According to unnamed sources quoted in the Italian daily, Serbian television had been preparing to broadcast illegally obtained copies of the surveillance footage from Columbine High School, the site of the tragic shooting spree April 20. The footage purportedly captures the two teenage gunmen as they patrolled the Colorado school in search of victims. Shortly after NATO forces destroyed the Belgrade television facility, the Serbian government resumed broadcasts over the Internet. Despite various reports confirming that Radio Television Serbia is in possession of "sensitive" video connected with the American high school massacre, no such footage has been aired.

Serbia's foreign minister, Nebojsa Vujovic, vehemently denied the allegations that Milosevic's government plans to use the Colorado incident as part of an escalating propaganda war. Earlier this month, Serbian television broadcast the movie "Wag the Dog" for three consecutive days.

At least 10 people died and an additional 20 are missing as a result of the April 23 NATO attack on the television facility, which temporarily cut off direct transmissions to Kosovo and the troubled region's northern provinces. The strategic bombing was sharply criticized by Western journalists and even high-ranking members of the NATO alliance. On Friday afternoon the Italian foreign minister Lamberto Dini decried the attack, saying, "It is terrible, and I disapprove of it."

Meanwhile, NATO has begun beaming television broadcasts at Yugoslav viewers via a U.S. Air Force "Commando Solo" aircraft, a converted Hercules military transport airplane capable of transmitting radio and television signals. Commando Solo aircraft were previously used in military operations in Grenada, Panama, Haiti, and during the Gulf War. Over the course of the past week, Serbian media have provided modest coverage of the Colorado murders, although experts predict that Serbian news coverage may become increasingly hostile to the United States as the conflict intensifies. On Internet news services dedicated to Kosovo, the tragedy in Colorado has been repeatedly invoked to throw suspicion on U.S. involvement in the regional conflict.

Yet even if Serbian television were to air graphic images of the Colorado school shootings, most political analysts agree that the tactic would do little to bolster Milosevic's campaign outside of Yugoslavia. According to James Lusbeih, a political correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, "It might score some points among frustrated Serbs, but it will only further ostracize Milosevic from the West."

As to the possibility of "domestic embarrassment" factoring into last week's bombing of Serb broadcasting facilities, Pentagon spokesperson Kenneth H. Bacon angrily dismissed the question. Instead, Bacon reaffirmed the bombings as consistent with NATO's mission in the region. "Serb TV is as much a part of Milosevic's murder machine as his military is," Bacon said.

Media analysts predict the chilling surveillance video may be available on the Internet before Serbian television decides whether to incorporate the American tragedy at Columbine High into a broader propaganda campaign.

The South to the Future World Wide Wire Service is a weekly feed of technology and media news commentary and satire published by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Quotations attributed to public figures who are satirized are often true, but sometimes invented. Some fictional statements may, in fact, be true. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental.