International Justice/ICTY: Jul ‘08

Bosnian commentators have singled out IWPR’s coverage of the Karadzic arrest for its objectivity and highlighted a series of other articles as important contributions to local debate on war crimes issues.



Political analyst from Banja Luka Tanja Topic said that IWPR dealt with the detention of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic last month “very professionally”, setting as an example to other media in the region.



Ognjen Begovic, a Serb journalist from Republika Srpska, said that amid the glut of reporting on Karadzic, reporters working for the IWPR/RFE programme Facing Justice still managed to provide new and interesting angles to the story.



“I would particularly like to praise the team behind this programme for carefully choosing a number of relevant commentators, which gave credibility to their reports and made them objective and non-partisan,” said Begovic.



Bosnian commentators also said several other pieces dealing with other tribunal-related developments raised important issues.



One article that was singled out was a comment piece by University of Sarajevo lecturer Edina Becirevic, entitled

Bosnian Court Should Try Plavsic.



Following her plea agreement with Hague prosecutors in 2002, Plavsic accepted partial responsibility for war crimes committed against non-Serbs in Bosnia during the 1992-95 war. She made a formal apology and was subsequently sentenced to only 11 years in prison in 2003. Crucially, prosecutors dropped genocide charges against her.



However, while serving her sentence, Plavsic published a book, I Testify, which was full of extreme nationalist language in line with her wartime rhetoric, flying in the face of her agreement with Hague prosecutors.



“The article makes one wonder whether it is sensible to make a plea agreement with certain accused,” said professor of sociology from Mostar Slavko Kukic.



“The case of Biljana Plavsic proves that war crimes indictees rarely accept responsibility in order to ease their conscience; it seems that more often they do it only to get a more lenient sentence.”



Director of the Sarajevo-based Research and Documentation Centre Mirsad Tokaca said the piece was provocative and persuasive in its arguments.



“It is especially important that the issue of plea agreements has been revisited after several years, forcing even those who participated in that process to re-evaluate their position and to see things from a different perspective,” said Tokaca.



“This article undoubtedly makes you think and contributes to continuing public debates on this issue.”



Another article Kukic and Tokaca commented on was Stolac: a Town Deeply Divided by IWPR Hague reporter Simon Jennings.



The piece was published on July 4, following Jennings’ field trip to Bosnia, and focused on the divide which remains between Bosniak and Croat communities 13 years after the war ended.



Kukic found the article thought-provoking and said that it highlighted the influence that politics have over people, as well as how much work has to be done before reconciliation can be achieved in the Balkans.



“The article about Stolac reveals the effects of ideologies on people and their everyday lives, and shows us how ethnic division works on a micro level,” said Kukic.

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“We constantly hope that there will be reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia, especially in Bosnian society, but this analysis shows we still have a long way to go.



“When we see that apartheid in Stolac and many other towns in this country still exist, we cannot help but wonder whether even basic pre-conditions have been met for the reconciliation process to finally start.”



According to Kukic, it is essential that Bosnian society gets rid of wartime ideologies, “which are based on the logic that ethnic homogenisation is the matter of biological survival, that those who differ are a constant threat and danger to our survival”.



He said he thought that articles such as those produced by IWPR could provide a catalyst for change.



“This logic cannot take us into the future. We have to promote different values from those prevailing today – and the media has a key role in this. By keeping a focus on topics related to real life, as this article does, they can raise people’s awareness of the real problems and initiate changes,” he said.



Tokaca agreed that the issue of ethnic segregation was very important and had to be discussed. He pointed out that divisions between children and young people was not just present in Stolac, but could be found in other Bosnian towns.



“Dividing children on ethnic grounds is a shocking consequence of war and it has to stop. But that will not be possible without us constantly talking about this problem,” said Tokaca.



“Both these articles – the one on Plavsic and the other one on Stolac – are written courageously and openly, and are very analytical. Therefore, they both have great value as they inspire a much needed dialogue.”