{"id":187995,"date":"2022-02-11T17:20:02","date_gmt":"2022-02-11T16:20:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.recom.link\/?p=187995"},"modified":"2022-07-18T15:58:02","modified_gmt":"2022-07-18T14:58:02","slug":"xiv-forum-for-transitional-justice-keynote-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.recom.link\/en\/xiv-forum-for-transitional-justice-keynote-address\/","title":{"rendered":"XIV Forum for Transitional Justice in post-Yugoslav Countries – Keynote Address"},"content":{"rendered":"

XIV Forum for Transitional Justice in post-Yugoslav Countries – Keynote Address by Nata\u0161a Kandi\u0107<\/strong><\/p>\n

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This year I have the special privilege of opening the XIV Forum for Transitional Justice in Post-Yugoslav Countries. My first task is to explain why this year\u2019s Forum has been titled \u201cDisrupted Reconciliation\u201d, and then also to answer this additional question, \u201cHow to proceed?\u201d. Why? There are several reasons that have led to this year\u2019s Forum bearing this name.<\/p>\n

The basic reason is that the long march of the civic initiative for establishing an interstate regional commission for establishing the facts of war crimes and victims, has ended with the withholding of political support. This process, this initiative, was launched in 2006. For years we developed a regional approach to confronting the past, with different groups, \u00a0different victims\u2019 associations from throughout the territory of the former Yugoslavia, without political involvements but with international support, and in 2011 we succeeded in adopting a useful and satisfactory document containing the tasks and goals of that anticipated regional interstate commission. One of the most important tasks was to list all the victims at the regional level and to ensure this would be an important element, and we thought that it was the only possible element for the shared remembrance of the past, of a common element in our history. After 2011, when we adopted this document as the Regional Coalition, we started advocating for political support, and it seemed to us \u2013 we were surprised \u2013 that there was support. At the time we did not realise that verbal support is the least reliable, and that if there is no action \u2013 if it is not followed by actions \u2013 then we would get to a situation where we would lose that support. The greatest support \u2013 but this is difficult now even to\u00a0 imagine, let alone get back to recovering it \u00a0\u2013 but the greatest support came from Croatia. At the time, Prof. Dr. Ivo Josipovi\u0107 was the President of Croatia. In human rights activist circles, within associations that dealt with democracy and transitional justice, we considered\u00a0 and respected him as the leader of the regional approach to confronting the past and the leader of regional reconciliation. We also had support from Montenegro, and that support from Montenegro was always equally strong and equally honest. All the other supports, one has to say, proved to be quite unreliable.<\/p>\n

And then, from 2015, our everyday life started to change in a political sense, and also on the\u00a0 practical plane, so to say. Croatia opted for a national approach in confronting the past. At the same time, Slovenia had an even stronger reason not to\u00a0 participate and not to provide political support, using the argument that war crimes had not taken place in the Slovenian space, and that Slovenia had nothing to do with the crimes that took place in the territories of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Macedonia. What happened is that we had slowly, gradually come to the point where even those that strongly supported it \u2013 the Bosniak and Croat Mebers of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina \u2013 withdrew their support, with the arguments that the political priorities are regional stability, security, that the victims are known, that everyone in the world knows who the victims are, and that it is not necessary to address old topics and old questions. Of course, there is also Republic of Srpska, the entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has never taken part in the regional cooperation, believing regional cooperation to\u00a0 be aimed always against the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbs in Serbia, and the Serbs in other parts of the former Yugoslavia; and that\u00a0 actually hardened this position of nonparticipation in the regional approach to confronting the past, with the view that the judgements of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia were primarily aimed against the Serbs, and that this entity \u2013 the institutions of this entity \u2013 would therefore not recognize the judgements of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The year 2019 was crucial, when this initiative with the long march \u2013 actually lost political support. At the time, in 2019, we passed a decision to stop trying to convince politicians who are unreliable, who actually have a different orientation, i.e. who keep going back to everything that marked the 1990s, since it is difficult to constantly start anew with the advocacy;, and that the commission should be interstate, and official, and that it is our task as human rights organizations and academics to use our knowledge, expertise and what we have documented over the years to help the work of such a commission. At a session of the Assembly of the Coalition for RECOM we decided to rename the coalition and for it to be the RECOM Reconciliation Network, and to continue documenting the victims within our capacities, and to start monitoring the situation, whether there would be any political changes in the region of the former Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n

The second reason for this topic \u2013 Disrupted Reconciliation \u2013 is the threat to the establishment of the rule of law, through\u00a0 non-prosecution and the marginalisation of criminal justice; and \u2013 which is also important \u2013 the need to create a special climate where the present-day current priorities and goals are recognized as goals and tasks that we have already seen, faced and experienced in the 1990s. Also important \u2013 the non-acceptance of the judgements of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia<\/span><\/span> and the judgements of the International Court of Justice. These are facts \u00a0<\/strong>we are seeing daily, which we are being convinced of daily from the highest positions by presidents of states, prime ministers and ministers, who are \u00a0saying increasingly frequently and loudly\u00a0 that the judgements of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia<\/span><\/span> are aimed in one case against one side, and in another case against the other\u2013 but that this is no longer binding for the leaders of the post-Yugoslav countries, the leaders of the Western Balkans.<\/p>\n

The third reason for this topic is \u2013 and we are witnesses to this \u2013 that remembrance policies are in the hands of the political elites, the oligarchies, and that there is no space for academic knowledge or historical facts or court facts. Another factor that is very important for this topic is the glorification of\u00a0 war criminals convicted\u00a0 primarily for genocide,\u00a0 crimes against humanity and\u00a0 other war crimes. This glorification has reached such an extent that public spaces in all the countries of the former Yugoslavia are filled with reverence for those who were convicted of the most serious war crimes, who were convicted of genocide, as well as for those who were on some lists as participants in joint criminal enterprises, or about whom there was evidence that was presented in the trials before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. They today fill the public space. There are no scientists who are important – it is now those who were the leaders during the 1990s who are important. We can see this primarily in Serbia. If you walk around town today, you will see in many places murals of Ratko Mladi\u0107, but you will also see numerous murals and graffiti crossed out with figures by the painter Kazimir Maljevi\u010d; which means that there is resistance – but\u00a0 that small, civic resistance, the resistance of antifascists, which in fact can \u00a0hardly overcome what is being created by certain groups\u00a0 supported by institutions.<\/p>\n

And what remains now is for me to answer the question, \u201cHow to proceed?\u201d Do we, as the organisers, have an answer, or are we expecting the panellists and all of you, the participants, to come up with one or multiple answers? In this sense, I would mention two opinions that can be identified also in the academic community, which should be seriously considered and kept in mind during these two days.<\/p>\n

I would point to the opinion of a university professor from Sarajevo, who has spoken about it being difficult to expect reconciliation in this region in the foreseeable future. He also speaks and writes about it, presenting very clear arguments on how difficult it is to achieve reconciliation through imposed solutions. On the other hand, another professor, from the university in Rijeka, speaks about how there is actually no alternative to reconciliation, regardless of how many labyrinths there are \u2013 that is, it must continue. He has in mind European Union resolutions, United Nations resolutions, and we could say that some of these resolutions \u2013 especially the United Nations resolutions \u2013 were by their nature forcing \u00a0confrontation with the past. There is one more relevant opinion that should be kept in mind, and that is that we are in a situation where we can see the results of the work of these political elites, i.e. the oligarchies, every day.\u00a0 The denial of crimes, of genocide, of crimes against humanity, actually requires the solidarity of the new generations with the crimes committed; and Prof. Zoran Paji\u0107 says in some of his texts and presentations that actually that is the way the political elites, the political oligarchies, have succeeded in drawing new generations into the crimes of the previous generations, and that this is a situation that can hardly be resolved at this moment, in this situation and with this political climate in the countries in the region of the former Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n

Today we expect also to hear from professors, members of academies, and we have activistse on the ground, we have families, members of victims\u2019 families, we have victims who are not in victims\u2019 associations but appear in a new role – not as representatives, as victims of a certain ethnic community, but as victims of war crimes. We will have the opportunity to see a film this afternoon, after the final sessions, which in a special way makes precisely\u00a0 the point of this question whether a victim is only one who has an ethnic code, or whether s\/he \u00a0also has other characteristics. We will also have the opportunity to hear Ivana Bodro\u017ei\u0107, who will speak about whether the ethnic code is the only feature of the victim or whether some other features are important, ones which we are not talking about or\u00a0 mentioning , while everyone has accepted what the political elites are suggesting and saying every day \u2013 which is that there are only ethnic victims and nothing else.<\/p>\n

I am opening the XIV Forum for Transitional Justice in Post-Yugoslav Countries. I invite the participants of the first panel “From the Perspective of Human Rights Activists, and About Them” to start a debate.<\/p>\n

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