The open letter to Mr. Evgenij Kiselev,

director of the NTV magazine "Itogi"

Moscow, October 20, 1998

Dear Mr. Kiselev,

In your TV magazine which has been broadcasted at 21:00 by October 18, has been shown the picture of the demonstration, organized on October 16 by the Transnational Radical Party near a building of State Duma in Okhotny Ryad under the slogan of immediate indictment Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic by the Hague tribunal for organizing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Simultaneously on the same place under anti-semitic slogans there passed demonstration of Gen. Albert Makashov's supporters led by Viktor Anpilov. Anpilov's demonstrators tried to break manifestation of the Radical Party, crying out anti-semitic insults, threats in our address and roaring "Mi-lo-se-vic!" In spite of the fact that Makashov's and Milosevic's defenders - unlike Radicals - did not submit the notice to the respective authorities on their action, and, hence, broke the law, the militia could not or has not wanted to restore the public order.

The service shown in "Itogi", unfortunately, has presented the situation thus, as if the activists of Radical Party together with Anpilov's anti-semits act in favour of Milosevic and his regime.

On a background of vast reasonings about reaction of most different Russian politicians on current situation in Kosovo, on a background of pictures from our demonstration, your magazine has not sounded any word about why and under what slogans the demonstration, shown by you, was held by Radical Party, any word about, why a dozen of men and women faced to the building of the State Duma with the posters "Freedom for Kosovo, democracy for Serbia" and "No to bombardments, yes to indictment of Milosevic", showered by damnations and threats by a hundred of rabid and half-crazy pogrom-makers.

Your magazine was not found any word, besides the false antithesis "to bomb or not to bomb" to inform your TV spectators about the initiative supported already by more than 30 thousand of citizens from all continents, among which are 400 parliamentarians (including five deputies of State Duma): I mean the collection of signatures under the formal appeal to the Hague tribunal on crimes committed in ex-Yugoslavia, entitled "Belgrade regime should be overthrown" and containing the requirement to present formal indictment for war crimes and crimes against humanity to the principal responsible for tragedy created on our eyes in former Yugoslavia since 1991 - yesterday in Croatia and Bosnia, today in Kosovo.

It's bitterly for me to write and bitterly to understand it, but in this case position of your TV magazine, as a matter of fact, has coincided with the purposes of Anpilov's bowlers on Friday of October 16: by shouts, whistling and halloing to try to muffle the initiative in favour of the Law, freedom and democracy - both for Kosovars and Serbs.

The problem of Balkans (and not only of Kosovo) will not be solved at all until the problem of Milosevic and his national bolshevist regime in Belgrade will be solved.

Exactly as, so long as the Russian mass-medias (including "Itogi" TV magazine) will subject censorship any political action on former Yugoslavia outgoing from liberal forces, the image of public opinion of our country will be submitted to the domestic and foreign spectators as storming anti-semitic and xenophobic crowd with portraits of Makashov in hands, rabidly bowling: "Mi-lo-se-vic!" and "Jews, out from Russia!"

Nikolaj KHRAMOV

(Russian Coordinator of the Transnational Radical Party)