerox PARC Map Viewer can be printed and copied for student use. These map activities can then be completed by students with paper and pencil, still using internet reference materials. If you find other good links for resources when completing this lesson, please email them to me at wes@wtvi.com and I will add them to this online lesson plan.

Lesson 3: Comparing the Scale of Humanitarian Crises
Classroom discussions about the war in Yugoslavia should include the issue of whether the United States is obligated to act in humanitarian crises like the one in Kosovo, or if intervention cannot be justified and the US should be more isolationist in its foreign policy. It is relatively easy to show students evidence of the suffering which the people of Kosovo and other Balkan areas under the authority of the Serbians have endured, and convince them that “something must be done.” It is more difficult, but essential, to pose the question of whether the United States can afford to be the “policemen of the world.” If the answer to this question is “no,” then students should examine the reasons which should justify military intervention in one case but not another. To help students answer these questions, in this final lesson activity they will create two comparative graphs showing the costs of several past humanitarian crises both in terms of human lives and dollars spent by the US Congress. These relative comparisons may surprise both teachers as well as students.

The first graph should compare the number of people who have lost their lives in recent humanitarian crises. Some suggested crises to include, and respective web links which contain the casualty numbers, are:


Teachers may elect to either have students link to the webpages above (already hyperlinked at www.wtvi.com/teks/yugoslavia/graph.html) or provide the numbers directly. In this second case, the graph data could include:

  • Somalia - 150,000
  • Rwanda - 500,000
  • Haiti - estimate not available
  • Bosnia - 300,000
  • Kosovo - 2000

The scale of these humanitarian crises is obviously small when compared to other occurrences of genocide in history. For assistance putting this grisly topic into perspective, the “War and Genocide and Disaster Victims” webpage (http://www.leconsulting.com/arthurhu/index/genocide.htm) contains a large list from a variety of sources. While overwhelming to consider at first, data contained on this and similar pages could help students gain valuable perspective on “ethnic cleansing” and the historical meaning of “genocide.”

For the second graph, have students construct a comparative bar chart showing the cost of recent US military interventions in humanitarian crises. Possible crises to include with corresponding web links are:

If the teacher elects to provide data to students directly rather than having them find it on the webpages above, graph data could include:

  • Somalia - $1.5 billion + $300 million = $1.8 billion
  • Rwanda - the United States chose not to intervene militarily in the Rwandan crisis
  • Haiti - $477.8 million (FY 1994) and $685.5 million (FY 1995) = $1.16 billion
  • Bosnia - $8 billion
  • Kosovo - undetermined (ongoing at press time)


Limiting a lesson about topic as complex as “The role of the United States Military in the Post-Cold War Era” to two simple graphs is obviously a gross oversimplification. There are many more questions to ask and issues to explore, but hopefully these graphing ideas will provide students as well as teachers with some starting points. Unfortunately, the mainstream American media only seems to keep the public informed about international interventions like these when they are heated or go awry. The United States and the United Nations have been successful in many cases, such as Somalia, in saving hundreds of thousands of lives through the use of military force.8 Unfortunately, statistical comparisons of saved lives are more difficult to graph (because they are harder to estimate) than lives lost. Still, the successes of past US/UN military interventions deserve as much academic attention as the financial costs or policy failures. For more guidance on issues to discuss relating to US/UN military intervention abroad, refer to The Heritage Foundation’s report, “American Military Intervention: A User’s Guide” (http://www.heritage.org/library/categories/natsec/bg1079.html).

Our Challenge as Educators
The issues raised by the present US led military intervention in Yugoslavia are numerous and complicated. Ours is truly a new age, where threats to national security seem harder to define while global conflicts seem to multiply as never before. Clearly it is our duty as educators to prepare the students of today for responsible citizenship tomorrow. The humanitarian tragedies which often dominate the evening news pose problematic dilemmas for the United States, however. As Edmund Burke noted, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Determining the correct “thing” to do as a nation will continue to be challenging, and will certainly require an accurate historical perspective on the part of US citizens as well as leaders. As you and your students strive to broaden your perspectives on the war in Yugoslavia through technology, please email me additional links, additions, and corrections for this “living” online lesson plan: www.wtvi.com/teks/yugoslavia. Good luck!

Wesley Fryer is a teacher in the Lubbock Independent School District. He invites your questions and comments about this lesson and educational technology issues at wes@wtvi.com.

Student Name: ________________________
Assigned Expert Group: ________________________
Assigned Home Group: ________________________

Understanding the Historical Context in Yugoslavia: Identifying Likenesses and Differences

Home Groups: Working with others, read the opinion sheet for the person you are assigned and fill in all the columns of information for that person.
Expert Groups: Share the information you wrote down about your assigned person with the other members of your group. Listen and write down the information other members discovered, completing the remaining chart rows.

1 “E-mail from the front lines: Internet gives voice to Yugoslavs, amid bombs and oppression.” CNN Interactive. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/10/kosovo/kosovo.on.the.net/. 31 March 99.

2 “What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream.” Noam Chomsky. July 1997. http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9710-mainstream-media.html.

3 Report of HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: “None Left to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda”
http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/

4 “E-mail from the front lines: Internet gives voice to Yugoslavs, amid bombs and oppression.” CNN Interactive. http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/10/kosovo/kosovo.on.the.net/. 31 March 99.

5 News of the Day: Serbian Info-News. 31 March 1999. http://www.serbia-info.com/news/index.html.

6 “Belgrade hackers target NATO.” The Freedom Forum Online. 1 April 99. http://www.freedomforum.org/press/presswatch.asp.

7 Washington Journal on C-SPAN. 29 March 1999.

8 “Return to Somalia; In the Land that Americans Want to Forget, Some Modest Signs of Success.” Frank Crigler. The Washington Post. October 15, 1995. http://www.users.interport.net/~mmaren/crigler.html

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