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

crimes occurred and meet with local citizens and officials to explain how they investigated
the crimes; to describe the outcome of cases, and to respond to questions. Bridging the Gap
programs have been organized in Prijedor, Brčko, Konjić, Foča, and Srebrenica. 674
According to Branko Todorović, who played a major role in organizing these events,
some of the local authorities where the events took place were “strictly against this” when first
approached about convening such a program in their towns; Todorović had to come up with
funds for electricity and bathroom doors in the cultural center in Srebrenica because the local
mayor doubted the need for such a program. (Heating was too expensive, however, “so it was
held in a very cold room.”) Local authorities in Foča and in Konjić firmly refused to support
the program, while the authorities in Brčko District were supportive and cooperative. Yet the
turnout was larger than expected in all five programs. “Simply there is an authentic feeling
among people to see what the Hague [Tribunal] is doing,” Todorović explains.
After participating in Bridging the Gap events, Bosnians—including Serbs—whose
knowledge of the ICTY had long been filtered by local political leaders and ethnic media were,
in Todorović’s words, finally “able to see the factual truth, not the political truth,” and they
grasped that “the truths are horrible.” One of the examples Todorović cited involved a Bridging
the Gap program in Brčko, where representatives of the ICTY described the outcome of a case
from that town. Among Brčko’s Muslim community, it had long been rumored that Serbs had
burned the bodies of Muslim victims in ovens normally used to cremate animals in a facility
known as the Kafilerija. An ICTY police investigator explained that Tribunal investigators had
looked into this report, and described how the investigators were able definitely to establish
that Serbs had not in fact burned Muslim victims in the Kafilerija, as had long been rumored.
Todorović believes that if this expert had not been able persuasively to set this rumor to rest,
“it would always cause hate” in Brčko. Instead, “the book on that was closed.” 675
He described another memorable moment at the Bridging the Gap program in Foča.
When people gathered for the program, the air was thick with tension. Then, the ICTY staff
presented a videotape about their work on crimes committed in Foča during the war. Todorović
describes what happened next:
All present could see on a screen the guy who did the raping in Foča. And all of them
could hear and see how the prosecutor was asking him, “Did you rape that little girl?
And he said, “Yes, I did.” “And you were very well aware at that moment that she was
only 12 years old?” And he said “Yes.” At that time he was probably 45 years old. And
then the prosecutor repeated his question, saying “You knew that she was 12 at the
most, and what else did you tell her?” He told her, “you know I would do many more
terrible things to you but I shall not because I have at home a daughter” who is her
age, “so I won’t.” So the prosecutor confirmed, “It’s true you have a daughter at home?”
I was in the back rows and there were like 140 people there and [when the technical
people changed the tapes] I closed my eyes and you wouldn’t believe it, for a moment
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