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BIRN`s JUSTICE REPORT: No Progress for Sarajevo Truth Commission

23 02 2007  Controversial new body no closer to starting work than when it was first mooted in 2004.

By Mirna Buljugic in Sarajevo (Balkan Insight, 23 Feb 07)

Ten months after it was formed and several years after the idea first arose Sarajevo’s truth commission has yet to start work.

While few contest the ultimate value of a truth commission for Sarajevo, there has never been any unanimity over how this truth might be established.

Criticism has focused on the “Research Project”, which the commission members, appointed by the Council of Ministers, drew up concerning their work and objectives.

They say the paper, a copy of which Justice Report has seen, does not sufficiently specify the objectives or explain how its findings might be used in the future.

Although the project says “determination of the scientific truth” is the main goal, critics say it does not explain what that means in practice.

Some human rights activists also question the value of identifying victims mainly on the basis of their religion and nationality.

They say the fact the commission will not attempt to determine who carried out the crimes under investigation is another weakness.

Finally, the expense of the commission has been questioned, with some experts describing the proposed budget as extravagant.

SLIPPERY BEGINNING

The original idea was to set up a body that would conclusively investigate the extent of the suffering experienced by the inhabitants of the ten pre-war municipalities of Sarajevo, which in 1992 had a population of around half a million.

According to current data, about 10,000 citizens of all nationalities died during the war in those parts of Sarajevo that were under siege.

After the truth commission was set up, it drew up a “research project” outlining its goals and methodology and has made a list of relevant institutions in possession of data significant for its work.

In the quest to find out what happened in the city, it said it would seek documentation from the entity police forces, NGOs, ministries of justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, local courts and prosecutions.

It would investigate the manner of suffering experienced by the victims and record their profession, level of education, gender, family status, nationality and religion.

However, months after the commission was established, experts, victims, NGOs, politicians and ordinary people remain divided over the project.

After being originally scheduled to begin work on February 20, this deadline has been missed.

The country’s Council of Ministers has still not given final approval for the commission to start operations. Neither has it approved its working budget of 3.3 million marks (1.7 million euro).

A CONTROVERSIAL IDEA

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s state parliament took the decision to set up a commission to investigate events during the war in Sarajevo in 2004 on the initiative of the Bosnian Serb delegates of Republika Srpska, RS.

The Serb delegates wanted a commission primarily to determine the truth concerning the wartime fate of the Serbs in Sarajevo.

This was in response to claims put forward by NGOs and individuals that Bosnian government forces in Sarajevo killed several thousand Serbs and non-Bosniaks during the three-and-a-half year siege.

After the project hung in mid-air for more than a year, RS delegates accused Bosnia’s former prime minister, Adnan Terzic, of delays.

They even threatened to boycott the work of the Council of Ministers until a decision to form the commission was made.

Terzic, however, opposed the idea of a commission dealing exclusively with Sarajevo. Instead, he urged a commission working on a nationwide level.

After several more months of delay, on May 25, 2006, the Council of Ministers finally reached a compromise.

The commission would confine its work to Sarajevo, as the Serbs demanded. At the same time, it would investigate “the suffering of Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Jews and others”.

As Ivica Marinovic, one of the three chairmen, recalled, “In that way we actually named all three constitutional peoples, but also the Jewish community and others.”

In June 2006, commission members were appointed. They were four professors - Smail Cekic, Dzevad Termiz, Vlado Simeunovic and Jozo Budimir - and Ivica Marinovic and Cvjetko Savic, The commission was put under the jurisdiction of the ministry of human rights and refugees.

After a series of meetings, the commission decided on a research project to define their objectives and methodology, completed last December.

While five of the six commission members accepted the project’s findings, the Council of Ministers raised objections, mainly concerning alleged proposals that the commission investigate material damages caused in the war.

Smail Cekic said this was an argument over nothing, “It was a mistake… by someone who allegedly said the commission would also determine material damages, which was untrue.”

But the controversy failed to die down. By the end of last year, commission members were arguing over money, some complaining that they had received no compensation for work on the research project.

“Until December 14, the commission and the experts within it had not received a cent,” said Cekic.

He said problems over cash flows showed the Council of Ministers was still trying to block matters, which was also why the commission had no facilities for work until last November and only received furniture and technical equipment on December 13.

“There are individuals in the Council of Ministers who are obstructing the work of the commission,” claimed Cekic.

The Council of Ministers denies this. It says it has approved initial funds for the commission last September, having earmarked 344,623 marks (150,000 euro) for this task.

TRUTH DOES NOT COME CHEAP

While the Council and the commission wrangled over payments, some experts began to question whether the commission was justified in seeking such a big budget.

The commission said it needed 3,319,380 marks. This was itemised under several headings. “Leaders and methodologists” were costed at 12,000 marks (about 6,000 euro) per month on an assumed basis of 15 months’ work.

A research team of about 70 persons was factored in at 600 marks per month per person for six months. Total personnel costs for a year came to about 2,300,000 marks (1,150,000 euro).

The remaining expenses were of a technical nature, including such items as telephone bills, literature and “other small equipment”.

The commission sought a budget for two years’ work but according to the project may seek permission to prolong its term if necessary.

While the expenses are moderate on an international scale, they are high by the standards of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

By way of comparison, RS’s Srebrenica commission cost 400,000 marks (200,000 euro) for just over a year’s work. Proportionally, this works out at about one-eighth of the cost of the Sarajevo commission.

“The new Council of Ministers should state whether it is going to give them 3.3 million marks for research that makes no sense,” said Mirsad Tokaca, chair of Sarajevo’s Investigation and documentation centre, IDC.

The IDC’s brief is to establish the exact number of war victims throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, including Sarajevo. Funded by international organisations and governments, it runs at a cost of about one million marks for overall project and employs about 20 people.

Tokaca says the IDC will offer its forthcoming project entitled “Population losses in BiH” to the commission if it asks for it. But he said he doubted the body would achieve much, “because it is very politicised”.

SUFFERING JUDGED ON AN ETHNIC BASIS

Much criticism of the project concerns the proposal to investigate the suffering of victims on the basis of their nationality.

Under the terms of the research project, the commission will determine whether victims of the siege belonged to one of the 11 national categories, namely, Serb, Croat, Bosniak, Jewish, Gipsy, Montenegrin, Albanian, Slovenian, Macedonian, undecided and other.

Another category is religious identity. Here the options are Orthodox, Catholic, Muslim, Jew, Jehovah’s Witness, Adventist, Cosmopolitan, Buddhist, Atheist, undecided, other.

The importance of nationality for the work of the commission is reflected also in demands that investigators work in the field in “multi-ethnic couples”.

However, Srdjan Dizdarevic, chairman of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Helsinki Commission for Human Rights, said determining victims’ national and religious identity was not the most crucial task for a truth commission.

“We ought to determine who was the victim and who was the perpetrator; the ethnic issue is less important,” he said.

Other experts object to the way the project skates over the issue of Sarajevo’s military division during the war. While the government held parts of Stari Grad municipality, Novo Sarajevo and Novi Grad, RS controlled the rest.

They feel the failure to acknowledge the central importance of this division may skew the final picture of what took place in Sarajevo in the war.

Doctor Bakir Nakas, who worked in the war in Sarajevo General hospital, does not agree with the ethnic criteria of the investigation, for example.

“I doubt it will help the victims at all,” said Nakas. He asserted that counting victims on the basis of their nationality would not aid the reconciliation process.

Branko Todorovic, chairman of the RS Helsinki Commission for Human Rights, disagrees, however. “The ethnic aspect should not be excluded,” he said.

Todorovic added, “This was persecution motivated by ethnicity. In 99 per cent of the cases, people were killed as part of criminal ethnic projects.”

THE CLOCK TICKS ON

The new chair of the Council of Ministers, Nikola Spiric, has recently said the country needed a commission that could “contribute to the true and full reconciliation of the peoples of Bosnia and Herzegovina”.

He added, “It is of key value that the work of those commissions be not abused or prolonged; the Council of Ministers will, therefore, support their work, and, at the same time, ensure their full independence.”

But in the meantime time is ticking by and the commission has not begun to work. As of now, there are no indications when the starting date might be, or when the Council of Ministers will give the final go-ahead.

Some people fear it will soon be too late and that the idea behind the commission has been over-politicised. “Politics has got involved in the so-called quest for the truth,” said Eset Muracevic, a former camp inmate from Vogosca, near Sarajevo.

Those who pushed for the commission back in 2004 feel even more sceptical. “It was our association that filed a proposal to the constitutional court a long time ago for the formation of a commission for suffering of Serbs,” said Milijana Bojic, chair of the RS confederation of Serb associations for missing persons.

“But a political decision was made - a compromise solution. I don't think it will give any results.”

Mirna Buljugic is a journalist with Justice Report. Justice Report is an online publication of BIRN Bosnia and Herzegovina. Balkan Insight is BIRN’s online publication.