Dealing with the Past in the Context of Ethnonationalism

| Ivana Franović |
The Case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia by Ivana Franović ...
1. October 2008
1. October 2008

 

Dealing with the Past in the Context of Ethnonationalism. The Case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia by Ivana Franović. Berghof Occasional Paper No. 29, October 2008. (jezik: engleski)
Dealing with the Past
in the Context of Ethnonationalism

The Case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia

Author:

Ivana Franović is a peace  activist from Belgrade. For the last decade she has been a team member of the Centre for Nonviolent Action, which has offices in Sarajevo and Belgrade. She is active in the field of peacebuilding, dealing with the past and nonviolent conflict transformation on the grass-root and middle levels of society in the region of former Yugoslavia. She holds an MA degree in Peace and Reconciliation Studies from Coventry University (UK). She has previously published
I cannot feel well if my neighbour  does not (co-edited with Helena Rill, 2005) and contributes a chapter to Howard Clark, ed., forthcoming. Unarmed Resistance and Global Solidarity. London: Pluto Press, 2009.

Berghof Occasional Paper Nr. 29
October 2008
© Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management

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Preface

More than  fifteen  years  ago  the  state  of Yugoslavia broke  apart  and  a cycle of organised violence,  expulsions   and  atrocities   started. Although  different  areas   were affected by different degrees of destruction – Bosnia-Herzegovina  was exposed  to a long and  cruel  war,  which  in  other  countries   (like  Macedonia)   could  be  stopped in  its beginnings – the entire region still suffers from the consequences and has  to deal  with the legacies of violence and human rights violations. Due to the presence of international organisations, engagement of civil society organisations and  local initiatives  the region has  not suffered  a relapse  into war. But to say that  a lasting  peace  has  been  achieved  would be a euphemism. Societies  in the  region of former Yugoslavia still have  to cope with numerous traumas. They have to follow through  on the prosecution of war crimes, enhance social healing processes, and establish functioning mechanisms that guarantee the  rights  of minorities,  co-existence, and  participation of all  citizens  in  democratic  institutions.
In all  countries   of  former  Yugoslavia,  civil society  organisations  have  set  up initiatives  for  fact-finding,  awareness raising  for  the  past,   reconciliation   and  peace education.  The Centre  for  Nonviolent  Action
(CNA) has   been   actively  involved  in transnational peace   work since  1997.  CNA  started out  as  a  training  organisation  in Sarajevo. Since 2001, it has established a second office in Belgrade. It has contributed to creating  an impressive  cross-border network of experts  from the  education sector,  the media  and  the  NGO community  from Bosnia,  Croatia, Macedonia,  Montenegro,  Serbia and Kosovo.
CNA  has  helped   to  transfer  the  concept   of  nonviolence  (“nenasilje”) into  the regional context and spread it widely throughout the Balkans.  In addition,  the team has increasingly focused  on activities  that  encourage people  to actively face the  past.  The team has organised workshops  and public discussion forums in which war veterans  from different sides spoke about their personal  experiences  during the war. Beyond the public forums,  all of CNA’s educational  materials  – from books  on reconciliation  to recently published film documentaries – aim to motivate  people  to reflect critically on their role and their personal responsibility before, during and after the wars.
CNA’s regional  crossborder  approach  is  quite  unique.   So  is  its  capacity  and willingness  to constantly  revise  and  question their own work by undergoing  individual and  collective  processes  of  self-reflection.  One  result   of  such   a  process   is  Ivana Franovic’s   text  on   “Peacebuliding  and   Dealing  with  the   Past   in  the   Context  of Ethnonationalism”.  Ivana, who joined  the  team  in 1999, lives and  works with CNA in Belgrade. This text is based on a thesis  that was presented at the Department  of Peace
Studies  at  Coventry University, where  she  received  her  Master’s  degree  in 2007.  The thesis  presents a range of efforts being undertaken by civil society groups in the region, highlighting the  absence of initiatives  on the  part  of the  government(s)  and  the  wider public sphere(s). It concludes with an appeal  to form broader  alliances,  and to also seek partners beyond those  groups  already working in this field. This implies,  however, that two  frequently  observed   tendencies among  NGOs –  both  the  mutual  suspicion with which  they  regard  each  other,  and  the  widespread prejudice  that  all  politicians  are incurable  ethnonationalists –  must first be  overcome.  Another  problem  that  all civil society  inititiatives   face  is  that   their  activities   –  carried  out  with  a  high  level  of engagement – are not in the spotlight of the media.
We have  decided to publish  the  study  as  it gives a comprehensive overview of dilemmas   faced  by practitioners in  peacebuilding  after  violent  conflict.  Moreover, it raises  questions which overlap  with an issue  area  (the relevance  of “dealing  with the past”  for   conflict   transformation)  that   the   Berghof  Research   Center  has   recently established and intends  to broaden by action research  projects in the near future.

Berlin, October 2008

Martina Fischer

 

1    Introduction1

There are many theories  and narratives about the reasons for the break-up of Yugoslavia, the  war  that  accompanied it  and  the  guilt  and  responsibility   for the  slaughter   that happened. As Sabrina P. Ramet states, we all “know” why the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) disintegrated and why the war(s) (1991-1995) broke out:
It  was  all  because  of  Milosevic/   Tudjman/ “the   Slovenes”/   communists/ organized   crime/   Western   states/  the   Vatican-Comintern  conspiracy,   who planned it all by himself/  themselves in order to advance  his own personal/ Serbian/ Slovenian/ American/  Vatican interests—your  choice.  Or again—it all happened because  of  local  bad  traditions/  economic  problems/ structural issues/ system  illegitimacy/  legitimate  grievances/ illegitimate grievances/ the long shadow  of the past.  Or again—it really started in 1389/  1463/ 1878/ 1918/1941/ 1986/  1987/  1989/  1990/  1991—your pick. Of course,  we all know that both  the  break-up  and  the  war were completely  avoidable/ inevitable,  don’t we? And best of all, we all know that the real villain(s) in this drama can only be Milosevic/  Tudjman/ “the Serbs”/ “the Slovenes”/ “the Croats”/ “the Muslims”/ Germany/  Balkan  peoples  generally/   the  Great  Powers,  who  must  be  held (exclusively/ jointly) responsible for most of the killing, though some of us also know that all parties  were equally guilty. Well, maybe we all know what caused
the Yugoslav troubles,  but it seems that we “know” different things.2

This is an authentic summary of how different the things we “know” are. Narratives vary throughout the  region.  Some  people  might argue  that  we do not suffer from a lack of truth,  but  from the  existence  of too  many  ‘truths’  and  a lack of consistent efforts  to debate them openly, to face and integrate  them.3   There is almost no shared truth, and for many people  it is still hard  to accept  that  different  people  perceive  different  things  as
truths  due  to different  experiences. Only our ‘truth’ is accepted as  the truth, while the
(1    The first version of this paper was my dissertation for the degree  of M.A. in Peace and Reconciliation Studies   at  Coventry University, Coventry, UK. I  am  thankful  to  Dr Andrew  Rigby,  my supervisor,  for his questions and comments. I am also thankful  to Dr Martina Fischer and Beatrix Schmelzle  from the Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management for crucial feedback, for encouragement to revise the paper and deepen it, and for all their effort and support.  Special thanks  go to my colleagues and friends from the Centre for Nonviolent Action (CNA) for all these years of immense  support  and learning from each other. This present paper  is mainly based on peace  activist experiences that I gained  during the last decade with my CNA team.
2     Sabrina  P. Ramet, “Explaining the Yugoslav meltdown,  1. ‘for a charm of pow’rful trouble, like a hell- broth boil and bubble’: theories  about the roots of the Yugoslav troubles,”  in Nationalities Papers 32 (2004):
731.
3     Edin  Hodžić,  “Komisija  za  istinu  i  pomirenje:   Forum  protiv  mitova”  [Truth and  Reconciliation Commission:   The  Forum  Against   the   Myths],  Puls   demokratije,    September   1,  2006,   available    at www.pulsdemokratije.net (accessed September 3, 2008).)

‘truths’ of others  are perceived  as  manipulation and  propaganda. And in many cases, ‘our truth’ is that we are the victims, while the others are perpetrators.
The countries  of former Yugoslavia still suffer from the legacy of the 1990s war(s). This legacy seriously affects the present and endangers the future of societies in Bosnia- Herzegovina, Serbia  and  Croatia. In 2007, on the twelfth anniversary  of the genocide  in Srebrenica,   the  radical nationalist magazine   Pravda [Justice] in  Serbia  published an article  by a notorious  nationalist where  he  stated: “It is exactly twelve years  since  in Srebrenica nothing has happened.” He then continued  to claim that it was “warmongers” who turned “Srebrenica’s nothing” into “something huge and horrible”.4
If  a  paper   in  Germany  published  a  text  where  Auschwitz  was  denied,   those responsible for such an act would feel the consequences. But in Serbia so far, past  war crimes  and  atrocities  can still be denied,  which is often justified  by recourse  to a so- called ‘freedom of speech’.  At the same time, peace  and human rights groups who speak  out about  responsibility for crimes cannot  make use of such ‘freedom’. For example, just a few days  after the  above  mentioned newspaper article was published, a peace  and human  rights activist in Serbia, Maja Stojanović, was sentenced to ten days in prison for displaying  posters in an  “unauthorised  place.”5    The posters contained an  appeal to Serbian  authorities to arrest  the  fugitive war criminal Ratko Mladić and  transfer  him to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.6  He was the Chief of Staff of the  Army of Republika  Srpska,  and  is,  besides  other  misdeeds, connected with the massacre  of  more  than   8,000   Muslim  men  and   boys  in  Srebrenica   in  July 1995. Stojanović stated to journalists  that the judge told her that his house  in Kosovo had been burnt by those  same Muslims, and that they deserved everything that happened to them. Attacks  on  and   defamation  of  human   rights  activists   and  journalists   are  frequent occurrences in Serbia.  The situation is not  different  in Republika  Srpska,  where  it is almost impossible to hear  different  voices,  and  those  who are trying to raise  them  are under strong pressure.
A narrative  that  can frequently be heard  in Sarajevo  says  that  it is a multicultural
city, as Bosniaks are the most tolerant, although they are the main victims of the war. But

(4     Miroslav Toholj, Pravda, 17 July 2007.
5     Maja Stojanović displayed the posters  in an unauthorised place, indeed, although  she put them over posters that were already displayed there by others, also without authorisation, but no one was sentenced because of them. Maja refused to pay a fine imposed on her, thus she was sentenced to prison. After a number of appeals sent to Serbian authorities, the President of Serbia expressed his support  and she was not imprisoned. But the fine had to be paid, so NGO activists collected the amount needed (see B92, July 23,
2007). Further information available at www.b92.net/info/vesti/index.php?yyyy=2007&mm=07&dd=23&nav_id=256478&nav_category=11 (accessed August 25, 2008).
6     The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established in 1993 in The Hague. Ratko Mladić is indicted  on charges  of genocide,  war crimes and crimes against  humanity  by ICTY. Further information available at www.un.org/icty/cases-e/index-e.htm (accessed August 25, 2008).)

reality often turns out to be different. One of the events that run counter to this narrative is what happened at the  “Kids’ Festival”. It has  been  organised every year in Sarajevo since   2004,   and   gathers   children   from  Bosnia-Herzegovina   from  different   ‘ethnic communities’.  During the festival, they are engaged  in different programmes. The idea is a good  one,  as  those  kids  usually  do  not  have  a chance  to meet  each  other.  At  the opening  of one of the  programmes this year, the  master  of ceremonies was recounting the towns where the kids came from, and each name was accompanied by applause from the  audience. When  it  was  the  turn  of the  towns  in  Republika  Srpska,  kids  in  the audience were shouting  “boo”. Obviously, kids from those  places  were very scared.7  It is worrying how the childhoods of all those kids are afflicted with a post-war atmosphere.
The situation in Croatia is no more rosy. Croatia keeps  on celebrating anniversaries of the military action “Oluja” [Storm] carried out in 1995, still denying the war crimes that accompanied  it.  At that  time  between   150,000  and  200,000 ethnic  Serbs  fled  from Croatia, but the mainstream narrative says that it was their choice to do so.
All this is a legacy of war. And something  needs to be done about  it. This text will explore  what  can  and  should  be  done  in the  former Yugoslav region,  so  that  these societies develop constructive  ways to deal with the past and take a path towards lasting peace.  I   will  argue   that   constructive   dealing   with  the   past   is  an   indispensable prerequisite for accompanying peacebuilding processes.
My interest  in this topic is not purely academic. It is also driven by very personal experiences and  the  need  to reflect on them.  The disintegration of former Yugoslavia, which was accompanied by bloody wars, meant that my home country fell apart. The fact that one federal state  disintegrated is not even such a big deal – what is horrifying is how it was done,  what we were able to do to each  other, how we treated  and still treat each other. In contrast  to many of my friends, relatives and millions of other people,  I had that kind of luck to live in Belgrade where I was born.  So I was a few hundreds kilometres  away from any of the  front-lines,  and  I  did not experience the  war directly.8   However, since the war was not happening “only at the front, but everywhere and to us all,”9  I did experience it on many levels:  through  friends,  relatives  and  other  people  close  to me throughout the  region; through  war propaganda and horrifying news; through  lost  and destroyed lives; through the fact that war was going on and the helpless feeling that we cannot  do anything to stop it; through the poverty that a war brings along as it is terribly costly and ordinary citizens have to pay for it; through scary drunk men in camouflaged uniforms who came to spend a weekend  away from the front-line (despite the narrative

(7    Dani, 15 June 2007.
8     With the exception of NATO’s ‘humanitarian bombs’ in 1999.
9     Slavenka Drakulić, The Balkan Express. Fragments from the Other Side of War (New York: W. W. Norton
& Company, 1993), 3.)

that Serbia was not at war); through hiding close friends from mobilization;  through raids where policemen,  like dog-catchers, were hunting  young men, refugees  from Croatia or Bosnia, to send them back to the front-lines; through sending  food parcels  to relatives in crisis areas,  even if we did not have enough  for ourselves. And last but not least,  I have experienced war through  the very fact that  I am from Belgrade,  where most  of the war- creators were safely situated – a marker that goes with me wherever I go.
This paper  will focus on the potentials and obstacles for peacebuilding processes in  the  triangle   Serbia   –  Bosnia-Herzegovina   –  Croatia.  People   face  very  different situations in these  three  countries.  But at the  same  time, these  situations are related, affecting each other. And to avoid any misunderstanding, when the paper refers to ‘us’, it refers to people in the region of the former Yugoslavia, no matter what their ethnic prefix is. First, the paper will give a brief overview of the issue that needs to be faced foremost: the suffering that human beings endured during the war (chapter  2). This second chapter  will address the role of ethnonationalism in our tragedy. I will argue that for analysing the causes of war we should  not look at ‘ancient  hatreds’ between  the  tribes  or at ethnic differences.    We  should    look   at   the   essence  of   patriarchy   (not   forgetting   that ethnonationalism is one of the incarnations of patriarchy): namely power over others,  no matter who they are and which group they belong to. I remain convinced that as long as we are dedicated to ethnonationalism, our chances for building lasting peace are low.10
The  third   chapter   focuses   on  reconciliation   and   peacebuilding.  It  explores   what reconciliation  could mean  in our context, and  it looks at concepts for “dealing  with the past” in  a  constructive  way. The fourth chapter  gives an  overview of mechanisms for transitional justice and dealing  with the past  applied  in the region of former Yugoslavia and  outlines  what  should  be  done  in addition  to these,  in order  to establish lasting peace. The fifth and  final chapter  identifies  actors  whose  duty is and/or should  be  to
take an active role in peacebuilding processes.

(10    Due to the scope  and thematic  focus of this paper,  I will not be able to discuss or even give a short overview of the overwhelming research  work done by feminist and gender-oriented scholars  and activists  in the region of former Yugoslavia who during the last two decades have been  disclosing  the relation between  patriarchal  hegemony  and (ethno)nationalism. The critique of patriarchy that underlies  my thesis  will not be the subject  of theoretical  examination. It rather reflects  my personal convictions,  and  marks the position  I take  in a  still  male-dominated  society.  Regarding  subject-related references see  Marina  Blagojević, ed., Mapiranje mizoginije u Srbiji : diskursi  i prakse I [Mapping misogyny  in Serbia: discourses and practice I], (Beograd: AŽIN, 2000);  Marina Blagojević, ed. Mapiranje mizoginije  u Srbiji : diskursi  i prakse II [Mapping misogyny  in Serbia: discourses and practice II], (Beograd: AŽIN, 2005);  Darija Žilić, “Gender essentialisms, politicalisation and  peace  activism  in the  region  of former Yugoslavia” in  Helena  Rill et  al., eds.,  Twenty Pieces  of Encouragement  for Awakening  and  Change.  Peacebuilding  in the  Region  of Former Yugoslavia (Belgrade: Centre for Nonviolent Action, 2007): 267-281. Biljana Kašić, ed., Women and the Politics of Peace. Contributions to a Women’s Culture of Resistance (Zageb: Centar za ženske  studije,  1996); Ružica Rosandić and Vesna Pešić, ed., Warfare, patriotism, patriarchy. The analysis of elementary  school textbooks (Belgrade: Centre  for Antiwar Action, 1994);  Nirman Moranjak-Bamburać,  Vodič kroz studij  roda,  ideologije,  kulture, [Introduction  into  Gender  Studies, ideology  and  culture],  (Sarajevo:  Centar  za  interdisciplinarne studije Univerziteta u Sarajevu, 2006); Staša  Zajović, ed., Women for Peace (Belgrade: Women in Black, 2003); Rada Iveković, “Women, nationalism and war: ‘Make love, not war’,“ in Hypata 8/4 (1993): 113-126, et al.)

2     The wars of the early 1990s and their consequences
2.1    War against civilians: the legacy of human suffering

The “first round” of wars in former Yugoslavia (in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina) took  place  from 1991 to 1995.11  There were numerous  international efforts  to reach  a cease-fire  and peace  agreement from the very beginning,  without much success. Finally, the war ended  with the Dayton Agreement, signed on 14 December 1995.
We still, 13 years after the ceasefire,  do not know the exact number  of casualties, as  all  “the  sides”   manipulate the  figures.  Most  frequently  cited  estimates say  that between  200,000 and  250,000   persons were  killed,  and  a  similar  number  held  in detention camps, that 2.5 to 3 million had to leave their homes,12   and that a few hundred  thousand people  were part of military and  paramilitary  formations  (although,  according to some estimations, this figure goes to more than a million).
One of the  serious  attempts to establish the  facts  about  the  casualties is being made  by  the  Sarajevo-based Research  and  Documentation Centre.  According to their ongoing  research,  the  number  of dead  in the  war in Bosnia  is 97,207.13   The level of knowledge concerning  these  kind of facts is worst in Serbia,  where no concrete  figures are  known. The  reason  is most  probably  that  Serbia  officially was  not  at  war – thus, officially, there could be no casualties.
The war was  a  horrifying slaughter  and  marked  by extraordinary  human  rights violations  such  as  ethnic  cleansing,  torture,  rape  and  humiliating  people  in detention camps. Soldiers suffered a lot, but the main targets of this war were civilians. In Bosnia, 40.82  percent  of those  killed and  missing  are civilians.14   Very often,  the  “battlefields” were streets and houses, so for many people  the war was not happening somewhere on

(11    The war in Croatia started in 1991, and the war in Bosnia in 1992. Due to the limited space,  in this paper I will not deal  with the war in Kosovo (1998-1999), the NATO ‘humanitarian’ intervention  (1999), the war in Macedonia (2001), or the war in Slovenia (1991).
12    UNHCR figures from December 1995: 1,493,000  refugees,  1,300,000  internally displaced persons. For details, see Appendix, Figure 1.
13   See   Research    and   Documentation   Centre.   www.idc.org.ba/project/populationlosses.html#thetime (accessed August 25, 2008).  Their estimate is that the figure may rise to up to 110,000 by the completion  of the research. The date of the completion depends on the availability of financial support.
14    Research    and    Documentation    Centre,   Human   Losses    in   Bosnia   and    Herzegovina    91-95, www.idc.org.ba/presentation/Bosnia%20and%20Herzegovina.zip, slide 6 (accessed September 2008).)

the front-line, but it “came under their window”.15  Some realised  in time what was going to happen and fled to a more secure  place, but many did not realise it, or did not want to believe.
One of the characteristics of the war was ethnic cleansing,  defined  as “rendering an area  ethnically  homogenous by using  force or intimidation  to remove from a given area  persons  from  another   ethnic  or  religious  group.”16    According to  the  Bassiouni Report, all sides  were  engaged   in ethnic  cleansing  (against  the  other  two);  in most reported  cases it was committed  by Serb forces, Croat forces did it “on a more restricted  scale”  and  Bosniak forces “in some  limited areas”  and  did not have it as a policy. The means   applied  were  “mass  killing of  civilians,  rape  and  sexual  assault, torture,  the bombardment of cities,  the  destruction of  mosques and  churches, the  confiscation  of private  property,  unlawful  detention  of  civilians  in  harsh   and  sometimes  inhuman conditions, and other unlawful practices…”17
The invention  of this  crime cannot  be ascribed  to torturers  from this  part  of the Balkans, they were just able to implement  a “well-working” recipe.18   Many of them have exercised   it  throughout   our  history,  as  Jackson  Preece  argues,   with  the  goal  of  an “ethnically homogeneous or pure  (cleansed of minority ethnic  groups)  nation-state.”19
She  rightly observes that  although  “ethnic  cleansing  affects  people,  what  is really at stake is territory.”20
Those  acts  of  torture  and  the  suffering   of  the  tortured  are  unspeakable and unbelievable. Those who experienced the disaster of being detained in a detention camp were   exposed    to   brutal   mistreatment,  humiliation   and   torture:   food   and   water deprivation; ice-cold water showers;  subjection to extreme temperatures; being forced to remain  in one position for several  hours;  being forced to watch the torture  or killing of

(15    Adnan Hasanbegović,  “Four views; How I found myself in war ?; How to reach  sustainable peace?”, English   translation   of   the    supplement   in   Vreme,    no.    600,    July   4,   2002.    Available   also    at www.nenasilje.org/publikacije/pdf/4pogleda/4views-02-sr-vreme.pdf, p. 6 (accessed October 10, 2008).
16    Final  Report of the United Nations Commission  of Experts Established  Pursuant to Security Council Resolution  780  (1992),  S/1994/674, Annex IV: The  policy  of  ethnic  cleansing, prepared  by  M. Cherif Bassiouni, www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/comexpert/report_toc.htm (accessed August 25, 2008).
17    Ibid.
18     See, for example,  Andrew Bell-Fialkoff, “A Brief History of Ethnic Cleansing,”  in Foreign Affairs 72/3 (1993):  110-121; Jennifer  Jackson  Preece,  “Ethnic  Cleansing  as  an  Instrument   of  Nation-State  Creation: Changing  State  Practices  and  Evolving Legal Norms,”  in  Human  Rights  Quarterly  20  (1998):  817-842; Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002).
19    Jennifer Jackson Preece, Ethnic Cleansing, 821. The author  of the article refers to 1.5 million Greeks banished from Turkey; 400,000 Turks and around 100,000 Bulgarians banished from Greece; 35,000 Greeks,
67,000  Turks and 110,000 Romanians  banished from Bulgaria; 62,000 Bulgarians banished from Romania. Skipping  out  the  figures  from World War II, after  that  45,000  Turkish Cypriots were  banished from Greek Cyprus;  160,000   Greek  Cypriots  were  banished from  the  Turkish part;  more  than  300,000 Turks were banished from Bulgaria. See Jackson Preece,  ibid., 817-818. And all these misdeeds were done  in the 20th century only (excluding WW II).
20     Ibid.)

others;  beatings with a rifle-butt, whip, belt, stick, etc; choking and suffocating; beatings on the soles  of the feet; being forced to bark, dance,  sing, repeat  certain sentences over and over again, or behave  in other humiliating ways; staying naked;  forced hard labour; mock execution; presence of family or friends during a person’s  torture; being forced to participate in torturing or killing of others;  being forced to watch or listen to sexual abuse of others;  being forced to rape another  person;  being forced to watch or listen to sexual abuse of family members; castration and mutilation of sex organs; being forced to decide who would  be  killed  or tortured;  mutilation  and  breaking  the  person’s  bones; being thrown  from  high  altitude;   burns   inflicted  by  cigarettes;  electrical   shocks;   forcible extraction  of teeth;  hanging  by toes,  hands or feet;  pulling  out  of nails;  sticking  of needles under the nails; being used for mine-field clearing…21
These acts  were not committed  by a few madmen.  Camps were established and
organised as  a part  of a conscious policy. The Bassiouni  Report, written in May 1994 (more than a year before the end of the war), mentions  956 reported  places  of detention in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia (although officially Serbia “was not at war”).
[C]amps were maintained and  operated by a mix of military personnel, former army officers and soldiers,  various paramilitaries, local volunteers,  members  of civilian police forces, or politicians.  There were also many reports  of situations where  there  was  movement  in and  out  of camps  by visitors,  including  local civilians, paramilitary forces, and  the  army, who perpetrated abuses upon  the prison population.22
Detainees were mostly members  of the  other  two ethnic  groups,  civilians  rather  than prisoners of war, but  also  political  opponents and  deserters (young and  old; men and women).  Even some  refugees  became detainees. In 1994  and  1995 police  in Serbia arrested  and  conscripted male  refugees  from Bosnia  and  Croatia, and  also  those  who were born  in  one  of  those   places   but  were  residents of Serbia.  Those  people  were handed over to Serb military authorities in Croatia or Bosnia and they were incorporated into the armies there.23

(21    See  Vladimir Jović and  Goran Opačić,  “Vrste mučenja”  [Types of Torture], in IAN,  Tortura u ratu, posledice   i  rehabilitacija:  Jugoslovensko   iskustvo  [Torture  in  War:  Consequences and  Rehabilitation  of Victims. Yugoslav  Experience], (Belgrade:  International Aid Network, 2003).  See also  the Bassiouni  Report, Annex VIII: Prison camps, 27 May 1994.
22     Final  Report of the United Nations Commission  of Experts Established  Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 (1992), S/1994/674/Add. 2(Vol. IV), Annex VIII: Prison camps, under the direction of M. Cherif Bassiouni.  According to this  report,  466  camps  were operated  by Bosnian  Serbs  or forces  of FRY; 121 by Bosnian Croats or the Government of Croatia and the Croatian Army; 84 by the Government and Army of BiH or Bosnian Muslims; 32 jointly by Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats; 9 as private prisons  by individuals  or groups; and 244 (25.4 per cent) by unidentified forces.
23     A number  of them were first sent  to the “training” camp Erdut in Eastern Slavonia (Croatia), held by the  notorious  paramilitary  group  of pre-war  criminal  Željko Ražnatović  Arkan. As the  Humanitarian  Law Center (Belgrade) has  reported:  “On arrival, they had to run a gauntlet  of Arkan’s “Tigers” and were beaten for not staying in Croatia to defend  the Serb Krajina. Their heads were shaved and they were made to carry a rock weighing between  25 and 30 kilograms on which the word “Discipline” was inscribed  around the camp. One man, whose rifle slipped  off his shoulder,  was stripped  to the waist and tied by the paramilitaries to a tree for 24 hours.  Another, who complained that his hearing was impaired, was tied half-naked  to a tree on the mosquito-infested bank of the Danube River for two days.” Humanitarian  Law Centre (HLC), Refugees  vs. Serbia  trial  continues   before  first  municipal  court  in  Belgrade,  November  30,  2000,   www.hlc-rdc.org (accessed April 2007; no longer available online in August 2008). The HLC filed law suits against  the state  on behalf of 686 refugees.  For personal testimonies, see  Drinka Gojković et al., eds.,  Ljudi u ratu – Ratovanja I [People in War – Warfares I], (Beograd: Dokumentacioni centar Ratovi 1991-99, 2003).

During the war, organised  rape was another  widespread atrocity committed.  There were  even  special  camps  for women,  or  detention camps  had  special  buildings  for women for ‘special treatment’. Most of those women endured  horrible torture and sexual abuse, and  were often raped  by a group of men.  Rapes  of men are not so well known, since victims and witnesses in this patriarchal  world are not very willing to speak  about that.24  Women were not  only raped  in detention camps,  it could  happen anywhere.  It seems that it was a practice after the “cleaning” of a village or a town to look for women and ‘have some  fun’. It was not perceived as a crime, but rather as a reward. Estimates  say  that  tens   of  thousands of  women  were  raped,   which  indicates  that  rape  was systematically  applied in this war by a large number of men.25
The list of examples of human  suffering and agony in these  wars does  not have an
end.  There are  millions of people  who endured the  lengthy  siege  and  shelling  of their towns and living spaces, who survived (or did not) the razing of their town to the ground, who  lost  their  dear  ones,  who  still  do  not  know  where  the  remains  of their  family members  are, who died of hunger, who became permanently  disabled and those  whose fate  is  not  known.  Everybody  who  has  been  directly  exposed   to  war has  their  own wounds.  Even those   of us  who  were  not  exposed   directly  have  them,  although   the experiences are incomparable. Many people  in the region still ask themselves: how is it possible that  we did all of this to each  other? How is it possible that we split, following ethnic paths,  and started to behave  like monsters?

(24     See  Dubravka  Zarkov, “The  Body  of  the  Other  Man.  Sexual  Violence  and  the  Construction  of Masculinity, Sexuality and  Ethnicity in Croatian Media,” in Victims, Perpetrators or Actors? Gender, Armed Conflict and Political Violence, eds.  Caroline O. N. Moser and Fiona C. Clark (London: Zed Books, 2001), 69-
82.
25     See,  for example,  Vesna Kesić, Vesna Janković and  Biljana Bijelić, eds.,  Žene obnavljaju  sjećanje: Centar za žene žrtve rata deset  godina poslije [Women recollecting memories:  Center for Women War Victims Ten Years Later], (Zagreb: Centar za žene žrtve rata, 2003); Ženska strana rata [The women’s way to the war], (Beograd:  Žene u crnom,  2008);  Jasna  Bakšić-Muftić, “Zločin  silovanja  u Bosni i Hercegovini –  lokalna  i međunarodna dimenzija” [Crimes of rape in Bosnia-Herzegovina – the local and international dimension],  in Izazovi feminizma,  eds.  Jasminka  Babić-Avdispahić  et  al.  (Sarajevo:  Forum Bosna,  2004):  49-54;  Patricia Weitsman, Women, War, and Identity: Policies of Mass Rape in Bosnia and Rwanda, paper  presented at the Annual meeting of the International Studies  Association, Town & Country Resort and Convention Center, San Diego,  California,  USA, 22  March  2006),   available   at   www.allacademic.com/meta/p98059_index.html (accessed  October  10, 2008);  Lisa Sharlach,  “Rape as  Genocide:  Bangladesh, the  Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda,”  in New Political Science,  22/1  (2000):  89-102;  Alexandra  Stiglmayer,  ed.,  Mass  Rape: The War Against Women in Bosnia-Herzegovina, trans. Marion Faber, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992).)

2.2     War and ethnonationalism: the significance of myths

Michael Lapsley, a priest who supported the struggle against  the apartheid regime in South Africa, once made a remarkable observation :
I was born in New Zealand and came to South Africa as an adult. When I reflect back on my arrival here I think that  was when I stopped being a human  being and  became a  white  man.  Whiteness   became   like  leprosy,  something   that would not wash off.26

One of the consequences of the war in the region of former Yugoslavia is that we stopped being  human  beings  and  started to  be  recognised   instead only as  ‘Serbs’,  ‘Croats’,
‘Bosniaks’, ‘Albanians’, ‘Macedonians’.  It was of no importance whether we felt this way or whether  we actually had those  kinds of identities. Others knew better  than  ourselves who we were – and Serbness, Croatness,  Bosniakness started to be something  that would not  wash  off.  At  the  same   time,  some  of  us  have  been   bearing  that  marker  with awkwardness and even shame  due to the crimes and misdeeds of some members  of the group that we (are supposed to) belong to. The awkwardness and the shame  seem  even harder  to wash off. Some, however, willingly embraced only one single of our numerous identities, the one of belonging  to a tribe. During the war that identity became a marker for whether one was going to live or die, to be spared or tortured.  Because  of that, many people  started to feel it as being the most important  of all of their identities. Thus, what we have now in the region is a lack of ‘human beings’, and a flood of ‘Serbs’, ‘Croats’ and
‘Bosniaks’.
Another legacy of the wars are the ethnocracies established after the disintegration of SFRY – new states and borders  that were organised along ethnopolitical lines. Bosnia today is a quasi-state.27 It is split into the Republika Srpska (RS, 49% of the territory) and the Federation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  (FBiH, 51%).28   This creation  is fixed within the Dayton Agreement.  The Federation  should  stand  for a federation  between  ‘Croats’ and
‘Bosniaks’, while  Republika  Srpska  (RS) is  ‘Serb’. The RS was  “the  cleanest” in the neighbourhood, with some 3% of ethnic minorities.29  Since Bosnia is a protectorate still under strong international pressure,  the RS was, however, forced to accept  the return of those  who had  been  banished. Croatia “successfully  cleansed” ethnic  Serbs  down to 4.54 percent of its population.30

(26     In Alex Boraine, Janet Levy and Ronel Scheffer, eds., Dealing with the Past. Truth and Reconciliation in
South Africa, 2nd ed. (Cape Town: IDASA, 1997), 26.
27     Boris Buden has  remarked  that  Bosnia is neither  a state,  nor a nation:  “it is a crime scene”.  Boris Buden,  Kaptolski  kolodvor.  Politički eseji  [The  Capitol’s  Station.  Political  Essays],  (Beograd:  Centar  za savremenu umetnost, 2002), xi.
28     Overall, there  exists  an ultra-complicated state  structure  with some  14 governments, including  the international Office of the High Representative on top. See Figure 2 in the appendix for the map of division of Bosnia.
29     Before the war, more than 40% of the people living there belonged  to ethnic groups other than Serb.

30     Republic of Croatia – Central Bureau of Statistics,  www.dzs.hr (accessed August 25, 2007). According to the pre-war census in 1991, there were 580,762 ethnic Serbs, while the 2001 census records 201,631.)

In those  places  where no ‘agreement’  was achieved,  we see  the  phenomenon of divided  cities.  Authorities,  but  also  citizens,  make  their  best  effort not  to  confuse  a passer-by – it is  easy  to recognise  who the  territory supposedly belongs  to by various symbols all around. This kind of marking is one of the outcomes of the war. While Bosnia is clearly divided  by the  “ethnic key”, whose  legal document is the Dayton Agreement, Croatia defines  itself as  “the  national state  of the  Croatian nation  and  the  state  of the members   of  autochthonous  national  minorities”31    (while naming  them),  and  Serbia recently  defined  itself as  “a state  of Serbian  people  and  all citizens  who live in it.”32
However, in all cases we can talk about ethnocracies.
As political psychologists have outlined,  ethnonationalism is not driven by mental illness.33  Psychologist  Ervin Staub  states, for example,  that  belonging  to groups  is of profound significance  for human  beings.  It fulfils deep  needs by providing satisfaction inherent in connections and  provides  a feeling of security: “[T]he self gains  values  and significance  through   identification   with  groups   and   the   connection  to  others   that membership provides.”34  Michael Ignatieff also  observes: “Where you belong  is where you are safe, and where you are safe is where you belong.”35
Yet, would we need  so desperately to feel safe if we did not have enemies that we
had  constructed in the  first place?  Of course,  many ethnonationalists would not agree that  either  enemies or our  ethnies  are  our  constructions, they  are  inherited,  as  the ethnicity is. According to ethnonationalistic reasoning,  ethnicity is a biological question, it is in our blood:  we are all connected by those  blood ties and,  together  with the land where we live, we make one organism.
But I will argue  that  those  communities are constructed. Smith rightly points  out
that  “[e]thnicity is not  about  blood  or genes  as  such,  but  about  myths  and  beliefs  in

(31    The Constitution  of the  Republic  of Croatia, updated  2001,  www.constitution.org/cons/croatia.htm
(accessed August 17, 2008).
32     The  Constitution  of  the  Republic  of  Serbia,  2006,www.parlament.sr.gov.yu  (accessed  August  17,
2008).  It is not clear in this definition what Serbia is: are “Serbian people” also citizens; and also if someone prefers to be a citizen, does it mean that she/he does not belong to the Serbian people?
33     See, for example,  Dušan Kecmanović, Etnička vremena  [Times of ethnicity], (Beograd: Biblioteka XX
vek, 2001).
34     Ervin Staub,  The  Roots  of  Evil. The Origins  of  Genocide  and  Other  Group Violence  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
35     Michael Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging.  Journeys into the New Nationalism (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994), 10.)

common  origins.”36    Moreover, that  land  is neither  my leg nor my arm. One can  even choose if he/she is going to belong to such a group or not. Nevertheless, as Hobsbawm noted, using Anderson’s phrase: “an imagined community” is “not the less real for being imagined.”37  In my opinion,  it would not be a problem  if ethnie  would stay  within its cultural  frame.  But the politicisation  of ethnic  identity,  grounded  on nationalism as  its guiding ideology, creates a time bomb. Smith puts it well:
By invoking the idea of ‘the nation’, nationalists are able to mobilize, unify, and legitimate the goals of different sub-elites in their quest  for power. […] Politics is about  capturing   and  holding  power  in  the  state   –  and  nationalism  is  an argument  for  doing  so.  Nationalism  is therefore  a political  movement,  not  a question of culture and identity.38

Some  western  politicians  and  analysts  have  argued  that  the  reasons for the  wars  in former  Yugoslavia  lay  in  ancient   hatreds between   the  tribes.  It is  one  of the  most widespread  theories,  supported by many local but  also  international actors  who were dealing  with  this  region,  that  the  hatred   between   Bosniaks,   Serbs  and  Croats  has generated conflicts for centuries.39  But this observation is not an appropriate approach to the reality in our region, and it reflects another myth.
There are,  in fact,  two myths.  One  is  that  we always  hated  each  other  (to  be precise, it actually goes this way: “they always hated  us”) and that ethnic division always existed. The other one is about interethnic  harmony, and the ‘brotherhood and unity’ that we lived in, when  war suddenly  broke  out.  In fact,  in former Yugoslavia we did  live together  (although  cities  were  more  ‘mixed’  than  villages),  we shared jobs,  schools,  hobbies,  cafés,  even  families.  At  the  same   time,  ethnonationalists always  existed. Ethnonationalists were  frequently  warning  us  that  we  should  not  marry each  other, because it is not natural,  that  we should  never forget how many members  of our family they  threw in a pit (in the  past),  that  it is all right if we are friendly with them,  but we should  be careful, as they should  not be trusted,  and so on. Under the ‘communist fist’, they were not so loud, but when the  fist started  to slacken  they started to occupy and poison  the public space  with stories  about  atrocities  that  they committed against  us in the past.

(36     Anthony D. Smith, “The Ethnic Sources of Nationalism,” in Survival 35/1 (1993): 50.
37     Eric Hobsbawm, “Identity Politics and the Left,” in New Left Review I/217 (May-June 1996): 45.
38     Anthony D. Smith, “Culture, Community and  Territory: the Politics of Ethnicity and Nationalism,”  in
International Affairs 72/3 (1996): 448.
39     For an  overview of international actors  (politicians,  media,  academic circles)  who  supported this theory  see   David  Campbell,  Nacionalna  dekonstrukcija:   Nasilje,  identitet   i  pravda  u  Bosni  [National Deconstruction: Violence, Identity, and Justice in Bosnia], trans. Dražen Pehar, (Sarajevo: Međunarodni  Forum Bosna, 2003), 63-95.)

But war did not start because all ‘Serbs’ hated  all ‘Bosniaks’ and ‘Croats’ and vice versa. I do not deny that there were people  who were filled with hatred.  But hatred  itself does  not lead to large-scale  violence, and a war never suddenly  breaks  out like a natural catastrophe. It is planned and  prepared much in advance. As King notes,  reasons why people  hate  each  other  ought  to concern  psychologists and  marriage  counsellors, but why they kill en mass  has  to do  with statesmen.40  King rightly raises  the  question of “whether  a  thing  called  ‘ethnic  war’  even  exists.”41    He argues  that  myths  and  fears “might  be  a good  recipe  for a pogrom,  but  they rarely lead  to large-scale,  sustained violence.  For that,  you need  the  same  kinds  of  forces  that  sustain any war, whether
‘ethnic’ or otherwise:  entrepreneurs who benefit  from the  violence,  arms  supplied, by foreign powers, charismatic  leadership, and plenty of bored young men.”42
Smith, in his criticism of “group aggression” theory, which is a parallel to “ancient
hatred  as the cause  of war theory”, points out that “most wars can be attributed to other factors   like   mass    migrations,    religious   or   other   movements,    natural    disasters, colonisation and, above all, state  formation.”43
And our wars were about  creating  pure ethnic  states, because ethnonationalists
could maintain  their  power perfectly  and  easily  in such  constructions. It can  be  said, then,  that  ethnonationalists do not act according  to their sentiments but according  to rational   choice.   Ethnonationalism   is   not   primarily   a   phenomenon   created    by psychological conditions  but a tool for securing power.
(40     Charles King, “The Myth of Ethnic Warfare,” in Foreign Affairs 80/6 (2001): 168.
41    Ibid., 167.
42     Ibid., 169-170.
43     Anthony D. Smith, “War and ethnicity: the role of warefare in the formation, self-images  and cohesion of the ethnic communities,”  in Ethnic and Racial Studies 4/4 (1981): 376.)

2.3     Summary: prerequisites for lasting  peace

The war of the  early 1990s  was a slaughter  whose  targets  were mainly civilians. Most of those  who were in detention camps  were civilians. Women tortured  and  raped were civilians.  Towns that  were bombed  and  razed  to  the  ground  were inhabited by civilians. Most of these did not torture or slaughter  anyone (there are some who did, but their number  is limited). The vast majority of combatants was conscripted. Some joined the  army to defend  something. But  the  vast  majority of soldiers  did not commit such terrible  crimes.  Nevertheless,   many  people  in  the  region  are  used   to  shifting  the responsibility    onto   entire   ethnic   groups:   if   thousands  of  Serbs/Croats/Bosniaks committed  those  horrors – that means  that all Serbs/Croats/Bosniaks did it. But the fact is that in the Balkans millions of people  did suffer, no matter what their ethnic identity is or was. When we acknowledge that fact, we will make a big step towards a lasting peace. This is certainly not to say that all sides have to be blamed equally. But it is to say that all suffering has to be acknowledged, no matter whose responsibility it was.
The current  reality, though,  is that  all three  groups  blame  each  other for the  war and suffering, while not accepting  that others  also suffered.  In Croatia and FBiH the war is mainly seen as aggression by Serbia  with a goal of establishing ‘Great Serbia’, while among ‘Serbs’ it is perceived  as a civil war whose roots are in an ancient  hatred  between  the  ethnic  groups.  Many  refugees  have  still not returned  to their homes,  and  many of those  who did have actually sold their property and moved to a place where ‘their group’ is in the majority. Those who returned, if not feeling threatened, usually do feel insecure – they cannot  find jobs  and  provide  for their families,  because ethnic  minorities  are not accepted by many employers.  Many families  still  do  not  know the  fate  of their  loved ones.44  War criminals are celebrated as heroes  and protectors by the mainstream of the group that they belong to, and it is largely denied  that they committed  any crime, even if undeniable facts exist. This is why the levels of mistrust  and even fear of each other are so high.
Today, nearly thirteen years after the Dayton agreement, the situation in the former Yugoslav region cannot  be defined  as peace. It is not war, we have stopped shooting  at each other, but neither  is it peace. One of the reasons for this is a lack of peacebuilding efforts.  Lederach  claims  that  “peace   is  both  ending  something   that  is  destructive, painful, and inhumane and building something  that is dynamic, feeding people  and their

(44     According to the International Commission on Missing Persons  (ICMP), 24,088  people were reported  as missing during these wars, and around  7,000 people  have still not been found. See ICMP, www.ic-mp.org (accessed August 17, 2008).)

relationships.”45    And  we  have   not  yet  stopped  with  the   destructive,  painful   and inhumane behaviour.  Signing  a  ceasefire  agreement was  important  to  stop  the  war, shooting and killing. But there is still a long road ahead in order to achieve lasting peace  in the region.

3     Peacebuilding and Reconciliation

Based  on years  of peace  activism  in the  region, it is my impression that  most  people  want  to  live in peace. Nevertheless,  warmongering  can  be  heard  from some  political groups  whenever they need  to gain political votes.  Thus, peacebuilding in general  is an accepted term in our region. At the same  time, reconciliation is not such a popular term. Some are at best  reluctant  to use it. Different voices can be heard throughout the region, from those  absolutely  in favour of reconciliation;  via those  saying that they personally do not need  it because they did not quarrel with anyone;  and  those  saying that  truth and justice  is  more  important;   to  those   who  do  not  want  to  reconcile  with  “those   who slaughtered us” because they should  be punished. Very different understandings of the notion  certainly exist.  Even peace  activists  rarely use  the  term  to  describe  their work. Thus it is necessary to clarify the term reconciliation,  and to explore how useful it is for peacebuilding.

3.1    Reconciliation as a multidimensional process

Reconciliation is not a very new concept,  since  it has  existed  for centuries  and in almost  all religions.  Thus, it would seem  logical for it to be quite  well developed and widespread, so that it is relatively clear what it is and how it is done, at least half as clear as what war is and how to start one. But partly due to the fact that religious institutions
have  not  been  very helpful  in developing  this  concept46 , as  maintaining  the  militant

(45     John  Paul  Lederach,  “Civil Society  and  Reconciliation,”   in  Turbulent  Peace:  The  Challenges  of
Managing International Conflict , eds. C. A. Crocker et al. (Washington D.C.: USIP, 2001), 853.
46     Taking  a   very  critical  stance   towards   religious   communities,  their   representatives   and   their problematic role in public does not imply that I diminish all the positive and peace-oriented initiatives within the religious communities or started by interreligious  and ecumenical groups. My critique is mainly based on public acts and speeches given by religious representatives. Concerning the role of religious institutions in “heating up the atmosphere”, see Vjekoslav Perica, Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States (New York: Oxford  University Press,  2002);  Milorad Tomanić, Srpska  crkva u ratu i ratovi u njoj [The Serb Church at war and the wars within it], (Beograd: Medijska knjižara Krug, 2001); Mitja Velikonja et al., “The Role of Religions and Religious Communities in the Wars in ex-Yugoslavia 1991-1999,” trans. R. Obradović- Đurđević et al., in Religion in Eastern Europe XXI/4 (August 2003):  1-42; Vjekoslav Perica, “Uloga crkava u konstrukciji  državotvornih  mitova  Hrvatske i Srbije,” in Historijski mitovi na Balkanu (Sarajevo: Institut  za
Istoriju, 2003).)

patriarchal  concept  of the ‘other’ and  the role of sole victim seemed more important  to them47  (at least in this region), there is considerable confusion about what reconciliation  is supposed to be.
Reconciliation as a secular notion is much newer, and there is still no consensus in academic and  peacebuilding circles on how to define  it. It is mostly considered as  an important multi-dimensional concept  without  one  easy  recipe  to follow.48   In Galtung’s words:  “Reconciliation  is  a  theme  with deep  psychological,  sociological,  theological, philosophical,   and   profoundly   human   roots   –  and   nobody   really  knows   how  to successfully  achieve it.”49
Most scholars  agree  that  reconciliation  is a process  aiming to improve relations between  human  beings  or groups:  to  restore  broken  relationships,50   to change  and redefine51   or redesign52   them,  to  prepare  the  parties  for “relations  with justice  and

(47     Editors’ note: For a feminist and gender-orieneted critique on a militant partriarchal discourse based on religious  fundamentalism, see  Šta svaka  građanka  i građanin  treba  da  zanju o SPC [What  all citizens should  know about  the Serb Orthodox Chruch], (Beograd: Koalicija za sekularnu državu, 2007);  Nada Ler- Sofronić,  “Fašizam  danas: žene  između  vjerskog  i  tržišnog  fundamentalizma” [Fascism  today:  women between  religious  and trade fundamentalism], in Zeničke sveske  – Časopis za društvenu  fenomenologiju i kulturnu dijalogiku 7 (2008): 135-150. Jasminka Avdispahić-Babić, “Feminizam i diskurs o pravima”, in Forum Bosna: Religija i javni život 19 (2002):  286-297;  Ženska  mreža Hrvatske, “Katolička crkva štetno  utječe na položaj  žena  u Hrvatskoj” [The damaging  influence  of the  Catholic Church onto the position of women in Croatia], www.zamirzine.net/spip.php?article3461 (accessed  October  10, 2008).  For a more  moderate, yet critical and  profound  analysis  of the  relation  between  religion, civil  society  and  gender  see  Zilka Spahić- Šiljak, Žene, religija i politika: analiza utjecaja interpretativnog religijskog  naslijeđa  judaizma  kršćanstva  i islama na angažman  žene u javnom životu i politici u BiH [Women, religion and politics: an analysis  of the influence of the interpretative religious inheritage of Judaism, Christianity and Islam in public and political life in BiH] (Sarajevo: IMIC, 2007).
48     For models  on reconciliation  and  truth proposed and  discussed in the region of former Yugoslavia, see  Vesna Nikolić-Ristanović, “Specifičnost  društveno-istorijskog konteksta i viktimizacija u Srbiji i njihov značaj  za  koncipiranje   modela   istine  i  pomirenja”   [The  specificity  of  the  social-historical context  and victimisation in Serbia and their meaning for conceptualising a model of Truth and Reconciliaiton], in Temida
4 (2002):  55-66. English version  available  at www.vds.org.yu/File/VesnaNikolic-Ristanovic1.doc  (accessed August 28, 2008);  Vesna Nikolić-Ristanović, “Truth and reconciliation  experience in Serbia:  the process  so far,” paper presented at the XI International Symposium of the World Society of Victimology New horizons in victimology,  Stellenbosch (South  Africa), 13-18 July  2003;  Jelena  Tošić, “Koji model  istine  i pomirenja odgovara bivšoj  Jugoslaviji? Razmišljanja  na osnovu  završne  panel  diskusije”  [Which model  of Truth and Reconciliation suits former Yugoslavia? Reflections based on the final panel discussion], paper presented at the  Austrian  Academy  of  Science   for  the  the  Commission   for  Social  Anthropology  Research   Fund  – Wittgenstein   2000;   Dejan   Đokić,  “Unutaretničko   pomirenje   i  nacionalna  homogenizacija:   diskurs   o pomirenju  u  Srbiji  i  Hrvatskoj”  [Intraethnical  reconciliation   and  national  homogenisation: dicourse   on Reconciliation  in  Serbia  and  Croatia],  in  Reč 7/16   (2003):  109-127;  Vjeran  Katunarić,  “Oblici  mira  u multietničkim  sredinama” [Forms of peace  in  multiethnical communities],  in Migracijske  i etničke  teme  4 (2007):  391-408;  Goran Milas,  Ivan Rimac and  Nenad  Karajić, “Spremnost na  oprost  i pomirenje  nakon domovinskog rata u Hrvatskoj” [The willingness to forgive and reconcile after the homeland war in Croatia], in Društvena istraživanja – Časopis za opća društvena  pitanja 6 (2007): 1151-1173; et al.
49     Johan Galtung, “After Violence, Reconstruction,  Reconciliation,  and  Resolution.  Coping with Visible and Invisible Effects of War and Violence,” in Reconciliation, Justice and Coexistence. Theory and Practice , ed. Mohammed Abu-Nimer (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2001), 4.
50     Andrew Rigby, “Twenty Observations on  ‘Post-settlement’ Reconciliation,”  paper  presented at  the
Reconciliation Expert Network seminar, Stockholm, 15-17 March 2006), 1.
51    Lederach, Civil Society, 847.)

peace,”53  to build  and  heal  “the  torn fabric of interpersonal and  community  lives and relationships.”54   Thus, it is the  concerned parties  who should  create  and/or recreate relationships that  suit  them  both;  they should  put  effort into making  a first step  and starting to change.  Reconciliation  refers to the  future and,  as  Rigby says,  “requires  the active participation of those  who were divided by enmity. At the core of any reconciliation  process is the preparedness of people  to anticipate a shared future.”55
Yet although  the process  of reconciliation  focuses  on the future, it does  not imply
that   atrocities   and   human   rights   abuses  from  the   past   should   be  forgotten   and neglected, but  serves  “precisely  to ensure  that  the  past  does  not return.”56   Thus, the process of reconciliation also has to deal with the past, or as Lederach puts it:
Its primary goal and key contribution  is to seek innovative ways to create a time and   place,   within  various   levels   of  the   affected   population,  to  address, integrate, and embrace  the  painful  past  and  the  necessary shared future as  a means  of dealing with the present.57

Scholars often define reconciliation  as a multidimensional process  that  encompasses a number   of  elements.  For  Lederach,   these   are  truth,   mercy,  justice   and   peace.58
Bloomfield,  considering   reconciliation   as   an   “umbrella   term”,   defines   four  main
instruments: a justice process,  truth-seeking and truth-telling, a process  of healing, and a process  of reparation.59   According to  Rigby, there  are  five necessary conditions   for constructive dealing  with the past  and  thus  reconciliation:  truth, security (personal  and collective), justice, time and culture.60
In this region people  usually discuss the notion of reconciliation  in connection with
truth, justice and forgiveness.  Some perceive these  concepts as being in collision, others see them as complementary or even as synonyms.  It therefore  seems necessary here to clarify what connections there  are,  and  what  importance truth,  justice  and  forgiveness have for the processes of reconciliation  and peacebuilding.

(52     David  Bloomfield,  “Reconciliation:   An  Introduction,”   in  Reconciliation  After  Violent   Conflict: A Handbook, eds. Bloomfield et al. (Stockholm: IDEA, 2003), 12.
53     Galtung, After Violence, 3.
54     Lederach, Civil Society, 842.
55     Rigby, Andrew, Justice and Reconciliation after the Violence (London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001),
12.
56     Bloomfield, Reconciliation, 15.
57    John  Paul  Lederach,   Building  Peace:  Sustainable  Reconciliation  in  Divided  Societies,  2nd   ed.
(Washington: United States Institute for Peace, 1998), 35.
58     Lederach, Civil Society, 849.
59     David Bloomfield, On Good Terms: Clarifying Reconciliation. Berghof Report No. 14 (Berlin: Berghof
Forschungszentrum für konstruktives Konfliktmanagment, October 2006), 12.
60     Rigby, Twenty Observations, 8.)

Truth

The most  permanent request by those  who have  endured violence,  families  of victims  and  those  who struggle  for political and  social  change  is the  request  for truth about  past misdeeds to be known and publicly acknowledged. Some voices say that too much  truth  can  be  counterproductive, and  that  it is  better  to  try to  let  bygones  be bygones.  But those  who suffered  cannot  forget, and  if society  does  not recognise  and acknowledge that terrible things were done to them, they will not have trust and will not feel safe  in such  a society,  they  will  not  feel a part  of it. One can  argue  that  not  to acknowledge what  has  happened, to deny  it,  to close  one’s  eyes  to it amount  to not taking care and supporting  wrongdoing.61   It also implies that there is no guarantee that the   past   will  not   return,   and   that   our  societies   accept   atrocities   as   a  ‘normal phenomenon’.   In   such   an   atmosphere  reconciliation   is   not  possible.  As  Bleeker emphasized, “truth  is  the  centrepiece of successful  conflict  transformation and  of a future lasting peace.”62
Truth is important  with respect  to  three  dimensions: “what  happened?”, “what made it possible?” and “who did it?”. Many voices express  many truths, but there is only one  truth  about  human  suffering: the  facts  about  what people  endured, an answer  to what has happened. And this truth has priority in being acknowledged, no matter  which identity  group  those  who  suffered  belong  to. This dimension  of truth  must  not  be  an object of disputes.
Of course  there  is a variety of interpretations about  causes and  roots of violence due   to  competing   narratives   and   myths  (and   myths  are  “strangely   impervious   to facts”).63    This  is the  hardest task,  as  it raises  questions about  responsibility,  and  all parties,  of course, see themselves as righteous  ones.  Instead  of asking why, one should ask what made it possible? Mapping the ideology that lies behind  the conflict is a crucial task  (at least  in the  region of  former Yugoslavia).64   Only when we become  absolutely aware of what led us to large-scale  violence, then we can know what we have to change.  And building peace is about making change.
The third dimension  of truth is about who committed  a crime. The main reason  why this is important  is to give a name to a perpetrator, so that the perpetrator  is not ‘them’, the other group, but a number of individuals.

(61    Stanley  Cohen, Stanje  poricanja: Znati za zlodela  i patnje  [original title:  States  of  Denial.  Knowing about Atrocities and Suffering], trans. S. Glišić, (Beograd: Samizdat B92, 2003), 413.
62     Mô Bleeker Massard, “Introduction and Recommendations,” in Dealing with the Past: Critical Issues, Lessons Learned and Challenges for Future Swiss Policy, eds. Mô Bleeker and Jonathan Sisson, Swisspeace Working Paper 2, KOFF Series, 2004, available at www.swisspeace.ch/typo3/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/KOFF/KOFF_DealingWithThePast.pdf, p. 5 (accessed August 17, 2008).
63     Ignatieff, “Articles of Faith,” in Index on Censorship 5 (1996), 116.
64     Ignatieff claims that truth cannot not lie somewhere “in between”. It cannot result from a compromise  between two competing versions of events: “either the siege of Sarajevo was a deliberate attempt to terrorize and subvert  the elected  government  of an internationally recognized state  or it was a legitimate  preemptive  defence  of the Serbs’  homeland from Muslim attack. It cannot be both” (Ignatieff, ibid., 114). Yet, sometimes a truth can consist  of a number of individual truths.  For a militaristic mind a siege of a city is legitimate  pre- emptive defence. So we should  not focus on the question of which truth is a true one, but on the ideology, in this case militaristic ethnonationalism, that lies behind  it.)

Justice

It can  be  often  heard,  especially  from those  who have  endured  misdeeds, that there is no peace  and reconciliation  without justice. For many people  justice means  first and  foremost  punishing   wrongdoers.  Vjera, whose  young  daughter was  killed,  most probably  because she was born in a ‘mixed’ marriage,  points  out that  there  will be no reconciliation,
[u]ntil [the] justice system brings justice to all, regardless of their nationality, for all war victims[…] Until I find out who has killed my daughter and why. How can someone  walk  freely  after  murdering  100  people?  How? I  know  that  Serbs slaughtered, but by God, the Croats did also, very much so.65

But  there  is  a  dilemma   about   justice,   according  to  Judge  Goldstone,   former  chief prosecutor  at the  ICTY. He argues  that  “in a perfect  society  victims are entitled  to full justice, namely trial of the  perpetrator and,  if found  guilty, adequate punishment. That ideal  is not  possible in the  aftermath  of massive  violence.  There are simply too many victims and too many perpetrators. Even the most sophisticated criminal justice system would be completely overwhelmed.”66  As Rigby says,  “[a]t the  heart  of most  common- sense notions  of justice  is  the idea  of ‘making things  right’.”67   But even  if we could punish  all the perpetrators, we would not complete  the process  of “making things right”. That would not  bring us  to a lasting  peace,  because changing  the  unjust  system  and giving up a militant ideology is what is crucial if lasting peace is the goal.
A minimum that could be done is the acknowledgment of crimes committed,  public condemnation of those  acts,  and  a demonstration that  such  crimes  are  unacceptable. Instead of treating war criminals as heroes,  especially  those  who do not show any regret and  remorse, their own ‘communities’  should  shame  them.  And turn their heads away from them  as  Edin says,  whose  father,  brother  and  a number  of relatives  disappeared
after being detained in a concentration camp.68

(65     Vjera Solar, interview in Nenad  Vukosavljević, Svi bi rado bacili kamen  [All wish  to cast  a stone], (Belgrade-Sarajevo: CNA, 2007), DVD.
66     Richard J. Goldstone, “Foreword,” in Minow, Between Vengeance, ix-xx.
67     Andrew  Rigby, “Three  Contrasting  Approaches   for  ‘Dealing  with  the  Past’:  Collective  Amnesia, Retributive Justice and Prioritising Truth,” in CCTS Newsletter 18 (Autumn 2002).
68     Edin  Ramulić,  interview  in  Aldin  Arnautović  and  Refik Hodžić,  Slijepa  pravda  [Justice  Unseen], (Sarajevo: XY Films Produkcija, 2004), DVD.)

Forgiveness

The reason  why many people  feel reluctant  towards the concept of reconciliation  in this region is that  in many discussions it is directly linked to forgiveness.  Many people,  especially those  who experienced violence themselves or saw it done to their close ones, feel resistance  towards  the  concept  of forgiveness,  since  it is mainly understood as  a “moral issue”:  that it is a duty to forgive for the sake of peace. Due to this understanding, people  may feel under pressure  to forgive, that there is the expectation for them to make the  first step  and  thus  make  a compromise that  would not lead  them  to their so badly desired  justice. As Minow observes: “To expect survivors to forgive is to heap yet another  burden on them. To forgive without a good reason is to accept  the violation and devalua- tion of the self.”69
Forgiveness is a very personal  process  and an act that cannot be demanded. It is a choice  of the  individual  who has  endured a misdeed – only she/he has  the  power to decide.  Anyone  who  has   suffered   should   keep   that   power  and  right,  disregarding moralistic  sermonising. If people  are able  to forgive, that  does  not mean  that  they are going to forget, or to annul or accept the misdeed  done to them. If they do not want to or cannot forgive, it is not decisive in the process  of peacebuilding.

3.2     Reconciliation by and with whom?

Rigby defines  two dimensions of the reconciliation  process: 1) reconciliation to the pain and loss,  and  2) reconciliation with former enemies for the  sake  of future coexis- tence. The first dimension, in transcending the desire to avenge the loss, is important  for “richer” forms of coexistence between  those  divided by enmity.70  As much as this is also important  for the society, it is important  for individuals  so that  they become  capable of moving on with their lives.
The dimension  reconciliation with raises  the difficult question: who should  recon- cile  with  whom?71   A  victim of a  crime  might  reconcile  with the  perpetrator (in some circumstances), but this  is not decisive  in the  process of peacebuilding in the  society. They  may  never  reconcile  and  forgive, many acts  are  not  forgivable at  all, but  if they overcome the need for revenge, there is still a real chance to build lasting peace. Here we are talking about reconciliation  on the level of individuals.

(69     Minow, Between Vengeance, 17.
70     Rigby, Twenty Observations,  5. For the three forms of coexistence that Rigby defined,  see Table 1 in the Appendix.
71    I am thankful to my friend and colleague Tamara Šmidling for insisting on this question.)

It is of much  greater  importance for lasting  peace  in a society  to address what happens in public  disourse at  a  group  level.  And it is there  that  the  question “who should  reconcile  with whom” becomes a tricky one.  Scholars  usually  refer to “former enemies”, “groups  that  were once  adversaries”, those  “divided  by enmity”, “parties  to the  conflict”,  “sides”,  etc.  In my own work, the  question then  arises  who the  former enemies are in the context  of former Yugoslavia. Are these  enemies actually Serbs  and Croats (or other combinations)? As I have outlined in the previous chapter, the war of the early 1990s  was not an  “ethnic  war” that  suddenly  exploded  due  to so-called  “ethnic hatred”. The enmity of the  ethnic  groups  is a constructed myth that  was exploited  for waging war, and it perfectly covered up the real underlying reasons.
If the only meaning of “ethnic conflict” is that all sides are ethnically distinct, “then all we have is a superficial  description, not a useful  concept”,  as Gilley argues.72  From the peace activist’s perspective, I can say that the concept may even be a dangerous one, feeding   and   strengthening  ethnonationalist  ideology.  But  it  may  also   lead   those concerned with the peacebuilding onto a wrong path.  As Gilley says, “Once we decide to devote ourselves to the concerns  of ethnicity, we may ignore the gross deprivations faced by the wretched peasant who either has no minority neighbours or who (as is mostly the case)  lives peaceably with them.”73   Esma, a  woman  who endured three  years  under siege  in  Sarajevo  and  frequent  grenading,  clearly  stated: “It’s them  over  there  who should  reconcile, those  politicians,  those,  excuse  my language,  pieces  of shit! Who am I to reconcile with, I never argued with anyone to begin with.”74
Thus, peace  activists  should  not fall into the trap of looking at ethnicity as the ele- ment that divides people.  Otherwise they may not recognise  the root causes of conflict in our region.  Peace  activists  should  not  focus  primarily on ethnicity,  but  on structures, cultures  and ideologies  that  are the basis  for violent conflict. They should  offer people  space  for taking a rest from the overwhelming and pressing  ethnic label, and they should offer them other ways to perceive reality and to act.
In our region it seems that an approach with the goal of reconciling large groups or peoples is not a useful one. It is individuals  who can reconcile to and with. Rigby rightly notes  that for the “richest” level of coexistence – where the level of reconciliation  is deep – the  key actors  are everyday people  at the  grassroots level.75   This is not to say that nothing can be done with ethnonationalist public discourse. If many individuals  were to change  their  attitudes and  behaviour   towards  members   of  other  group(s),  it  would influence change  in the main public discourse. That would be a “bottom-up” approach. Again, though, it starts with reconciliation on personal level.

(72     Bruce Gilley, “Against the Concept of Ethnic Conflict” in Third World Quarterly 25/6 (2004): 1158.
73     Ibid, 1163.
74     Esma, interview in Helena Rill and Ivana Franović, “Ne može meni bit dobro ako je mom susjedu  loše“ [“I cannot feel well if my neighbour  does not“], (Belgrade: Centre for Nonviolent Action, 2005). 42. See also www.nenasilje.org (accessed August 18, 2008). The English version of the book is forthcoming in early 2009.
75    Rigby, Twenty Observations, 13. See Table 1 in the Appendix.)

But a bottom-up  approach alone  is not enough,  thus  it is important  to develop  a more  political  view on  reconciliation   and  its  significance  for conflict  transformation. Bloomfield  suggests  that   reconciliation   is  “an   essential  (and   essentially  political) ingredient  in  peacebuilding, just  as  central  and  just  as  necessary as  economic  recon- struction,   legal   reform,   and   all  other   post-violence   reconstructive  and   preventive measures.”76  He argues that  in the  political  practice  of rebuilding  post-war  structures, “peacebuilding and  democracy-building will benefit  significantly in their  efficacy from paying  more  overt attention  to the  nature  of the  relations  that  are  built during  these  processes. In developing  […] a ‘fair’ society after violence, political institutions must be designed  so  that   not  only  do  they  further  fairness,   representation,  accountability,  inclusiveness, etc., and the ability to manage difference without recourse  to violence, but that  they  also  pay  conscious and  ongoing  attention  to  the  relations   contained and developed by and within them.”77
Following this  understanding of reconciliation,  however, there  remains  the  same open question: who should  reconcile with whom? And this question should  be seriously considered by those  who are devoted  to peacebuilding and  reconciliation  work. Never- theless, even  if there  is  reluctance  about  the  concept   of  reconciliation   (and  peace  activists  in the region rarely use that  term to describe  their work), I do find it useful for peacebuilding in our region.  It is important  that  individuals  reconcile to pain  and  loss and  overcome  the desire  for revenge,  and thus  prevent  a new cycle of violence.  People might be  able  to reconcile with direct  perpetrators,  but  that  is not  decisive  in peace- building (overcoming the desire for revenge is crucial). In this case  it is more important that  the  rest  of the  society  does  not support  or deny  the  acts  of perpetrators. This is about  reconciliation  on  a  personal level.  “Political  reconciliation”  could  be  all those  processes and acts on the level of society that contribute  to and encourage reconciliation  on   an   individual   level   to   happen,  that   encourage   broken   relationships  to   be (re)established, that  promote  peaceful  and  respectful  relations.  Political  reconciliation  means  processes that  contribute  to  peacebuilding and  lower the  chances for  peace  degrading.  Sustainable peace  in our region cannot  be  reached  without  serious  effort being  put  into  political  reconciliation.   But neither  political  reconciliation  nor  lasting peace is possible without facing our violent past in a constructive  way.

(76     Bloomfield, On Good Terms, 9.
77    Ibid., 30.)

3.3     Facing the Past as a precondition for sustainable peace

The past  is a heavy burden for the present and future if inappropriately  dealt with. It is the past  that we remember,  not so much historical facts, but rather strong emotions, pain,  loss,  victimisation,   injustice,   myths  and  narratives   that   developed  around   it. Because  there  is so much pain associated with it, it is quite difficult to deal  with it in a constructive   manner,  and  that  is  why peacebuilding and  reconciliation  are  not  easy processes at all. If it is a distant past,  we can even have the case  of “chosen  trauma”  – trauma  not as  a consequence of  something  upsetting that  we experienced, but  some- thing  that  previous  generations  endured.78   Almost every large group  has  this  kind of past,  and if many group members  are not reconciled to it, if the desire  to avenge  is not relinquished,  this  past   may  be  easily  mobilized  and  abused  for  different  political purposes. As Giordano describes, in most cases, “intellectual  and political elites manage  the past and produce both the histories and the memories of a society, and consequently also  the  antagonistic truths.  The latter  are a specific  social construction of reality that results  from an accurate  re-elaboration, reinterpretation, manipulation, or even reinven- tion of the past in the present.”79
For Neier there  are two crucial reasons for dealing  with the  past.  The first one  is recognition  of “the worth and  dignity of those  victimised”,  because if we fail to do that we  “perpetuate, even  compound, their victimisation.”  The second reason  is establish- ment of the rule of law. The question of deterring future abuses is not credible enough for him, “because it involves predictions.”80  Maybe it does involve predictions,  but a violent past  is a time-bomb  if  inappropriately dealt  with. It can  always  be  used  as  an  ideal excuse to massacre other people.
A victim of violence, or a group that maintains a chosen  trauma due to the victimi- sation of its ancestors, can become a perpetrator. And a new cycle of violence is opened. Reconciliation  to  loss  might  prevent  the  reopening  of that  cycle, bury it forever, and contribute  to the start of a life in the present and for the future. Rigby argues that finding a way of dealing  with the  pain of the  past  is necessary  for people  “to reinterpret  that past, looking backwards  through  time with a different lens that  enables them to recon-
struct  their memories  in such  a manner  that  eases the  intensity  of feelings  of hatred,

(78     See Vamik Volkan, “Transgenerational Transmissions and Chosen Traumas: An Aspect of Large-Group
Identity,” in Group Analysis 34/1, 79-97.
79     Christian  Giordano,  “Dealing  with the  Past,  Dealing  with History,” in Dealing with  the  Past,  eds. Bleeker and Sisson, 56.
80     Aryeh Neier in Boraine et al., eds., Dealing with the Past. Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa, 2nd ed. (Cape Town: IDASA, 1997), 3.)

bitterness and   loss.”81     He  also   argues   that   constructive   dealing   with  the  past   is comparable to forgiveness, if this process  is not understood as a moral obligation, but as a  process  of “the  formation  of new  memory  (personal   and  collective)  that  liberates people  from  the  over-determining  negative  influence  of the  past.”82   This  should  not mean  forgetting the  pain,  loss  and  numerous abuses, this  should  mean  perceiving the past  and  present in a new light, since  “history and  background  are not the only way of seeing  ourselves and  groups  to  which  we  belong.”83   An indispensable step  in  this process is to make a decision  whether we are going to live for the past  or in the present, whether we are going to live at all, or to maintain and perpetuate into eternity the cycle of violence.  But for all this  to  happen, a  public  acknowledgment of the  past  abuses is necessary. Mutual denial is a perfect strategy for keeping people  locked in the past,  and leads to the prevention of any meaningful peacebuilding.
According to my experience  as a peace  activist in the region of former Yugoslavia, dealing with the past  is a crucial issue in peacebuilding and reconciliation, since it is the view of the past that  divides and drives people.  Thus, we have to find ways for opening and “cleaning” it (as Father Lapsley would say), so that wounds can be healed.84  In this sense, constructive  dealing  with the  past  is a process  that,  first and  foremost,  recon- structs  collective memory in such  a way that  it is not possible anymore  to reinterpret  it and  manipulate it as  a tool for waging violence  against  ‘the other’. It is a process  that must therefore go hand in hand with the peacebuilding process.

(81     Andrew Rigby, “Dealing  with the  Past:  Forgiveness  and  the  Reconstruction  of Memory  in  Divided
Societies,” in International Journal of Politics and Ethics 3/1 (2003), 95.
82     Ibid., 96.
83     Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence. The Illusion of Destiny (London: Allen Lane, 2006), 19.
84     Michael Lapsley, interview by Hannes Siebert in Track Two 6/3-4 (1997), www.ccr.uct.ac.za (accessed
August 19, 2008).)

4     Dealing wi th the Past: applied  mechanisms and current necessi ties

Prijedor is a small town in Bosnia, where horrible atrocities  happened during the war. A number  of detention camps  operated in its  surroundings; the  most  infamous  among them  are Omarska, Keraterm and  Trnopolje, where those  who were not (recognised as)
‘Serbs’ were forcibly interned.  Today, it is a town covered in silence.  Most of the places  where people  were tortured  are not marked  at all. But there is a huge monument  at the spot where the detention camp Trnopolje operated with the inscription:  “To the soldiers who  built  their  lives  into  the  foundation of  the  Republic  of  Srpska.”85   One  of  the survivors of the Omarska camp expressed how she feels about it:
I don’t  know what to call this,  sarcasm, irony, insult  to victims. […] I am truly hurt and cannot  understand it. I can understand when somebody  doesn’t  want to talk about the crimes that happened, I think, maybe some more time should pass. But to celebrate crimes with monuments? It is simply ludicrous.86

Many soldiers really lost their lives in the war, and erecting a monument  for them can be an understandable desire. But erecting such a monument  at the place where people  from other groups were tortured is an indicative message. In this region there is a widespread pattern  of  dealing  with the  past  as  either  denying  past  misdeeds or glorifying those  responsible for  them.  Psychologists   claim  that  a  positive  self-concept, as  well as  a positive  view of the group they see  themselves as belonging  to, is important  for human beings. Thus, most  probably  we are not talking in this  case  but also  in general  about conscious glorification, but about denial.
Cohen, in his study of denial, argues that the most widespread form of it is incapa- bility and refusal to continuously  face awkward truths or to live with them.87  As one man said  to the  director  of a TV station  in Serbia  that  broadcast a documentary about  the massacre in Srebrenica:  “If it really was like that, then the only thing left for me is to take a gun and  kill myself.”88   According to Cohen, denial  is to claim that  something  did not happen, that  it did  not  or does  not  exist,  that  it is not  true  or that  we do  not  know
anything about  it.89   A group censors  itself, and learns  how to keep  silent about  certain

(85     It was built some years ago, I presume it was in 2003 at the latest.
86     Nusreta Sivac (survivor of Omarska camp), in Arnautović and Hodžić, 2004.
87     Cohen, Stanje poricanja, 46.
88     Quoted in Veran Matić, “Odbacivanje istine” [Rejecting the Truth], in Reč 62/8 (June 2001): 75.
89     Cohen, Stanje poricanja, 26.)

crimes or human  rights violations,  because open discussion about  them would threaten the  group’s  (and  group  members’)  self-image.90   And one  denial  is  easily  linked  to another: if they deny that they tortured us, we are going to deny that we tortured them.91
It might not be of importance whether the first torture happened recently or ages ago.
According to Ignatieff, in the former Yugoslavia “the past  continues to torment  be- cause it is not past”.  He argues  that  we “are not living in a serial order of time but in a simultaneous one, in which the past  and present are a continuous, agglutinated mass  of fantasies, distortions, myths, and lies.” He also states that  reporters  in the Balkan wars often  experienced that  “when  they  were  told  atrocity  stories  they  were  occasionally uncertain  whether these  stories  had occurred yesterday  or in 1941, or 1841, or 1441. For the tellers of the tale, yesterday and today were the same.”92
Many would argue  that  dealing  with the  past  is an  exit from this  vicious cycle. There are many different approaches to dealing  with the past  around  the globe.  One of them  is not  dealing  with it, or “collective  amnesia”93 , as  was the  case  in Spain  after Franco’s death  (the recipe:  forget about  human  rights violations,  repressions and  other violence, and move on with life).94  What we are doing in the region of former Yugoslavia is  quite  different.  We are dealing  with it. But in my opinion  we are  not  doing  it in constructive  ways.
So, what would constitute constructive  dealing with the past? What does this mean in the  context  of former Yugoslavia? There have  been  diverse  efforts  by international actors and also by local/regional activists in the field of transitional justice. The question is whether  these approaches are appropriate and  sufficient? In this chapter  I will, first, briefly examine some applied  approaches, and second, I will try to define what needs to be done if the goal is lasting peace  in the region.

(90     Ibid., 35.
91    For links between  Serbian and Croatian denial see Henry R. Huttenbach, “The Psychology and Politics of Genocide Denial: a Comparison  of Four Case Studies,”  in Levon Chorbajian  and George Shirinian, eds., Studies of Comparative Genocide (New York: Palgrave, 1999), 216-229.
92     Ignatieff, Articles of Faith, 120-121.
93     Rigby, Justice and Reconciliation, 2.
94     But since the suffering cannot be forgotten, there are voices asking for the truth to be unveiled.)

4.1    Initiatives  for transitional justice and Dealing with the Past in the region of former Yugoslavia

4.1.1 “The Hague Tribunal” and trials

If the term “dealing with the past”  is recognised at all in the region of former Yugo- slavia it is immediately connected with the Hague Tribunal, which means  with retributive justice.95   Vast literature  is focused  on the effects of the Tribunal, being for or against  it, most  of its writers  offering interesting  arguments. What cannot  be  denied  is that  the development of the  Tribunal  represents a kind of revolution  in international law, thus many are excited about it.
However, many politicians  and  some  ordinary people  in the region are not happy about it. It is perceived  either as being biased, ‘victor’s justice’ and unfair or ineffective, slow, paying no attention to victims, applying too short sentences, or equating the guilt of those  who  attacked and  those  who ‘only’ defended themselves.96   Moreover, it is perceived as a foreign body, somewhere  over there, kept in western hands where they do what they think should be done. It can be observed that many people  see trials, although  very rarely followed in detail, almost like a football match: did ‘ours’ score a goal or was it ‘them’? And the Tribunal bears its part of responsibility  for these  perceptions. Although since  the  very beginning  it has  presented itself as  “a tool for promoting  reconciliation  and restoring true peace”97 , it actually has not been present in the region (until recently, when the Outreach Programme was developed)98 , and did not pay attention to how some of its acts might influence those  that it is presumably  ostensibly concerned about.  It was not until 2000  that  it published its first press  release in the Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian language,  thus it was left to local journalists  and politicians  to interpret what was going
on over there.99  And those  interpretations led us to the existing perceptions that  could hardly  be  changed  so  many  years  later.  The  Tribunal  collected   extremely  valuable testimonies and facts, and it was able to greatly influence the process of shedding light on at least  one part of the truth. But due to the ‘satanisation’ of the Tribunal (in Serbia and Croatia it is often seen  as an instrument  against  the very nation: it is the nation that is prosecuted, and not individual criminals), that truth is often not believed.

(95     “The Hague Tribunal”, as it is commonly referred to in the region, is the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
96     For a realistic article about  these  perceptions, see:  Dan Saxon, “Exporting Justice: Perceptions of the ICTY Among the Serbian, Croatian and Muslim Communities in the Former Yugoslavia,” in Journal of Human Rights  4 (2005):  559-572. See  also  Maryanne  Yerkes, “Facing  the  Violent Past:  Discussions  with Serbia’s Youth,” in Nationalities Papers 32/4 (2004): 921-938.
97     Annual Report of the  International  Tribunal for the  Prosecution  of Persons  Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991, A/49/342 – S/1994/1007, 29 August 1994.
98     It began its work in late 1999, six years after the ICTY was established.
99     Some local TV stations broadcast the trials, but few followed them  in detail  due to the fact that  an “ordinary person”,  who is not a lawyer by profession, finds the legal proceedings too complicated and hard to follow.)

Minow proposes that  responding “to mass  atrocity with legal prosecutions is to embrace the rule of law.”100  Unfortunately, it seems that  the ICTY has  not even contrib- uted  much  to the  promotion  of the  rule of law and  justice  in the  region.  Croatia and especially  Serbia  unwillingly cooperate with the  Tribunal.101  The only reason  why they sometimes do cooperate comes down to pure national interests, not the rule of law. Both states are  interested  in  international investments and  in joining the  European  Union (though  not because of the values  and  rules that  it brings along), so when the interna- tional  community  wants  them  to  be  cooperative,  it  has  some  leverage  for applying pressure. It is interesting  to note in this context what kind of language  Serbian  authori- ties use when pressed to arrest and transfer those indicted for war crimes to the Tribunal. War  crimes  are  never  mentioned, instead  they  use  constructions  like:  “obligation towards The Hague”, “international obligation”, “the last obstacle on our path to the EU”.
Many would argue that  it would be much better  if those  indicted  were put on do- mestic trial, with local prosecutors and judges, here in the region. But from the few cases processed by local courts,  and  from the great political pressure under  which the courts work, one can get the impression that  they will never be able  to prosecute anyone  who held a high position in the atrocity hierarchy, but only the small pawns.
Still, one has to admit that the Tribunal has certain accomplishments. I see two di- rect  benefits  that  these  societies get from the  ICTY. First, it is the  only well organised system that struggles  against  impunity, so survivors and others concerned have a feeling that there is at least one body that is dealing with the injustice done to them. And that is a step forward, even if those very sentences do not contribute  to an anti-impunity climate when those  indicted and sentenced are treated as heroes  by the mainstream. Also, while the ICTY database may at this moment not be perceived as a collection of certain truths, I believe  that  at least  the  next generation  will benefit from it, when the  political  atmos- phere changes.
The second direct benefit does  not have anything to do with the ICTY’s goals, it is more a  consequence of its functioning:  putting  away those  ones  who could  still be  in positions of power in these  states. Concerning “promoting  reconciliation  and  restoring true  peace”  I  can  say  –  it has  done  next  to  nothing.  Uncovering certain  truths  and punishing a few of those  responsible is not enough.102

(100     Minow, Between Vengeance, 25.
101    In Bosnia there are different attitudes, but as the state  runs under international control, it is clear who has the final word.

102     By July 2007 the ICTY had indicted 161 persons, while estimates say that crimes were committed  by a few thousand persons. At the end  of 2004,  the Tribunal had  completed all investigations and  indictments and  it  is  expected to  complete   all  cases by  2010.  For  further  information  see,  ICTY,  www.un.org/icty (accessed August  19,  2008).   For concerns  about   this  completion   strategy,  see  Amnesty  International, Amnesty International’s  concerns  on the  implementation of the “completion  strategy”  of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, AI Index: EUR 05/001/2005, June 2005.)

4.1.2 Apologies

In the past few years there have been several apologies by officials. It is interesting  that  all of those  who apologised are either  moderate or non-nationalists. The hard-core have never apologised, and the ethnonationalist mainstream voices attacked those  who did – “They should apologise to us”, “We apologised to them three times, while they did it only once”,  “Who is he  to  apologise in our name?”,  comments  like these  were fre- quently heard.  These apologies hardly brought a visible change,  but it is important  that they happened.
The other type of apologies are made by people  prosecuted for war crimes in front of the  ICTY  court.  Those apologies were even less  acclaimed. By whichever group the prosecuted belonged  to they were largely ignored, while by other groups  they were not taken as real, many considered them to be a result of bargaining.
For example,  Predrag Banović, who was a guard  in Keraterm camp,  sentenced  to eight years  for killings, beatings and  abuse of detainees, pleaded guilty and  stated in front of the court:
My guilty plea  was an expression of sincere  remorse  concerning  the events  in Prijedor, and especially  the Keraterm camp. […] I deplore  the period of war and hatred, and I regret that I did not find a way to avoid mobilisation  and my role in the camp. I feel sorry for all the victims, and I curse my own hands for having in- flicted pain in any way on innocent  people.  I wish my sincere  words to be un- derstood as a balm for those wounds and as a contribution  to the reconciliation of all people  in Prijedor and the restoration  of the situation that existed  before
the war.103

(103     ICTY,  Case  information   sheet.   Predrag  Banović,  www.un.org/icty/cases-e/index-e.htm  (accessed
August 19, 2008).)

Edin, whose  father,  brother  and  relatives  were detained in that  camp,  and  have been missing persons ever since, comments  on these  sentences as follows:
What he said in that courtroom does  not mean  anything to me, or to any of my relatives.  The only positive  effect would be if Serbs  from Prijedor were to turn their heads away from Banović, to hide their children from him.104

Edin clearly felt that  the  main  addressee for this  apology  was  the  court  and  not  the people affected.  Moreover, he knows that it is very likely, when Banović gets back to his hometown in a few years, that he will be treated  as a hero or martyr.

4.1.3 Truth commissions

Tribunals, trials and apologies,  then, have very limited impact on peace  and recon- ciliation processes in the region. Unfortunately other mechanisms of transitional justice, like truth commissions, have  not been  successful or have  largely been  neglected. One truth commission was established in Serbia (actually in the former union between  Serbia and  Montenegro), but it literally died (when the union fell apart),  without any results.  It was established by successors  of  the  Milošević regime, but since  they did not clearly dissociate themselves from their  predecessors, the  commission  served  its purpose  to gather political points.  In Bosnia, too, there have been  initiatives for establishing a truth commission, but  there  is still none.  At the  very  beginning  the  ICTY opposed the  idea, since there  was  a  fear  that  a  commission   would  overlap  with  its  own  mandate. In Bosnian  society there is still an ongoing discussion whether a commission  is needed or not; and there is no political will for such a step.105
However, it seems obvious  that  a truth  commission  could  bring some  improve-
ment. But it can only succeed if it is formed jointly by people  from Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia. It is not possible to separate the consequences of war in these  three  countries,  and  therefore  it is not possible to separate the peacebuilding processes. Nevertheless, due to the present political circumstances such a joint endeavour is still not a real policy option.106

(104     Edin Ramulić, interview in Arnautović and Hodžić, Slijepa pravda.
105    See, for example, articles on “Komisija za istinu i pomirenje” [‘Truth and reconciliation commission’], by Tokača, Suljagić and Hodžić, Puls demokratije, www.pulsdemokratije.net/index.php?a=tag&t=istorija+i+odgovornost&l=bs (accessed August 19, 2008).
106     It should  be noted  that there is a valuable  initiative for establishing a regional body (in the region of former Yugoslavia) for truth seeking.  The initiative came  from the Humanitarian  Law Centre from Belgrade (www.hlc-rdc.org), the Research  and Documentation  Centre from Sarajevo (www.idc.org.ba) and Documenta from Zagreb  (www.documenta.hr). A  number  of consultations  throughout the  region  with different  social groups  were  held.   At the  moment   (September  2008)   it  is  in  the  process   of  forming  a  coalition  of organisations and individuals  for establishing a regional commission. More information is available  on the initiators’ web sites. The idea  is to have  the regional  commission  established by the governments in the region. Bearing in mind the political circumstances, it is quite an ambitious idea. Thus, we can only hope that it is going to be a successful one. The time will show.)

4.2     What else needs  to be done?

Any peacebuilding process in the  region needs to acknowledge the  suffering of human beings  without ethnic  prefixes, followed by recognition  that  it was ethnonation- alist  ideology  that  made  war possible. Peacebuilders,  as  I  have  argued,  should  also avoid  putting  people  into  ethnopolitical ‘pigeonholes’,   that  very “miniaturization  of human  beings”107 , which ethnonationalists use, and should  offer other perspectives. As Sen points  out in his brilliant book on identity and violence, our freedom “to assert  our personal identities can sometimes be very limited in the eyes of others,  no matter  how we see ourselves.”108 Peace activists should advocate and make space  for this freedom.
Peacebuilding and  constructive   dealing  with  the  past  are  twin  processes that strengthen and  give legitimacy to each  other.  Dealing with the past,  as a quite  difficult and  painful  process,   has  a  deeper   sense only if its  goal  is  sustainable peace. But peacebuilding is not possible without facing the past;  otherwise  we can just reach fake or fragile ‘peace’.  In  order to proceed  on this  road  in the  region we have  to take  the following steps: 1) acknowledgment, 2) deconstructing the  myth of ‘ethnic war’, and  3) reconstructing identities and de-victimisation.

4.2.1 Public Acknowledgement

Although crucial for peacebuilding, public  acknowledgment of misdeeds is very hard to achieve. The maximum of acknowledgment that has been admitted by the public discourse is the idea that “the others did it also”, which is actually an excuse  and not a real recognition. Another excuse is “it was a war, and in war terrible things happen.”
During these  ten years of peace  activism, I have come to realise  how hard it is for many people  to accept  and  admit  that  members of their own group committed  terrible acts. In our region’s dominant frame of mind, if I point to a crime committed by a member of one group it is experienced as an attack  on the person  that belongs  to that group, an attack  on his/her identity.  And at the  root of this  phenomenon is an ethnonationalist ideology, which claims that all of us (tied to a piece of land) are one organism.
One of the main obstacles to acknowledging that people  did suffer on all “sides”  is a  widespread belief  that  experiences and  pains  of others  are  a  “denial  of our  own

(107    Sen, Identity and Violence, 185.
108     Ibid., 6.)

experience”109  and pain.  It has  to do with the conviction that  there  is a group who is a perpetrator  and  another  group who is the  victim. And these  groups,  in many people’s  minds, have clear ethnic markers. This, however, was not the reality in the given context; all groups  were  split  at  least  into  two factions:  one  promoting  violence  against  ‘the other’, and  the  other  struggling  against  that  violence.  When we recognise  that  on all ‘sides’  there  were  people   struggling  against  the  policy of violence,  and  against   the ideology  that  led us to slaughter, then  we will be able  to make  much  more space  for acknowledgment to happen.
It is important  that  those  who did not experience the whole tragedy of war get to know, first and foremost, what other people  endured.  And it is important to find a way to raise awareness that acknowledgment of the atrocities  leads  to liberation  from the past, it allows  life in the  present and  gives hope  for a better  future.  Living in fear, among accusations, feeling threatened and not safe – this is not a life.
Although a crucial task  of the  dealing  with the  past  process  is recognising  “the worth and  dignity of those  victimised”110   the entire society will benefit  from this.  Thus, the  process  should  be  shaped in a way that  it is not only carried  out for the  sake  of victims, but for the sake  of a peaceful  society whose  main value is social justice.  If we deny what has  happened,  we approve  violence  and  thus  establish it as  a norm. If we acknowledge and condemn  it, we have a chance to establish nonviolence as a norm, and the most important social value.

4.2.2 Deconstructing the myth of “ethnic war”

The next crucial step  is deconstructing the myth of “ethnic  war”. It is important  to raise awareness of the root causes of war, which did not consist  in ethnic differences  or so-called ancient  hatreds. This myth has  to be deconstructed as it is the source  of fear and mistrust between  people  of different identities. If people  go on believing that ethnic differences  are the cause  of war, then  they can never feel secure  because those  differ- ences  (although  minor) will always exist, thus no one can guarantee that it is not going to happen  again.   Ethnonationalist   ideology  and   ethnonationalists  give  their  best   to maintain  the idea that having our (ethnically clean) state  is the only guarantee for feeling safe.  And since  the project of ‘clean’ states did not fully succeed, many people  still do not feel safe.  Ethnonationalism is like a  perpetual  motion  machine  – constantly  rein- forcing itself. It creates a climate  of fear and  a so called  “security  dilemma”.  Ethnonationalist leaders make people  suffer, then they boast  that they were right when they were telling us that  we cannot  feel safe  with others,  and  people  still support  them,  because they  are  the  ones  who  talk  about  ‘our’ interests, they  address ‘our’ fears  (that  they created),  and at the end they turn out to be ‘our’ guardians. This seems to be the reason  why ethnonationalists still go on winning so many elections  in the region.

(109     Svjetlana  Nedimović, “Suočavanja s prošlošću: Lično iskustvo  kao samica”  [Dealing with the Past: Personal     Experience     as     Solitary    Confinement],     Puls     demokratije,    3     May    2007, www.pulsdemokratije.net/index.php?a=detail&l=bs&id=114 (accessed August 19, 2008).
110    Neier in Boraine et. al., eds., Dealing with the Past, 3.)

Scholars recognise security as one of the main conditions  for the process  of recon- ciliation  to start.  As Rigby notes:  “To begin  to have  hopes  for the  future, a necessary dimension  of any  constructive  reinterpretation of the  past,  people  must  experience a degree  of personal and collective security sufficient to reassure them  about  actions  of former wrong-doers.”111   Thus,  the  sources  of fear must  be  understood, deconstructed and neutralised.
Moreover, the answer  to the question of who is a wrongdoer should  be reframed. The wrongdoer  is not that  neighbour  from the  other  ethnic  group, since  he/she is in a very similar  situation to the  one  we are  in. Wrongdoers  are  those;  for example,  who maintain  ethnonationalist ideology for personal profit, and  convicted  war criminals.  It also should  be noted  that only when we reconcile with the neighbour  might we consider reconciling  with the  wrongdoer,  otherwise  we will never  be  able  to reconcile with the neighbour.112

4.2.3 Reconstructing identities  and de-victimisation

In the  literature  on peacebuilding it has  been  argued  that  “the  transformation of identity is necessary for reconciliation.”113   It has been outlined that the very existence  of ethnic  (or other) identities could be cultural heritage,  something  that  enriches  people’s  lives.  A  problem  may  arise  from certain  definitions.  In the  Balkans,  we have  allowed ethnonationalist extremists  to impose  their perception  of what ethnie is about,  while all other  perceptions are marginalised. And their main understanding of self is defined  ex negativo,  i.e.  by  exclusion  of  the  others;  or  as  Keen  observes:   “All we  despise in ourselves we attribute  to them.”114  Thus, having an enemy is at the core of their version of identity.

(111    Rigby, Dealing with the Past, 97.
112    One can often hear calls by ethnonationalists in Serbia for “national reconciliation” which are actually calls  for ethnic/national unification.  Dimitrijević made  an  interesting  observation  (as  a reaction  to these calls) in his article on the prospects for the determination of truth and reaching  reconciliation  in Serbia: “If Serbs reconcile with each other, there reconciliation  with others will be hindered.”  Vojin Dimitrijević, “Izgledi za utvrđivanje istine i postizanje  pomirenja u Srbiji”, in Reč 62/8 (2001), 74.
113    Lisa Schirch, “Ritual Reconciliation. Transforming Identity/Reframing  Conflict,” in Reconciliation, ed.
Abu-Nimer, 152.
114    Sam  Keen, Faces of the  Enemy: Reflections  of the  Hostile Imagination  (Cambridge:  Harper & Row,
1986), 21.)

If ethnic identity is important,  what does it then mean to be a Serb, Croat, Bosniak, Albanian, Macedonian…? What kind  of values  do  these  identities entail?  What is the cultural heritage  that lies behind  them? If the only thing we know is that we are not them, then we actually do not know who we are and there are no values behind  us. Anthropolo- gists,  sociologists, psychologists, writers, artists,  politicians,  and  also  ‘ordinary people’ could contribute  to changing this  picture,  so that  a construction of identities would be based on real humanistic values and cultures.
On the other hand, all of us have numerous identities, not only (if at all) ethnic and national ones. And we should be free to choose  them and express them if we want.
In our region, all ethnopolitical groups  are deeply immersed  in the role of victim. And  there  are multiple  and  understandable reasons for that.  What is worrying is that victimisation is built into the very identity. As Buruma observes: “Identity more and more rests  on the pseudoreligion of victimhood.”115  It goes  so far that  all these  ethnies were identifying themselves with Jews.116 In this situation of victimisation it is almost impossi- ble to reflect on one’s own responsibility,  or the responsibility  of one’s own society. The role of victim turns out to be a comfortable  one: if I am a victim I cannot  be responsible for anything,  and  no  one  can  argue  with me  because it would be  showing  a lack of respect  for a victim. It is actually a powerful position.  Thus, in addition  to psychological reasons and  deep  trauma,  de-victimisation  is additionally  complicated because of the comfort  that  role  might  offer.  This lack  of  responsibility   is  reflected  on  the  level  of society. Citizens do not feel responsible for what is going on in society, since they have given that  up to ‘politicians’. Moreover, we live in monolithic societies where, as Staub says, strong  authority  and  totalitarian rule enforces  uniformity: “The authorities have great power to define reality and shape the people’s  perception of the victims.”117
It is absolutely  necessary to empower  people  to abandon this  role, because it is them who can make a change.  If we constantly  give up our power to ethnocratic authori- ties, we will never make a change.  Without our power they would be powerless.
In this chapter  I have defined  a few steps that  should  be taken  in order to reach fundamental change  in our societies. And even if there  are only a few steps, they need quite  a lot of work and  effort. The open  question remains  whose  job it is to take  those  steps, which is the focus of the following chapter.

(115    Ian Buruma, “The Joys and Perils of Victimhood,” in The New York Review 46/6 (1999), 6.
116    The historian  Paul B. Miller wrote a brilliant text on this topic: Paul B. Miller, “Svi ste vi Jevreji” [All of you are Jews], Dani, 18 May 2007.
117    Staub, The Roots of Evil, 19.)

5     Whose job is Peacebuilding and Dealing wi th the

Past?

Scholars  mostly agree  that  reconciliation  and  peacebuilding are processes in which all layers  of  a society  need  to be  included.  Lederach  explicitly says  that  “peacebuilding must be undertaken simultaneously at numerous levels of society”.118  At the same  time, Bar-On remarks  that  “top-down  and  bottom-up  processes are  difficult to synchronize because of the  lack of a common  language  and  social  perspective”.119  Actually, in the region of former Yugoslavia, so far peacebuilding  processes have  not been  initiated  by the top level of decision  makers in governments and parliaments. Others have tried to fill that  gap.  In this  last  chapter,  I  focus  on  actors  that  do have  or should  play a role in peacebuilding and  dealing  with the  past  processes, including  steps suggested in the previous chapter.  I also focus on obstacles that I am aware of which some of these  actors face.

5.1    Governments, parliaments and political parties

Political institutions in our countries  are  still very weak  and  many  of them  are dominated by ethnonationalists.  Peacebuilding is not  their  priority, since  maintaining enemy images  and  ethnopolitical borders  is very useful  to them  as  a tool for securing their power. When representatives of governments, parliaments and  political parties  in this region talk about reconciliation  they usually mean “national  reconciliation”,  seeking ethnic unification  and promoting  the  concept  “we-represent-one-body” which excludes others.  Dealing constructively with the past  and interethnic  reconciliation  is a threat  for them, which endangers their identity. Those who we consider as “civic parties” also often use ethnonationalist rhetoric to gain more votes in elections, even if they do not believe in it themselves. And even  if they do not flirt with  ethnonationalism, they do not see peacebuilding as  a priority either.  Even politicians  who belong  to the  political factions that peace  activists set most hopes  on have argued that ‘reconciliation’ is important, but it should  be done  by NGOs, and not by the state  or state  actors. According to them, the
state’s job is focused on arresting and prosecuting war criminals.120

(118    Lederach, Civil Society, 843.
119    Dan Bar-On, “Empirical criteria for reconciliation  in practice,” in Intervention 3/3 (2005), 180.
120     Gordana Čomić, lecture held on «The role of a state  in dealing with the past» as a part of the seminar  on dealing with the past at the Centre for Nonviolent Action, 18-22 November, 2007.)

The priority concern of most politicians  in our region is the economy (which is un- derstandable since  so many people  live on the  edge  of deprivation),  assuming that  a better life standard will set  all things  right. But the development of our economy alone will not lead us to more truth, justice, and peace. Moreover, when they are going to arrest some  more war criminals,  some  of them  will get their sentences, but  that  still will not “make things right”.
Unless we go through  the  steps listed  in the  previous  chapter,  we will not reach fundamental changes in our societies. People  on the top and at the middle level of the societies could do a lot in order to achieve these steps and make crucial changes, if only there  was enough  will, knowledge,  but  also  courage.  I believe  that  a number  of them would start taking these steps if they knew how, and if they got support by citizens.
Given the fact that  the ‘top’ level is still so far from any interest  in peacebuilding, this kind of work is left exclusively to civil society actors.  Thus there is a big task for civil society actors to learn how to motivate  and  involve authorities in their activities,  to get supported by them and also to give them support.

5.2     NGOs

The emerging sector of NGOs has often been confused  with “civil society” as such. In recent years, after being perceived as the ‘key’ actors  in post-war situations by many international and also some local actors, there is a growing criticism of the phenomenon of NGOs.121 Although it is mostly well grounded,  it has to be admitted that many of these  groups  feel  the  gap  and  are,  after  all,  struggling  to  do  the  job  that  state   actors, representatives of governments, administrations or parliaments are incapable of doing or unwilling to do  (due  to  the  lack of political  will). On a global  level, one  of the  most constructive  critiques  of NGO work can  be  found  in Fisher and  Zimina’s open  letter  to peacebuilders.122  There, they observe two contrasting  approaches in the peacebuilding field:  transformative,   which  aims   at  fundamental  political  and   social   change,   and technical,  which aims  to  make  a  practical  difference  in a  specific  domain,  while not “necessarily  challenging the deeper  context.”123

(121    See,  for example,  Rastko Močnik, “NVO, sluge  neoliberalne države”  [NGOs, servants of  neoliberal  states], in Buka, 20.06.2006; Vlasta Jalušić, “Ideologija i realnost  civilnih društava” [Ideology and the reality of  civil  societies],   in  H-Alter,   13.11.2006;  Paul  Stubbs,   “Civil   Society   or  Ubleha?”,   in  20   Pieces  of Encouragement  for Awakening  and  Change.  Peacebuilding  in the  Region  of the  Former Yugoslavia,  eds. Helena Rill et al. (Belgrade, Sarajevo: CNA, 2007), 215-228.
122     Simon Fisher and  Lada Zimina, Just Wasting Our Time? Open Letter to Peacebuilders, March 2008.  [Editors’ note: an edited version is forthcoming as part of Berghof Handbook Dialogue No. 7 in late 2008.]
123     Ibid., 20.)

5.2.1 Local / regional peace and human rights organisations

In our microcosms,  there  is a lot of “technical”,  and  also  “transformative” work being done by local NGOs. These groups have a remarkable  potential  due to the fact that they  have  gained  a  lot of knowledge  during  the  last  decade. They have  much  more experience  than most  of the  candidates for positions in governments, parliaments and political parties.  But there are obstacles that prevent this potential  from being fully used.  First of all, personal animosities  and  competition  prevent  effective  networking  in the field.  Beyond  this,  there  are  also  some  more  complex  barriers  that  prevent  effective action and might reduce the NGOs’ impact.
Peace groups in our region are usually so deeply opposed to nationalism that they lack any understanding and  empathy  for the reasons that  make many ‘ordinary people’ maintain  ethnonationalist feelings  and  attitudes. This distances NGO activists  funda- mentally from a large percentage of the population. Thus they find themselves in strong opposition or confrontation to those  who they would like to address or invite to be their allies.  Moreover,  space  for constructive  action  is  constricted. In Serbia,  for instance, peace  activists  who decided to work with war veterans,  were strongly criticised by some others  for working with so-called  “ethnonazis” and  “killers”. The problem  is that  such rigid behaviour  by peace  NGOs pushes away many ‘ordinary’ people  who could be allies and might have a strong potential  to contribute  to sustainable peace. Shifting that “self- righteous  style” a bit would, I believe, open many doors.
Another limitation that narrows the NGOs’ impact on peacebuilding is an unspoken and  unwritten  rule  between   NGOs that  forbids  dealing  explicitly with the  “crimes  of others”. There seems to be  a consensus that  if I am an ethnic  Serb, I am expected to criticize only acts of Serb forces and politicians, and should not deal with those  of Croats or Bosniaks since this should  be left to the others,  “they should  clean their own house”. This approach reproduces the experience that public debates shy away from reflecting on the own responsibility,  and  ends  up tending  to overemphasise the responsibility  of the own group and establishing a new taboo  with respect  to the crimes committed  by other stakeholders of the wars. I might feel more shame  and discomfort  with misdeeds done by those  who belong  to my ‘tribe’ or society,  but  I am equally responsible for what  is done  by any of the sides,  since  I am or was part of that  society and, whether  I like it or not, part of that problem. And none of the criminals are ‘mine’ anyway. If I were to accept  that  some  criminals  are  mine, and  some  others  not, I would contribute  to the existing ethnocentric world view, instead of bridging it. So even if it is not intended, the above mentioned unwritten  rule risks actually reinforcing ethnocentric narratives.  However, as has  been explored  on the previous  pages  and  in the literature,  the main problems  and causes of the  violent conflicts  in the  region were not and  are not about  ethnic  differ- ences.
Although I am aware of many obstacles that peace  and human rights groups face, I am also aware  of much valuable  and  brave work done  by them:  collecting  testimonies and oral histories,  bringing facts about  crimes committed  during the war into the public discourse, providing space  for lacking public debates, building bridges,  motivating  the wider public to react, providing legal and medical support  to the victims of human  rights abuse, dealing  with trauma,  sowing seeds of humanistic social  values  that  almost  got forgotten… Isn’t that something?
A lot of things rest on the shoulders of peace  and human  rights activists.  But they are  not  going  to  change   the  situation fundamentally   if they  do  not  find  modes   of cooperation, and if they do not forge alliances  with other actors: people  from the media, artists,   education,   religious   institutions,  political   parties,   state   institutions,  local authorities, and business…
It should  also be noted that these  groups that work on social change  lack support.  Many of them feel like they are left alone, since their work is usually not publicly valued and  sometimes  not  even  recognised. Activists  get  tired  and  burn  out.  But,  for the beginning, they could be the best support to each other.

5.2.2 International NGOs

International NGOs and  external  donors  can play an important  role and  have cer- tain  impacts  on peacebuilding in the  region, given the  experience they have  gathered throughout the world. A precondition is that  they are aware of their own role, potential  and  also limits.124  Work on peacebuilding is much more sensitive  than  development or humanitarian aid, at least when it comes  to the issue  of dealing  with the past.  The first question that  international NGOs  have  to  answer  is  what  is  their  own motivation  to support this kind of work in post conflict areas?  Second, they have to make explicit what they have  done  in their  countries  of origin on  dealing  with the  past  that  gives  them credibility  to  be  a  part  of that  process elsewhere.  And  these   questions should  get answers  if the base  of any cooperation is to be established: namely, trust.
Exploring what kind of role international NGOs can play in the peacebuilding proc- ess  in the region would be a topic for another  article. But it should  be noted  that in may cases international NGOs do give valuable  support  to local actors,  sometimes they are even the main source of moral support.

(124     See Fisher and Zimina, Just Wasting Our Time?)

5.3     Media, arts and culture

Beyond NGOs, media,  arts and culture can also contribute  substantially to peace- building.
In May 2008,  a Eurovision song contest was held in Belgrade that  was accompa- nied by absolute excitement.  During these  days, listening to the Belgrade Radio B92 one could  quite  frequently  hear  a commercial  for a newly released album  by the  Bosnian singer Laka, who was representing Bosnia in the contest. The main message in the short commercial was: “Let’s prepare for action! Support the neighbour!” Given the context we live in, this should  be considered as a great campaign  that contributes to peacebuilding much more than  many ‘projects’ which proclaim this goal, although  the initiators  most probably  did not think about this kind of effect at all. This is just an example  that  arts and  entertainment – at least  implicitly – can make important  contributions to changing political cultures or at least to bridging ethnopolitical gaps.

5.4     Survivors and victims’ groups

Peace  activists  working locally and  regionally have  to explore more clearly where our own potentials are and who else  can contribute  and could be our alliance  partners.  We should  include  the  individuals  and  groups  that  are  considered as  those   mostly affected  by the wars: victims and survivors, and their families, who I will focus on in this section, and also ex-combatants, who I will focus on in the next and last section.
There is a number of associations of families of victims, of ex-detainees in concen- tration camps,  and refugees  across  the region. Their goals are mainly to find the remains  of their dear ones,  to uncover the truth about  their destinies, to have that truth acknowl- edged,  and  also  to  have  the  perpetrators held  responsible for their  misdeeds. The difficulty is that  many of these groups  are organised according  to the ‘ethnic key’, and one can easily notice that to a large extent they maintain competing  narratives, there is a lack of constructive  communication and cooperation between  them,125   and  sometimes they perceive the other association (whose members  belong to a different ethnic group) as an enemy itself. It happens that someone who committed war crimes is perceived as a perpetrator by one  association and  as  a hero  by some  other.  There is also  a lack of acknowledgment of the  suffering  of the  members  of the  other  associations, having  a
competition  about  who is the greater victim. Some victims’ groups are highly politicised

(125    There are attempts to develop  cooperation between  these groups,  like projects  of the International
Commission on Missing Persons.)

and  they  are  easily  abused by ethnonationalists who gain  points  on account  of their misery.
One can  frequently  hear  representatives of victims’ groups  saying:  “May these tragedies never happen anymore  to anyone”126 , but the difficulties I have  listed  above usually contradict  this wish and prevent these  groups from reaching their goals. Victims’ groups from different sides  have similar goals (with respect  to acknowledgement, justice and compensation for those  who suffered from war crimes and human  rights violations). They have  huge  credibility  and  they are also  quite  respected in their societies. If they were to  act  in cooperation, and  not in opposition, exchanging  more  information  and exerting joint pressure on authorities, they could be much more effective and the whole society would benefit  from the results  of their work. It is difficult for all these  groups  in the  countries  of former Yugoslavia to make  this  move, but  at the  same  time there  are indicators   that  individuals  exist  in  many  groups  who  do  not  feed  into  ethnocentric divisions and could be relevant actors for peacebuilding.

5.5     Ex-combatants and war veterans’  organisations

It seems that international organisations have also recently developed some inter- est in two specific groups: victims and perpetrators, followed by a kind of consensus that both groups should  be worked with. As many would say, it is easier  to identify who is a victim, but there  are difficulties in identifying the  perpetrators. When discussion about perpetrators starts,  then  the  only group  that  is  often  talked  about  are  war veterans,  although many of them did not commit any crime and many of them were forced to join the   war.  Unfortunately,   the   perception   and  conceptualisation  of  dealing   with  war veterans   in  international  reconstruction and  reintegration programs  is  usually  rather superficial,  or to use  more diplomatic  term, borrowed  from Fisher and  Zimina, techni- cal.127
In our experience, among war veterans many people can be found who raise brave voices  and  go  against   the  stream,  despite having  strongly  expressed their  national identity. NGO activists  should  be open to approaching those  individuals  that have huge acceptance and credibility in society and can take on important  functions  as multipliers and ambassadors for peace.
Ex-combatants  are often perceived  as  ‘spoilers’. Observing a number  of associa-  tions of war veterans  throughout the region, it is easy to label them as ‘spoilers’, due to

(126     See,  for example,  Svetlana  Broz, “Facing the  Crime –  Vengeance,  Justice  and  Understanding,” in Balkan  Yearbook  of Human  Rights  2005.  Confronting  the  Past,  Consequences for the  Future, eds.  Dino Abazović and Branko Todorović (Sarajevo: Balkan Human Rights Network, 2005).
127    Fisher and Zimina, Just Wasting Our Time?)

the fact that  they are, like victims, very much affected  by the war and  quite  politicised.  They usually maintain  ethnocentric narratives  and enemy images,  and in addition  many of them share identities marked by militarised masculinity. But, as is the case with other groups and institutions, they consist  of individuals,  and many individuals  do not fit this general  picture.  Most  of them  did  not  want those  wars, and  they  certainly  cannot  be blamed  for starting  them;  they were either  drafted,  or the  war “came  under  their win- dow”.128   That experience changed their lives, and  based on that,  many of them have a powerful  anti-war  and  peacebuilding  potential.   Many  peace   activists   can  easily  be discredited by ethnonationalists as  ‘non-patriots’.  However, this  is  not  so  easy  with respect  to war veterans  who have huge social credibility and acceptance. People listen to them. Thus they are important  multipliers  and can be messengers for peace. This could be  observed   during  the  public  forums  that  the  Centre  for  Nonviolent  Action (CNA) organised, where some  of the speakers were war veterans.129  The audience, which had never  had  the  opportunity  to hear  a story  of a combatant from ‘the  other  side’,  was listening to every word – carefully and with respect.
CNA’s work with war veterans  has shown that these  individuals  usually have great motivation  to meet  people  from the  other  side  they fought against. Galtung points  out one reason for this: to get to know, as all professionals would like to do, whether they did a good job, since “few would know this better than the other side”.130   This might be true, but to a large degree they were not professionals, rather they were ordinary people  who became soldiers  due to the circumstances. And a number  of them discovered  that  after getting to know those  “others”  and  having  honest discussions with them,  they could sleep  properly for the first time since the war. Thus, it is more likely that their motivation to meet former ‘enemies’ is due to the traumatic experience they endured.
There is a growing number  of brave  veterans  who are  joining informal networks that contribute  to peacebuilding, trying to rebuild broken bridges and find answers  to the questions that distress them (“why?”). Doing this, they mostly swim against  the tide and they risk being criticised. So it is not easy for them, and to sustain their engagement, the
support from other actors is crucial.

(128     Adnan Hasanbegović,  Four views, 6.
129     For more information, see publications on the “4 views” programme, www.nenasilje.org/publikacije/4 pogleda_e.html (accessed October 10, 2008).
130     Johan  Galtung,  “Twelve creative  ways  to  foster  reconciliation  after  violence,”  in  Intervention  3/3 (2005), 229.)

6     Outlook: the necessi ty of building alliances  for Peace- building in the region

The above  mentioned groups  that  are  concerned  about  dealing  with the  past  and/or peacebuilding  and  reconciliation   are  still  a  minority  in  the  societies of  the  former Yugoslavia. How could  the  wider  society/societies be  included  in  peace   processes? Journalists  and  activists  from the  media  have  often  reported  that  people  are  tired  of stories about dealing with the past and about victims. This is understandable, on the one hand  since facing the  past  is hard  and  an emotionally  tense  process,  especially  if not dealt  with in a  constructive  way, and  many of us really lack happiness and  optimistic perspectives in our lives. On the other hand,  this “tiredness of dealing  with the past”  is also  worrying. Apathy is quite  a  dangerous phenomenon in any society,  because it is accompanied by a lack of taking responsibility.  And if we as citizens do not feel respon- sible  for our society,  then  authorities  will  not fulfil their responsibility  either,  because there will be no critical mass to control their work.
While both  local  and  international NGOs can  make  important  contributions to peacebuilding, one  should  not expect  that  NGOs on their own and  as  the  only actors could  be  effective  in establishing long  lasting  peace. Peace  groups  in the  region  of former Yugoslavia, although  doing valuable work, are small in number and not supported by our governments,  neither morally nor financially (or if some of them are, this support  is almost  invisible). The financial means  for peace  activities  come from abroad,  mainly from western governments. The very moment  when that support  stops  we will be lucky if we stay on with a few enthusiasts – with no perspective, of course.
We are not going to reach sustainable peace  if peacebuilding remains  the concern of  activists,  academics and  artists  alone.  Our only chance,  if sustainable peace  is our goal, is to make it become  institutionalised, spreading across  professional fields and all layers of society, providing a critical mass and a good base  for a better future for all of us. Luckily, there  are  individuals  in  all  these   spheres who  do  act  and  react,  swimming against  the tide, and the least we can do is to give them support or join their actions.
In the  end,  any small  step  that  any citizen can  take  would be  a contribution  to lasting  peace. It is especially  hard  in a  situation where  political  systems  and  public debates are dominated by ethnopolitical and ethnonationalist actors. But for the citizens in our region  it is  important  to  stop  complaining  about  politics  and  instead become aware  that  it is each  member  of society  who can  contribute  to change,  by no longer voting for ethnonationalists and refusing  to give any power to them.  In our region, we have  to  continue  to  build  peace  from the  bottom-up,  because we cannot  expect  the authorities to start that job. But work on the grass-root  level alone will not help, it has to ‘get sealed’  approval at the tops level, in a way that would prevent decision-makers from obstructing  peace   processes,  and   beyond.   It  is   our   responsibility   to   encourage authorities to support this process.

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Reports

Ambroso, Guido. New issues  in refugee  research. The Balkans at a crossroads: Progress and challenges  in finding durable solutions for refugees  and displaced  persons  from the  wars in  former  Yugoslavia.  UNHCR  Research  Paper  No. 133, November  2006. Available  at  www.unhcr.org/research/RESEARCH/4552f2182.pdf  (accessed  August
27, 2008).

Amnesty International. Amnesty  International’s concerns  on the implementation of the
‘completion strategy’ of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
AI Index: EUR 05/001/2005, June 2005.

Final Report of the United Nations Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to Security Council  Resolution   780  (1992),  S/1994/674.  Prepared   by  M.  Cherif  Bassiouni. Available  at  www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/comexpert/report_toc.htm (accessed  August  28,
2008).

Centar za nenasilnu akciju.  Suočavanje  s prošlošću:  načini i pristupi  [Dealing with the
Past: Ways  and  Approaches].  Seminar  report,  Ilidža  (Bosnia-Herzegovina),  17-21
November 2006.

Documenta.  Istraživanje  javnog  mnijenja  o suočavanju  s prošlošću.  Sažetak  rezultata, [Opinion  poll on dealing  with the  past.  Summary  of the  results].  Zagreb, October
2006. www.documenta.hr/dokumenti/istrazivanje.pdf (accessed October 10, 2008).

Human  Rights   Watch.   Justice  at  Risk:  War  Crimes  Trials  in  Croatia,  Bosnia   and
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—. Dangerous Indifference. Violence Against Minorities in Serbia 17/7(D) (October 2005).

—. Croatia: A Decade of Disappointment. Continuing Obstacles  to the  Reintegration  of
Serb Returnees 18/7(D) (September 2006).

International Crisis  Group.  Serbia:  Spinning  its  Wheels.  Europe  Briefing 39  (May 23,
2005).

Kruhonja, Katarina, ed. Monitoring war crime trials: Summarized findings on war crime trials in Republic of Croatia for 2006.  Centre for Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights Osijek, 2006. Available at www.documenta.hr/dokumenti/Annual_Report_2006.pdf (accessed August 27,
2008)

Scherg,  Nina. From Dealing With the  Past to Future Cooperation: Regional and  Global Challenges of Reconciliation. General Report of the International  Conference, Berlin, January 31 – February 2, 2005.  Organised  by Deutsche  Gesellschaft  für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) and  Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/en- conference-report-reconciliation.pdf (accessed June 4, 2007).

Documentaries

Arnautović, Aldin and  Refik Hodžić. Slijepa parvda [Justice Unseen]. Sarajevo:  XY  Films
Produkcija, 2004. DVD.

Baljak, Janko. Vukovar – Poslednji rez [Vukovar – Final Cut]. Belgrade: B92, 2006.

The Death of Yugoslavia. London: Brian Lapping Associates, 1995.

Švarm, Filip. Pad krajine [The Fall of Krajina]. Beograd: Vreme Film, 2007.

Vukosavljević, Nenad. Tragovi [Traces]. Beograd-Sarajevo:  CNA, 2005. DVD.

—. Ne može da traje večno [It cannot last forever]. Belgrade-Sarajevo: CNA, 2006. DVD.

—. Svi bi rado bacili kamen [All wish to cast a stone]. Belgrade-Sarajevo: CNA, 2007. DVD.

Woodhead, Leslie. A Cry from the Grave. UK: Antelope, 2000.

Web sites

Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN). www.birn.eu.com

B92. www.b92.net

Centre for Nonviolent Action (CNA). www.nenasilje.org

Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past. www.documenta.hr

H-ALTER, Hrvacka alternativa. www.h-alter.org

Humanitarian Law Centre. www.hlc-rdc.org

Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR). www.iwpr.net International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP). www.ic-mp.org International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). www.un.org/icty/ Puls demokratije. www.pulsdemokratije.net
Research and Documentation Centre. www.idc.org.ba

UNHCR. www.unhcr.org

(All accessed October 10, 2008)

Appendix
Figure 1: Main displaced populations from the former Yugoslavia, December 1995

Source: UNHCR Maps, Map of Main Displaced Populations from the Former Yugoslavia, December
1995, 1 June 2000 (www. unhcr.org/publ/PUBL/3ae6bb000.pdf).

Figure 2 : The 1995 Dayton Agreement for Bosnia and Herzegovina

Source: UNHCR Maps, Map of the 1995 Dayton Agreement for Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1 June
2000 (www.unhcr.org/publ/PUBL/3ae6baea8.pdf).

Table 1: Levels of Reconciliation

Levels of
reconciliation    Type of
coexistence    Nature of cross-
community interaction    Typical
initiatives to deepen
relationships    Key actors in initiatives
Surface reconciliation of non-lethal coexistence    Separate lives. Live apart. Kind of apartheid    Minimal social interaction – mainly by arrangement    Dialogue of words    Third parties. Top and middle level leaders
Shallow reconciliation of civil association    Live alongside each other as fellow citizens. Parallel lives. Benign apartheid.    Role-specific interaction    Dialogue of projects    Third parties. Middle- & grass- roots level opinion-leaders
Deep reconciliation of community – ubuntu/
rainbow kingdom    People from different communities live with and
amongst each other    Rich and multi- textured    Dialogue of living    Grassroots everyday people

Source:   Andrew  Rigby.  “Twenty  Observations  on   ‘Post-settlement’  Reconciliation.”   (Paper presented at the Reconciliation Expert Network seminar, Stockholm, 15-17 March 2006, 13).

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