Bosnia to Form a Single Truth Commission
The Institute is drafting a statute for a joint Bosniak-Croat-Serb truth commission, which recently received overwhelming support from Bosnia's leaders.
he government, religious, and civilian leaders of Bosnia-Herzegovina have expressed overwhelming support for the creation of a joint Bosniak-Croat-Serb Truth and Reconciliation Commission in their country to establish consensus on abuses suffered by victims from all ethnic groups in the recent war. The truth commission will have a unique feature: it will also document cases of heroism by ordinary citizens who risked their lives to save neighbors and strangers across ethnic lines. Bosnian officials have asked the U.S. Institute of Peace to help them draft the legislation to establish the commission and manage the nomination process for commissioners.
During a trip to Bosnia on November 2-13, Institute executive vice president Harriet Hentges, who heads the Institute's Bosnia initiative, Neil J. Kritz, senior scholar on the rule of law, and William A. Stuebner, adviser to the rule of law initiative, discussed the language for a draft statute to establish the commission with approximately 70 Bosnian government and religious leaders as well as community leaders, intellectuals, and journalists. Among those they met with were presidents Alija Izetbegovic and Momcilo Krajisnik, Bosniak and Serb presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina, respectively, and Martin Raguz, chief of cabinet for Kresimir Zubak, the Croat member of the presidency; Ejup Ganic, vice president of the federation; the Council of Ministers; Bogic Bogicevic, vice president of the Social Democratic Party; Dragan Kalinic, speaker of the Republika Srpska National Assembly; Biljana Plavsic, president of Republika Srpska; His Holiness Pavle, patriarch of the Serb Orthodox Church; Seid Smajkic, mufti of Mostar; Cardinal Vinko Puljic of the Roman Catholic community; and Jakob Finci, president of the Sarajevo Jewish community and chair of Bosnia's Interreligious Council.
"We anticipated some hesitation—even opposition—from some officials to forming a joint truth commission in Bosnia at this time," Hentges says. "But the overwhelmingly positive engagement and response we received during our recent meetings confirms that the time is ripe to establish one." Kritz adds that those he talked with "clearly do believe that establishing and confirming a single, agreed-upon truth about wartime abuses and accounting for victims is necessary for Bosnian society to move forward in a stable and peaceful way." Stuebner adds that "you can't have forgiveness until you know the facts about what it is you have to forgive." Officials on all sides agreed that currently three conflicting versions of the truth about abuses suffered during the war are emerging, laying the seeds for future conflict.
Although a similar commission was provided for in a side-letter to the Dayton Accords, there had been no movement in this direction
until an Institute-organized roundtable in Strasbourg, France, in July 1997, at which justice and war crimes officials form the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska urged the creation of a single truth commission and asked the Institute to develop the concept and draft language to establish it.
Above: Eager to return to some semblance of normalcy in Bosnia after the cease-fire in 1995, residents of Sarajevo strolled downtown while workers repaired electricity lines. Kritz notes that while the recent strong support for the commission by Bosnia's leaders is heartening, the process of establishing the commission will take months, during which a variety of challenges will need to be addressed "carefully, realistically, and methodically, each step of the way."
The discussions among Hentges, Kritz, and Stuebner and Bosnian officials were reported widely in Bosnia's press, and several television and radio stations interviewed Hentges on the subject. The media attention, Hentges notes, helped to initiate a public discussion of the proposed commission. Once Bosnian officials agree on the final language for the statute, it is expected that the collective presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina will formally adopt it, perhaps in March.
Heroism across Ethnic Lines
All parties to the conflict in Bosnia have also endorsed the commission's documenting acts of heroism by ordinary citizens, says Kritz, an expert on truth commissions internationally who with his staff is incorporating this feature into the draft statute. No other truth commission has performed this task. "Everybody has agreed that this has to be part of the story—recognizing the real war heroes, those ordinary people who resisted ethnic cleansing and related abuses and who maintained their sense of humanity by demonstrating compassion for others," Kritz says. "This, too, is part of the history and will help to break down collective blame. It in no way discounts the horror of the abuses that were perpetrated during the war."The stories of heroism must be told and verified by those who were helped. For example, Stuebner knows of an elderly Muslim couple who were saved by a Serb soldier, who claimed they were his aunt and uncle and found them shelter. "There are many, many stories like this," he says.
The truth commission will not offer amnesty, because international law prohibits amnesty for war crimes, Kritz says. Both the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague and the local courts are focusing on perpetrators in an effort to establish criminal accountability for war crimes on the part of specific individuals.
The truth commission will focus on victims. For example, it will try to establish accurate figures on the number of people who were killed during the war. "There must be an accurate accounting of victimization, partly so all sides understand that there were victims on all sides, that individual by individual the victimization and suffering were exactly the same, while recognizing that more people in one ethnic group may have suffered than in another," Stuebner says.
Establishing the Commission
Institute staff are consulting with a broad range of authorities both inside Bosnia and internationally to further refine the language of the draft statute. In February, they will return to Bosnia to seek approval from Bosnian officials and leaders for a final version of the charter. Once the statute is adopted, Institute staff—with staff from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Office for Democratic Initiatives and Human Rights—will manage the vetting process for commissioner candidates."We will invite all sectors of society to play an active role in the process of proposing and selecting members of the commission," says Stuebner, a retired military officer who, since 1992, has worked on Bosnia issues for U.S. and international organizations, as well as for the tribunal at The Hague. "Candidates must be regarded by all as objective and credible with a high moral standing." The commission, to be headed by a neutral and highly regarded international figure, may be operational by fall and will have a one-year mandate.
"While being realistic about the difficulties that lie ahead," notes Kritz, "I am deeply encouraged that the Institute is in a position to make a valuable and unique contribution to promoting reconciliation and an enduring peace in Bosnia."
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- Harriet Hentges
- Neil J. Kritz
© 1998 United States Institute of Peace
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