Appeal to the international and domestic public: Bans for criminals are the path to peace and reconciliation

MOSTAR, (Patria) - The Center for Peace and Multiethnic Cooperation from Mostar, together with the Association of Camp Victims of the City of Mostar and the Association of Captured and Missing Persons from the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton area, welcomes part of the decision of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (as the successor to the Hague Tribunal), that the convicted war criminal, Valentin Ćorić, from Čitluk, regarding the measures of a lifetime ban after serving two-thirds of his prison sentence in Scheveningen, should be released.

This is, for the first time in the history of the Hague Tribunal, a great victory for the victims of the joint criminal enterprise organized under the auspices of the para-state entity "Herceg Bosna" and with the patronage and participation of the Republic of Croatia. Valentin Ćorić was convicted by a final verdict of the Hague Court - in the "Prlić and others" case, to 16 years in prison for war crimes within the "Joint Criminal Enterprise" and "international armed conflict", at a time when he held the position of Minister of Internal Affairs of the so-called "Herceg-Bosna" and commander of the HVO Military Police.

According to the Hague decision, the first of its kind in the history of the international tribunal for war crimes, the recently released prisoner Ćorić is strictly prohibited from any access, indirect or direct contact with witnesses, media appearances, and any form of political engagement, as well as carrying weapons. In the accompanying interpretation of the Hague Mechanism for War Crimes, it is unequivocally stated that Valentin Ćorić will be returned to serve the remaining prison sentence if he violates any of the aforementioned prohibitions.

The Center for Peace, the Association of Camp Victims of Mostar, and the Association of Captured and Missing Persons from the HNK area express their satisfaction with such a decision of the high UN judicial council, for which the greatest credit goes to the victims of the joint criminal enterprise "Herceg Bosna", who, through energetic and persistent public action and demands to the Hague Tribunal, insisted on the most effective and complete fulfillment of Hague justice.

The Center for Peace, the Association of Camp Victims of Mostar, and the Association of Captured and Missing Persons from the HNK area express their indignation that Valentin Ćorić was pardoned after serving 2/3 of his sentence and that this has become a practice of the International Tribunal and its successor. Such pardons humiliate the victims of the war and send bad messages for the future. War crimes are at the highest level of crimes in the criminal code, and there should be no form of pardon for such convicts, precisely with the aim of preventing such crimes.

It is appealed to the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals in The Hague to:

1. The same measures of lifetime bans from engaging in politics, public and media appearances, and a permanent ban on contact with victims and witnesses, as a rule, be imposed on all other Hague convicts after they have served their prison sentences. Based on past negative experiences, the Mostar associations appeal to the Hague judges to consider, in this regard, the possibility of retroactively introducing and confirming the same bans for all other convicted war criminals who have been released in previous years after serving their sentences.

Namely, many of them, immediately after leaving prison cells, decided to continue public, most often political, organization and activities, through political parties, publishing books and publications, and regular appearances at forums and in the media. The cases of war criminals Vojislav Šešelj, Biljana Plavšić, Dario Kordić, and numerous others, including a whole series of generals and other high-ranking military officials, many of whom have publicly ignored or even questioned the validity and meaning of the verdicts, best testify to this. This is explicitly evidenced by the public and political activities of war criminal Vojislav Šešelj, who, precisely because of his openly ignorant attitude towards the Hague Tribunal and the Court, has become one of the most popular and sought-after public figures in the most watched electronic and highest circulation print media today.

All such individuals are convicted war criminals who have served part of their sentences, but in their cases, there has often been no catharsis; on the contrary, through their actions, they continue to poison the public space and question the very processes of peace and reconciliation. Therefore, it would be appropriate to reconsider the decisions on the release of war criminals after serving two-thirds of their sentences, as it is quite certain that pardons send negative messages for the future, suggesting that committing war crimes pays off.

2. The Center for Peace Mostar and the Mostar associations of camp victims and captured and missing persons from the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton area also appeal to the international, domestic, and regional public, including parliaments, governments, and presidents of states, and judiciaries in all countries, to vigorously advocate for the search for missing persons to become a task without delay, and to fully respect the principle that there will be no pardons for war crimes and that convicted war criminals will be permanently banned and prevented from any public and political activity for the rest of their lives, regardless of whether they were convicted in The Hague or by state and local courts.

An appeal is made to all domestic authorities, including judicial institutions, that - 25 years after the war, in this part of Bosnia and Herzegovina alone, hundreds of missing persons who perished within the "Herceg Bosna" joint criminal enterprise are still being searched for, and there are no convincing confirmations that police and judicial bodies and structures are truly undertaking activities to fully shed light on the truth and ultimately sanction it.

Center for Peace and Multiethnic Cooperation Mostar
Association of Camp Victims of Mostar
Association of Captured and Missing Persons of HNK