For Croatians, the operation was a key military victory that allowed them to recapture Serb-held territory. Even though the Croatian president has stripped the generals on trial in the Hague of their military medals, Croatians celebrate August 4^th every year as a state holiday dubbed “Day of Gratitude to the Homeland Defenders”. In Serbia, the country mourns the victims of the military operation.

The diametrically opposed commemorations of the day definitely demonstrate how divisive war can be, but instead of focusing on the fact that atrocities were committed on all sides during the Yugoslav war, I wanted to write about Operation Storm to once again showcase Women In Black’s steadfast dedication to solidarity with all victim’s families. Two of WIB’s most active members attended the commemoration service at St. Marko’s Church in Belgrade. Although they told me that the service has become increasingly politicized, with a priest devoting most of his liturgy to talk about how Kosovo is the “heart” of Serbia, WIB does not discern between victims. A victim is a victim, whether he or she was Bosnian, Croatian, or Serbian, and although WIB might not agree with how the commemorations are conducted, remembering every single victim who died due to actions motivated by nationalism and militarism is of utmost importance.

The two WIB members were approached at the service and told that the police would escort them on their walk back since they had been identified as “targets”. It’s really a shame that some allow their hate to infiltrate even the most solemn of occasions, such as a service for victims of war atrocities, and capitalize on tragedy in order to promote dangerous nationalist rhetoric, but that is unfortunately the reality WIB members face in Serbia. Yet, as always, they persevere and refuse to allow hate to interfere with their commitment to peaceful commemoration of all victims of war crimes, regardless of national boundaries.

Last week, we interviewed two high level academics who have been involved with WIB since the beginning. Although pretty much everything they said was fascinating to me, I wanted to share their answers to the question, “what is your greatest memory associated with Women In Black” with you.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSE_Mu9hvrw

At the time, it was striking to me that they both essentially had the same answer to the question even though they were being interviewed separately. Looking back at the clips though, I really shouldn’t have been surprised. The experience was so powerful and truly showcased the bravery of WIB members. Since I spend so much time in the office with WIB members doing somewhat mundane things like drinking coffee or scheduling interviews, I forget just how brave these individuals really are. As Professor Dulic explained, WIB members really served as the “guinea pigs” or “punching bags” of Serbia for a time as they went against all the prevailing nationalist, militaristic, and fascist tendencies. Yet, as Professor Vodinelic pointed out, WIB members never contemplate giving up- they get back up and persevere, and that’s why they’re still here today.

On another note, I wanted to touch on a comment Professor Vodinelic made about the “tacit support” of the police. The relationship between WIB and the Serbian police is complex and ever-evolving, I doubt I’ll come to fully understand it before I leave, but I have picked up some insight from talking to various WIB members. As Professor Vodinelic explained, the police were much more sympathetic with the opposition than with WIB in the early days- to the point of being accomplices in inciting violence on the demonstrators. Today, a good number of police officers accompany WIB to every demonstration/protest. On the surface, the reason is “protection”, and some members have said that the police have recently done a good job of keeping troublemakers away. However, the police also film every WIB activity. They claim that it’s to protect WIB by having footage of any incident that may occur. Stasha and others have no doubt that the police are actually filming to monitor the activity of the group. The activists I spoke to stressed that they don’t have a problem with the officers as individuals, and they actually have developed relationships with some of them where they feel comfortable joking around with each other. Nevertheless, I think most WIB members would be hard pressed to consider the police allies although perhaps they don’t consider them enemies as they did before.

police

Police at a WIB street action in mid-June. Police are always present at WIB street actions. The relationship between police and WIB is complex.

I am a firm believer in the potential of transitional justice. If a post-conflict society truly desires to rebuild social trust, repair a fractured justice system, and build a democratic system of governance, transitional justice must play a significant role in the process. However, the system is far from flawless. The process can take years from start to finish as is apparent in this case: it has been seventeen years since the crimes have been committed. It takes time to gather evidence and build a case against a potential war criminal, especially when it is being done in a post-conflict society. We were sitting behind the relatives of the victims in the courtroom, and I just kept imagining what it must feel like to have to wait seventeen years for justice to even become a potential possibility.  Of course, no conviction or trial will ever bring back their loved ones, but justice can often ease the healing process when it comes to deep wounds. Punishing crimes not only deters future malpractice, but also respects the dignity of all those who where victimized in the past. WIB engages in a philosophy they refer to as “feminist ethic of care” and a “gendered approach to justice”. One of the most important aspects of this approach is reaching out to the families of victims. As Stasa explains, “We care how the victims feel in Belgrade, where the crime was masterminded. We make sure they feel protected and safe with us. We want to alleviate their fear. In this way, we build trust and friendship and a policy of peace by ‘little’ gestures, as opposed to the ‘big’ heroic policies of the dominant discourse.” I witnessed these “little” gestures as Simran and I accompanied Stasa and the victim’s families on a stroll through Belgrade.

Nevertheless, I can’t fathom the frustration they were feeling as they were sitting there listening to the witness deny any knowledge of wrongdoing. Even when the judges presented Ilic with documents bearing his signature that proved he was aware of certain military decisions, he responded by admitting it was his signature but claimed he had no recollection of having ever seen these documents before.  Most shockingly, Ilic, stated that it was the first time he was hearing of the crimes that Popovic was being accused of. Further, Ilic maintained that the victims could not have been civilians as his forces would have never shot them had they not had weapons on them. The judges seemed dubious of his arguments, but in a truly just system, all sides must be given a fair hearing.

Another aspect of the trial that stood out to me was the fact that Popovic stood up and questioned the witness himself even though he had attorneys representing him, something that would traditionally not be permitted in the American legal system. The questioning of Ilic took so long that the judges postponed the testimony of the second witness who was scheduled to also speak on June 10th to September 7th, further prolonging the process and the wait the relatives of the victims must endure on their long quest for justice and a semblance of peace.

It seemed like we were the only group there monitoring, which is somewhat disconcerting as such trials must be monitored by as many groups as possible to ensure fairness. Women In Black is contributing greatly to Serbia’s attempts at transitional justice by consistently and reliably monitoring all trials.

The goals of transitional justice are:

-Confronting the criminal past

-Removing the members and supporters of criminal regimes from high public office (although they haven’t been completely removed anywhere, this is critical to the process of confronting the past)

-Exposing the ideological justification of crimes- dismantling the political, social, and cultural mechanisms conducive to war.

-Creating conditions for citizens to reject the cultural patterns, and models that produced war and war crimes.

-Enforcing and maintaining lawfulness.

-Establishing the rule of law and democracy

The four pillars of transitional justice are tribunals and trials, truth and reconciliation commissions, reparations, and institutional reforms.

WIB publishes a great 100 page summary short book entitled “Transitional Justice: A Feminist Approach”. My summary is mostly extracted from the book:

transjust2

The history of international justice institutions can arguably be traced back to the establishment of the permanent International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague in 1920, after the end of WWI, becoming the first international tribunal made up of permanent independent judges and authorized to address all international disputes. However, the USA protested against the prospect of this court trying German war criminals, so that process was ceded to the German judicial system.

In 1945, the Nuremberg Trials were initiated by the Allied Forces, sentencing 22 top ranking military and civilian officers from Nazi Germany. I will not go into detail about these trials, but they are integral to transitional justice in that they prosecuted the following crimes:

-Crimes Against Peace: planning, preparing, launching, and waging an aggressive war or a war that violates international covenants, agreements, and beliefs or participating in such a plan or conspiracy.

-War Crimes: violations of the laws and customs of war, i.e. killing or deporting the population, killing prisoners of war, pillaging public property, destroying homes, and plundering

-Crimes Against Humanity: killing, exterminating, deporting, or enslaving human beings; all forms of inhumane treatment; and prosecution based on religion, ethnic, or political grounds

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (or The Hague Tribunal or ICTY) was founded on May 25, 1993 through adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 827. According to the Resolution, The Hague Tribunal was founded with the objective of ‘ criminally prosecuting all individuals responsible for grave violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991.”

Unlike the Nuremberg Trials, crimes against peace are not being prosecuted by the Hague Tribunal, an oft-cited criticism of ICTY, especially by activist groups (The Permanent People’s Tribunal, which is based out of Barcelona and does not have any legislative power but is established by civil society in hopes of creating an alternative legal system, also objected to the Hague Tribunal on these grounds). The Hague Tribunal has focused its activities on very high-ranking people and particularly infamous individuals responsible for crimes or other atrocities. So far, 161 individuals have been indicted for severe violations of international humanitarian law (94 cases have been concluded with 44 having a guilty verdict). Four individuals, including Slobodan Milosevic, have died in the detention unit of the Hague Tribunal.

In July 2002, the Security Council adopted a strategy by which the Tribunal would concentrate on prosecuting top level political and military leaders. Consequently, the investigation and prosecution of a large number of perpetrators of very serious violations of international humanitarian law became the exclusive responsibility of national criminal justice systems of the Yugoslav successor states. In Serbia, this task is mainly executed by the Special Court on War Crimes.

The Hague Tribunal is also notable in that it defined war rape as a war crime in its statute, the first time war rape has ever been defined in this way. The first conviction for rape as a war crime was pronounced in 2001 against three Serb men- the Foca case. The Hague Tribunal has planned to conclude its activities in 2010.

I wondered before coming here why the former Yugoslavia has not had Truth and Reconciliation Commissions such as the famous and successful one in South Africa. It turns out that there was such a commission here. It was founded in March 2001 and concluded its activities in 2003. Many believe it was doomed from the start since it strove to consider events that had taken place throughout the 20^th century, not just between 1991 and 1999. The Commission’s objective seems to have been to justify the policy of the Serbian regime. Because of this, the majority of its respectable members resigned shortly after its inception.

Sorry for the length of this post. I know you could probably just go to wikipedia and look up transitional justice, but I wanted to present the information as WIB does. I will post my impressions of transitional justice in Serbia soon.

This building was bombed by NATO in 1999. Today, it looks exactly as it did then.

This building was bombed by NATO in 1999. Today, it looks exactly as it did then.

The office itself is adorned with WIB posters and pictures, creating a lively atmosphere. A few members were in a meeting, so I met those who weren’t and had my first Serbian coffee. A little while later, the meeting ended, and Stasa, the director of WIB in Belgrade, burst into the room. She immediately came over to me, grabbed my face, exclaimed “Iranian!”, and gave me a big hug. Needless to say, I already feel pretty comfortable here.

Stasa directed everyone into the “meeting” room for a planning session regarding the upcoming trip to Southern Serbia. We are traveling there this weekend to hold a series of workshops for the WIB network. Even though I don’t speak Serbian, it was clear to me that these women are pros at putting on this kind of thing. They brought in a bunch of shoeboxes and began to speak animatedly about the performance they were going to put on. Jennifer told me they were planning on stacking the boxes into a pyramid to represent the hierarchy of the military. The plan was developed and expanded upon before my eyes as they practiced removing boxes (each box is to symbolize a conflict in the world) until the pyramid collapsed, demonstrating how the hierarchy of the military can be broken down. Stasa then brought a huge bright pink cloth and had me and two other women stand in it. It turns out it was designed like one of those Chinese New Year dragons, but in this case, it’s supposed to represent a caterpillar with the message that “slowly but surely, peace can be achieved”. I’m really excited to see these performances executed this weekend.

After the planning meeting, Stasa decided that we all needed to eat, so a few of the women went to the market and whipped up a fresh and delicious meal consisting of eggs, a perfect salad, cheese and bread upon their return. Stasa asked me a lot of questions about my family and background during the meal, but talk quickly turned to WIB matters in Serbian. Jennifer and I left a little while after that, and I slept from 7:00 pm to 10:30 am, which I think is a personal record. Hopefully, that won’t become a regular thing.