Media : Press Is Fair Game in Yugoslavia’s Season of Bloodshed : Eleven journalists have lost their lives covering the brutal civil war. Some of the attacks appear to be intentional.

Canadian free-lance journalist John Hasek and a Dutch colleague were investigating the fighting around Vukovar in eastern Croatia when they spotted the Yugoslav army tank approaching their little, red Yugo automobile.

The reporters scrambled to find another road to the battle-scarred city, but the army clearly had other ideas.

“The tank chased us,” said Hasek, a 53-year-old journalistic veteran of the Vietnam War. “Eventually, the Yugo out-accelerated it--after what seemed like hours.” The tank commander wasn’t trying to harm the pair, Hasek concluded. “(He) could have shot, but didn’t. (He) was just trying to terrorize us into not going into Vukovar that day.”

Hasek’s is only one of the seemingly endless journalistic war stories generated by Yugoslavia’s bloody conflict between Serbia and the breakaway republics of Slovenia and, particularly, Croatia.

Given the confusion inherent in a clash that has no clear-cut fronts--one that pits Croatian militiamen against Serbian irregulars and the Yugoslav federal army in guerrilla-style fighting--it’s perhaps no surprise that covering the civil war has been one of the deadlier journalistic assignments of recent years.

“The press corps that descended on Zagreb in the days after Croatia’s June 25th declaration of independence have learned that in this season of bloodshed, they are fair game,” said Allison L. Jernow, a research associate at the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. “To an extraordinary and unprecedented degree, they are victims of the violence they came to report.”

Since the end of June, eight journalists have been killed in Croatia and three more in Slovenia--a toll that exceeds the number of reporters killed during the decade-long Afghanistan conflict. Canadian free-lance photographer Peter Brysky, reported killed in fighting Sunday in Karlovac, 31 miles south of Zagreb, was the latest victim.

Also, two Soviet journalists have been missing since heading from Belgrade toward eastern Croatia last Sept. 1, and at least 12 more reporters have been seriously wounded, including two Japanese television crew members shot by Yugoslav federal troops, also in Karlovac on Sunday.

The casualties are believed to have been inflicted almost entirely by Serbs. Serbian journalists have been harassed and beaten by Croatian forces, but none have been killed or seriously wounded. One reason, said a foreign correspondent covering the conflict from the Serbian side, is that “now Serb journalists don’t even try to go into the Croatian areas.”

Croatia’s Ministry of Information, meanwhile, lists more than a score of attacks on journalists working out of the republic this summer; more than 50 journalists were affected.

The ministry has handed out nearly 1,600 press cards to print and electronic media since the fighting began, although the number on hand at any given time is far smaller than that.

“What we have is a very disorganized type of war,” said Branko Salaj, Croatia’s information minister. “There may be ambushes. There are few front lines.”

“It’s so deceptive,” Hasek added. “It can be peaceful one moment, and you turn a corner and you’re in the middle of a fight.”

Some of the attacks, however, appear to be intentional, according to both the Committee to Protect Journalists and Croatian officials.

“Journalists have been hit while traveling in clearly marked press cars,” Jernow said. “They have been fired upon while carrying bulky camera and sound equipment. They have even been assaulted while showing press credentials and proclaiming their professional affiliations. One Reuters report recounts how journalists fled when Serbs shot at them with a cry of: ‘Kill the reporters!’ ”

“A section of Serbian fanatics have decided that Western journalists are sort of a fifth column for the Croatians and that our coverage of the war is widely sympathetic and we’re part of the enemy,” added Askold Krushelnycky, the Eastern European correspondent for The European newspaper and a veteran of conflicts in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Punjab. “Certainly, I’ve never been anywhere where so many journalists have lost their lives in such a short time.”

By contrast to the Serbs, Croatian officials repeatedly depict the media--and particularly foreign correspondents--as vital to their efforts to win international sympathy for Croatian independence.

Reporters are hailed as saviors of the people, bringing the news of the war to the outside world. At televised news conferences, officials beg the press to bring the “truth” to the world--the “truth,” clearly, as the Croatian government sees it.

But the effort to sway Western opinion is also part of the reason the media are in a particularly dangerous situation.

“One side is eager for reporters to see everything and lets them take their chances,” Hasek said. “And the other side only wants you to see everything from the perspective of Belgrade.”

With access to the fighting difficult or even impossible from the Serbian side, the foreign press spends what might otherwise seem a disproportionate share of its time covering the fighting from Croatia. By association, they often suffer from the one-sided coverage in the Croatian media.

The Croatian press, for example, uses the words “Serb” and “terrorist” interchangeably. The word Chetnik , a reference to the anti-Nazi, World War II Serbian fighting force responsible for the deaths of thousands of Croats, finds its way into every story. The federal army is now called the “occupational force” rather than the Yugoslav People’s Army.

Hasek personally experienced the fallout from this “guilt by association” about a month ago when he and some other reporters approached a Serbian-controlled checkpoint near the Hungarian border.

“They stopped us, and while I was talking to them they fired over the car from (a distance of) two meters,” Hasek said. “After (one of the Serb irregulars) shot the first time, he said, ‘We’re not terrorists, we’re Serbs.’ I said, ‘In that case, talk to me instead of shooting.’ ”

Speculation that Croatian forces use marked press cars to ferry guns to the front doesn’t make the media’s job any safer. “There are rumors that certain people are driving around in press cars that aren’t reporters,” said Tony Ashby, a photographer for the newspaper West Australian.

Yugoslav army officials contend that when reporters are killed or seriously hurt it is usually because they have ventured into the middle of war zones.

After Croatian television cameraman Zarko Kaic was killed and a companion wounded by gunfire from an armored vehicle near an army installation in Osijek, a military official said that commanders in the field saw the men with Croatian forces but didn’t see any camera equipment.

“We didn’t know they were reporters,” the army said in a prepared statement.

Inexperience may also have led to some of the deaths, according to a few of the older hands covering the war. Many reporters in Croatia usually cover Yugoslavia’s complex politics--not outright warfare. “This is the first war for many people covering it,” Krushelnycky said. So these journalists may not be schooled in things like the difference between the sounds of incoming and outgoing mortar fire--details that veteran correspondents say can mean life or death in a war.

Other than noting dangerous areas in its regular road reports, the Croatian government says it can do little to make covering the war safer unless it restricts reporters’ movements. “The other option is to give them a heavy military escort and blow the hell out of anyone who attacks you--and that still won’t protect you because you could be hit in an explosion,” Information Minister Salaj said.

Reporters are taking more precautions than in the past. They use masking tape to spell out “PRESS” and “TV” on their cars. Most try renting vehicles in neighboring countries--Yugoslav license plates, with their initials indicating which republic the car comes from, can be dangerous. Reporters rarely travel alone and try to avoid driving at night.

Some wear sweat shirts produced for a local radio station and inscribed, in English, “PRESS. DON’T SHOOT!”

But the risk of covering Yugoslavia’s war hasn’t seemed to deter reporters from entering Croatia. Within days after the death of Nouvel Observateur’s Pierre Blanchet--killed along with Radio Suisse Romande correspondent Damien Ruedin by a land mine outside of Petrinja last month--a replacement arrived on the scene. Dozens of major news organizations have representatives here, if only temporarily. And most refuse to remain safely in their hotel rooms.

Those that stay, meanwhile, hang on to good-luck charms.

“Because journalists sometimes feel invincible, they sometimes push their luck,” Krushelnycky said. “Sometimes their luck fails them.”

A Roll Call of Death

The people sent to chronicle war are often among its casualties. Thirty-three Americans died covering World War II. In the Vietnam War, 52 American journalists were killed or are still listed as missing. More than 40 died covering the conflict in El Salvador.

In this decade, at least 330 journalists have been killed around the world. They include at least 43 in 14 different countries so far this year.

Of this year’s casualties, most by far occurred in Yugoslavia. The victims:

* PETER BRYSKY, a freelance Canadian photographer killed by a mortar shell Oct. 6 during fighting in Karlovac, 31 miles south of Zagreg.

* PIERRE BLANCHET, correspondent for France’s Nouvel Observateur, killed by a land mine outside Petrinja on Sept. 19, 1991.

* DAMIEN RUEDIN, a Radio Suisse Romande correspondent killed with Blanchet in the same explosion.

* NIKOLA STOJANAC, a Croatian television technician, killed by Yugoslav military aircraft fire while filming an aerial attack Sept. 15 on Gospic, southwest of Zagreb.

* DJURO PODBOJ, a Croatian television technician, killed during fighting Aug. 29 in Beli Manastir in eastern Croatia.

* ZARKO KAIC, a Croatian television cameraman, killed near Osijek on Aug. 28 by gunfire from a Yugoslav army armored vehicle.

* GORAN LEDERER, a Croatian television cameraman, shot and killed near Kostajnica, Croatia, on Aug. 10 during a firefight between Serbs and Croats.

* STEJPAN PENIC, radio producer and correspondent for the Croatian newspaper Glas Slavonije, reportedly abducted by Serbian nationalists on Aug. 2 and killed near the border village of Dalj.

* EGON SCOTLAND, a reporter for Munich’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung, killed July 26 near Glina in Croatia by a bullet allegedly fired by Serbian irregulars.

* NICK VOGEL, an Austrian free-lance photojournalist, killed June 28 when his car was hit by a missile on the runway of the airport in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

* NORBERT WERNER, a colleague of Vogel’s, killed in the same incident.

Sources: Freedom House, New York. Committee to Protect Journalists, New York. Historical Guide to World War II.

Special correspondent Michael Montgomery in Belgrade also contributed to this article.