Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 28/02/2023
For more than a decade, web portals in the local language have been sharing a fictional interview with former CIA agent Robert Baer. Quotations from the “interview” in which Baer allegedly confirms that “the CIA broke up Yugoslavia” are also viral. All this, however, is a complete fabrication.
On September 6, 2012, Moje novine page published a text titled “Interview with Robert Baer – The End of Yugoslavia” by Milos Cupurdija. Although it is called that, the text is not an interview, but its falsification.
This fictional interview has been appearing on dozens of domestic and foreign web portals for years and is presented as “evidence” for conspiracy theories about the influence of foreign powers – specifically, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region. Cupurdija chose former CIA agent Robert Baer as the protagonist of the fabricated interview, attributing to him claims such as that “the CIA broke up Yugoslavia” or that it controlled the Yugoslav media and politicians.
None of the claims made in this falsification corresponds to reality. Cupurdija claimed that he interviewed Baer in Canada, where he was promoting the book “The secret of the White House”. Baer never wrote or promoted such a book, nor was he in Canada at the time the interview was published. On the other hand, Baer did publish several books about his experiences working for this agency, in which he never claimed anything close to what the obscure author of the fake interview wrote. Finally, Robert Baer confirmed for Raskrinkavanje that he never gave the said interview.
Where and how did the fake interview appear?
The platform Moje novine, which is no longer available at the time of writing this analysis, was conceived as a “newspaper written by readers”, that is, a place where anyone can publish a text after registering. The initiators of this page explicitly equated the absence of editorial policy and quality control with “free journalism”. In the text published on May 26, 2012, under the title “Postani novinar” (“Become a journalist”) it was pointed out that even knowing how to spell is not a “factor” that should influence whether the voice of a person who wants to write for this platform will be “heard”.
The site was active for less than a year and about a hundred texts were published on it. The last article was shared on the Facebook page in April 2013. Two years later, in August 2015, a survey was published with the question “should Moje Novine return?”, but the platform was not reactivated.
The biography of Milos Cupurdija, the “journalist” who allegedly conducted this interview, was published on the Moje novine page. The biography stated that he graduated from the Electrotechnical School and “showed an early interest in journalism”. As it was claimed, Cupurdija conducted an interview with Robert Baer and former member of the European Parliament, Nigel Farage. However, information about Cupurdija’s biography and further career in journalism cannot be found anywhere else.
Who is Robert Baer and why was he in Sarajevo?
Robert Baer is a former employee of the US Central Intelligence Agency. During his work in the CIA, he served mostly in the Middle East, but he also stayed in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the breakup of Yugoslavia. He wrote several books about his experience, of which the book “See No Evil” was turned into the popular movie “Syriana”. In this book, Baer writes about his experience in Sarajevo, stating that he worked to suppress terrorism, without mentioning “propaganda”, the media or anything like that.
Robert Baer gave several interviews about going to Sarajevo. One of them was published on March 5, 2011, on the web portal NPR, where he and his wife Dayna Baer talked about their book “The company we keep”, in which they also write about their experiences in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but without claims that would be even remotely similar to those stated in the interview. Baer states in the interview that he came to Yugoslavia because of the activities of Hezbollah, a political party and militant group from Lebanon, which tried to kill a CIA agent in Sarajevo.
The 15th chapter of this book conveys the testimony of the eyewitnesses of the Tuzla massacre on May 25, 1995, as well as the statement of Carl Bildt, the former high representative, about the massacre at the Markale market in Sarajevo. Baer, therefore, did not talk about the fabricated “CIA responsibility for the breakup of Yugoslavia” and similar conspiracy theories that were usually used to deny responsibility for war crimes, but in his books, he used established facts about the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
What was written in the fictional interview?
The interview consists of 14 questions, primarily focused on the alleged role of foreign powers in the breakup of Yugoslavia. In the original article, which is no longer available, it is stated, among other things, that Baer is the author of numerous works “in which he disclosed information about the CIA and the administration of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, for which he was arrested and detained several times” and that as an operative working for the CIA, he was in Yugoslavia in the period from 1991 to 1994. Cupurdija claims in the article:
The interview was conducted live in Canada, during my trip a few days ago. Robert Baer is currently promoting his book -The secret of the White House – in Quebec, where we spoke. In the interview, we talked about the background of the war in Yugoslavia. EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW.
The first questions in the interview are related to the reason for Baer’s arrival in Sarajevo, dated January 12, 1991. It is stated that Baer arrived in Sarajevo with three other agents and that their task was to watch “for alleged terrorists of Serbian nationality, who would attack Sarajevo”.
2. Which terrorists are we talking about and why should they allegedly carry out these attacks?
2. About Serbian, we were given files that a group called “Supreme Serbia” is planning to carry out bombing attacks on key buildings in Sarajevo because of the desire for Bosnia to leave Yugoslavia at the time.
3. Did such a group exist and what exactly did you do in Sarajevo at the behest of the CIA command?
3. Such a group never existed! The central office deceived us too. We had the task of warning and spreading panic among the politicians in Bosnia, we were simply telling them that the Serbs were going to attack. At first, we also accepted the story, but then we wondered a little. Why are we panicking when that group apparently doesn’t even exist?
Cupurdija asserted in the interview that numerous CIA agents “disappeared only because they refused to do propaganda against the Serbs in Yugoslavia”. The goal of propaganda in Yugoslavia, the article claims, is to “estrange the countries and separate them from Yugoslavia”.
“We had to choose a scapegoat that would be blamed for everything. Someone who would be responsible for war and violence. Serbia was chosen because it was, in a way, the heir of Yugoslavia”, this is a quote attributed to Baer.
The article further states:
8. Can you name the politicians who were paid by the CIA in the former Yugoslavia?
8. Yes, although it is delicate. Stipe Mesic, Franjo Tudjman, Alija Izebegovic, many advisers and members of the Yugoslav government, Serbian generals were also paid, journalists and even some military formations. Radovan Karadzic was also paid for some time, but he stopped taking help when he realized that he would be victimized and accused of crimes in Bosnia. It was made by the American administration.
9. You mentioned the control and financing of the media, how was that precisely?
9. This is already known, some CIA agents were in charge of writing official statements that the presenters would read on the news. Of course, the presenters didn’t know anything, they got it from their boss and he got it from his, who was our man. There was one task for everyone, and that was to spread hatred, nationalism and the differences between people via television.
Speaking about the genocide in Srebrenica, Cupurdija states that it is “political marketing” and that it is an “exaggerated story” that has manipulated a large number of people. “Srebrenica as a city was sacrificed because, after that alleged crime by the Serbs, America had a reason to attack”, this is a fabricated quote by Robert Baer. The reason for the breakup of Yugoslavia is given as the following:
12. What do you think, in general, why Yugoslavia broke up, that is, why did your government want to do that?
12. Everything is clear, the people who once incited war and at the same time talked about peace are now the owners of companies that exploit various mineral resources and the like! Simply, they made slaves out of you, your people work for nothing and that product goes to Germany and America, they make money! And in the end, you have to buy and import what you made yourself since you have no money, you have to go into debt, that’s the whole story with the whole Balkans!
In the final question, the fictitious Baer tells the people of the former Yugoslavia that they have been manipulated and that they should forget the past because it was “staged and faked”.
At the time of writing this analysis, 75 articles from domestic web portals containing this interview were available, and parts of it were also published in more than 20 Facebook posts.
Parts of this interview were re-updated on Facebook in 2022. A post from December 12, 2022, which includes a quote about alleged media control attributed to Baer has been shared 35 times at the time of writing this analysis.
We found the interview also published in English (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Czech (1, 2), Albanian (1), Greek (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Italian (1, 2), Polish (1, 2), Romanian (1), Russian (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), Slovak (1), Slovenian (1, 2) and Vietnamese (1).
At the time of the alleged interview, was Baer in Quebec promoting the book?
In the original article with a fabricated interview from September 6, 2012, Cupurdija claims that he spoke with Baer in Canada “a few days ago”. A Google search shows that there is no record of Baer being on any public tour in Quebec during this period. It is the same with the claim that he published the book “The Secret of the White House”. This book is only mentioned on the WikiSpooks page, where it says that it was supposedly published in 2015 under the title “Secrets of the White House”. However, unlike the other books listed on the page, this one does not have the name of the publisher, there is no link to a page about the book, nor is there an ISBN number.
We contacted Robert Baer through his publishing house to inquire about the authenticity of the “interview” that has been circulating in the region for more than a decade. In his reply, he unequivocally confirmed that it was pure fiction:
The interview is completely made up. During the short time I was in Sarajevo, I worked strictly on Middle Eastern terrorism and knew next to nothing about local politics.
So, Baer himself confirmed that he never gave the mentioned interview that was attributed to him in the domestic media. It originated from a website where content could be posted by anyone and where there was no editorial control. One of the authors on this page, Milos Cupurdija, completely invented the entire interview and “boasted” about it in his, supposedly journalistic, biography.
Incorrectly attributing various statements to Robert Baer, the fabricated interview denied the genocide in Srebrenica and presented the events that preceded the breakup of Yugoslavia and the wars of the 1990s as part of a conspiracy, that is, an operation carried out by the CIA. Baer has never given an interview like this or talked about his stay in Sarajevo and the tasks he performed for the CIA in this way.
Given all the facts, the claim that Robert Baer gave the mentioned interview, initially published on the web portal Moje novine, is considered fake news. Other posts of the same claim are rated as the distribution of fake news.