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

Because our own research did not include a statistical survey of public attitudes, we are
not in a position to draw broad conclusions about public attitudes toward the ICTY. But our
general impression, which is consistent with the overall thrust of most of the surveys others
have undertaken, is that many Bosniaks have a fundamental commitment to the ICTY in principle
but are disappointed in many aspects of its performance, often deeply so, and apparently
increasingly so. 246 Because the largest portion of ICTY cases has involved crimes committed
against Bosniak victims, their views figure prominently in our assessment of the degree to
which Bosnians more broadly are satisfied in the justice provided by the Hague Tribunal.
We believe the perspectives of many Serbs to be more difficult to characterize than survey
results alone suggest. In our interviews with Serbs who lost relatives at the hands of members
of other ethnic groups, we heard of their own keen desire for justice. Dušanka Lalović
echoed the words of many of our interviewees when she said she is “absolutely trying to get
justice” for crimes committed against her relatives and that “the Hague Tribunal should try our
case too.” 247 Yet there is a broader perception among Serbs in Republika Srpska, in Piotrovski’s
words, “that the ICTY was organized more or less for them.” 248 We heard this view often in our
interviews with Serbs in RS. For example Lalović’s colleague, Josip Davidović, told us: “We …
stand on the position that The Hague [Tribunal] was established to bring Serbs before trial….
We also stand on the opinion that The Hague is a political court.” 249 In a setting in which this
position is widely espoused by political leaders and media in Republika Srpska, 250 it is possible
that many individual Serbs are somewhat conflicted, on the one hand wanting their suffering,
too, to be recognized by the ICTY but on the other hand wanting (and under social pressure) to
ensure that they do not contribute to the Tribunal’s legitimization. As we describe in Chapter
VI, moreover, even in RS it is commonplace to hear people say that war criminals should be
prosecuted and that establishing the ICTY was correct in principle.
After several visits to Bosnia, we find it difficult to characterize prevailing attitudes
toward the ICTY among the country’s Croats even in impressionistic terms. We have interviewed
Croats like Srećko Mišković, who told us that his “personal opinion” is “we simply don’t
trust the Hague Tribunal.” 251 And we have met others, like Josip Drežnjak and Drago Zadro,
who, while deeply disappointed in the outcome of a particular case in the ICTY, nonetheless
placed their hopes in the Tribunal to render justice. 252 Dino Djipa, whose organization PRISM
Research undertakes public opinion polls, provided his own insights about what lies behind
Bosnian Croats’ “in between” responses in various surveys about attitudes toward the ICTY.
First describing Bosnian Croats as “indifferent,” Djipa speculated that their attitudes to the
ICTY are a function of their position within Bosnia more generally and the sense of “political
disorientation” many feel. 253
We return in Chapter V to a fuller discussion of how prevailing views toward the ICTY
within each ethnic group, influenced in large measure by political leaders and local media,
shape individuals’ perceptions of the Tribunal. This chapter tries to capture perceptions of how
well the ICTY has performed in terms of the criteria offered by those interviewed for this study.
50 ACHIEVEMENTS, FAILURES, AND PERFORMANCE