Crime and Witnesses: The Loneliness of Bosniak Victims

Bakir Izetbegović received representatives of 26 war victims' associations. His justifications at that meeting were not convincing either. Izetbegović listened to exceptional legal experts, but his team should have known more than that. If diplomatic circles today speak of a successful lobbying effort by one state to prevent the acceptance of a request for revision of the verdict, this does not absolve this side of the responsibility to at least try to prevent and neutralise such actions.

For instance, I would be concerned if I had to address the President of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Ronny Abraham. A year and a half ago, the Slovenes hired Abraham as an agent in their dispute with Croatia over the Savudrija Bay. At the end of July 2015, Abraham agreed to be the agent for the Slovenian side before the Arbitral Tribunal, which, incidentally, is located in the same building as the International Court of Justice. I found it shocking that the president of the world's most important court agreed to serve as someone's agent before another court. Namely, there is Article 17 of the ICJ Statute which prohibits any engagement by judges in proceedings as agents, advisors, or lawyers before any court. Probably warned, only six days later, Abraham withdrew from the proceedings. So, he had already shown a tendency to disregard the Statute of the court he presides over.

Someone on the Bosnian team must have known about this move by Abraham and treated it as a potential problem. But, likewise, in his first address to the public after the rejection of the revision, the Bosnian agent Sakib Softić stated that, on his own initiative, he first asked the ICJ registrar whether he was still an agent, and only later remembered that, according to the Statute, the ICJ does not decide on that. Let there be no confusion, that statute is about fifteen pages long.

Bakir Izetbegović never genuinely sought advice on the revision, nor did he consult with a wider circle of people. When he invited all those public figures to the gathering in the Vijecnica, he did so to get the most basic support for something no sane person would refuse. It was the same with this meeting of his with the victims' representatives.

The Mothers of Srebrenica and the numerous victims who were witnesses in the trials of criminals know what it means to stand before an international court. They know the horrors faced by all those who wish to serve justice. As pitifully as Izetbegović felt after the rejection of the lawsuit by the ICJ, the victims and witnesses have felt for decades.

I do not like to push myself forward, but I was one of the rare journalists who agreed on three occasions to testify publicly about certain crimes before the Tribunal. I believed I was doing the right thing and was prepared for any possible consequence. When I returned to Sarajevo after testifying in the Milošević trial, I experienced a series of unpleasant experiences. I was spat on and verbally attacked by people I did not know in the middle of the city, and it was clear that these attacks were because of my testimony against Milošević. Even after that, I went to The Hague as a witness, because I believe in international justice, just as I believe in a better world. I do not wish to speak about everything I endured after testifying, although I considered myself a less important witness. Some witnesses complained to me that they were subjected to various forms of psychological torture.

Bakir Izetbegović probably has no idea about this dimension of testifying before international and even domestic courts, nor have he and his party's power-holders done anything to help and protect witnesses. Has no one spoken to those 40 key prosecution witnesses against Prlić and the others? Did anyone from the Bosniak leadership ask them if they were subjected to any pressures or torture? It is an open secret that even prosecutors and judges in that process are under constant pressure, let alone the witnesses.

I am certain that Izetbegović and his party's salon-style power-holders have no idea what the victim-witnesses endure and what blows they and their families are exposed to. That party crowd of his, the privileged ones, should be forced to read Julian Borger's book "The Butcher's Trail" to learn just a part of the horrors faced by witnesses of crimes, left at the mercy of Serbian and Croatian intelligence services. And it is not all "from outside" but also "from within"; I recommend future researchers take the dates of testimony before international courts of some key witnesses and then read the Sarajevo, I repeat, Sarajevo media and listen to public broadcasters a month or two prior. There, they will see incredible coincidences in attacks on individuals who, a month or two later, appear as witnesses before the Tribunal.

We are one of the rare countries in Europe that does not have its own victimological society, and this after experiencing and having genocide adjudicated.

What I am about to say I am absolutely certain of: What is happening in the prosecution and punishment of crimes is, for the most part, a lonely struggle of victims for justice. Sarajevo has never had understanding for such a struggle, let alone a serious strategy. The Hague Tribunal is today the only court doing serious work. This is clear after the verdicts against Karadžić and the Prlić group. In contrast, the domestic judiciary, when it comes to crimes, increasingly resembles domestic politics. Look at the verdicts, and you will see that there are judges who have acquitted more defendants for crimes than they have convicted. Bosniaks are more threatened by a biased judiciary in their own state. For years, criminals have been tried before the Tribunal with far more sense of justice than before domestic courts. So, this is happening on the ground where Izetbegović is a member of the state Presidency and where his party subjects rule.