That Someone Guilty Be Punished - Open Society Foundations

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their names are not publicly disclosed in judgments; their identity is obscured in court, for example—enjoy little protection when they return home, if home is still in Bosnia. 573 Although a majority of these witnesses have not faced serious problems as a result of their testimony, some have been harassed and even been targets of violence. 574 During our interviews with members of victims’ associations in Republika Srpska, this concern came up regularly. Emsuda Mujagić, who leads an NGO based in Kozarac, said that “protected witnesses … as a matter of fact have no protection whatsoever.” She says that the combined effect of defendants’ short sentences and the lack of meaningful protection for witnesses once they return home, “means a continuation of the torture for the victims today.” 575 So it is noteworthy that many witnesses who have every reason to say “enough” say they will testify before the ICTY whenever called to do so. 576 Nusreta Sivac has been a witness in The Hague several times. A judge before the war, Sivac has been unable to return to her chosen profession, reportedly as retaliation by local Serb authorities for her testifying in The Hague. Indeed, she has been unable to find employment in the municipality where she lives, and has to commute to a town in the Federation for work. Despite the price Sivac has paid and the fact that “her freedom is under threat,” her associate Emsuda Mujagić notes, Sivac has ultimately remained willing to bear witness when asked because she knows what her testimony “means to justice, which has a higher importance.” 577 For many witnesses, testifying before the ICTY is important for reasons that can easily get lost in Bosnians’ long list of legitimate concerns. Their chief reason is moral, not instrumental, and it sifts down to a deeply felt need to bear witness for those who did not survive “ethnic cleansing.” In his study of ICTY witnesses, Stover writes that a majority of those he interviewed “stressed the compelling need to tell their story. They had survived unspeakable crimes while others had perished; it was their ‘moral duty’ to ensure that the truth about the death of family members, neighbors, and colleagues was duly recorded and acknowledged.” 578 Time and again, we heard of similar motivations for testifying before the ICTY. Muharem Murselović, the returnee activist in Prijedor, was detained in the infamous Omarska camp for the crime of being Muslim and has been a willing witness in several ICTY cases. Like the witnesses described in Stover’s study, Murselović testifies out of a deep sense of duty toward those who perished: “I am obliged to witness, to testify on behalf of hundreds of my friends who have been murdered in Prijedor whose guilt was the same as mine. I survived that hell and I never regretted for the fact that I witnessed.” 579 Goran Jelisić played a notorious part in the “ethnic cleansing” of Brčko. In its summary of the Jelisić case, the ICTY Web site recalls Jelisić’s arrival in Brčko during the war: “He introduced himself as the “Serb Adolf,” said that he had come to Brčko to kill Muslims and often informed the Muslim detainees and others of the numbers of Muslims he had killed.” Hundreds of Muslim and Croat men and several women were taken to the Luka camp, formerly a warehouse just outside of Brčko, where they were “under armed guard and systematically killed.” Almost every day during that period, Jelisić “entered the Luka camp’s main hangar 86 ACHIEVEMENTS, FAILURES, AND PERFORMANCE
where most detainees were kept, selected detainees for interrogation, beat them and then often shot and killed them.” Džafer Deronjić narrowly escaped being killed in Luka but is tormented by his perfect recall. “I remember everything,” he said, explaining why he was asked to testify in the Jelisić case. “I remember each time somebody lost a piece of his body” in Luka. For the past eight years, Deronjić told us, “I do not sleep at all,” and testifying against Jelisić did nothing to calm his nightmares. Yet when we asked if he wanted to testify, Deronjić did not hesitate: “Absolutely yes. It is in the interest of us all who survived the tortures to tell the truth, to tell the world what it was like. …” 580 H. Concluding Observations As this chapter reflects, many Bosnians are disappointed in the ICTY’s performance, some profoundly so. Yet, at least among the Bosnians we interviewed, the dominant view was that it was important to create “the Hague Tribunal.” Deronjić summed up his assessment of the court in terms that captured succinctly many of our interlocutors’ views: “As far as the Hague Tribunal, I’m not happy with its work. But the great thing was to have it established. It was excellent that it was established.” 581 Many, like journalist Gojko <strong>Be</strong>rić, shudder to imagine what their country would be like were it not for the ICTY: “If there was no Hague, Milošević would probably still be in power. If nothing else, he would at least be the head of his political party. Many ICTY convicts would still be active in politics and at this moment, summertime, these individuals would probably be having their vacations in some summer resort.” 582 Senad Pećanin, too, imagines a parallel universe without the ICTY. In his, “Probably Radovan Karadžić would be a member of Parliament. Ratko Mladić could be chief of staff of the army. Hundreds of war criminals could be highly ranked in all parts of state institutions. Without the ICTY, there would be no chance to have prosecutions of these most responsible people. If we put a hundred minuses, this one thing is heavier than all handicaps.” 583 THAT SOMEONE GUILTY BE PUNISHED 87
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That Someone Guilty Be Punished The
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That Someone Guilty Be Punished The
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Table of Contents Acknowledgments 7
Page 9 and 10:
Acknowledgments Diane Orentlicher,
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Methodology This report draws upon
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I. Introduction On May 25, 1993, th
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Victims’ Justice The Security Cou
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in the . Srebrenica genocide. Many
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Journalist Nidžara Ahmetašević r
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survive “ethnic cleansing.” Muh
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ings [of Bosnia’s judiciary were]
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from territories under Serb control
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C. Peace and Justice If the ICTY fa
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groups are approximately the same s
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F. Cooperation by Bosnian Authoriti
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Women [who were captured by Serb so
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Tribunal’s expressive function in
Page 38 and 39: We found this view to be nearly uni
Page 40 and 41: Branko Todorović, who heads the He
Page 42 and 43: full establishment of healthy and c
Page 44 and 45: Sali-Teržić believes that justice
Page 46 and 47: committed war crimes, a notion that
Page 48 and 49: J. “Justice Isn’t Just in Legal
Page 50 and 51: Vehid Šehić, who believes the ICT
Page 52 and 53: Because our own research did not in
Page 54 and 55: imposed on two other perpetrators c
Page 56 and 57: feared it would be reduced to half
Page 58 and 59: Enumerating victims’ frustrations
Page 60 and 61: While some of our Bosnian interlocu
Page 62 and 63: 2. Biljana Plavšić On October 2,
Page 64 and 65: Others interviewed during the same
Page 66 and 67: executions, the execution in Korić
Page 68 and 69: D. Significant Verdicts, Other Ruli
Page 70 and 71: at least 2012; another, Ratko Mladi
Page 72 and 73: could be legally attributed to Serb
Page 74 and 75: Hasečić leads, the Association of
Page 76 and 77: ings … went before any expectatio
Page 78 and 79: enica survivor Kada Hotić describe
Page 80 and 81: they are in the shadow of Karadži
Page 82 and 83: First, individuals who had been for
Page 84 and 85: Kovačević, who was under indictme
Page 86 and 87: says it was “not the major reason
Page 91 and 92: V. Truth and Acknowledgment The off
Page 93 and 94: A. Acknowledging and Condemning Atr
Page 95 and 96: We encountered another brand of non
Page 97 and 98: Herzegovina that only serves to cau
Page 99 and 100: 3. Acknowledgement on the part of o
Page 101 and 102: More generally, Bosnians’ percept
Page 103 and 104: is standard procedure for prosecuto
Page 105 and 106: crimes occurred and meet with local
Page 107 and 108: Srd¯an Dizdarević believes that t
Page 109 and 110: VI. Impact on Domestic War Crimes P
Page 111 and 112: But if his words seemed to invite s
Page 113 and 114: Rules of the Road In the aftermath
Page 115 and 116: Responding to a question about the
Page 117 and 118: In examining the results and prospe
Page 119 and 120: the ICTY’s strategy for completin
Page 121 and 122: a. Rule 11 bis cases While Rule 11
Page 123 and 124: ut the documentation is still in th
Page 125 and 126: December 2006, Vaso Marinković, th
Page 127 and 128: tional judges and prosecutors are n
Page 129 and 130: The ICTY prosecuted just one person
Page 131 and 132: In recent years, state authorities
Page 133 and 134: in the late 1990s, as it finally be
Page 135: oning with the dark pages of its re
Page 138 and 139:
9. Interview with Fadil Budnjo, pre
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38. As we note in Chapter VI, then
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58. Richard J. Goldstone, For Human
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84. In 1997, the Peace Implementati
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the Security Council, S/2005/781, D
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135. Interview with Mirsad Duratovi
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160. The ICTY prosecutor issued the
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2009; Patrice C. McMahon and Jon We
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221. An example of such an individu
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izručenje” (“Most RS Citizens
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267. In November 2001, Dragan Kolun
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Families of Missing, Forcibly Detai
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vict’s sentence, including “the
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348. See Marlise Simons, “Crossin
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379. See Judith Armatta, “Srebren
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2001 and was based on U.S. federal
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426. Interview with Kada Hotić, vi
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467. The average length of trials c
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495. Gideon Boas and Timothy L.H. M
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estored to them. The early return o
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561. Murselović recalled that at t
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other charges. See Marlise Simons,
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of the Convention on the Prevention
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admit to the existence of war crimi
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681. “Controversial group in Sreb
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and disruption of war and immediate
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Herzegovina, 46 Colum J. Transnat
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729. International Crisis Group, Wa
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Change, Analysts Say,” New York T
Page 196 and 197:
tation of the Peace Agreement to th
Page 198 and 199:
Republika Srpska (31.9%). See South
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798. E-mail communication with Pipi
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822. As of July 2009, all but one o
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as “horrible,” while noting tha
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Jails Overflow,” BIRN’s Justice
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sarily devoted mainly to prosecutin
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Open Society Justice Initiative The
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When the United Nations Security Co
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