That Someone Guilty Be Punished - International Center for ...

a journalist who directs the non-governmental organization “Foundation Truth, Justice and
Reconciliation,” believes that the work of the ICTY is “very important for the whole process
of reconciliation because among us we would never be able to come to terms with what happened—are
some war criminals? Was Srebrenica a genocide?” Alić recognizes that even with
the ICTY, “there is no consensus and it will continue long after I am dead.” Nevertheless, he
thinks the situation would be far worse “if there were no ICTY,” and believes it has already
“made it harder to deny abuses.” 655
Zdravko Grebo thinks that “it is an important test of the Hague Tribunal to prevent
denial.” But like others, he does not conclude that the widespread treatment of war criminals
as “national heroes” by “their ethnic group” means its work has not succeeded. “People can
always say it didn’t happen but now there are documents. … Finally, you cannot say I didn’t
know.” 656 As for the question whether the Krstić judgment has had the sort of effect Damir
Arnaut described on a wider scale, its importance to many Bosnians may be that, even if
many still resist its finding of genocide, the deniers have been definitively judged to be wrong.
Mirsad Tokača may have had this in mind when he described what he called the Krstić judgment’s
importance “for Bosnian society”: “Finally there is no dilemma. … After this decision,
there is no negation and refusing of the fact that genocide happened.” 657
A number of our interlocutors, while acknowledging that the ICTY’s work has not yet
persuaded Bosnians to acknowledge fully wartime atrocities, expressed the belief that its historical
legacy will be crucial in establishing a commonly accepted history in the future. Emir
Suljagić believes the ICTY has thoroughly failed to achieve the main goals he says it set for
itself—countering impunity and promoting reconciliation. But when asked if, in light of this,
it was a mistake to establish the ICTY, he (like virtually everyone we interviewed) responded
adamantly, “No, no!,” and explains that despite these failures the Tribunal has achieved something
deeply consequential. Because of its work, there are “adjudicated facts that we can call
upon, and that we can point to, that we can try and learn from and build upon which would
not have been there had it not been for the Tribunal.” In his view, this alone “has justified its
existence.” 658
C. Destruction of Personal Artifacts
While the ICTY’s “adjudicated facts” and the evidence that will become part of its archives may
rank among its most important contributions, a disclosure in mid-2009 about the prosecutor’s
treatment of one source of evidence has been deeply unsettling for many Bosnians. 659
ICTY Prosecutor Serge Brammertz confirmed reports that his office had disposed of some
1,000 personal artifacts found in mass graves in late 2005 and early 2006 because they were
“deteriorating, and presented a risk to health,” according to the prosecutor’s spokesperson,
Olga Kavran. 660 Except for this general explanation and Kavran’s suggestion that this action
100 TRUTH AND ACKNOWLEDGMENT