NOT EVEN AFTER SO MANY YEARS SINCE THE WAR HAS SERBIA PROPERLY ANSWERED THE QUESTION ABOUT WHAT REALLY HAPPENED

Public debate within the project "Promoting a Social Climate Propitious to Transitional Justice and Culture of Non-impunity" realized with the assistance of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights

Belgrade, June 27, 2012

About fifteen students participated in the debate hosted by the Center for Gender Studies of the Faculty of Political Sciences.

In her opening address Seska Stanojlovic, editor-in-chief of the Helsinki Charter, explained the concept of transitional justice as an organized social endeavor to overcome the past. Transition to democracy, she said, requires a proper response to systemic and systematic human rights violations and the crimes committed in the past, empathy for victims and promotion of tolerance and interethnic trust. Reminding that every transitional country adjusts transitional justice to its specific needs and so resorts to trials, truth commissions, lustration, etc., she said Serbia had not yet adopted any of these forms. "The case of Serbia" is characteristic: apart from domestic dimension it has a regional one because of Serbia's responsibility for the bloody disintegration of ex-Yugoslavia. Except for war crime trials before international and domestic courts and some reformist moves in the army and the police, all other forms of transitional justice rest on the shoulders of non-governmental organizations that practically do the work the state would not: they analyze of overall context of the war and brutal crimes, including genocide, publish relevant documents and books, and produce documentaries. And they come public with factual information to counteract politically motivated interpretations. The Helsinki Committee is among these organizations, said Ms. Stanojlovic.

Professor Obrad Savic spoke about the significance of scientific publications dealing with transitional justice and its moral, ethical, political and legal aspects. Some of these works, said Mr. Savic, were translated and published in Serbia as well. The importance of coping with the past is in the fact that "the past shapes the present." Serbia has a "deficit in empathy" and is incapable of expressing regret for the crimes committed.

Referring to two basic discourses about transitional justice - historical and legal - Prof. Savic said he preferred the legal for its being more authentic and, in the final analysis, more just. The historical discourse is marked by narration that is, as a rule, shaped by those who won the war.

Sociology professor Janja Bec supported this thesis. In her book of moving testimonies of women victims from Bosnia-Herzegovina, "Soul Cracks," she had followed the suggestion by the then ICTY main prosecutor, Richard Goldstone, and interviewed only women who had already witnessed for the prosecution.

Ms. Bec also spoke about various experiences of the countries that have worked on overcoming traumatic pasts, this way or another - from South Africa to Argentina, Chile, Guatemala or Uruguay. As for Serbia, it is still in "the state of denial." This denial, she said, is actually the eighth and the last stage of genocide.

Andrea Doder, editor-in-chief of the project "Transitional Justice in the Balkans" implemented by BIRN, reminded that not even twelve years after the October 2000 change of the regime and eighteen years after the war Serbia had properly answered the question about what had happened or launched a "Never Again" campaign. Today's media could contribute to regional reconciliation and renewal of trust the same as they had spread war fever on the eve and during the war. Ms. Doder attracted students' attention to the project "Transitional Justice in the Balkans" aimed at the exchange and publication of newspaper stories throughout the region - in Skopje, Prishtina, Belgrade, Sarajevo, Zagreb and Ljubljana. There are stumbling stones everywhere when it comes to publication, she said.

Students engaged in a lively debate were most interested to learn more about some forms of transitional justice such as lustration and responsibility of journalists. They also asked keynote speakers about specific activities by some non-governmental organizations concerned with transitional justice.

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