Abstract
Throughout the 1990s the state of Yugoslavia dissolved, ravaged by horrendous conflict. Since, several retributive and restorative mechanisms to cope with past atrocities have been attempted. Human rights activists and civil society organizations have increasingly been involved in these processes. Employing concepts of sociology of spaces, which focuses on the creation of spaces through action and the interdependence of action on spatial structures, we argue that activists move between different spaces constituted by narratives of justice and truth. Different NGOs across the region for instance run trial monitoring and/or witness support programs—examples of activist involvement in legal spatiality. Moreover, recent fact-finding and documenting projects, such as the regional truth commission initiative (RECOM), illustrate efforts to create and expand so-called truth spaces by activists. Challenging existing retributive justice mechanisms to promote a transnational truth commission, however, has been unsuccessful thus far due to internal obstacles within the social movement’s organizational structure as well as the lack of external support. In this chapter we discuss the emergence of human rights activism to account for mass atrocity and trace different factors that have hampered the successful creation of a regional truth space and the institutionalization of the RECOM commission to deal with war crimes and human rights violations that occurred during the 1990s.
This chapter is based on Arnaud Kurze’s dissertation chapter 5 “Afraid to Cry Wolf: The Struggle of Transnational Accountability Efforts” (Kurze 2012). The authors also wish to thank Jo-Marie Burt, Earle Reybold, Olga Martin-Ortega, Peter Mandaville, Harvey Weinstein, and Nahla Valji for reading earlier drafts of this chapter and providing valuable comments to help clarify certain aspects and are indebted to Vjeran Pavlaković, Christopher Lamont, and other colleagues and friends for the many conversations that helped improve this chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
See also (Martin-Ortega and Herman 2010).
- 2.
Other authors, such as (Subotić 2009), and annual activity reports of NGOs, such as Documenta Center for Dealing with the Past and the Humanitarian Law Center, among others, have criticized the effectiveness of this justice cascade model by (Lutz and Sikkink 2001). Ellen Lutz and Kathryn Sikkink argue that through transnational advocacy network of lawyers and activists have fueled domestic judicial processes across Latin America.
- 3.
- 4.
Other forms include reparations, lustration and vetting, among others.
- 5.
Additionally, the study draws from various reports, policy briefs and strategy papers, among other documentation.
- 6.
See for instance (Kurze 2012, Chap. 4).
- 7.
For an extensive discussion on time and space, see (Urry 2000).
- 8.
See for instance (Kurze 2012, Chap. 3).
- 9.
The activities of the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade, Serbia, are a good example of documenting war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. The center also promotes victims rights, based on various initiatives, at http://www.hlc-rdc.org/stranice/Linkovi-modula/About-us.en.html. Accessed December 5, 2009.
- 10.
These various organizations have as their core mission to document and disclose facts about the human rights violations and war crimes committed during the 1990s to educate society and create a voice for victims. Various forms of implementing this mission exist. Documenta, for instance, among other things, engages in commemorative culture, history teaching, and dealing with the past initiatives, thus emphasizing the interactive dialogue with society. The Research and Documentation Center, concentrates its work on documenting missing persons, and has published a comprehensive account of all the war victims in BiH, The Bosnian book of the dead (2009), as well as an interactive Google map that shows location, nature of the crime and number of victims. The Humanitarian Law Center, despite its involvement in commemorative culture, is known for its strong legal activities, providing support for victims in court and vis-à-vis state institutions.
- 11.
The International Center for Transnational Justice (ICTJ) and other prominent NGOs in the region also participated in this discussion.
- 12.
Interviews held with several UNDP and EU officials in BiH, Croatia and Serbia during fieldwork between September 2009 and May 2011.
- 13.
See (Kurze 2012, chap. 3 and 4) and reports published by human rights organizations, including Documenta, the Humanitarian Law Center, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, among others.
- 14.
See Chap. 6 for a discussion on how the RECOM initiative members decided to define this specific timeframe.
- 15.
See final draft RECOM draft statute of March 26, 2011, http://www.zarekom.org. Accessed on March 1, 2012.
- 16.
According to the draft statute alleged war criminals and individuals with a political affiliation are ineligible for a position as a commissioner.
- 17.
The movement was organized in three phases. The first phase assessed the needs and expectations of victims to create an extra-judicial to deal with past mass atrocities across the region. In phase two participants were incited to provide suggestions and recommendations for creating a regional commission. This took place in local, national and regional consultations and meetings. The last phase aimed at discussing and crafting a draft statute for the commission. It started in May 2010 and lasted until the adoption of a draft statute in on March 26, 2011.
- 18.
See interview with Mirsad Tokača, director of the Research and Documentation Center in June 2011.
- 19.
See interview with Nataša Kandić, director of the Humanitarian Law Center, in May 2011.
- 20.
See interview with official member of RECOM in Zagreb in February 2011.
- 21.
See supra note 21. See also programs by Documenta, http://www.documenta.hr or the Humanitarian Law Center http://www.hlc-rdc.org. Accessed November 23, 2010.
- 22.
Particularly during electoral campaigns, history is manipulated and old nationalist sentiments exploited by certain political parties or social groups.
- 23.
Croatian for: Croatian Democratic Union.
- 24.
In the 1980s, Josipović was a member of the League of Communists of Croatia, playing a key role in the democratic transformation of this party as the author of the first statute of the Social Democratic Party of Croatia (SDP) after Croatia’s independence. He left politics in the mid-1990s, pursuing his academic career as a law professor at the University of Zagreb and only reentered the political realm in 2003, when Ivica Račan, then acting Prime Minister, invited him to join the government. Serbia’s president, Boris Tadić, a trained psychologist, was part of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, which was key in overthrowing Milosević in 2000. Politically part of the Democratic Party, he has made multiple symbolic reconciliatory public statements that are a sign of collaboration and understanding of both countries.
- 25.
The rising wave of apologies in the region of the former Yugoslavia is not limited to Serbia and Croatia. In November 2010, Bakir Izetbegovic, Bosniak member of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s tripartite presidency, apologized for deaths caused by his ethnic group among other ethnicities. This trend started in 2000 with Montenegrin President Milan Djukanovic, when he apologized for the 1991 shelling of the Croatian coastal city of Dubrovnik in which his country was involved. Since, the Serbian and Croat heads of state have apologized in 2003, and Tadić apologized to Bosnians in Sarajevo in 2004 for Serbian atrocities committed there. Additionally, Josipović has apologized at Jasenovac, a memorial site of a World War II concentration camp, where tens of thousands of people were killed. Public apologies are not the only trend, as there have been political and judicial conciliation as well. The Parliament of Serbia, for instance, voted on a resolution on the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, while Croatia is assisting Serbia in its bid to join the EU (Pejic 2010).
- 26.
See “Tadić se izvinio građanima Hrvatske,” B92, 24 June 2007.
- 27.
Vukovar is situated close to the Serbian border and a war site where Serbian forces took over 200 hospitalized Croats to a nearby pig farm in Ovčara and massacred them in November 1991.
- 28.
Already in spring 2010, when giving a talk in front of the Bosnian Parliament, Josipović apologized for crimes committed against Bosnians by the Croatian people. He also visited the site of the Ahmići massacre with Bosnian Catholic archbishop cardinal Vinko Puljić and the head of the Islamic Community reis Mustafa Cerić. See “Josipović apologizes for Croatia´s role in war in Bosnia,” Croatian Times, 15 April 2010.
- 29.
See interview with United Nations Development Program and European Union officials in Sarajevo in May 2011.
- 30.
Veterans in BiH, for instance, have also benefitted from financial and political support by their respective governments. See Popić and Panjeta (2010).
- 31.
The final draft of the statute was adopted on the fourth Coalition for RECOM Assembly Meeting on 26 March 2011 in Belgrade. The draft is available at http://www.zarekom.org/documents/Proposed-RECOM-Statute.en.html. Accessed on May 2, 2011.
- 32.
See reports of the consultation meetings at http://www.zarekom.org/Consultations.en.html. Accessed on February 11, 2011.
- 33.
See informal interview with Documenta director Vesna Teršelić in Vukovar on 14 July 2010.
- 34.
Supra note 33.
- 35.
See also Supra note 21.
- 36.
See interview with Signature Campaign officials of the RECOM initiative in May 2011.
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Kurze, A., Vukusic, I. (2013). Afraid to Cry Wolf: Human Rights Activists’ Struggle of Transnational Accountability Efforts in the Balkans. In: Simić, O., Volčič, Z. (eds) Transitional Justice and Civil Society in the Balkans. Springer Series in Transitional Justice. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5422-9_12
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