Message-ID: <3710F2AB.6B09E489@idn.org> Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 15:06:19 -0400 From: Christopher Byrne <mailto:info@IDN.ORG> Subject: Missing Australian aid worker confesses on Serb TV To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Missing Australian aid worker confesses on Serb TV
April 11, 1999 Web posted at: 2:28 PM EDT (1828 GMT)
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (Reuters) -- One of two Australian aid workers who disappeared around 10 days ago in Serbia was shown on state television on Sunday confessing to intelligence activities and apologizing for harming Yugoslavia.
Steve Pratt, head of CARE Australia's operation in Yugoslavia, went missing with a colleague, Peter Wallace, on his way out of Serbia on March 31. Wallace was neither seen nor mentioned in the broadcast.
Serb television news showed Pratt in profile slumped at a high table with a caption describing him as "Major Steve Pratt." He bore no obvious signs of physical mistreatment and spoke calmly and clearly, beginning by stating his name, citizenship and listing the countries he had previously worked in.
"When I came to Yugoslavia I performed some intelligence tasks in this country by using the cover of CARE Australia. My concentration was on Kosovo and some effects of the bombing," he said in clearly audible English.
"I misused my Yugoslavian citizen staff in the acquisition of information. I realize that damage was done to this country by these actions for which I am greatly sorry. I also did and I still do condemn the bombing of this country."
With these closing words and no elaboration the news bulletin moved on to another story.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said earlier on Sunday that Yugoslav officials were holding back information about the two, who were last heard from at a checkpoint on the Yugoslav-Croatian border.
He said the authorities had not confirmed they were holding them but that informally the Australian government was aware they were being detained and were in reasonable health.
CARE Australia urged the Yugoslavs to release the two men as a humanitarian gesture for the Orthodox Easter festival being celebrated on Sunday.
Serb television is a crucial arm of President Slobodan Milosevic's propaganda machine. NATO and its leaders are frequently compared to Nazis and no opinions or pictures which could cast the Yugoslav regime in a bad light are ever shown.
Three U.S. soldiers, who disappeared around the Macedonian border on March 31, appeared a day later on Serb television bearing marks of violent struggle on their faces.
Several television appearances by moderate Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, in which he appeared to call for an end to NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia, remain shrouded in mystery.
NATO has said that some of the footage may have been two years old and that Rugova's words could have been distorted.