New York, NY

Dear Mr. Harshaw,

Your Nov. 10 news story, "U.S. Official Visits Kosovo Execution Site," is a perfect example of how editors can manipulate the news by omission and diversion. At first, I thought your article was about the cold-bloodied murder of Dejan Djatlov (23) and Ilija Vujosevic (48), two Serb policemen whose bullet-riddled bodies were found yesterday (Nov. 9) near Malisevo in Kosovo, Serbia. The two were abducted Nov. 7 by the Albanian terrorist organization, Kosovo Liberation Army, as they were driving a truck on a road between Malisevo and Orlat.

But no, not a word about this heinous crime in the newspaper whose front page motto is "all the news that's fit to print." Instead, in order to obfuscate today's news, your editors had your reporter file a report from Pristina, Kosovo, about something that happened weeks ago - a killing of 13 ethnic Albanians in early October in the village of Golubovac. The crime was committed by unknown perpetrators, but was immediately attributed to the Serbs so as to incite the western public, and justify the then planned NATO bombing of Serbia. (Shades of "made for TV" Sarajevo massacres of 1992, 1994 and 1995?)

Furthermore, the day before the two Serb policemen were abducted by the KLA, the U.S. envoy to the Balkans, Christopher Hill, met with the KLA members in Kosovo, according to a Nov. 7 Reuters report. The KLA spokesman, Jakup Krasniqi, later told the media that the Americans were of great influence in Kosovo and elsewhere, and that the U.S. recognized the KLA as a factor in negotiations with the Serbian government.

No word about that meeting, either, in the newspaper whose front page motto is "all the news that's fit to print."

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party of Serbia (DPS), an opposition party, issued a stern rebuke yesterday (Nov. 9) to the Serbian government for allowing such negotiations with the terrorists to take place. "It is painfully clear from Hill's behavior that, what the ruling Socialists and his errand-boys have been vainly striving to present as a huge diplomatic success and Slobodan Milosevic's wisdom (the Oct. 12 Kosovo agreement), is nothing but defeat and disgrace."

The DPS statement added that, "when a diplomat, who has regular meetings with Serbian and Yugoslav officials, holds a three-hour meeting with people who are offenders and criminals according to the laws of this state, and what's more, seeks their opinion on the future status of Kosovo, i.e., both Serbia's and Yugoslavia's future, that means that such a diplomat and his country (U.S.) do not in the least respect our legal system."

In short, while the KLA is murdering the Serbian police in cold blood, the U.S. government is elevating these Albanian terrorists to a statesmen-like level. Which is like Dennis Ross, the U.S. envoy to the Middle East, negotiating with the Hamas or Hezbollah terrorists over the future of Israel.

The New York Times' evident news manipulation and obfuscation makes it an accomplice to such a travesty.

Best regards,

Bob Djurdjevic

Also check out..."You Were Wrong About Gen. Perisic", "New York Times' Kosovo News Manipulation",  "Plus, Another Kosovo News Cover-up",  "Embarrassed About Such 'Serbs',"  "Put the UN Justice on Trial",  "Another Wall Street Bailout, Another Main Street Sellout", "Does WSJ Dance to Wall St. Bankers' Tunes?",  "Clinton Fiddles While Milosevic Burns",  "Let the Bombing Begin?  Not!" , "What's Good for the Goose..."  and "Journal's Rotten Apples" (Wall Street Journal); and "Stock buybacks: Wall St.'s Duping of Main St.", Business Week).