Table Of ContentForging Peace:
Intervention, Human
Rights and the
Management of Media
Space
Edited by
Monroe E. Price and
Mark Thompson
Edinburgh University Press
forging peace
International Communications
Series Editor: Philip M. Taylor
This is the first comprehensive series to tackle the fast-expanding subject of
International Communications.
Thismulti-disciplinarysubjectisviewedasafieldofenquiryandresearchthat
dealswiththeprocessesandimpactofthetransferofinformation,news,dataand
culturalproductsaswellasotherformsoftransbordercommunicationbetween
nation-stateswithinthewidercontextofglobalization.Assuchitisnotonlya
fieldofstudyinitsownrightbutalsodirectlyconnectedtointernationalhistory,
internationalpolitics,internationalaffairsandinternationalpoliticaleconomy.
Most writers in these more ‘established’ fields are agreed that communica-
tionshavecometoplayanevermoresignificantpartinrelationsbetweenstates
at the political, economic, diplomatic, military and cultural levels. This series
will show how communications serves to influence those activities from the
points of transmission to those of reception.
Enormous breakthroughs in communications technologies – satellite com-
munications, computer-mediated communications, mobile personal commu-
nications–arenowconverging,andthepossibilitieswhichthismightpresent
areforcingareconsiderationofhowestablishedpatternsofinter-staterelations
might adapt to, or be influenced by, this latest phase of the information age.
Debates relating to international regulation, censorship, public diplomacy,
electronic democracy, cross-cultural communications and even information
warfare all reflect the sense that communications are transforming the nature
and practice of government, education, leisure, business, work and warfare.
Information has become the lifeblood of this globalizing set of patterns.
Books in the series reflect this phenomenon but are rooted in historical
method, even when tackling more contemporary events. They are truly
international in coverage. The range of books reflects the coverage of courses
and teaching in international communications and they are carefully aimed at
students and researchers working in this area.
Books available in the International Communications series:
Nazi Wireless Propaganda:
Lord Haw-Haw and British Public Opinion in the Second World War
by Martin Doherty
British Propaganda in the Twentieth Century: Selling Democracy
by Philip M. Taylor
Forging Peace
Intervention, Human Rights
and the Management of Media Space
Edited by Monroe E. Price and Mark Thompson
Edinburgh University Press
To Ben Webb and the memory of Harold G. Price
# in this edition Edinburgh University Press 2002.
Copyright in the individual contributions is retained by the authors.
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
Typeset in Ehrhardt by
Hewer Text Ltd, Edinburgh, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin
A CIP Record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7486 1500 8 (hardback)
ISBN 0 7486 1501 6 (paperback)
The right of the contributors to be
identified as authors of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction 1
Section One
1. DefiningInformationIntervention:AnInterviewwithJamieMetzl 41
Mark Thompson
Section Two
2. Hate Propaganda and International Human Rights Law 69
Stephanie Farrior
3. International Law and Information Intervention 104
Eric Blinderman
4. Note on Legality of Information Intervention 139
Julie Mertus
5. A Module for Media Intervention: Content Regulation in
Post-Conflict Zones 148
Peter Krug and Monroe E. Price
Section Three
6. Neutrality and the Negotiation of an Information Order
in Cambodia 177
John Marston
7. Escalating to Success? The Media Intervention in Bosnia and
Herzegovina 201
Mark Thompson and Dan De Luce
8. Silencing the Voices of Hate in Rwanda 236
Alison Des Forges
9. The Learning Curve: Media Development in Kosovo 259
Julie Mertus and Mark Thompson
10. Preparing a Plebiscite under Fire: The United Nations
and Public Information in East Timor 287
David Wimhurst
vi contents
Section Four
11. Information Warfare and Information Intervention 313
Philip M. Taylor
12. Non-Governmental Perspectives: Media Freedom versus
Information Intervention? 329
Helen Darbishire
13. Information Interventions, Media Development, and the Internet 365
Patrick Carmichael
Notes on the Contributors 393
Index 397
Acknowledgements
Thisbookwassupported byOxfordUniversity’sProgrammeinComparative
Media Law and Policy (PCMLP). Its then-director, Stefaan Verhulst, en-
couraged publication and suggested that the two co-editors co-operate in
producing it. Professor Price’s early work on the subject occurred under the
auspices of the Media Studies Center in New York City, where he was ably
assisted by Stacy Sullivan. In 1999, he was asked to bring together, for
UNESCO, a group of essays on particular episodes of media management
in post-conflict situations. Marcello Scarone was particularly helpful in that
effort. The authors worked nobly to meet their exacting commitments to the
editors, despite careers that leave little time for surplus writing. Particular
thanksareduetoEricBlindermanandHelenDarbishire,whosecontributions
to this book far transcend the chapters that bear their names. Some of the
material in Chapters 7 and 9 has appeared in Mark Thompson’s report,
Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia (FYROM) and
Kosovo: International Assistance to Media, commissioned by the Office of
the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media and published by the
OSCE in 2000. The editors gratefully acknowledge the permission of Mr
FreimutDuve,theOSCERepresentativeonFreedomoftheMedia,todrawon
that report. Elena Chernyavska at the European Institute for the Media and
Anna Di Lellio of the OSCE mission in Kosovo were generous in supplying
information. The Ford Foundation provided a grant to Oxford University’s
PCMLP that included financial support for this study. John Santos, the
Foundation’s Program Officer, was consistently helpful. Philip Taylor, in
whoseseriesthisbookispublished,hasprovideddifferentsortsofencourage-
ment. Bethany Davis Noll, managerof publications atthe PCMLP,provided
invaluable editorial and co-ordination services. We are also grateful for the
researchassistanceofJessicaStalnakerandMilanMilenkovicofPCMLP,and
for Andrew March’s sharp eye.
Oxford, December 2001
Why is there so much research about the role of news media in political
conflict and war and so little concerning the media and peace? . . . There is
not one major study which has looked at the role of the news media in an
ongoing peace process . . . Even the most casual observer cannot fail to be
impressed with the ability of the news media to serve an either constructive
or destructive role in the promotion of peace.
Gadi Wolfsfeld1
The change in the nature of military operations brought about by the end
of the Cold War, along with a revolution in communications technology,
has transformed information and the news media into an even more vital
component of conflict and conflict management.
Warren P. Strobel2
Governments, international organisations, and humanitarian agencies . . .
are often willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on humanitarian
or peacekeeping operations, but are reluctant to allocate sufficient funding
to ensure that people are properly and accurately informed. Normally, this
does not take a great deal of money.
Edward R. Girardet3
The old rules of war and peace, which distinguished between internal
conflicts and international ones, have been eroded, and it does not appear
at all probable that they will be restored in the near future . . . [P]recisely
because of the new fusion between domestic and international politics,
intervention in the internal affairs of a state must respond to clearly defined
rules and criteria. There needs to be a debate on this point: what are the
new rules of the international system of powers?
Eric Hobsbawm4
Introduction
Mark Thompson and Monroe E. Price
Ifwars‘begininthemindsofmen’,itfollowsthattheyarenotoveruntilthey
have ended there too. There are other, more manifest reasons why the media
play an essential role in societies recovering from conflict, but none is more
fundamentalthanthisone,whichsurelylooksevenmorepertinenttodaythan
when it was enshrined in the UNESCO charter in 1946.5 Today, the human
mind is exposed to modes of political influence that are more pervasive,
insinuating, and sophisticated than was easily imagined half a century ago.
And media are prime conduits and agents of this influence.
By 1995, failures to prevent war and genocide in Somalia, the Balkans, and
RwandahadtaintedifnotdashedthehopesreleasedbytheendoftheColdWarfor
aneweraofinternationalco-operation.Whilethemoresuccessfulinterventionsin
EastTimorandKosovopartlyredeemedthisrecord,theelationof1989and1990
islonggone.Intheprevailingmoodofsoberassessment,thoselandmarkconflicts
of the 1990s have been scrutinized in terms of security, ethnicity, history,
internationalrelations,humanitarianaction–andmasscommunication.
Agooddealhasbeenwrittenaboutthestrategiesofmediaexploitationthat
wereusedtobringaboutparticularconflicts.Itiswidelyacceptedthatmedia
playedacentralroleinfomenting‘ethnic’violencein,forexample,Rwandaand
BosniaandHerzegovina,wheregovernmentforcesandrebelsorotherfactions
contestedtheveryorganizationandcontentofthepressandbroadcasting.6The
impact of international media on diplomacy, mediation, and humanitarian
assistance has also been appraised.7
Muchlessstudyhasbeendevotedtotherelationshipbetweentheinternational
communityandlocalorindigenousmediabefore,during,andafterconflict.8As
information management became central in the run-up to wars and in post-
conflictreconstruction,adecadeofcostlyexperimentscommenced.In1992–3,as
John Marston points out in Chapter 6 of this book, the United Nations
Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) was given more control over
information than any previous UN mission. UNTAC sought ways to alter the
structure and practice of information distribution before the 1993 elections. It
wasverymuchtheforerunnerofthethreegiantmissionsintheBalkans:theUN
ProtectionForce(UNPROFOR)intheBalkans,theUNTransitionalAuthority
in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja, and western Sirmium (UNTAES) in eastern
Croatia, and the UN Interim Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
