Natasa Kandic is founder and director of the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) in Belgrade, Serbia. Trained as a sociologist, she has spent many years documenting the rapes, tortures and murders committed during the 1990s war in the Western Balkans. Her efforts have garnered death threats and public harassment. Yet, Kandic continues. She works alongside 70 attorneys to ensure that the voices of victims on all sides of the conflict are heard and justice is served. Since 2000, the Mott Foundation’s Civil Society program has provided four grants totaling $283,500 to support HLC’s work. During a recent visit to the Foundation, Kandic discussed her views with Communications Officer Maggie I. Jaruzel.
Mott: Why are so many people still considered missing from the Balkans War?
|
Natasa Kandic
|
Natasa Kandic (NK): Many mass graves are still secret. They are looking for these graves, but the information about the mass graves is in the possession of state institutions, and they are not willing to give out this information because they are afraid of criminal prosecution.
About 25,000 people are still missing in the region. In Kosovo, we have at least 2,400 people missing. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, there are 18,000 missing, and we have 1,000 Croats and 2,000 Serbs still missing. For example, only 2,000 Muslims from Srebrenica [in Bosnia and Herzegovina] have been exhumed and identified, but 8,000 were missing. So that leaves 6,000 unaccounted for.
Everybody has a right to know what the truth is. My neighbor has a right to be informed -- a right not to be exposed to information that is far from the truth. The government has a state obligation to remember. It must fulfill its obligation to give information about missing and dead people.
Mott: You have been credited with bringing a violent video to the attention of an international audience. It shows the execution of six Muslim men by members of the Serbian Special Police Unit in Srebrenica. How has showing this video changed the way people understand the conflict?
NK: The official opinion about Srebrenica changed after the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia [ICTY] brought a verdict against a Serb general, sentencing him to 40 years in prison. They said the evidence showed he was responsible for killing more than 7,000 Muslims.
But that verdict previously had not been accepted by Serbian officials or the public because the officials claimed the majority of Muslims killed each other during the fighting. Those officials’ statements had been accepted by the majority of people in Serbia. But now, with the videotape, it is very clear. You can see victims and also perpetrators. This shows that a video documenting a war crime can be used as a weapon against the denial, but such tapes are almost impossible to find.
Mott: When talking about ways to deal with crimes of the past, many people automatically think of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission [TRC]. Compare what’s happening in the Balkans with what took place in post-apartheid South Africa.
NK: This is completely different because the problems in Yugoslavia involved six so-called “elements” -- Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. Those “elements” are now six separate countries. There is no way for the commission to deal with just one country like they did in South Africa because the country of Yugoslavia doesn’t exist anymore. It is now six different countries.
The commission in the Bosnian area will not share the truth about crimes committed against Bosnians by other people because many who are responsible for the crimes committed in Bosnia live far from Bosnia. For example, Serbia’s forces were involved in committing crimes and so were Croatian forces, but neither is in Bosnia now.
For us, granting immunity and amnesty for this information, like they did with South Africa’s TRC, is impossible. The TRC dealt separately with the abuses and did not combine it with criminal prosecution, but the ICTY already has brought many verdicts.
Mott: Some people ask if the tremendous amount of money spent by the ICTY -- hundreds of millions of dollars from United Nations’ members, European Union members and additional voluntary funding from industrialized nations -- for a handful of convictions is the wisest use of those resources. What are your thoughts?
NK: The investment in the ICTY and the investigation process is very important because what the International Criminal Tribunal contributed was not only for cases from former Yugoslavia. It is a legacy for international law and a victory for international justice.
Without the ICTY, it would have been very difficult to create the United Nations’ International Criminal Court [ICC] because everything from the ICTY -- its experience, practice and knowledge -- contributed to the successful establishment of the ICC.
Mott: What are the next steps in this process to obtain justice and healing for individuals and nations?
NK: I have been at this for 14 years and see that now is the time to assist victims. It is time to do more to restore their dignity. While it’s too early for reparations, it is time for organizations to help victims tell their stories in front of official bodies. Those stories, their truths, need to have official recognition. After they get that, it is much easier to have a campaign for reparations for individuals or to initiate reparations from state to state.
Also, we need to remove from public office and public service all those individuals who were involved in activities relating to the war. That way, we would create institutions that can assist society in ending the legacy of past abuses. But in this case, there are still individuals everywhere in government institutions who were involved with the past abuses, so it makes it very difficult for victims to speak freely about dealing with the past.
Finally, we must remember that this entire process requires time. Ten years ago it was quite a horrible situation. People couldn’t travel freely. But now people are free to travel everywhere. We can travel to Bosnia and to Croatia, and the people from Croatia and Bosnia can come to Serbia. Relations between people are much better now. There is still a lot of work to do, but we have come a long way.
Read details about Natasa Kandic's recent inclusion on the list of the
top 60 heroes of the past 60 years by the European edition of "Time" magazine. The article appears on the Humanitarian Law Center's Web site.