Facing the Demon

In one of the numerous texts that concern the impending Srebrenica genocide resolution of Serbian parliament, politician and a professor of psychology at the University of Belgrade, Žarko Korać, talks about things that the resolution will bring about and that are mutually exclusive. He says that "it is impossible to think good of Ratko Mladić (commander in chief of Serbian forces in Srebrenica) and condemn the events as genocide, and it is also impossible to justify the war in Bosnia and to have compassion for the 8.000 victims of Srebrenica". Reading these lines, again, I am faced with a dilemma: If, from a perspective of international law, i think that categorizing a crime in Srebrenica as a genocide is more of a political than a judicial decision, can i truly be in favor of such a resolution? Can i, in some way, reconcile these two seemingly opposite positions?
Reflecting on it now, it was more of a soul searching than a simple dilemma. For a while now i have been considering the events from Srebrenica within the confines of the international law. A genocide is a legal category and should be deliberated as such. By doing so i wasn't entirely convinced, beyond any doubt, that the Srebrenica massacre was a genocide. I was convinced, and in some part still am, that the decision of the International Court of Justice was stretched by the politicians just enough to justify the involvement of the international community in the Balkan war.
However logical and correct, this kind of deliberation is essentially flawed when used by the Serbian nationals (to whom i accidentally belong). I know that now. For years now virtually all of the prominent political factors in Serbia have, one way or another, condemned the crimes committed during the war. Some sincerely, some quite sanctimoniously. And what the majority of them had in common is the absence of the word Genocide. Massacre yes, war crime definitely, but not Genocide. And Genocide is the key here. Only by calling Srebrenica event a Genocide, and condemning it through a resolution proclaimed by the highest governing body of our country can we truly begin to face our demons. To acknowledge the crimes and the victims doesn't seem to be a problem at all, but to admit that there has been a Genocide on part of the Serbian armed forces, is one hell of a dread. It's time to put the legal semantics aside and truly begin the process of healing for this whole region. Only by admitting to genocide are we going to oblige ourselves, morally and institutionally, never to let anyone again kill 8.000 people in our name. Or one, for that matter.

Srebrenica

I’ve been meaning to write something about the events following Srebrenica massacre for some time now, and this looks like the time to do it. At once i am faced with a dilemma: what is the right way to tackle such a sensitive topic, because the last thing i want to do is to negate the horrible crime that has happened there on July 11, 1995. There are two dimensions of the Srebrenica events – one is the immeasurable amount of human suffering caused by the fact that almost 8.000 people, young and old, were killed by the cowardly men in uniforms in the name of “god and country”. The other is a dimension of international justice and political aftermath of the massacre. I am going to talk about the latter.
In the years following the massacre, the majority of victim’s families, their political representatives and the international community, called for the categorization of the events as genocide – “the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnical, racial or religious group…”, the strongest argument (of the victims families and a range of NGOs) being the universal human morality that we all must adhere to, and anyone who challenges this is committing another genocide; this time over the memories of the victims and the justice they deserve. Now, the concepts of justice and morality are relational and culturally infused so the concepts of universal human rights and (concerning this text) genocide were developed to supersede these particularistic loyalties. However, it is my opinion that in case of Srebrenica, the 2007 judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that the Srebrenica massacre constitutes a genocide is a highly politicized decision. In order to contextualize the events in Srebrenica, we must take into account other similar incidents and the way they are referred to by the advocates for the Srebrenica genocide. The most eye-catching is the mentioning of the Srebrenica “genocide” along with the Rwandan genocide that officially counts 500.000 (800.000 – 1.000.000 unofficially) victims in just 100 days of fighting. In Srebrenica there were 8.000 deaths out of the 35.000 – 40.000 Muslims that lived within 203.5 sq miles of Srebrenica municipality. Bosnia and Herzegovina’s territory totals approximately 20.000 sq miles. Another incident is the Operation Storm that brought the civil war in former Yugoslavia to an end. At the end of the operation, which lasted for 84 hours, 150.000 – 200.000 Serbs left their homes in fear of the aggression by the Croatian army that sized the territories Serbs previously inhabited. The number of Serbian refugees during the Yugoslav civil war thus totals around 350.000. Today these events and the dates they took place, are celebrated in Croatia as a national holiday, Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day. Also, during the US intervention in Iraq, 1.000.000 people lost their lives and who knows how many were forced to leave their homes and live scattered around the deserts of Middle East.
So why then are the events of Srebrenica a genocide? I think that it is because the genocide can much more effectively legitimate the international communities involvement in the Yugoslav civil war. The genocide bestowed upon the NATO forces the role of savior and protector of human rights and punisher of all who desire to terrorize, enslave and exterminate. However, situational and relational character of justice and morality is far too alluring for their proponents to be dismissed in favor of the universal law and humanity which become a mere front for the political and strategicall relations of power between world’s superpowers. By insisting on calling the Srebrenica massacre a genocide, we are transforming the victims in artifacts of political dominance and power play, which is a method so often used by politicians and other agents of human governance. The victims would not be completely forgotten and erased from history if we would not call it a genocide.