Transitions

Serbia, ICTY and Victims of Conflict

Many commentators described Serbia's arrest of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on July 21 as a sign that Serbia's new government is finally fulfilling the country's obligation to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The arrest draws Serbia closer to the European Union -- but it should still be seen as just one step towards addressing the legacy of the 1990s conflict.

Karadzic, widely acknowledged as the author and mastermind of the Bosnian Serb campaign against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats, was on the run for thirteen years. His wartime commander, Ratko Mladic, remains at large. Victims of the Srebrenica genocide and other atrocities allegedly orchestrated by these individuals have been waiting for justice for over a decade.

Although the trial of Karadzic before the ICTY could answer some of the questions about the causes of the conflict in Bosnia, the conflict's victims might remain unsatisfied. They will be able to participate in the proceedings in only a limited way, as witnesses offering testimony. Moreover, the ICTY does not have authority to order the accused to pay damages to the victims if found guilty. It is therefore of utmost importance that judicial efforts be complemented by non-judicial mechanisms, including a reparation program and a truth seeking procedure to look at the causes, the nature, and the extent of the abuses committed during the conflict.

The ICTJ has analyzed the work of the War Crimes Chamber in the District Court of Belgrade (click here for full report). ICTJ has also supported efforts by the three leading human rights organizations in the region (the Humanitarian Law Center in Serbia and Kosovo, the Research and Documentation Center in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Documenta in Croatia) to build a regional civil-society network with the goal of sensitizing and motivating the public and the national governments of the Western Balkans about the need for an official regional truth commission.

Photo by Serge Ligtenberg/Getty Images.

Sudan Spars with ICC

For Sudan's governing National Congress Party (NCP), the prospect of having its leader, President Omar al-Bashir, indicted for the government's disastrous response to the Darfur insurgency has galvanized the party and buttressed its determination to block action by the International Criminal Court.

The violence that the international community feared the regime would unleash against peacekeepers and humanitarian workers after the ICC's chief prosecutor requested an arrest warrant for Bashir on July 14 did not materialize. Instead, the NCP has displayed impressive political and diplomatic skills by mustering a show of the support for the government both at home and abroad -- more support than its narrow political base might justify.

The regime has over the years perfected internal and external mobilization techniques that have served it well whenever it faced serious threats to its hold on power. One tactic is to persuade the public that the threat is in fact aimed at core national values and strategic interests rather than only the NCP's partisan interests. The state-controlled mass media and Friday prayer sermons were used to send that message. The NCP staged demonstrations objecting to the prosecutor's request for an arrest warrant charging Bashir with genocide.

On the diplomatic front, Khartoum sent emissaries to seek support from the Arab world. It asked regional organizations -- the League of Arab States, the African Union and the Conference of Islamic States -- to help it repel what it said was the ICC's attack on Sudan's sovereignty, unity and stability. The Arab League was the first to oblige, rejecting the action of the ICC outright. The AU's Peace and Security Council called the request for an arrest warrant a threat to peace and appealed to the U.N. Security Council to ask the ICC to freeze action for at least 12 months.

However, the regime recognizes that it will have to take tangible, positive steps in Darfur if its allies on the Security Council are to succeed in persuading the Council to defer further ICC action. For Sudan's government, the imperatives of survival make this opportunistic collaboration with the international community a plausible next step.

Photo by Stephen Chernin/Getty Images.

Challenges of Reparations in West Africa

How do we balance the government's duty to provide all citizens with the social services and livelihood opportunities that are expected of development programs, with the obligation to provide reparations for victims of human rights violations?

When we speak of "collective reparations," how do we identify the communities we intend to repair? What forms of reparations are meaningful to them? And what about individual survivors who have been permanently harmed, severely traumatized or rendered incapable of meeting their own needs -- such as amputees and rape victims suffering from HIV-AIDS?

These questions are difficult enough to address in the abstract. But in the specific conditions of Sierra Leone and Liberia -- impoverished neighbors just emerging from decades of armed conflict that was widespread, brutal and often indiscriminate in its choice of victims -- they are not only real but painfully difficult to confront. The UNDP Human Development Index makes the challenge clear: Sierra Leone is ranked last, while Liberia is unranked given the extreme difficulty of obtaining data there.

A meeting initiated by ICTJ's Reparations Unit and Liberia office grappled with these dilemmas for two days (July 2-3) in Monrovia. The meeting was the second such ‘reparations network' initiative in West Africa organized by ICTJ, following one held in Ghana in 2007. The six participants from Sierra Leone (SL) included representatives of the National Commission on Social Action (the government institution that will implement most of the reparations recommended in the SL Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 2004 report), the independent Human Rights Commission, and non-government organizations working with women victims and amputees and monitoring the work of the Special Court of Sierra Leone. A participant from the Accra-based Center for Democratic Development presented an update on reparations implementation in Ghana.

The Liberia-based participants included representatives of the Human Rights Commission Secretariat, the Human Rights Protection Section of the United Nations Mission in Liberia, the non-governmental Transitional Justice Working Group, Women in Peace-building Network, the Liberia Association for Psycho-Social Services, as well as individuals working with the government's Liberia Reconstruction and Development Commission and the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Participants concluded that reparations require the acknowledgment of harm to victims and of state responsibility. Humanitarian assistance offered by international relief organizations can help victims but should not substitute for state-provided reparations. The implementation of reparations in Liberia and Sierra Leone will require balancing the use of scarce resources and finding the political will to sustain the momentum toward reparations.

Nevertheless, it was clear that that the devastating harm suffered by individuals and groups could only be partially addressed in either case. Participants also noted that the international community was devoting far more attention and material resources to demobilizing combatants than to civilian victims of the armed conflict and felt that the international community needed to be more even-handed. In that respect, the UN Peacebuilding Commission's agreement to jump-start the War Victims Fund in Sierra Leone was seen as a hopeful first step for that country and for the region.

Transitional Justice Course in Arabic

 

In late July, ICTJ and the Moroccan Center for the Study of Human Rights and Democracy led a groundbreaking nine-day course in transitional justice in Rabat, Morocco, for participants from throughout the Arabic-speaking world.

The course, which was the first transitional justice training program to be offered almost entirely in Arabic, brought together 16 participants from Algeria, Bahrain, Lebanon, Morocco, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, in an effort to build the knowledge and capacity of civil society in the Arabic-speaking world. Judging from the enthusiasm of the participants and energy of the discussions, it appeared to be a clear success.

The nine days included both thematic and country-based lectures, as well as external meetings with Moroccan officials and civil society leaders. An overview of the central concepts and strategies of transitional justice were followed by lectures on truth-seeking, prosecutions, reparations, gender, institutional reform, and memorialization. Since the course took place in the Moroccan capital, the experience of the country's own Equity and Reconciliation Commission was a natural focus, while in-depth looks at South Africa, Peru, and Afghanistan added a broader perspective.

Two central questions dominated the discussions, and reflected the challenges of understanding and perception that face advocates of transitional justice in the Arabic-speaking world:

1. What exactly is transitional justice, and what makes it a viable and realistic project in a region where transition and change seldom happen?
2. How can accountability for past crimes be promoted while the rare justice initiatives that have taken place in the region are perceived as politically motivated and selective?

The recent International Criminal Court indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir provided fuel for the discussion, as did the work of the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal and the establishment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. While all three offer lessons in terms of challenging legacies of impunity, they have also been criticized in parts of the Arabic-speaking world as cases of Western political interference and selective justice.

ICTJ Middle East and North Africa Program Director Hanny Megally said the opportunity to tackle these questions was part of the program's value.

"These are not simple questions, and they are crucial ones for human rights defenders in the Arabic-speaking world who are looking at transitional justice challenges and opportunities in their own countries," Megally said. "This course gave activists from eight countries a deeper understanding of the tools that have helped other countries come to terms with the past."

Photo by Habib Nassar of course participants from Sudan, Morocco, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

"What is Transitional Justice?"

ICTJ describes the history of transitional justice, the approaches it offers and the challenges and opportunities TJ faces, in a brief report, "What is Transitional Justice?"

"What is Transitional Justice?" is available on the ICTJ website.