“Although the Internet alleviated some information shortages in Yugoslaviaduring the war in Kosovo, its small audience of users within the country meantthat only a minuscule segment of the population was as well informed as manyWestern media consumers. . . . Still, the Internet gave the independentYugoslav media tremendous support and helped reduce the isolation that hadenveloped Yugoslavia.”

Cyberwar or Sideshow?The Internet and the Balkan Wars

FLORIAN BIEBER

The war in Kosovo that was fought fromMarch to June 1999 has been characterizedas the first “Internet war.” During the con-

flict, conventional media outlets complemented theirtraditional publications and broadcasts with up-to-date reporting and background information on theWorld Wide Web. The home pages of CNN and other

media received millionsof visitors; MSNBC hostedan Internet interviewwith Serbian paramili-tary leader and indictedwar criminal Zeljko Raz-natovic (known as “Ar-

kan”). In addition, official and unofficial Serbian andAlbanian web sites tried to attract international audi-ences with slick English presentations.

Little attention has been paid, however, to theimpact this new medium had inside the formerYugoslavia. Although the Internet had been availablesince the early days of the wars of Yugoslav disinte-gration that began in 1991, its reach—because oftechnical and political constraints—was limited.With the war in Kosovo this changed as the numberof Internet users grew dramatically and the mediumbegan to present itself as a significant alternative plat-form for independent media and for personal reportsfrom the war zone. Yet, the Internet’s influence dur-ing the war and since remains ambiguous.

SPURRED BY WARThe war in Kosovo had a variety of effects on the

Internet in Yugoslavia. Although more users weredrawn to the Internet because of the conflict, whichdoubtlessly helped extend its reach, the warseverely limited the activities of Internet providersand Internet-based media.

During the war, the number of Internet connec-tions in Yugoslavia rose from 25,000 to an estimated55,000. These numbers, however, must be con-trasted with traditional media such as RTV Pancevo,which, after the closure of radio station B92, becamethe main independent radio station in the Belgradearea and had an average of 300,000 listeners dailyduring the war. The state-run Serbian television sta-tion RTS had an even broader and larger audience,reaching practically every household until NATO

began targeting its transmitters in late April 1999.Nevertheless, the war apparently triggered an Inter-net boom in Yugoslavia that has continued as thatcountry has followed a global trend of rapidlyincreasing connections to the web.

Another event before the war also helped fosterthis growth. In October 1998 a draconian medialaw was passed. The law, ratified by parliamentquickly and without debate, prohibited the redis-tribution of foreign news reports and imposed suchsevere fines for violations that many independentmedia were forced into financial ruin. Some news-papers, including the popular independent Belgradedaily Nasa Borba, stopped publication altogether,while others were printed in the more liberal repub-lic of Montenegro and distributed in major cities inSerbia under the threat of confiscation. This seriousreduction in independent media outlets made the

FLORIAN BIEBER is an instructor in the department of interna-tional relations and European studies at the Central EuropeanUniversity in Budapest. He has written extensively on national-ism in southeastern Europe and is the editor of the Internet-based Balkan Academic News (www.egroups.com/group/balkans/fullinfo.html).

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Globally Wired:

Politics in Cyberspace

Third in a Series

Internet distinctly more attractive as an alternativesource of information.

The war led to further restrictions on indepen-dent media. Even before NATO dropped its firstbombs, the authorities closed the well-known inde-pendent radio station B92 (www.freeb92.net) inBelgrade and detained its director, Veran Matic (itlater released Matic and allowed B92 to reopen,albeit with a new progovernment staff). Within afew days of the start of the war, all independentmedia had no other choice but to close down orexercise self-censorship to avoid being banned. Therole of the Internet-based media during the war inKosovo thus became twofold: it had to bridge thegap left by the closure of other independent mediawhile it attempted to provide information on thebombing and its effects. Some sites, such as theInternet-based www.beograd.com, became the mostreliable means to keep informed about the destruc-tion caused by NATO bombing.

Although the Internet provided some alternativeto the government-dominated electronic and printmedia—which offered little news and much propa-ganda during the bombing—the Internet was notimmune to government attempts to exert control.The closure of B92 as a radio station coincided withthe disappearance of its web page until May 9, 1999,when the site went back on-line. Access to the newsite, however, was frequently blocked by govern-ment-owned Internet service providers, such as theelectronics faculty of the University of Belgrade.1

The air strikes and the Yugoslav government’sresponse threatened not only the media using theInternet, but also the web itself in Yugoslavia. Whenthe government took over Radio B92, it also gainedcontrol of one of the country’s largest Internetproviders, OpenNet, which was operated by B92. Asa result, many web pages that belonged to Serbiannongovernmental organizations (NGOs), such as theSerbian Helsinki Committee, became unavailable.The largest Internet provider in Yugoslavia, EUnet,issued a set of guidelines for its subscribers thatencouraged users to protest NATO bombing but to

avoid engaging in Internet abuses such as “spam-ming”—the sending of large numbers of unsolicitede-mail messages—that could lead to the terminationof the company’s access to the World Wide Web.

As the war continued, the Western governments’intensified attempts to destroy the media outlets ofthe Yugoslav government by bombing them, andtheir imposition of harsher sanctions against thecountry, seemed to threaten all Internet access inYugoslavia. Even before the bombing by NATO,reports circulated in late April 1999 that a ban onYugoslav access to the Internet by the United Stateswas imminent. Although the ban never material-ized, it led to protests by Yugoslav NGOs against itsimposition because of the detrimental impact itwould have on communicating to the outside worldtheir work on political and economic rights.

But even without the ban, the Internet proved tobe a vulnerable means of communication. E-mailscontaining “sensitive” words were often delayed forhours by Serbian Internet providers, while otherproviders canceled the accounts of members of theindependent student organization Otpor (Resis-tance). The destruction of power stations andtelecommunications by NATO bombing in the lastphase of the war made usage of the Internet increas-ingly difficult and unreliable.2

THE YUGOSLAV INTERNET’S BEGINNINGSThe Internet became available in Yugoslavia only

three months after the war in Bosnia and Herze-govina began in April 1992. It had its origins in thefrustration of peace activists throughout the formerYugoslavia, who were unable to coordinate theirefforts because of the severing of conventional com-munication networks with the dissolution of theYugoslav confederation.

Unlike most other Eastern European communistcountries, Yugoslavia maintained close communi-cations links with the West during the cold war.Academic institutions in Yugoslavia were connectedto the European and worldwide electronic networksthat would later constitute the foundations of theInternet. When these networks were destroyedbecause of fighting or were put under governmentcontrol, peace activists began to look for alterna-tives. A small group of these activists and computerexperts from the Center for Anti-War Action in Bel-grade and the Zagreb-based Anti-War Campaignand Center for Peace, Non-Violence and HumanRights set up two electronic bulletin boards andlinked them in July 1992. Using old equipment andreceiving minimal outside help at the outset, this

The Internet and the Balkan Wars • 125

1Although a mirror site could have been established at rel-atively low cost, which would have prevented the Yugoslavgovernment from completely shutting out B92 or any otherindependent site, few users would have been ready to par-ticipate in an electronic “paper chase” across the Internet,with the independent media setting up new sites that weresubsequently blocked by the authorities.

2For an assessment of the role the Internet played duringthe war in Kosovo, see the article by the Association of Inde-pendent Media, “Serbia,” in Peter Goff, ed., The Kosovo Newsand Propaganda War (Vienna: International Press Institute,1999), pp. 332–336.

new network, which was called ZaMir (For Peace),provided a communication link between the twocapitals when all other means of communicationwere limited. By 1993, 375 users in Belgrade and125 in Zagreb had access to the ZaMir Transna-tional Network. By early 1994, ZaMir centers hadbeen established in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Ljubljana,Slovenia; at year’s end, Pristina, the capital of theSerbian province of Kosovo, was also connected tothis trans-Yugoslav Internet network.

NGOs and humanitarian organizations also coor-dinated their efforts with the help of ZaMir net,thereby bypassing nonexistent or unreliable con-ventional means of communication. Besides offer-ing access to peace activists, ZaMir net openedchannels of communication among ordinary citi-zens of the former Yugoslav republics and withother countries. This allowed the continuation ofcross-national dialogue and contact with WesternEurope and NorthAmerica, albeit on alimited scale. ZaMirproved especiallyimportant in be-sieged Sarajevo; thecity’s isolation waspartly bridged bythe Internet link that allowed residents to commu-nicate with relatives and friends who lived abroad.3

The Yugoslav Internet first attracted wider atten-tion in the winter of 1996 and 1997 during studentdemonstrations in Belgrade to protest the govern-ment’s attempted fraud in the November 1996 localelections. Radio B92 played an important role byreporting on the events unfolding in the streets,events that were largely ignored by the governmentmedia. Because of their coverage, B92 and anotherindependent station, Radio Indeks, were forced offthe air on December 3, 1996. B92 continued tobroadcast on the Internet, however. Only two daysafter the shutdown, B92 resumed its regular radiotransmission, which helped energize the protests.The government ultimately relented and permittedthe station to officially reopen.

While some observers have argued that B92’s useof the Internet demonstrated to the government thefutility of attempting to ban the station, interna-tional protests appear to have played a far more sig-nificant role in the government’s decision to rescind

the ban on B92. The temporary ban may also havehighlighted the ability to bypass conventional tech-nical limitations and to broadcast radio over theInternet. Yet with an Internet penetration of barely10,000 connections in late 1996 (0.1 percent of therump Yugoslavia’s total population) and with rarelymore than a few dozen listeners of the actual B92web broadcasts, the Internet emerged more as animportant symbol of resistance rather than a tech-nology that had a real impact on the Yugoslavmedia landscape.

PROPAGANDA AND “CYBERWAR”The early use of the Internet by peace activists

was swiftly followed by groups whose interest wasnot in ending the fighting in Bosnia but in justifyingethnic cleansing and bolstering the nationalist poli-cies of the successor states of Yugoslavia. Both thegovernments involved and especially the Serbian

and Croatian dias-pora communitiesplayed a pivotalrole. Diaspora com-munities in NorthAmerica and West-ern Europe wereexposed to the new

technology at an earlier stage and had greater abil-ity to establish an Internet presence (Croatian sitesincluded www.dalmatia.net/croatia/emmigrants/index.htm and hsk.hic.hr/index-en.html; Serbiansites were www.suc.org and www.srpska-mreza.com/mission.html). In addition, the Internet provided alow-cost, quick link to the home country, making ita more attractive medium than traditional electronicor print media. Because of the Internet, many dias-pora groups active during the war in Bosnia wereable to achieve a far greater audience and influence,despite their small numerical strength and radicalnationalist positions.

The governments involved in the Bosnian con-flict used the Internet to defend their policies. Themajority of the content, mostly in English, targetedinternational audiences. This crude propaganda hadlittle visible impact.

During the war in Kosovo, the Yugoslav and theSerbian government set up a number of web sites(www.serbia-info.com, www.gov.yu) to counter theInternet presence of Kosovo Albanians who accusedthe Yugoslav/Serbian authorities of ethnic cleansing.The professional design and frequent updates of thegovernment web pages reflected a new understand-ing of the medium. The content, however, remained

126 • CURRENT HISTORY • March 2000

3On the development of ZaMir, see Bob Jiggins and MirkoMilivojevic, “Building Bridges: The Internet in FormerYugoslavia,” Balkan Forum, vol. 3, no. 13 (December 1995).

The Internet remains largely an elite medium in most of the former Yugoslavia, and is still far from being a part of the region’s mass media.

propaganda, including graphic photographs ofalleged massacres by the guerrilla Kosovo Libera-tion Army (KLA) or by NATO in an attempt to countersimilar claims leveled against them in Albanian sites(for example, see www.albanet.com). Again, thesesites were mainly intended for an international audi-ence. Nevertheless, the sites’ clear bias and poorinformation content minimized their influence.

The war also saw the emergence of dozens of pri-vate web pages put up by Serbs in Yugoslavia andin the diaspora that protested the NATO bombing;many carried the image of a bull’s-eye as part of acampaign to identify Yugoslavia as the victim of“Western aggression.” Others turned to more directaction in an attempt to carry the confrontation tothe Internet. Serbian hackers tried to shut down theweb sites of NATO and Western governments byspamming. More radical groups, such as the SrpskaVojska Inteneta (Serbian Internet Army) hackedinto Albanian sites and changed the content to slan-der Albanians or proclaim “Kosovo and Metohija[the official Serbian name for Kosovo] is Serbian.”Similarly, Albanian hackers who sympathized withthe KLA replaced the content of private Serbian siteswith messages supporting the KLA and vilifyingSerbs. In a climate of mutual recrimination and nodialogue, the Internet provided another stage toproclaim the hatred of the other nation. But theseattacks did not constitute a “cyberwar,” and did lit-tle to significantly affect the already bad relationsbetween Serbs and Albanians.

One of the few web sites not created by the inde-pendent media and the NGOs that attempted tobridge the gap between the Serbian and Albaniancommunities was published by the Serbian Ortho-dox Decani monastery in Kosovo. An unlikelyauthor of an Internet web page—a monk at themonastery—tried to provide information on the warand encourage dialogue between Serbs and Albani-ans. The monk, Sava Janjic, is currently the secre-tary of Bishop Artemije of the diocese Raska-Prizren,which includes Kosovo and parts of southern Ser-bia; the bishop is one of the most influential politi-cal representatives of the Serbs remaining in Kosovo.Father Janjic, frequently referred to as the “cyber-monk,” established a web presence in 1994 for theDecani monastery (www.decani.yunet.com), wherehe sought to promote a less confrontational linetoward the Albanian community than that promul-gated by the Yugoslav government. In an interviewwith the Belgrade independent daily Danas on Jan-uary 6, 2000, Sava Janjic sharply criticized theregime of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for

his repression of the Albanian population in Kosovo,which he said helped bring about the retaliatory eth-nic repression in Kosovo since the end of the war.

ASSESSING THE IMPACTThe impact of the Internet on the former

Yugoslavia has been complex and is impossible toreduce to a single consequence. By providing a rel-atively inexpensive means of communication, it haslinked across Yugoslavia communities that wereseparated by war or government repression.Because of it, peace activists have been able to coor-dinate their efforts and exchange information sincethe early stages of the war in Bosnia. Similarly, Alba-nians in Kosovo, lacking access to the traditionallymost important electronic media and operating ina climate of Serbian police repression before thesummer of 1999, relied on the Internet to buildlinks and maintain contacts. The Internet alsohelped the people of the former Yugoslavia sur-mount other difficulties, such as destroyed orunderdeveloped infrastructure and blocked borders.This has been especially true for national commu-nities that span state borders and for contacts withmembers of the Yugoslav diaspora. The impact ofthe Internet on recent emigrants from the formerYugoslav republics and their relationship with theirhome countries remains to be seen.

In contrast to conventional media, informationon the Internet is not necessarily filtered: anyonewith the financial resources and technical skill can

The Internet and the Balkan Wars • 127

THE INTERNET IN YUGOSLAVIAIT IS ALMOST impossible to determine the number ofInternet users in today’s Yugoslavia (composed of therepublics of Serbia and Montenegro), since a largenumber of small providers, and the absence of a clearlegal framework, make it difficult to compile reliablestatistics. In addition, the impoverishment of Serbiancitizens in the past decade because of war, a catas-trophic economic policy, and the imposition of inter-national sanctions have prevented many frompurchasing a private computer. Users thus resort toother alternatives: Internet cafes are especially popu-lar, for example, and increasingly can be found insmaller towns as well as cities. Still, in early 2000, thenumber of individual Internet connections wasbetween 100,000 and 120,000. Thus the Internet cur-rently reaches slightly more than 1 percent ofYugoslavia’s 10 million people (the coverage in theUnited States is above 40 percent). ■

F. B.

put up a web page. This means it can serve as a rel-atively inexpensive platform for independent infor-mation in the countries of the former Yugoslavia,where government censorship, limited financialresources, and disrupted infrastructure often renderthe dissemination of information from conventionalmedia extremely difficult. This platform has alsobeen used for propaganda and hate speech, butthese messages have been largely directed at aninternational audience and have had little impact inthe countries themselves.

The Internet has had a clearly negative effectwithin the countries of the former Yugoslaviawhen it has been used to spread rumors and con-spiracy theories. Relentless misinformation bymost government media and the atmosphere offear created by the fighting that has accompaniedthe dissolution of Yugoslavia created fertile groundfor the rise of rumors and half-truths that soughtto justify the policy of ethnic cleansing. Withoutthe misinformation and fear, the relatively densefabric of multiethnic relations in Yugoslavia couldnot have been so effectively unraveled.

The Internet also encouraged the distribution ofunconfirmed reports by sources whose reliabilitywas unknown. Subsequently, many reports and arti-cles that circulated widely during the war in Kosovogrossly distorted events. Without the Internet, suchhalf-truths would have reached only a fringe audi-ence outside the former Yugoslavia, while now suchreports can reach millions. But their impact shouldnot be overestimated. The main sources of informa-tion on the Internet during the war in Kosovoremained either the large American or British newsproviders (even within Yugoslavia), the Institute onWar and Peace Reporting (www.iwpr.net) from Lon-don, or a few local media outlets, such as Radio B92.

Again, B92 stood out. In early April 1999, at thepeak of international public interest in the war, theB92 web page received 8 million visitors during aperiod of a few days. This huge number of visitorswas recorded shortly before the station was closed.Since its relaunch in May 1999, it has continued toattract great interest, with over 400,000 visits per day.

Individuals—both Serbs and Albanians—couldalso interact with the international media throughe-mail. Nearly all Western European and North

American newspapers and television stations usedletters e-mailed by Albanians and Serbs to illustratethe “human dimension” of the conflict. While thisform of reporting is not significantly different fromjournalism in the United States, where storiesdescribing the fate of individuals are a mainstay, inWestern Europe—with the exception of GreatBritain—the factual reporting of events withouthuman interest stories traditionally took priority.

“MASS” MEDIA?The Internet remains largely an elite medium in

most of the former Yugoslavia, and is still far frombeing a part of the region’s mass media. The major-ity of these Internet users belong to an urban andrelatively well-educated segment of the population,which is the least likely to support Yugoslavia’sauthoritarian government. The impact of the Inter-net in Yugoslavia thus has been limited to this smallcommunity, which includes peace activists and oth-ers involved in the political opposition, along withmembers of the independent media. In addition,despite the potential vulnerability, the media pub-lished on the net have played a pivotal role inreplacing or supplementing the newspapers, radio,and television stations threatened by censorshipand other effects of war. Thus the Internet is pro-viding the educated elite of Yugoslavia a signifi-cantly broader range of information than it did atthe beginning of the Yugoslav wars.

Although the Internet alleviated some informa-tion shortages in Yugoslavia during the war inKosovo, its small audience of users within thecountry meant that only a minuscule segment ofthe population was as well informed as many West-ern media consumers. Even those with access to theInternet could learn just snippets about what washappening in the war zone (which was also the caseoutside the region). Still, the Internet gave the inde-pendent Yugoslav media tremendous support andhelped reduce the isolation that had envelopedYugoslavia. In fact, the Internet helped connectmany citizens of Yugoslavia with the outside, and asmaller group with each other across nationaldivides. Both trends are important and encourag-ing, but should not be overestimated in assessingthe impact on developments in Yugoslavia. ■

128 • CURRENT HISTORY • March 2000