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

Others interviewed during the same period, like civil society activist Srd¯an Dizdarević,
said they did not believe that the situation in Bosnia was “mature enough” to benefit from
Plavšić’s confession, but nonetheless considered her confession “an enormous qualitative
step forward.” 370 Another civil society activist, Dobrila Govedarica, likewise saw something
positive in Plavšić’s confession even while wishing Bosnian Serb leaders would build upon it.
In a late 2006 interview, Govedarica observed: “Plavšić verbally made herself guilty. That was
one of the most important things that happened in the ICTY. A high official really confessed
and found herself guilty.” 371
By the time of our most recent visit to Bosnia in July 2009, however, it was harder to
sustain a positive assessment of Biljana Plavšić’s guilty plea. In January 2009, Plavšić disavowed
her confession during an interview with a Swedish magazine. 372 Claiming she had
pleaded guilty to crimes against humanity to avoid facing a lengthy trial on other charges,
which included genocide, Plavšić insisted “I have done nothing wrong.” 373
Later that year, we interviewed Mirsad Tokača, who had testified at Plavšić’s sentencing
hearing that her admission of guilt was “an extremely courageous, brave, and important
gesture,” about how he now viewed her confession. Referring to his testimony at Plavšić’s
sentencing hearing, Tokača said: “Now we see it was also my mistake. I believed she would
confess sincerely and others would follow.” But the results instead have been “absolutely disappointing.”
As for Plavšić’s more recent remarks, Tokača noted, “She negated everything.”
But the mistake, Tokača made clear, was not only his. He thought that the ICTY had made a
“big mistake” in failing to require Plavšić to testify in several other cases as a precondition to
accepting the plea agreement reached with the prosecutor. 374 Del Ponte agrees: In her memoir,
she wrote that she had made a “fundamental error” by “not obliging [Plavšić] to agree on paper
to testify against the other accused. I accepted verbal assurances and was deceived.” 375 When
we interviewed Emir Suljagić after Plavšić had recanted her testimony, he reflected: “That was
the worst plea agreement I’ve ever seen in my entire life.” (He noted, however, that he had
thought the agreement “terrible” from the outset.) In cases like that of Plavšić—“we’re talking
genocide,” he said—a plea agreement is “not acceptable” unless the defendant agrees to
provide testimony against others. Suljagić added: “Another thing that really hurt was the long
line of international officials willing to testify in her defense.” 376
Others have more positive views of the plea even after Biljana Plavšić’s disavowal of
her confession. When we interviewed him in July 2009, Dani Editor-in-Chief Ivan Lovrenović
recalled Plavšić’s guilty plea as “one of those strong moments that would have never happened
if the Hague Tribunal were not established.” 377 Two months later, many victims’ concerns about
lenient treatment of Plavšić were compounded once more when the ICTY president decided
in mid-September 2009 to grant Plavšić early release. 378
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