Page 129 - The CNN Effect in Action - How the News Media Pushed the West toward War ini Kosovo

1403975191ts07.qxd 19-2-07 05:08 PM Page 101
101
THE KOSOVO CRISIS—THE MACRO REVIEW
Table 6.1 Continued
Number of Actions
Week Beginning
3
November 8
1
November 15
November 22
0
November 29
1
2
December 6
December 13
4
December 20
2
0
December 27
January 3
0
January 10
2
10
January 17
9
January 24
January 31
4
7
February 7
February 14
11
11
February 21
February 28
1
March 7
6
7
March 14
March 21
9
205
Total
period when the solution was implemented. In each case, the solution
led to conciliatory countermeasures by the FRY authorities, which
created a short-term lull in the violence.
As outlined in graph 6.1, lines in the shape of a double-hump illus-
trate this three-stage process after each massacre. After Drenica, the
West’s solution, after the initial outrage and denunciations, involved a
series of threatened sanctions that emerged at a March 9 Contact
Group meeting that called for, amongst other measures, an arms
embargo on the FRY. This request was implemented through UN
Security Council Resolution 1160 on March 31, 1998. After the
Gornje Obrinje massacre, the imposed solution was the cease-fire and
monitoring regime incorporated in the Holbrooke-Milosevic
Agreement of October 13, 1999. After the Racak massacre, the pro-
posed solution was either the Rambouillet Conference, if it is assumed
that NATO acted in good faith, or the actual military intervention
itself, if it is assumed that Rambouillet was only a cover to legitimize
the war, as many critics have argued. 5
Of course, not all Western government activity related to the CNN
effect. As presented in graph 6.1, four spikes in government activity
had little in relation to the CNN effect. These could more accurately