Skip to content

The (Im)Possibility of the Restorative Justice: The Example of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Details

Article

Restorative justice can be defined as a way of viewing justice that puts the emphasis on repairing harm caused by conflict and crime. In this approach crime is not understood as an offense against the state, but rather as a violation of people and relationships and a disruption of the peace of the community, which should be healed.(1)

It is necessary that victims, offenders and communities participate in finding solutions that seek to repair harm and promote harmony.

In order to achieve this goal, it is necessary that victims, offenders and communities participate in finding solutions that seek to repair harm and promote harmony.(2) Moreover, as Zehr and Mika pointed out, restorative justice process maximizes the input and participation or these parties – but especially primary victims as well as offenders – in the search for restoration, healing, responsibility and prevention.(3)

Therefore, restorative justice is collaborative and inclusive and, as a holistic approach, has far reaching effects beyond simply the issue of crime or rule-breaking. (4)

Therefore, three key principles govern the implementation of restorative justice in processes and in systemic reform. First, when crime (or wrongdoing) occurs, the focus is on the harm that has been done to people and relationships. Second, when harm has been done, it creates obligations and liabilities. Third, the way forward involves perpetrators, victims and the community in efforts to heal the harm and put things right. (5)

In order for the goals of restorative justice processes to be achieved the following preconditions should be fulfilled: (6)

  1. Invitation to full participation of the victims, offenders and communities
    Firstly, the voice to those involved in and affected by an incident of harm should be given and the dialogue among them invited. These dialogues are usually not possible in the formal court setting, but are one of the main processes in restorative justice.(7)
  2. Work towards healing what has been broken.
    Second, a restorative response seeks to address the tangible as well as intangible harms, resulting from the crime, and to do what is possible to help meet the needs of any and all affected. According to Zehr and Mika, the justice process provides a framework that promotes the work of recovery and healing that is ultimately the domain of the individual victim. The needs of victims for information, validation, vindication, restitution, testimony, safety and support are the starting points of justice.(8)
  3. Seek direct accountability.
    Third, direct accountability should be sought. Namely, people causing harm should be held accountable for their actions to the people whom they have hurt. Appropriate reparation should be discussed and expected. Obligations to victims such as restitution take priority over other sanctions and obligations to the state such as fines.(9) Unlike taking punishment, on what offenders are used to, taking the responsibility means realizing the harm done by commiting a crime and it is the starting point for restorative justice.(10)
  4. Reintegrate where there has been division.
    Forth, restorative justice should help with reintegration and the repair of relationships where there has been division. Namely, harmful actions often create outcasts, alienation and distrust in the community. Where possible, restorative justice should help with reintegration and the repair of relationships.
  5. Prevention of the future harms
    Fifth, restorative justice should strengthen the community and individuals to prevent further harms.(11)

The (im)possibility of restorative justice

But is restorative justice really possible? In order for this processes to be successful all these preconditions and principles have to be implemented. If not, restorative justice, in my opinion, can be used as yet another mean for continuation of the victims’ oppression.

Dealing with the past in Bosnia remains a key challenge.

Namely, the restorative justice processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina have often been transformed into their own opposite, what will be explained in the following part of the paper. Dealing with the past in Bosnia remains a key challenge. The courts of Republika Srpska have not conducted criminal proceedings for any genocide charges so far. The prime suspects are considered to be heroes in significant segments of Serbian population in Republika Srpska, Serbia and Montenegro. Many members of the formations that directly or indirectly participated in the genocide are even integrated into security structures.  Therefore, not only that the crimes and harms done are not acknowledged, but they are denied, which makes restorative justice impossible to achieve.

Not only that the crimes and harms done are not acknowledged, but they are denied, which makes restorative justice impossible to achieve.

Genocide and other crimes denial in Bosnia and Herzegovina (12)

Genocide denial is considered to be the final stage of genocide, which “build on to the complex motivation inspiring the first stage of genocide” (13) and represents “one of the most certain indicators of future genocides”. (14)

According to Israel W. Charny, genocide denial conceals horror of the crimes and exonerates those responsible for it. (15) In addition to denial responsibility, denials are celebrations of destruction, renewed humiliations of survivors, and metaphorically murders of historical truth and collective memory. (16) In fact, denial is “double murder” since the deniers kill the dignity of the survived and tend to destroy the memory of the crime, whereby they prevent the wounds inflicted by the genocide from healing. Deborah Lipstadt argues that the denial of an individual’s or a group’s persecution is the ultimate cruelty – on some level worse than the persecution itself. (17)

In the restorative justice processes acknowledgement of the crimes and the harm done is the key, yet genocide and the other crimes denial is still present in Bosnia and Herzegovina, even though the rulings of the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, have shown that genocide was committed over Bosnian Muslims, i. e. Bosniaks in July 1995 in Srebrenica and its surrounding areas, as well as other numerous crimes against humanity and war crimes across entire Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the other side, these courts along with the domestic courts, limited genocide, both, in terms of time and territory in their decisions. There are no similar restrictions in the other cases of genocide. But, even this restricted interpretation of genocide is denied.

The most frequent reason for genocide denial is said to be the attempt to exempt perpetrators from responsibility for the commission of crime, i.e. non-preventing the commission of the crime.

The most frequent reason for genocide denial is said to be the attempt to exempt perpetrators from responsibility for the commission of crime, i.e. non-preventing the commission of the crime. (18) Different mechanisms are used in the course of denial. Some of them also include: denial of knowledge about the genocide, denial of responsibility, denial of victim existence, indicting the suitor and moral indifference to the crime. (19)

Israel W. Charny has pointed at several forms of official genocide denials: (20) and all these forms of genocide denial are present in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Namely, in the official statements of presidents and other officials of Republika Srpska entity (and often Republic of Serbia) (21) it is emphasized that “there was no genocide in Srebrenica, only a crime” (converting the event into some other kind of crime); that “it is attempted to present history in a selective manner” because, for example, “two units of Ustashas, having Muslims as their members, killed 6,000 Serbs…in Brod located at Drina River” (22) (presenting the perpetrator as the victim); that “the unborn Serbian children cannot be responsible for what happened 15 years ago” (distancing the event in time); that “in July 1995, the number of Bosniaks that left Srebrenica and went to Tuzla was greater than the number of Bosniaks that were killed, which means that this is not a genocide” (changing the form of the event); (23) that “Srebrenica is asking for a new approach and new reality assessment that would be accepted by everyone, which may be accomplished through a new international commission” (24) (new research is necessary and/or new research contests genocide charges).

President of Republika Srpska entity, Milorad Dodik. (25)
Former president of Republic of Serbia, Tomislav Nikolić, known for genocide denials. (26)

In such circumstances that have all the elements of denial, it is possible that nowadays even those who were not born in the time of genocide are shouting “Nož, žica, Srebrenica!” at public gatherings. “Nož, žica, Srebrenica” (“Knife, Wire, Srebrenica!”) is the slogan which glorifies the genocide in Srebrenica, often followed by another threatening slogan “Bit će repriza!” (“There will be a repeat!”). Besides, the names of indicted and/or convicted war criminals, such as Ratko Mladić, a former Bosnian Serb military leader accused of committing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), are glorified and shouted during football matches.

Serbian fans holding a banner that says ”Knife, Wire, Srebrenica” at the 2005 World Cup qualifying match. (27)
Destroyed bilboards in Belgarde 2005. “Bice repriza” (There will be a repeat) written in cyrillic. (28)
Poster of Ratko Mladic in Vlasenica. It says: „We are waiting for you, general.“ (29)
Photo of Serbian fans during Serbia-Turkey game, wearing the T-shirts with the photo of Ratko Mladic. (30)

The case of Prijedor

In Prijedor, a city and municipality in the northwest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to  evidence from the nonSerb victim association – ’Izvor’, 3,177 people (3,015 Bosniaks, 138 Croats, 12 Albanians, 8 Roma, 1 Czech, 1 Pakistani, 1 Serb, 1 Ukrainian) were killed or missing (an estimated number of 2,078 people were killed and around 1,099 are still considered missing). (31)

On the last day of May 1992, after a forceful takeover of the municipal government, Bosnian Serb authorities issued a decree on local radio ordering all non-Serbian citizens to mark their houses with white flags or bedsheets and to wear white armbands when leaving the house.

Many crimes were committed against the detainees in these camps including torture, other inhumane acts, murder, rape and sexual violence. (32)

Around 31,000 of those forced to wear white armbands had been detained in some of the most notorious camps established during the war in Bosnia — Omarska, Keraterm, Manjača and Trnopolje. Many crimes were committed against the detainees in these camps including torture, other inhumane acts, murder, rape and sexual violence. (32) Around 53,000 were forced to flee or were deported from the municipality. In just three months 94 percent of the Bosniak population from Prijedor was eliminated.

Photo taken by Penny Marshall, 6 August 1992. The enduring image of the Bosnian war, taken when Ed Vulliamy and Independent Television News uncovered the existence of concentration camps in Trnopolje, above Omarska and Keraterm. (33)
(34)
(35)

Just in 2013 the biggest mass grave in Bosnia and Herzegovina, away from Srebrenica, was found in the village of Tomasica, near Prijedor, a few kilometres away down a dirt track from Omarska (36) about which location Bosnian Serb witnesses kept silent. Witness’ statements have already established that this grave originally contained upwards of 1,000 bodies of Bosniak and Croat victims killed by Bosnian Serb forces, when it was dug in the summer of 1992. (37)

Exhumation from mass grave Tomasica near Prijedor (38)
The bodies exhumed from the Tomasica mass grave at the Sejkovaca identification centre, near the town of Prijedor (39)
(40)

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found several Bosnian Serbs guilty of mass killings, detention in concentration camps (Omarska, Trnopolje and Keraterm), rape, deportation, torture, destruction of cultural and religious heritage, and robbery of non-Serbs that occurred in Prijedor, primarily in 1992. (41)

Despite all these efforts of the international tribunal and the domestic courts to hold individuals accountable, establish the truth and contribute toward reconciliation, the political leaders in Prijedor and Republika Srpska maintain a culture of denial. (42) Political elites as well as citizens, as Haris Subašić observed, refuse to participate in meetings organized with the aim of working towards reconciliation, fail to provide full support to the ongoing search for missing persons and refuse to take part in camp commemorations. (43)

Bosnian Muslims have also been prevented on many occasions from publicly paying respect to their dead.

Unlike the monuments dedicated to the so-called “Serbian defensive-liberation war” in Prijedor, as an official collective memory and narrative – a form of political and cultural strategy of denial – the local government in Prijedor does not allow the construction of monuments for non-Serb victims in those areas where concentration camps were located (namely, Omarska and Trnopolje). (44) Moreover, Bosnian Muslims have also been prevented on many occasions from publicly paying respect to their dead. In May 2012. Bosnian Serb mayor – Marko Pavić, of the Serb Democratic Party — the same political party that issued the 1992 white armband decree —forbade a gathering of survivors, who wanted to lay red roses and white bags in the city center in remembrance of 266 women who have killed or went missing in Prijedor. On the orders of mayor Pavić, the police intervened to stop this event and claimed that it would disturb the peace. (45)

The same Serb individuals who took control of Prijedor through systematic policies of “ethnic cleansing”…retained total control over key security, economic, infrastructure, and humanitarian sectors of the community after the war.

At the conference entitled “Bridging the Gap” organized by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which brought ICTY officials to local communities that were most devastated by the war in order to educate the community about the work of the Tribunal, said that he resisted holding the conference because he believed Prijedor should move on from its dark past to a brighter future without analyzing what happened during the war” (emphasized by the author of this paper). (46)

Notably the same Serb individuals who took control of Prijedor through systematic policies of “ethnic cleansing“ – including deliberate killings, concentration camps, mass rape, and the takeover of businesses, government offices, and all communal property – retained total control over key security, economic, infrastructure, and humanitarian sectors of the community after the war. (47)

Is the restorative justice really possible in such circumstances?

Restorative justice as a mean to continue the oppression of the victims

As has already been pointed out, the restorative justice processes in Bosnia and Herzegovina have often been transformed into their own opposite. Namely, by not acknowledging the crimes (or their denial) the restorative justice is not possible. Therefore, using the other restorative justice mechanisms only represents the continuation of victims’ oppression in the same way as denials of the crimes do.

“Human institutions have no means to judge radical evil”

For example, insisting on the forgiveness for the crimes is yet another way to oppress the victims, accusing them to obstruct the reconciliation process. As Hannah Arendt wrote, “human institutions have no means to judge radical evil and all we know is that there are actions that can be neither punished nor forgiven and therefore transcend the realm of human affairs and the potential of the human being, radically destroying them wherever they appear.” (48) Since the aim of the restorative justice is healing the harm done and prevention of the future harms, forgiveness should not be considered as restorative justice mechanism. Who should forgive? To who?

The Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial and Cemetery shows extermination of the whole families in which there are no survivors left, who could forgive. As Lara J. Nettelfield, Sarah E. Wagner noticed, the cemetery and its tombstones reconstitute families torn apart by the genocide. It is, they have noticed, a gendered and familial reassembling: the male lines of the Srebrenica families, many of whom lost multiple relatives, are restored plot by plot with the returned remains of fathers and sons, brothers and uncles, cousins and grandfathers. (49)

Potočari Memorial (50)
Potočari Memorial (51)

On the other side, as Paul Ricouer observed, it is legitimate question of “on what authority a political leader in office or the current head of a religious community presume to request forgiveness from the victims, with respect to whom he or she was not personally the aggressor or themselves did not personally suffer the harm in question?“ (52)

Leaving the past in the past. Is it really possible?

Moreover, by the international appeals to “forgive and forget”, and the expectation to hurry up and “move forward” (53) as the only possibilities for the continuation of the reconciliation process as has often been presented, the victims are oppressed again in the same way as by the denial of the crimes which is said to be “double murder” – since the deniers kill the dignity of the survived and tend to destroy the memory of the crime, whereby they prevent the wounds inflicted by the crimes from healing – or the “ultimate cruelty” – on some level worse than the crime itself, as Deborah Lipstadt famously said.

“If we do not show some resentment to those who, in victimizing us, flout those understandings, then we run the risk—in Aurel Kolnai’s words—of being ‘complicitous in evil.'”

Unlike the authors, who present anger and resentment as destructive forces and advocate of forgiveness, tying the willingness or exercise of forgiveness to a realization of deep humanity and virtue, philosophers like Adam Smith, maintain that resentment is part and parcel of our humanity (in the normative sense of “being human”). (54)

According to Jeffrie G. Murphy „resentment does not stand simply as emotional testimony of self-respect“ but “this passion—and the reluctance to transcend it in hasty forgiveness—also stands as testimony to our allegiance to the moral order itself… an order represented by clear understandings of what constitutes unacceptable treatment of one human being by another“. Moreover, he adds, “if we do not show some resentment to those who, in victimizing us, flout those understandings, then we run the risk—in Aurel Kolnai’s words—of being ‘complicitous in evil.'” (55)

According to Thomas Brudholm’s analysis of Jean Améry’s views, he (Améry) tries to undo the common assumption that the forgiving and conciliatory victim is realizing or manifesting something more honorable or humane in comparison with the person who retains resentment. His primary aim, Brudholm considers, is to defend moral necessity of resentment in the particular historical and social circumstances. Namely, what should be met with moral resistance, according to Améry, is the social pressure on the victims to forgive and forget or to accept what happened because it is “already-being-long-past”. Such pressure is, as Améry states, in itself immoral (emphasized by the author of this paper). Moreover, Améry considers that the “loudly proclaimed readiness for reconciliation by Nazi victims can only be either insanity and indifference to life or the masochistic conversion of a suppressed genuine demand for revenge.” (56) Therefore, urging the victims to “forgive and forget“ is immoral and another way of their oppression, even more so when the forgiveness is not asked for or there is no even acknowledgment of the crimes. (57)

Compensation

Even though compensation as a financial assistance to crime victims can have some positive effects in the restorative justice processes, it can also serve as a tool for continuation of victims’ oppression. As the president of Nigeria – Olusegun Obasanjo said, ‘the legacies of several centuries of racial discrimination and dehumanization through slavery, slave trade and colonization have the deep and fundamental consequences of poverty… and marginalization of Africans from the rest of the world…“ Therefore, he added „monetary compensation would hurt the dignity of Africans“. (58)

Consequently, paying very often humiliating and disproportionate compensation claiming that the justice is served, would only mean continuation of the oppression of the victims.

For example, by the recent the Hague Appeals Court’s ruling, the Netherlands was partly responsible for the deaths of 350 Bosnian Muslim males during the 1995 Srebrenica genocide. Unlike the lower-court ruling from 2014, the Hague Appeals Court ruled the Dutch state was liable for 30 percent of the losses suffered by the families of those men who were killed.

How could the annihilation of whole families in genocidal crimes be compensated? To who?

“Perhaps they would not have survived either in that case, because the Bosnian Serbs would have blocked access of relief supplies (water, food) or would have removed the men from the compound by force, but they would still have had a chance of survival in that case,” the ruling said. “The Court of Appeal estimates that chance to be 30%. The State is therefore liable for 30% of the losses suffered by the relatives.” (59)

Therefore, providing partial justice and compensation based on the 30% possibility of survival and taking 30% responsibility for not preventing the deaths i. e. facilitating perpetration of genocide and the other crimes is renewed humiliations of victims and survivors. On the other side, justified question is how could the annihilation of whole families in genocidal crimes be compensated? To who?

Restitution

‘Restitution’ is a term which is used in different ways by different authors. It can be taken to refer to the whole process of seeking to rectify historic injustice, and is often used in this way in both scholarly and popular discussion of righting past wrongs. Therefore, the term is used to describe all elements of attempts to right historic wrongs, “ranging from the literal return of the object that was taken (in whole or in part), through financial compensation based on estimates (somehow reached) of the value of the object, to apologies (or apology-like acts under various names) with or without accompanying compensation.” (60)

Restitution in a sense of “righting past wrongs” as many authors define it, is often not possible.

Restitution in a sense of “righting past wrongs” as many authors define it, is often not possible. For example, how would restitution look like in the cities and the municipalities which are “ethnically cleansed” in Bosnia and Herzegovina in which the individuals, who directly or indirectly participated in the genocide, took part in the deliberate killings, detention in the concentration camps, mass rape and the other crimes, retained total control over key security, economic, infrastructure, and humanitarian sectors of the community?

Moreover, how would the restitution look like in the cases like Pionirska street in the eastern Bosnian town of Višegrad, where 59 Bosnian Muslims were burned to death, after being taken by a group of armed Serbs to a house and set ablaze on 14 June 1992? Or in the Bikavac fire case, also in Višegrad, fifteen days later, on 27 June 1992, when at least 60 Muslim civilians, mostly women and children, were killed after the house in which they were confined was set on fire?

The house in Pionirska Street (61)
The site where house in which around 70 Bosniak civilians were burned alive in Bikavac (62)

The cruelty of these crimes led the judges to issue especially pointed condemnations in the Milan and Sredoje Lukić judgement: (63)

“In the all too long, sad and wretched history of man’s inhumanity to man, the Pionirska street and Bikavac fires must rank high. At the close of the twentieth century, a century marked by war and bloodshed on a colossal scale, these horrific events stand out for the viciousness of the incendiary attack, for the obvious premeditation and calculation that defined it, for the sheer callousness and brutality of herding, trapping and locking the victims in the two houses, thereby rendering them helpless in the ensuing inferno, and for the degree of pain and suffering inflicted on the victims as they were burnt alive.” (64)

Restitution, through literal return of the object taken or compensation based on estimates of the value of the object would only be the extension of the oppression of victims and ongoing violation of the victims’ rights, when there is no even recognition of these crimes.

Where from here?

Having in mind all above-mentioned flaws, restorative justice is still crucial for the reconciliation processes in post-conflict societies which will enable further development of the societies and moving to a more promising future.

The judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia did not say that genocide had not occurred, but rather that it had not been proven beyond all reasonable doubt.

One of the essential restorative justice mechanisms, which contributes to reconciliation, is seeking and establishing the truth. Namely, judicial decisions do not necessarily reflect the historical truth. For example, International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia ruled that genocide in Bosnia was committed in Srebrenica in 1995. (65) While the judges of the International Court of Justice specifically stated that genocide did not occur at other times or places in Bosnia, the judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia did not say that genocide had not occurred, but rather that it had not been proven beyond all reasonable doubt.

Therefore, apart from these judicially established truths, it is necessary to take into the consideration the historical truths, since wider truth is sometimes lost when focus on the importance of supporting documents is overshadowed by a final verdict. Namely, even if individual criminal responsibility for genocide, committed during certain periods of time in particular territories, is not established, it is not inherently true that genocide did not take place. It has been conclusively proven by renowned scholars such as Samantha Power in her Pulitzer Prize-winning  A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, (66) that genocide was committed in Bosnia during 1992-1995.

In establishing the historical truth, the number of victims will be determined, what will prevent the manipulation of the facts and changing the character of the events.

The other essential restorative justice mechanism, closely connected with the establishing the truth, is combating the past victimization narrative as a tool to justify committed crimes and incite to future violence. This belief system, often incorporated into nationalistic myths, refers to a sense of historical suffering, loss, victimization that sometimes facilitates the persecution of those defined as the former victimizer. (67) According to Alvarez, ideologies that enshrine and glorify a history of victimhood provides a made-to-order justification for violence directed against those defined as the former oppressors. (68)

This was widely used by Serb nationalist during genocide and the other crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Namely, according to the reports of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in East Bosnia, every “ethnic cleansing” was proceeded by claims by Serb nationalists about “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing”, “mass rapes” and “cultural destruction” against Serbs in a certain region. (69)

“Most of the participants spoke extensively about genocide, a term they used in the congress to characterize the killings of Serbs in Second World War but never accept in reference to Serb actions”

Moreover, at the gathering called “Congress of Serb intellectuals”, which was held on March 28 1992, as Robert J. Donia noticed, “in straining to portray genocide as the central historical Bosnian Serb experience of the twentieth century, the speakers intended to persuade a skeptical public that Serbs were justified in using armed force to ward off alleged imminent threat to Serb people. The speakers also pressed the notion that wartime genocide warranted Serb seizure of much of Bosnia.” (70) He also noticed that “most of the participants spoke extensively about genocide, a term they used in the congress to characterize the killings of Serbs in Second World War but never accept in reference to Serb actions.”

The same strategies were used continuously. Namely, in the Letter Dated 24 May 1994 from the Secretary-General to the President of the Security Council it is mentioned that Simo Drljača, then Deputy Minister of Interior of the „Serb Republic of Bosnia“, in an interview printed in Kozarski Vjesnik on 9 April 1993, stated that: „In the collection centres ’Omarska’, ’Keraterm’ and ’Trnopolje’ more than 6,000 informative talks were held. Of this number 1,503 Muslims and Croats were sent to the camp ’Manjača on the basis of solid documentation of active participation in the fighting against the Army of Republika Srpska [’Serb Republic of Bosnia’] and also participation in genocide against the Serbian people’ (emphasized added). Instead of letting them get their deserved punishment the powerful men of the world expressing disdain forced us to release them all from Manjaca.“ (71)

The continuation of using the same strategies, can be seen in the monuments in Prijedor, which honor those who lost their lives to “Muslim extremists in the war of defense and liberation.” (72)

Establishing the truth will help combating these narratives – as a form of justification past and incitment to the future crimes –  as well as denials of the crimes – as “celebrations of destruction, renewed humiliations of survivors, and metaphorically murders of historical truth and collective memory”, what will ultimately enable Bosnia and Herzegovina to move on to a more promising future.

Consequently, not only that these mechanisms will encourage the victims to tell their stories in order to preserve the memory, but will help the healing process and bringing the all sides together in the recovery.

These efforts have already taken place across the entire Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region as well. Namely, variously human rights organizations and groups, such as Women in Black, the Humanitarian Law Centre and the Youth Initiative for Human Rights, indefatigably commemorate and dignify the victims of crimes committed in former Yugoslavia, often confronted by ultra-right Serb nationalists.

Thanks to Emir’s initiative, persistence and courage, today many people around the world heard about the crimes in Prijedor and commemorate the victims by wearing the white armband on 31st May.

Despite the local authorities’ obstruction and prohibition of commemoration of victims of genocide and the other crimes in Prijedor (because, according to local authorities, that would  “harm the city’s reputation”) Emir Hodžić, whose brother and father were inmates of Omarska concentration camp, started the commemoration by standing alone at the town square with a white stripe on his arm, on May 23 2012. Thanks to Emir’s initiative, persistence and courage, today many people around the world heard about the crimes in Prijedor and commemorate the victims by wearing the white armband on 31st May.

Women in Black has organized several hundred protests against the war and commemorations for the victims of war and crimes, calling for accountability, most of which took place in Belgrade and the other cities throughout the former Yugoslavia since October 1991. Young activist from the Youth Initiative for Human Rights organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Serbia, Croatia and Montenegro tirelessly commemorate victims of genocide and the other crimes committed in former Yugoslavia.

Therefore, there are efforts for facing with past and reconciliation which would lead to a more promising future. They should be supported, encouraged and passed to the next generations. The power of every single individual, the power of ourselves, should never be underestimated.

Emir Hodzic, standing alone in Prijedor town square on May 23 2012: (73)

“We have to fight any ideology that has sponsored genocide and crimes against humanity, and is denying the victims the right to remember. There is no idea or ideology that can justify killing children and rape. A murdered child has no ethnic prefix, and there is no ‘but.’“ (74)

Activists from the Women in Black movement gathered in Serbian capital Belgrade to mark the 20th anniversary of the war. First banner on the left reads “Twenty years of aggression on Bosnia and Herzegovina” (75)
“We will never forget Srebrenica genocide“, Youth Initiative for Human Rights commemoration of Srebrenica genocide in Belgrade, on July 11, 2017. Even though, the activists were protected by the police, they were attacked by the right wing organizations calling them “mercenaries”. Members of right wing organizations were shouting the names of Ratko Mladić and wearing the banners that reads: Otadžbina pamti genocide nad Srbima (“Our homeland remembers the genocide on Serbs”) (76)
Youth Initiative for Human Rights commemoration of Tuzla massacre of civilians committed on May 25, 1995 in Tuzla known as the Massacre on the Gate (Bosnian: Masakr na Kapiji). The banner reads: Premladi da se sećamo, odlučni da nikad ne zaboravimo (“Too young to remember, determined not to forget”). (77)

 

 

References

  1. Daniel W. Van Ness, Karen H. Strong, Restoring Justice: An Introduction to Restorative Justice (Anderson Publishing, 2015), pp. 45
  2. Restorative Justice Principles and Values, http://www.iirp.edu/pdf/RJValues-DOJCan.pdf, accessed on July 25, 2017.
  3. Howard Zehr, Harry Mika, „Fundamental Concepts of Restorative Justice“. In: Restorative Justice: Critical Issues, ed. by Eugene McLaughlin et al. (The Open University, 2003), pp. 42
  4. Daniel W. Van Ness, Karen Heetderks Strong, Restoring Justice, op. cit., pp. 45
  5. Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Restorative Justice (New York: Good Books, 2014).
  6. Howard Zehr, Allan MacRae, et. al., The Big Book of Restorative Justice: Four Classic Justice & Peacebuilding Books in One Volume (New York: Good Books, 2015). by Howard Zehr (Author), Allan MacRae (Author),
  7. Marian Liebmann, Restorative Justice: How It Works (London, Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2007), pp. 26
  8. Howard Zehr, Harry Mika, „Fundamental Concepts…“ op. cit., pp. 42
  9. Howard Zehr, Harry Mika, „Fundamental Concepts…“ op. cit., pp. 41
  10. Marian Liebmann, Restorative Justice, op. cit., pp. 26
  11. Howard Zehr, Harry Mika, „Fundamental Concepts of Restorative Justice“. In: Restorative Justice: Critical Issues, ed. by Eugene McLaughlin et al. (The Open University, 2003), pp. 42
  12. Ehlimana Memisevic, „Battling the Eighth Stage: Incrimination of Genocide Denial in Bosnia and Herzegovina,“ Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Special Issue: 20th Anniversary of Srebrenica, Vol. 35, No. 3, 2015, 380-400
  13. Framework Decision of 28 November 2008 on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law, Official Journal of the European Union L 328/55, 6. 12. 2008. Accessed on January 24, 2015, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32008F0913
  14. Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro: Case Concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Judgment of 26 February 2007. International Court of Justice. Accessed on July 11, 2015, http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/91/13685.pdf; Prosecutor v. Radislav Krstic – Appeals Chamber – Judgment – en IT-98-33 [2004] ICTY 7 (19 April 2004). International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.Accessed on July 11, 2015, http://www.icty.org/x/cases/krstic/acjug/en/krs-aj040419e.pdf; Prosecutor v. Vujadin Popović, Ljubiša Beara, Drago Nikolić, Radivoje Miletić, Vinko Pandurević, 30 January 2015. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Accessed on July 11, 2015, http://icty.org/x/cases/popovic/acjug/en/150130_judgement.pdf
  15. Israel W. Charny, “The Psychology of Denial of Known Genocides” in Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review, Vol. 2, ed. I. W. Charny, London: Mansell Publishing, New York: Facts on File, 1991, pp. 23
  16. Israel W. Charny,”A Classification of Denials of the Holocaust and Other Genocides” in: The Genocide Studies Reader, ed. by Samuel Totten, Paul Robert Bartrop, Routledge: New York, 2009, pp. 517-537
  17. Deborah E. Lipstadt, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, New York: Plume, 1994, pp. 30
  18. E. Markusen and I. Charny, “The Psychology of Denial of Genocide”, in: The Encyclopedia of Genocide, Vol. 1. ed. by I. W. Charny et al., Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2000, pp. 159-161
  19. S. Koen, Stanje poricanja, op. cit. pp. 127-159
  20. a) not admitting that the genocide occurred, b) denying the facts about genocide by converting them to some other type of an event, c) presenting the perpetrator as a victim, d) giving the anti-statements emphasizing that the victims were treated well, e) claiming that the date is not available and that the indictments are based on forged information and scams and that it is necessary to conduct new research and/or that the new research contests genocide charges, f) contesting statistics so that the number of dead is lower that the stated and g) distancing the event in time. Israel W. Charny, “Templates for Gross Denial of a Known Genocide: A Manual,” in The Encyclopedia of Genocide, pp. 168; I. W. Charny,”A Classification of Denials”, op. cit.
  21. “Nikolić negira genocid u Srebrenici”, (“Nikolić denies genocide in Srebrenica”), June 01, 2012. Accessed February 22, 2015, http://www.dw.de/nikoli%C4%87-negira-genocid-u-srebrenici/a-15993945.
  22. This type of denial was used during genocide in Srebrenica. Namely, according to the reports of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in East Bosnia, every “ethnic cleansing” was preceeded by claims by Serb nationalists about “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing”, “mass rapes” and “cultural destruction” against Serbs in a certain region. Michael Sells, “Vjera, historija i genocid u Bosni i Hercegovini”, in Muslimi Balkana: “Istočno pitanje” u xx. vijeku, ed. F. Karčić, Sarajevo: Centar za napredne studije, 2014, pp. 127-149 (Translation of Michael Sells, “Religion, History and Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina”, in Religion and Justice in the War over Bosnia, ed. G. Scott Davis, New York and London: Routledge, 1996, pp. 23-43).
  23. “Dodik: ‘U Srebrenici nije bilo genocida, neću se odreći Mladića i Karadžića'” (“Dodik: ‘There was no genocide in Srebrenica, I will not give up on Mladić and Karadžić'”), Jutarnji list, July 09, 2014. Accessed January 31, 2015, http://www.jutarnji.hr/skandalozni-dodik–u-srebrenici-nije-bilo-genocida–necu-se-odreci-mladica-i-karadzica–bih-je-neodrziva–/1205088/,
  24. “Dodik: ‘Srebrenica je najveći udarac srpstvu i kukavičluk'”, (“Dodik: ‘Crimes in Srebrenica as cowardice and the biggest blow to Serbdom”), March 25, 2015. http://www.vesti-online.com/Vesti/Ex-YU/480916/Srebrenica-je-najveci-udarac-srpstvu-i-kukavicluk, accessed on 27 March, 2015,
  25. Photo source: http://www.bljesak.info/rubrika/vijesti/clanak/dodik-nakon-odluke-ustavnog-suda-rsa-bit-ce-objavljeni-rezultati-referenduma/178311, accessed on August 27, 2017.
  26. Photo source: http://www.dw.com/en/serbian-president-under-fire-for-denying-srebrenica-genocide/a-16001312, accessed on August 27, 2017.
  27. Photo source: https://bosnienbloggen.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/attacks-on-returnees-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina/, accessed on August 27, 2017.
  28. Photo source: https://bosnienbloggen.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/attacks-on-returnees-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina/, accessed on August 27, 2017.
  29. Photo source: https://bosnienbloggen.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/attacks-on-returnees-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina/, accessed on August 27, 2017.
  30. Photo source: https://bosnienbloggen.wordpress.com/2015/08/28/attacks-on-returnees-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina/, accessed on August 27, 2017.
  31. Haris Subasic, „The Culture of Denial in Prijedor“, Bosnia Daily, February 5, 2013., pp. 10
  32. Antonio Cassese (eds.), The Oxford Companion to International Criminal Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 931
  33. Photo source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/may/28/ratko-mladic-bosnia-ed-vulliamy, accesed on August 27, 2017.
  34. Photo source: https://www.ictj.org/sites/default/files/subsites/flowers-square-prijedor/, accessed 28 August 2017.
  35. Photo source: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/nn953m/photos-of-the-bosnia-war, accessed 28 August 2017.
  36. Ed Vulliamy, „The long read: Bringing up the bodies in Bosnia“,  6 -december, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/06/bringing-up-the-bodies-bosnia, accessed 28 August 2017.
  37. Penny Marshal, 21 years after the war the ground in Bosnia is giving up its secrets,  http://www.itv.com/news/2013-10-14/more-than-20-years-after-the-war-the-ground-in-bosnia-is-giving-up-its-secrets/, accessed 28 August 2017.
  38. Photo source: http://www.sense-agency.com/icty/tomasica-evidence-closed-to-public.29.html?news_id=16642, accessed 28 August 2017.
  39. Photo source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2483794/Two-decades-slaughter-Serb-soldiers-carrying-door-door-ethnic-cleansing-360-victims-emerge-Bosnian-wars-largest-mass-grave.html, accessed Augut 27, 2017.
  40. Photo source: http://balkans.aljazeera.net/tag/tomasica, accessed Augut 27, 2017.
  41. Haris Subasic, „The Culture of Denial in Prijedor“, op. cit., pp. 11
  42. Kathryn Metz, Transitional Justice in Prijedor: Ideals and Shortcomings of Criminal Prosecutions after the Bosnian War, Budapest, 2015, www.etd.ceu.hu/2016/metz_kathryn.pdf, pp. 15
  43. Haris Subasic, „The Culture of Denial in Prijedor“, op. cit., pp. 11
  44. Haris Subasic, The Culture of Denial in Prijedor, op. cit., pp. 10
  45. Janine N. Clark, International Trials and Reconciliation: Assessing the Impact of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, (Routledge, 2015), pp. 124
  46. Kathryn Metz, Transitional Justice in Prijedor, op. cit., pp. 15
  47. Human Rights Watch, Selling Justice Short: Why Accountability Matters for Peace, 7 July 2009, 1-56432-508-3, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4a52fd692.html [accessed 27 August 2017], pp. 55
  48. Antonio Cassese (eds.), The Oxford Companion to International Criminal Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 14
  49. Lara J. Nettelfield, Sarah E. Wagner, Srebrenica in the Aftermath of Genocide (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 53
  50. Photo source: https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/novi-pritisak-da-beograd-prizna-srebrenicki-genocid-/27062879.html, accessed on 27 August, 2017.
  51. Photo source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/bosnia/11729436/Srebrenica-20-years-on-What-have-been-the-successes-and-failures-of-UN-peacekeeping-missions.html, accessed on 27 August, 2017.
  52. Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting transl. by Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer, (Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), pp. 479
  53. Lara J. Nettelfield, Sarah E. Wagner, Srebrenica in the Aftermath of Genocide, op. cit., pp. 28-29
  54. Thomas Brudholm, Resentment’s Virtue: Jean Amery and the Refusal to Forgive (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009), pp. 127
  55. Jeffrie G. Murphy, Getting Even: Forgiveness and Its Limits (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 20
  56. Thomas Brudholm, Resentment’s Virtue, op. cit., pp. 128
  57. More on asking for forgivness, Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting op. cit., pp. 478–506
  58. Daniel Butt, Rectifying International Injustice: Principles of Compensation and Restitution Between Nations, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 1
  59. Krishnadev Calamur, „Appeals Court Finds Netherlands Partially Liable for Srebrenica Massacre“, Jun 27, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/06/srebrenica-massacre-netherlands/531753/, accessed on 27 August 2017.
  60. Daniel Butt, Rectifying International Injustice, op. cit., pp. 22
  61. Photo source: http://lucabonacini.com/pionirska-street-massacre-in-visegrad/, accessed on 27 August, 2017.
  62. Photo source: Booklet entitled: The memory remains: 20 years since the Visegrad genocide, available at:  https://genocideinvisegrad.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/the-memory-remains-20-years-since-the-visegrad-genocide/, accessed on 27 August, 2017.
  63. Rosa Aloisi, James Meernik, Judgement Day: Judicial Decision Making at the International Criminal Tribunals, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp. 139
  64. Milan and Sredoje Lukic Judgement, IT-98-32/1-T 12910 D12910 – D12551, 20 July 2009, http://www.icty.org/x/cases/milan_lukic_sredoje_lukic/tjug/en/090720_j.pdf, accessed 28 August 2017.
  65. Marko A. Hoare, “A Case Study in Underachievement: The International Courts and Genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, Genocide Studies and Prevention, Vol. 6, No. 1, April 2011, pp. 82
  66. Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002).
  67. Alex Alvarez, Genocidal Crimes (New York: Routledge, 2010), pp. 64
  68. Alex Alvarez, Genocidal Crimes, op. cit., pp. 64
  69. See footnote no. 19
  70. Robert J. Donia, Radovan Karadzic: Architect of the Bosnian Genocide (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 185
  71. Letter Dated 24 May 1994 from the Secretary-General to the President of the Security Council: Final Report of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 (1992), pp. 40, http://www.icty.org/x/file/About/OTP/un_commission_of_experts_report1994_en.pdf, accessed 28 August 2017.
  72. Kathryn Metz, Transitional Justice, op. cit., pp. 32
  73. Photo source: http://gate-37.com/2015/06/01/why-bosnians-wear-white-armbands-on-the-last-day-of-may-emir-hodzic/, accessed on August 29, 2017.
  74. Selma Milovanovic, „Bosnians mark a painful chapter with White Armband Day“, http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/30/for-bosnians-whitearmbanddaymarkspainfulchapter.html, accessed on August 29, 2017.
  75. Photo source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17640204, accessed on August 29, 2017.
  76. Photo source: http://rs.n1info.com/a282643/Vesti/Vesti/Policija-sprecava-odrzavanje-skupa-Inicijative-mladih.html, accessed on August 29, 2017.
  77. Photo source: http://tuzlanski.ba/carsija/mladi-iz-beograda-porucili-premladi-smo-da-se-secamo-odlucni-da-nikada-ne-zaboravimo-foto/, accessed on August 29, 2017.