3.2.

Reconstruction

Srebrenica - Mapping Genocide

Dr Janja Beč-Neumann, Sociologist, genocide researcher, author and lecturer

"...I would like to explain how Richard Goldstone came to be appointed as the first Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), because these details are not easily found in the historical record. The Tribunal itself emerged following sustained pressure from individuals and non-governmental organisations who were present in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the spring and summer of 1992, when some of the most severe crimes of the war were committed. These actors urged the international community to intervene, primarily through military action. Such intervention never materialised. Instead, a compromise emerged. Faced with mounting pressure from below, the international community sought a way to be seen as responding while avoiding direct action. The creation of the ICTY became part of that response.

It is important to remember that the ICTY was the first international criminal tribunal in history that was not established as a military tribunal. Following the Holocaust, the Nuremberg Tribunal was a military tribunal. The Tokyo Tribunal after 1946 was also military in nature. Earlier attempts after the First World War, including those in Leipzig and Ankara, failed to establish a lasting model of international criminal justice. For the first time, the international community created a permanent judicial mechanism without a clear precedent for how it should function.

In its early stages, international policy was shaped by a perceived trade-off between peace and accountability. There were efforts to encourage Bosnian Serb political and military leaders to abandon violence in exchange for the prospect of amnesty and a negotiated peace. Against this backdrop, the international community spent fourteen months unable to agree on who should serve as Chief Prosecutor of the new Tribunal. Eventually, following a recommendation from Nelson Mandela, attention turned to Richard Goldstone, a judge of South Africa’s Constitutional Court whose experience confronting apartheid and questions of justice made him a compelling candidate. After fourteen months of deliberation, Goldstone was appointed as the first Chief Prosecutor of the ICTY..."

- Transcript Extracts

Reconstruction: Establishing the Facts about the Executions

Jean-René Ruez, Chief Superintendent at the French National Police, former head of the Hague Tribunal investigative team for Srebrenica

"...I arrived in Tuzla on 20 July 1995 and immediately began the investigation. To be precise, the investigation focused on the events that unfolded after noon on 11 July 1995. It was not an investigation into why NATO air strikes did not take place, nor into the military takeover of the enclave itself. Rather, it was an investigation into the criminal acts that followed the fall of Srebrenica.

Establishing the facts of such crimes follows a natural chronology. The first step is reconstructing events through interviews with victims and witnesses and, at a later stage, through the testimony of perpetrators who also become part of the investigative process. The second phase involves locating and identifying the places described by those interviewed, a task that is often far from straightforward. All of this must be undertaken in a hostile environment and under conditions very different from those encountered in normal investigative work.

The next phase focuses on processing crime scenes. This includes photographing and filming locations, documenting physical evidence, collecting samples, and conducting laboratory analysis. This constitutes what can be described as the technical and scientific policing dimension of the investigation. We have already reviewed a summary of these events and will need to revisit them again. However, presenting such a complex sequence of crimes within a limited timeframe is challenging, particularly because the investigation encompasses a large number of crime scenes spread across multiple locations. So it’s a crime scene of 70 km north-south, 40 km east-west, dotted with concentration spots of prisoners, detention sites, execution sites, primary mass graves and then later, as we will see, secondary mass graves..."

- Transcript Extracts

The Banality of Indifference

Dr Yair Auron, Genocide studies expert, lecturer

"...By denying genocide - and this is very important to me - you prepare the ground for a new genocide. And I must admit I wasn’t aware about the denial of your genocide until three days ago. I knew vaguely about your genocide but I knew even less about the level of denial by the Serbs about the genocide they’ve committed. And you must face it, we must face it, it’s not your problem with the Serbs. It’s the problem of the whole world, the problem of humanity.

When the society is denying the victimhood of the people, you can’t begin the process of recovery. And you have to fight for it now, not after hundred years of denial. We have to fight with you for the recognition of the genocide by the Serbs and by humanity. Europe is a problem, the US is a problem, because, you know that, in one way or another, they were an accomplice in the genocide.

And I want to say something that maybe some of you will not accept: more and more I am convinced that there is no "third party". There are the victims and there are the perpetrators. If you are not with the victim, you are, by definition, with the perpetrators..."

- Transcript Extracts

3.1. Historical Context

3.3. International Community

4.	HOW TO LEARN ABOUT THE PAST
5.	TRANSGENERATIONAL MEMORY
6.	REFERENCES

4.	HOW TO LEARN ABOUT THE PAST
5.	TRANSGENERATIONAL MEMORY
6.	REFERENCES

3.1.	Historical Context
3.2.	Reconstruction
3.3.	International Community
3.4.	Intent and Denial
3.5.	Post-Genocide Society