First Regional Truth Commission Runs Into Doubts

06 August 2008  NGOs mount bold initiative to form first regional truth commission on war crimes, in spite of governments’ indifference and scepticism of experts.

By Conor Gaffney and Aida Alic in Sarajevo

Three NGOs from three former Yugoslav states, Documenta in Zagreb, the Research and Documentation Center,[RDC] in Sarajevo, and the Humanitarian Law Center [HLW] in Belgrade, are moving ahead with plans to set up a single fact commission for the former Yugoslavia, tasked with establishing the facts about all the recent wars there.


The Regional Commission for Establishing the Facts about the War Crimes in former Yugoslavia would collect facts, process data collected by NGOs and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, and act as a forum in which victims can voice their experiences.


The proposal aims to have all parties of the 1990s conflicts participating in thecommission and endorsing its conclusions. Mirsad Tokaca, president of the RDC, said the new body would be “a reaction to silence and impunity”. It would “raise awareness about discrimination against victims and tell the truth about the crimes committed here”.


But some international experts and NGOs in Bosnia and Herzegovina have voiced strong doubts, describing the initiative as impractical given the low level of interest shown by governments in the region and their poor previous history of cooperation.

“A regional approach has no realistic future,” Neil Kritz of the United States Institute of Peace said. “The political dynamics are not there”.Victim's organizations in Bosnia also fear the initiative will not achieve anything significant, though they mostly agree on the importance of trying "to find out truth".

Failed Past Attempts:


The Balkan conflicts of 1991-1995 and 1998-2000 had an enormous death toll. More then 120,000 people were killed in all, while some 17,000 are still listed as missing – their fate unknown.


International courts, as well as courts in Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia, are still prosecuting suspects accused of committing or abetting the heinous crimes committed during the conflicts.


In addition, NGOs have been working on establishing the truth about the crimes in different ways. Several have already tried to form truth commissions at the national and local level.


But results have been patchy. A national truth commission established in Serbia in 2001 to investigate war crimes committed in Slovenia, Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo was dissolved after two years without producing much.


In Bosnia, in 1997, 2005, and 2006, NGOs and government officials created a national truth commission, but here too the only result was discussions and roundtables.


Smaller commissions were established in Bosnia for Srebrenica and Sarajevo. The Office of the High Representative, OHR, put heavy pressure on the Bosnian Serb entity, the Republika Srpska, RS, to cooperate with the Srebrenica truth commission, for example.


But in Sarajevo, political infighting between the commission members and disputes about its mandate stopped the commission from making headway and discredited its findings.


“Everyone in the Balkans already believes they know the true history, that is part of the problem,” Kritz noted. “People need to be exposed to a unified and verified story.”


Supporters of the new proposal by the RDC, Documenta and the HLW hope this body might raise itself above the usual infighting and it’s establish authority across political and social borders.


“We want ….to make people accept facts about crimes committed to ‘the others’,” Tokaca said. “This process of truth-telling never ends and we will deal with it for decades if we collect documents, which are the most important thing.”


The three NGOs started their initiative in 2006 and since then they have held more than ten regional and national consultations with artists, journalists, youth, veterans, and victims’ organizations.


In October, they plan to hold a fourth regional forum for victims' organizations in Pristina, Kosovo. There, the fact commission and its importance to the region will again be discussed and developed.


“The regional commission will create a public space for the victim’s voice,” Vesna Terselic from Documenta said. “It will help establish the facts of the crimes committed during the war.”


Some survivors endorse this goal. Edin Ramulic, an Omarska camp survivor who works for a victim's association Izvor in Prijedor, said victims needed a commission capable of “giving us facts about the crimes committed on all sides”.


Dorothee Maritone of the International Center for Transitional Justice agreed. “The most important component of a truth commission is that it gives a voice to victims and perpetrators,” she said. A regional fact commission could look “at the wider context and attempt to explain the causes and consequences of the violations that took place”.


Marotine said she detected “a growing momentum in the region at the grass root level for a regional truth commission”.



But governments aren’t ready:


Last June, UNDP organized a meeting near Sarajevo for around 200 members of civil society organizations and Bosnian government bodies on a long-term strategy for coming to terms with the past.


John Furnari, from UNDP, who was one of the organizers of the meeting, recalls that the idea of a truth commission “got a lot of discussion”. But, he added, “until now, there is little evidence that the government of Bosnia is aware of the truth commission movement”.


Kritz, who worked on the earlier truth commission projects in Bosnia, echoed Furnari’s words, adding that “civil society organizations would need to head [a proposal for a truth commission] because governments aren’t ready”.


Complaints about government indifference seem well founded. While Nikola Spiric, Bosnia’s Prime Minister, praised truth commissions in principle in 2007 as a good mechanism for coming to terms with the past, and achieving “true reconciliation”, Spiric’s office told Justice Report that “at this moment” the Prime Minister did not want to comment on this particular regional initiative.


Experts fear this perceived lack of interest among governments in the region and their unwillingness to work together – could prevent a regional fact commission from becoming a reality.


“You would have to have political consensus,” noted Edina Becirevic, professor at the Criminology faculty at the University of Sarajevo.


Murat Tahirovic, President of the Association of Detainees of Bosnia, agreed. “It’s not going to work without the support of the governments”.


Without that government support, a regional fact commission “is going to have a much steeper climb” said Furnari.


Apart from governments’ apparent indifference, experts note the lack of any internal consensus within the societies as an additional hurdle.


“It’s hard to expect a regional commission to work when we cannot even agree within our [own] nation,” Jakob Finci, President of the Association for Truth and Reconciliation, said, noting the failed attempts to establish national truth commissions in Bosnia.


The factious political situation and a divided public means that supporters of a regional fact commission will “really have a challenge on their hands, getting governments to sanction them [a commission] officially”, said Kritz.


Against a background of official uncertainty, NGOs are trying to drum up public support. The three NGOs behind the regional commission are trying to collect a million signatures from across the former Yugoslavia to support their initiative.


“Our idea is to get support from the public and if we succeed in that, we will then try to convince the governments to form this body,” Tokaca explained.


Although Tokaca is pessimistic about the chances of winning governments’ support, he said the three NGOs will work on the initiative with or without such backing.


“It would be great if our commission gets institutional support and is more formal, but this is a long process and these three organizations will work without their support,” Tokaca maintained.


Aida Alic is BIRN – Justice Report journalist. aida@birn.eu.com. Conor Gaffney is a summer intern with BIRN's Justice Report in Sarajevo and an undergraduate at the University of Chicago. Balkan Insight and Justice Report are BIRN`s online publications.