B

osnia and Herzegovina is made up of different ethnic and religious communities. The Serbs, as a prominent minority, have their own autonomous entity, the Republika Srpska, which makes up half of the Bosnian state, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Republika Srpska has its own legal authorities and institutions, but it still has to abide by national laws. However, this system does not appear to work as intended—especially when the largest minority demands secession.

The issue of secession has a legal and political background. Milorad Dodik’s recent legislation, which was passed on June 27, targets property ownership. His desire is to protect Serbian property as he fears that Bosnian authorities will either confiscate it or give it to Europeans seeking to buy property in Bosnia. Meanwhile Bosnian lawmakers are promoting the nationalization of state property since for them, real estate should not be under the jurisdiction of state entities but should belong to the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a whole.

The Serbian constituents of Republika Srpska are alarmed by such news: they want to take full control of the properties under their jurisdiction. The attitude signals the desire for independence, and Dodik is threatening Bosnia with an independence referendum which would allow it to secede from the country.

Bosnian Serbs’ strife for an independent foreign policy

Dodik’s motive for secession can be traced back to his vision of foreign policy. He believes that the West is responsible for dragging countries into wars, and follows a pro-Russian stance in most policymaking. For example, he blames the West for causing the war in Ukraine. This attitude stems from his political experience in the Yugoslav Wars, which he believes were instigated by the West. That is why he wants to keep Bosnia away from Western influence.

Dodik found an alternative in the policy goals of Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić. As of 2020, Vučić has been formulating new goals for his country’s foreign policy which he calls “Srpski Svet” (Serbian World). These policy goals include the expansion of Serbian influence in the Balkans. According to “Srpski Svet,” Serbia should have more influence in countries where Serbian minorities live and Serbia should become an independent actor which connects Europe and Eurasia.

Dodik is known as a pro-Russian figure and Putin often vocalizes his support for him. Vučić’s foreign policy agenda bears similarities to Putin’s “Russkiy Mir” (Russian World) wherein Putin promotes ethnonationalism and independence. However, Bosnia is governed by international law and EU regulations—a fact that Dodik interprets as his country being governed by foreign institutions, comparing the situation to that of the Russian minority which lives in the eastern provinces of Ukraine. If Bosnia does not change its pro-Western policy, he suggests Republika Srpska should secede.

Religious and ethnic distinctiveness of Bosnian Serbs

Domestic concerns have also been a powerful reason for promoting secession in the Balkans. Ethnic and religious divisions are in the political rhetoric of populist politicians. On July 30, Dodik denied the genocide of Muslims in Srebrenica and claimed that Bosniaks needed public support, reinforcing the myth of Serbian martyrdom. Dodik believes that Bosniaks are “second-class people” who have exchanged their original Orthodox faith for material gain.

The Republika Srpska holds public ceremonies in which Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosnians (Bosniaks) are cursed. These events glorify Serbian war criminals such as Ratko Mladić. Dodik deliberately keeps alive the nationalistic fervor of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s fueled by his desire to keep Republika Srpska under his jurisdiction ethnically homogeneous. As a result, other ethnic groups such as Croats and Bosniaks do not settle in Republika Srpska.

Dodik also shuns the Serbs who volunteer to serve in the Bosnian army. Legally, Republika Srpska cannot deploy an independent armed force under international agreements and Bosnia’s multinational army is obliged to protect all citizens, regardless of religion and race. As a matter of principle, the army cannot be composed of a single ethnic group; however, Dodik argues in favor of a Serbian army to protect Serbians. An ethnicity-based regional army would drastically reduce Sarajevo’s control over Republika Srpska.

Dialogue for the future of Bosnian Serbs

Dodik does not limit his diplomatic ties to Russia and Serbia. Last year, he invited Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Croatian President Zoran Milanović to participate in a dialogue for his handling of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s internal problems. He was also invited by Erdoğan to the Turkish Parliament where he celebrated Erdoğan’s statements on reducing foreign influence in Bosnia.

Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán tried to persuade Dodik to integrate with the EU instead of becoming an independent foreign state. The two have a close relationship and Dodik pays close attention to Orbán’s proposals.

The mediation efforts by Orbán, Erdoğan, and Milanović, who are all familiar with the political culture of the Balkans, can help Bosnia contain the secession issue. While traditional actors such as Russia and the United States are on opposite sides, new mediators can find a middle ground.

T

oday is the anniversary of one of the dark pages in modern history. Twenty-eight years ago today, at least 8,372 men and boys were subjected to genocide by Serbian forces led by Ratko Mladic. Tens of thousands of women, children, and elderly also endured torture, rape, and forced displacement. The white stones of the Srebrenica Genocide Memorial stand tall as a stark reminder of those dark memories.

History is often hailed as a repository of past events, serving as a crucial tool for actively recalling both positive and negative experiences. It allows us to glean valuable lessons that help us navigate the present complexities and aspire towards a better future. However, the case of Srebrenica presents a unique challenge, making it exceedingly arduous to internalize the past and extract meaningful insights due to denialism, historical revisionism, and the constant obfuscation of the facts. Such an environment perpetuates a culture of impunity for perpetrators and fosters collective forgetfulness. 

The work of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has long been targeted by pro-Serbian actors. The latter circulated a narrative that Serbian war criminals were not tried because of their crimes but because of an anti-Serb conspiracy. This narrative has been amplified by various quarters to the extent that many people are now convinced the ICTY and ICJ were biased, which is deplorable since both concluded that the Srebrenica massacre constituted genocide. Accusations of politicization were frequently raised, such as when Russia criticized the verdict against Radovan Karadzic as a “politicized” decision by The Hague.

The Srebrenica Genocide Denial Report 

The 2022 Srebrenica Genocide Denial Report identified 693 new instances of denialism in the previous year, employing tactics such as denial, distortion of historical facts, minimizing the genocide’s significance by drawing on false equivalism, reducing the actual numbers, and even glorifying the perpetrators. While these instances were initially observed in the media and political spheres, they also extended to academe. 

The quest to whitewash Serbian genociders did not emerge in isolation. The origins of denialism, insensitivity, and cover-up of war crimes are intricately linked also to the ineffectiveness of international bodies entrusted with protecting civilians and pursuing justice for victims. One of the most disgraceful episodes was the disgraceful moment when Thom Karremans, the leader of the Dutchbat forces in the UN Peacekeeping Mission, was berated by Mladic and later shared a toast with him before departing without fulfilling his duty, leaving thousands under his protection to be mercilessly killed by Serbian paramilitaries.

The fragmented and dysfunctional political structure inherited from the Dayton Agreement has complicated things for Bosnia. The government is literally prevented by its Serbian political groups from pursuing justice. In 2021, the anti-denialism amendments to the Criminal Code of Bosnia and Herzegovina by the Office of the High Representative (OHR) Valentin Inzko, using the Bonn powers, stirred controversy.

They aimed to prohibit and penalize denialism and the glorification of war criminals. In response, the Bosnian Serb leadership threatened to withdraw from key aspects of the country’s governance, including the tax system, judiciary, and military. This incident highlights the inherent fragility of the country’s political system. Milorad Dodik and other Serbian politicians criticized the OHR, highlighting concerns regarding sovereignty and democratic legitimacy. When it comes to implementing international court verdicts, Serbian politicians are suddenly transformed into champions of democracy. 

Denialism and revisionism

Denialism and revisionism persistently infiltrate the political landscape, morphing into new guises over time. The rise of far-right sentiments, combining a mixture of Islamophobia and blatant Serbian nationalism, added further vitriol to the mix. 

But collective memory is now more than ever in need of revival. It all begins in the pulsating heart of public spaces: the streets, squares, statues, and buildings, an “organized remembrance”, as Hannah Arendt once termed it. Shockingly, even after three decades, the names of Serbian genociders still enjoy public acclaim. Worse still, the Vilina Vlas Hotel, once one of the vile rape camps during the war, now caters to tourists. 

In the depths of the horrific atrocities that shook Srebrenica, the indescribable suffering endured by women in hotels and detention camps still haunts them today. For nearly three decades, they have been trapped in a cycle of social exclusion and victimization. Ajna Jusić, founder of the organization “Forgotten Children of War,” embodies their ongoing fight for basic human rights.

Living museums

These spaces must transform into living museums, preserving the collective memory and serving as powerful reminders of past pain. Sarajevo Canton’s plan to convert the Kon Tiki Motel into such a museum is a step towards honouring the resilience and struggles of those affected. These examples highlight how collective memory can fade, bringing forward the urgency of fighting public amnesia. 

As we approach the three-decade mark since the Srebrenica genocide, all those who care about humanity must keep the flame of collective memory burning bright. It is a call that echoes from politics to academia, from the streets to the media—a resounding plea for comprehensive remembrance. Delving into the depths of our past sheds light on humanity’s potential pitfalls and unlocks the essence of our existence. Let these words from Arendt’s “Between Past and Future” reverberate in our minds as concluding marks: 

“We are in danger of forgetting, and such an oblivion—quite apart from the contents themselves that could be lost—would mean that, humanly speaking, we would deprive ourselves of one dimension, the dimension of depth in human existence.”

I first entered Sarajevo after a long drive through the thick misty woods of Western Bosnia at the beginning of 1996, almost two weeks after the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) was signed which was supposed to end the 3.5-year-long war through reconstruction and reconciliation.

I faced grave contradictions on the road from the Croatian city of Split to Sarajevo after waiting for three days to catch a UN aid convoy that would take me to the war-torn capital. The winding road passes through misty mountains and thick woods setting one’s mind at ease with beautiful tall trees and greenery.

But once we pulled over for a short break, I witnessed one of the most shocking experiences in my professional life when we had to walk on a carpet of AK-47 shell casings scattered throughout the forest. I could barely find a scrap of earth to step on that was not covered in shell casings. All I could hear was their creaky sound as the smell of gun smoke still hung in the air.

At that moment, I had a clear understanding that one of the worst episodes of mass murder in Europe had taken place in Bosnia, which witnessed the worst human rights abuses and atrocities, betrayal, and genocide during the war in 1992-1995 as part of the break of Yugoslavia.

The scene in Sarajevo was even worse as the city was completely besieged by the Serb troops for more than three years and was the theater of a killing field for Serbian snipers who shot everything that moved including the elderly, women, and children. A thousand six hundred children were killed by Serb sniper fire in the city during the war. The headquarters of the famous daily Oslobodenje was almost in ruins as it was targeted from the beginning of the war by Serb troops led by Ratko Mladić, known as the “butcher of Bosnia.”  Mladić was later found guilty of orchestrating genocide in Srebrenica, crimes against humanity, and war crimes by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

At the beginning of 1996, Bosnians with broken dreams seemed ready for reconciliation and to rebuild their lives, thinking that the DPA would pave the way for such a process. Esad Mavrić, who was my fixer in Sarajevo, didn’t seem that optimistic as I delivered him some basic foodstuff like milk powder, sugar, rice, and some fresh fruits which were really hard to find for civilians. The siege by Serb forces had made it hard to cover basic daily needs and for parents to feed their children. “Having a peace agreement is better than having a war. But I’m not sure how long it will last,” he said.

Shortly afterward, we found out that his name was on the Serbian “most wanted” list, pushing us to cancel our planned trip to Srebrenica as the road to the city was filled with Serbian checkpoints. Srebrenica was handed over to the Serbian army about six months earlier on July 11, 1995. The city was supposed to be protected by Dutch soldiers mandated to protect civilians as United Nations peacekeeping forces handed it over to the Serbs. At least 8,500 Bosnian boys and men were killed, and more than 20,000 civilians were expelled by the Bosnian Serb forces from the area – a process that was later declared a genocide by the ICTY.

The Srebrenica genocide compelled the West to press for a ceasefire which paved the way for the signing of the DPA.

According to many, including former president of Bosnia-Herzegovina Alija Izetbegović, the basis of the treaty didn’t constitute a just peace. “The peace is more just than continuing the war and a better peace couldn’t be obtained,” he said.

Indeed, the DPA was designed to create new multi-ethnic and democratic institutions in a war-torn society in order to ensure respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms, and the rule of law; to provide for post-conflict reconstruction towards sustainable peace for Bosnia-Herzegovina; and to prevent the recurrence of the conflict or its potential spillover in the region.

The DPA introduced an entirely different form of governance. According to this, Bosnia-Herzegovina is a semi-presidential republic with three representative presidents that are directly elected and who exercise their jurisdiction on the entire territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina. According to the state structure and organization, Bosnia-Herzegovina is a complex state that consists of two entities and the Brcko District.

In terms of the political system, Bosnia-Herzegovina is a democratic state with the division of legislative, executive, and judiciary powers; rule of law; pluralism of political parties; general, direct, and secret voting; an independent media and judiciary; and respect for human rights. With regards to the relationship between central and local authorities, Bosnia-Herzegovina is a highly decentralized state with two highly centralized entities.

The Dayton Peace Agreement

The DPA may have stopped the war but, on the other hand, it also created a complex form of governance which might have complicated things even further leading to a new conflict – one that the world is facing now.

There was considerable debate and criticism of the DPA from the very start, in terms of structure, balance, and efficiency. Many argue that the DPA brought about unequal agreement among warring ethnic groups. The Bosnian Serbs who committed ethnic cleansing and genocide were rewarded with the ethnically cleansed “republic” while the Bosnians and Croats had to share a “federation.”

Therefore, the Serbs gained autonomous status, where the control belongs to them, whereas the Bosnians are politically and militarily checked by the Croats. Then, there has been poor implementation of the DPA in terms of freedom of movement, return of refugees, giving back the prewar voting rights of the people, and prosecution of war criminals. In fact, some argue that the DPA affected the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina into ethno-nationalist entities that acknowledged and effectively rewarded the ethnic cleansing process.

Although the DPA has partially facilitated the creation of a sustainable state, the major ethnic groups that were involved in the conflict remained unwilling to form a functional state in the name of Bosnia-Herzegovina, especially the Serbs with their “Greater Serbia” motto always present in their hearts and minds.

Since 1995, national political parties have been using fear, ethnic enmity, and exclusive nationalism in their electoral campaigns. Thus, the democratization process in post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina has been carried out by the nationalist parties locked in their ethnically separated constituencies which often obstructed the return of refugees and displaced persons.

Is the Dayton Peace Agreement Fractured?

In 2000, five years after the DPA was signed, the European Union, sidelining the U.S., became the leading international body to support the stabilization and association processes in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This seemed a turning point at the time since it raised hopes in Bosnia-Herzegovina for a full EU and NATO membership. But the need to reform military forces, the establishment of a defense ministry at state level, the introduction of a VAT taxation system, the restructuring of the judiciary and prosecution, and the establishment of courts were all blocked by ethnic aspirations from all sides.

In 2005-2006, attempts at constitutional and state structure reform proposed significant changes with regard to the power of the Council of Ministers and the Parliament Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, these and similar attempts at constitutional reforms were all seen through the prism of the country’s territorial reorganization rather than attempts for the creation of a functional state that is ready for EU and NATO membership. As a result, they were all rejected.

Undeniably some genocides are accorded more importance than others, explaining the wealth of material on the Second World War compared to other genocides. Funding and scholarships are more easily available for activities related to research and dissemination in the context of the most ‘popular’ genocides, and academic conferences tend to set themes and titles alluding more directly to them.

By now, the rational of this bias is widely explained by the following: first, that the Great White-Northern Powers had and have ongoing connections, in terms of family, religion, culture, or otherwise, to the genocide that took place between 1939-1945—it was after all a genocide committed by Europeans on Europeans in Europe.

Second, by the fact that purely charitable actions are rare, and that if the Great White-Northern Powers are to direct time, energy and other resources into halting genocide, they should have vested interests therein.

Third (another way of phrasing the second) that the Bismarckian concept of realpolitik, that is of adopting strategic interests over moral and ideological ones, aptly explains the conduct of the super powers so far, especially in their decisions to intervene (or not to) in countries plagued by genocide.

All of this may also expound the outright neglect of ongoing genocides (currently the Uyghurs in China and Rohingyas in Myanmar) because tackling them more directly wouldn’t benefit the interests of the Great White-Northern Powers. Interfering with the internal affairs of another state by prodding it to stop persecuting its people may make an enemy of it for instance.

The Doctrine of (State) Sovereignty signifies that neither a state, nor an entity, not even an international one may have an upper-hand over a state in ‘telling it what to do’, preventing even the powerful from intervening—often alluded to as the ‘sovereignty problem’. This often likens the international legal system to a toothless tiger.

History has shown that a state must be thoroughly broken, its government quasi absent for another to intervene and set it in order. Moreover reticence over intervention is explained by the fact that pointing fingers at one state may cause it in turn, if comparably powerful, to point fingers back.

For these reasons, attaching the label of genocide on the conduct of a government is treated with caution. Understanding these dynamics at work is not hard if a parallel is drawn with the way people act towards one another in the upkeep of their relationships.

In lieu of affixing the label of ‘genocide’, euphemisms such as ‘cleansing’, ‘ethnic cleansing’, ‘mass killings’, ‘mass atrocity’ are resorted to.

The atrocities in Srebrenica were also denied the label by the UN, despite recognition by the ICTY and ICJ; instead Kofi Annan referred to it as a ‘massacre’. Rewind a few decades, this was equally a disaster for Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge regime, an ally of China, and hence not of the US, was given recognition in the UN General Assembly soon after its horrendous perpetrations between 1975-1979, despite appeals by other governments decrying its actions.

Equally noteworthy is how the label of genocide is never associated with the acts of the United States, and usually with those of its enemy.

The bias of international courts and organisations towards the superpowers, in particular the United States, cannot be denied.

Equally noteworthy is how the label of genocide is never associated with the acts of the United States, and usually with those of its enemy (or the enemy of another superpower), indicative of how biased the perception is of who is ‘evil’ and who is not. Thus all the principal international bodies have by now labelled the perpetrations of the Khmer Rouge regime as genocide, while sparing the United States of all accusations despite their perpetrations in Cambodia when they waged war against neighbouring Vietnam.

A similar approach was adopted in relation to Iraq under the governance of Saddam Hussein, while the US escaped punishment despite perpetrations that led to the killing of civilians in the country.

Without a doubt, many of the criminal and condemnable actions of the superpowers are left unpunished, and the politics of genocide are such that these states continue to exert influence over international decision-making, and indirectly, over international courts of law (ICC, ICJ, ICTY).

The recent elaborate rhetoric on the ‘responsibility (of states or other organisations) to protect (others)’ does not seem to have the intended effect on the superpowers which firstly, are still immune when they operate as perpetrators, and secondly have enough leeway to pick and choose when and where they will intervene in fulfilling their responsibility to protect.

The contrast in the treatment of the uprisings in Libya and Sri Lanka as an illustration of the above, is on point. (The United States’ long-standing animosity towards the Middle East is also all the more evident in this case.) Despite the Sri Lankan government’s assault on the Tamil civilians between 2008-2009, Ban Ki-Moon failed to mobilise the UN, attracting criticism by Amnesty International.

In fact the UN Panel of Experts did not make a recommendation to the ICC to launch an investigation for the mass killings even as ‘no-fire zones’ were turned into ‘free-fire’ ones. In contrast, in the case of Libya, Ban Ki-Moon as well as the High Commissioner for Human Rights condemned the Gaddafi regime within days, and an investigation was quickly carried out by the ICC, including the issuance of arrest warrants for Gaddafi, his son, and brother-in-law.

As to the decision on the intervention in Libya, Obama conveniently played his trump card by evoking the desire of the United States to protect states in need of help, saying: ‘Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. United States of America is different. And as President, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.’

As a reminder of the directive power of realpolitik, and that no actions are completely charitable as mentioned above, in the same statement Obama went on to mention America’s strategic interests in intervening in Libya.

He highlighted how war in Libya would drive refugees out into neighbouring countries and put a strain over the fragile transitions in Egypt and Tunisia. (It is doubtful that the strategic interests spelled out would be limited to just that.) Such are the dynamics that summarise the treatment of the label of genocide, and the politics involved therein.

So far the main tactic in avoiding the label of genocide in court settings has been to prove the absence of genocidal intent: this has been done by showing that acts of murder were a ‘war act’ rather than part of a larger programme to get rid of a group, an ethnicity, or a genus. As Samantha Power wrote in A Problem from Hell, promises resonating with the slogan ‘Never Again’ have been made by each incumbent President of the United States, but never held.