A Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Bosnia and Herzegovina?

By Alan L. Heil Jr.

“Truth determined in this way would mean that nobody, neither local politicians, nor authors of school textbooks, more the self-appointed media owners of truth, could, by their own wish, abuse the past in order to instigate new tensions and conflicts whenever they deem them useful for their own narrow interests.”
—Kemal Kurspahic, editor-in-chief of the award-winning newspaper Oslobodjenje during the siege of Sarajevo, 1992-1995

“Retributive justice and restorative justice are complementary. There have been just 10 or 11 convictions of Bosnian war crimes suspects at the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague in the last four years—very few of the hundreds of thousands of victims have been there to tell their story. I cannot believe that the people at the Tribunal would want to oppose an additional pursuit of the truth.”
—Dr. Alex Boraine, vice chairman of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and author of At Midnight, the Masks Come Off: Lessons from the South African Experience

Is it time? Is it time, more than four years after the guns fell silent in Bosnia and Herzegovina, for truth and reconciliation…for those directly affected to begin to come to closure and to ponder the causes of a conflict which cost a quarter of a million lives and left more than a million displaced from their homes?

There appears to be a growing movement in Bosnia among non-governmental organizations, intellectuals, and victims’ associations, a movement cutting across the Muslim, Croat and Serb communities, which says “yes” to the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission of inquiry—similar to the one which has helped South Africa begin generations of healing.

On Feb. 4 in Sarajevo, more than a hundred citizens from throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina met to consider—among other issues—how such a commission might work. The meeting was organized by four non-governmental organizations: the Helsinki Committee of Bosnia, the Citizens’ Alternative Parliament, the Forum of Tuzla Citizens, and a group of intellectuals called Circle 99. They vehemently assailed opponents of a commission. They made clear their need for “closure” and a gathering of facts to help them prevent a war like that of the mid-1990s from ever happening again. They formed a national coordinating committee with a goal this year of beginning down what all concede is a long and difficult road, if a commission ever is to be established.

It’s a daunting goal. Not surprisingly, the old nationalist leaders in Bosnia—many still in charge of entity, cantonal or municipal jurisdictions—oppose the idea of a commission. In South Africa, the commission was formed after a reform government was in place—in marked contrast to the situation in Bosnia today. The International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia also opposes the concept of a citizens’ truth and reconciliation commission in Bosnia, fearing testimony given before such a body would compromise prosecutions at The Hague.

But sentiment for a commission in Bosnia is growing, encouraged by religious leaders of all the major faiths, victims’ families, and the U. S. Institute of Peace, the Inter-Church Council of The Netherlands, the International Federation of Human Rights, and a host of other non-governmental organizations. Moderate Bosnian politicians such as Kresimir Zubak of the New Croat Initiative and Zlatko Lagumdzija of the Social Democratic Party have expressed interest and support. Jewish civic leader Jakob Finci has been particularly effective in bringing together proponents in the religious and other communities to discuss the commission concept.

The advocates cite several reasons the timing may be right for establishment of a Bosnian Truth and Reconciliation Commission:

• A majority of the population is increasingly disheartened that four and a half years after the Dayton Peace Accord which ended the war, therehas been little progress in really addressing ethnic divisions in the country. Bosnia today remains divided into two entities and three communities with separate governing authorities. The return of refugees and displaced persons across entity boundaries has been a mere trickle. Many questions remain about the fate of loved ones lost during the war, those killed or missing without explanation. An organization of surviving widows called the Mothers of Srbrenica has been formed to demand answers after Serb militias rounded up and systematically slaughtered an estimated 7,000 Muslim male civilians in or near their community—the worst mass killing in Europe since World War II.

• There is a growing appetite for preventing yet another Balkan war, seen as likely if early warning signs are not detected in advance. That’s the difference between retributive justice (essential to a sense of closure) and restorative justice (a kind of “shared prevention” strategy unprecedented in the Balkans). “Through the commission,” says former chief prosecutor of The Hague Tribunal Richard J. Goldstone, “Bosnians could figure out how former neighbors and friends were driven to inflict such evil on one another. Then, based on this examination, the commission could develop recommendations for steps to be taken to deal with this painful legacy and to prevent the recurrence of such inhumanity.” William Stuebner of the U. S. Institute of Peace added: “A court doesn’t make recommendations about the future. This [a truth and reconciliation commission] does.”

At a recent Peace Institute forum, the deputy director of the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Dr. Alex Boraine, stressed that each country is unique, and must design its commission recognizing local realities. Bosnia should decide for itself the issues inherent in setting up a commission. Boraine has observed debates about a commission or other truth-seeking mechanisms in Chile, Northern Ireland, Indonesia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Burundi, and recalled for his Institute audience the many steps which produced the South Africa commission:

• Development of grassroots institutions reflecting a “civil society” played a major role. Thirty workshops were held throughout South Africa to lay the groundwork and plan the commission’s work.

• Two major international conferences were held in South Africa, drawing on expertise from abroad, to help shape the plan.

• A draft bill creating the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was submitted to civic and non-governmental organizations for comment.

• Open hearings were held throughout South Africa, both in the drafting stage, and in the actual gathering of information by the Commission. At times, 3,000 people were in the hall listening.

• The Commission’s organization and mandate were submitted to South Africa’s newly elected multiracial parliament, and overwhelmingly approved.

“We built in subpoena power (which Chile lacked),” Dr. Boraine said. “Also, conditional amnesty, hurtful to some victims, but it enabled us to get at the truth which would never have been possible otherwise.”

In Bosnia, the situation is strikingly different. No Bosnian national commission could grant those testifying amnesty from prosecution by the international Hague tribunal, which was created by the United Nations Security Council following reports of Serb atrocities against Bosnian Muslim and Croat civilians in 1992. No such uniquely mandated international court existed for South Africa.

Discussion in Bosnia of a national Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been going on for at least three years. Much still remains to be done. Stuebner says preliminary plans call for a series of town meetings throughout the country, fund-raising and media campaigns to generate support for the commission, with the hope that a popular groundswell will persuade the necessary legislative bodies to adopt the concept. A board of governors representing all of Bosnia and the international community would be formed. Bosnia’s Inter-Religious Council, Stuebner said, hopes the chairman of the South Africa Commission, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, will visit Bosnia and Herzegovina, perhaps next September, to assist in explaining the merits of the system.

But a commission will only work if Bosnian politicians—as well as a large segment of the public—agree to it. Parliamentary approval is essential to establishing it. “Most of the leadership was in power during the war and does not want to dredge up certain things,” a savvy Bosnia specialist who lives in Sarajevo said. “So there will be huge obstacles to even forming a truth and reconicilation commission here, and if it is not done properly, having a bad commission could be worse than not having one at all.”

“One thing we learned in South Africa,” Dr. Boraine said, “was to be able ‘to see in the dark,’ to see when it appeared to be hopeless. That was midnight. That was when we realized that to be hopeless is to be paralyzed. It takes more than a commission, a few books, a few conferences to turn things around. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, in exposing the horrors of our past, has helped bring closure along with hope and, ultimately, a resolution. As we were helped,” the South African leader said, “I hope they [in Bosnia and Herzegovina] can benefit from our experience.”

Alan L. Heil Jr. is a former deputy director and foreign correspondent of the Voice of America.

SIDEBAR

A COMMISSION’S RIVETING MOMENT

During a visit to Washington last year, Archbishop Desmond Tutu described a poignant moment in the history of the South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In a hall filled with hundreds of victims and their families, a former South African police official confessed how he had tortured and mistreated detainees, and done so over many years. As he spoke, the hall got quieter and quieter. One could sense outrage building. Finally, the policeman paused. He broke down. And, in a crushed voice, almost a whisper, he said simply: “Please forgive me.” A victim’s mother sat nearby. She let out a big sigh, and said: “But I’ve already forgiven you.” For what seemed like an eternity, there was silence. And then the hearing hall broke into spontaneous, thunderous applause.

—A.L.H.