With the Dayton Agreement of 1995, the international community imposed an obligation on Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to implement laws on amnesty as soon as possible. Amnesty for all deserters and perpetrators of acts that were criminalized for political purposes during wartime (such as speaking out against the regime) is a necessary precondition for the return of refugees, exiles, and displaced people and respect for their basic human and political rights. Of course, this amnesty excludes the perpetrators of war crimes.
Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina enacted relatively good amnesty laws. However, in their early implementation, these laws were misused in order to thwart the political opposition – especially in Croatia. Some accusations of criminalized political acts were reframed as accusations of war crimes.
Manipulating the fact that war did not occur on its territory, SR Yugoslavia passed an incomplete law on amnesty in 1996 that pardoned everyone who did not respond to a military call-up or who went abroad before the Dayton Agreement was signed. Nongovernmental organizations and experts from Serbia showed that the law was insufficient and that a universal amnesty, one that would include criminalized political and military act—especially conscientious objection—was necessary. The relevant international organizations did not seriously consider the views of these experts and activists. A particularly significant insufficiency of that law is that it ignores the reality of the Sandžak and Vojvodina regions, which have ethnically mixed populations. The citizens of these regions have complicated military and personal obligations to other former Yugoslav states.
The widely held belief is that if the Yugoslav law that grants amnesty to deserters was consistently observed in practice, it would be satisfactory if the aforementioned issues related to ethnic diversity did not present themselves. The international community concluded that Yugoslavia fulfilled its obligations.
The people who left Yugoslavia did not just want to avoid military service; they were people with personal and political convictions that prevented their participation in a war which was imposed on them and with whose reasons and goals they disagreed for moral reasons. Western European countries have deported conscripts, pointing to the changes in The Law on Amnesty. They also invoked the legal principle that military conscripts are not eligible for political asylum. Individuals who received amnesty for deserting in the preceding period were not exempted from future military mobilization on the grounds of their political position. They will continue to flee from their state military obligations. Unfortunately, the threat of future mobilization was not accepted as a reason to prevent their deportation. The western European governments did not approve the deserters’ right to continued residency and deported conscientious objectors back to SR Yugoslavia, even after the beginning of military mobilization in response to the NATO bombing. Deserters’ long-standing opposition to war and refusal to participate in it was ‘awarded’ with suffering and sending them to the front to become cannon fodder.
After the decision of the Federal Assembly on June 26, 1999 ended of the state of war in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the conditions were formally created for the return of everyone who left the country after or directly before the beginning of the NATO bombing. Ending the state of war cancelled the federal government’s wartime decrees that limited the individual rights of citizens, but the decrees of the President of the Republic of Serbia, which essentially limited or cancelled the basic human rights of the citizens of the Republic of Serbia, remained. (The limited or nonexistent rights included the right to assemble, freedom of movement, the freedom from unwarranted search and seizure, and the right to habeas corpus.) Additionally, the Serbian decrees encouraged the strict enforcement of legalistic administrative procedures and jail sentences for violators of regulations about registering one’s place of residence and requiring that everyone older than 14 have an ID card). Legally, these decrees are unconstitutional because the state of war is over, as their validity is strictly connected to the state of war. It is not expected that the Serbian regime will be guided by legal and constitutional principles to cancel these regulations.
According to the viewpoint held in this country, and especially abroad, formally ending the state of war created the conditions for the safe return of everyone who left the country. Consequently, new waves of deportations of war opponents and conscientious objectors from Western Europe can begin. With the creation and adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, as well as the regulatory measures related to SR Yugoslavia, the international community quite unexpectedly and unwarrantably failed to require SR Yugoslavia to quickly enact a policy on amnesty which would grant amnesty from criminal prosecution to deserters and all perpetrators of criminalized political acts which were directly connected to the Kosovo crisis and the political situation in Yugoslavia. These fundamental failings illustrate the utmost indifference towards those who are possibly the biggest opponents of the regime and call into question the international community’s proclaimed goal of regime change in Serbia.
What are only the deserters waiting for?
Everyone who did not present legitimate excuses within a specific time to the recruitment centers or disobeyed announcements related to the war, carrying arms, military service deadlines, military exercises, or another military obligation will be punished with jail sentences ranging from one to ten years if they were called up by their unit or a general mobilization and if these acts were carried out in wartime. Everyone who hid themselves in order to avoid military obligations, would be mobilized individually or as part of a general mobilization. Everyone who left the country or stayed abroad to escape recruitment for military service or military exercises would be punished with jail sentences ranging from five to 20 years if their action happened during a state of war.
The number of conscripts who emigrated directly before or during wartime or who remained in the country but did not respond to military mobilizations is not known. These facts are impossible to find. According to unverified information, criminal charges were filed or will be filed against everyone who left the country and did not contact the Yugoslav diplomatic or consular representatives who regulated military obligations. They will be prosecuted and punished according to the criminal regulations which were in place during the state of war, without respect to when the legal proceedings against them started.
A consequence of the enactment of the Yugoslav laws and policies about amnesty is that deserters and perpetrators of criminalized political acts are not able to return to the country after the end of the state of war and integrate themselves into the processes of reconciliation, restoration and democratization. A specific problem presents itself in the cases of Kosovar Albanians who have been sentenced to jail for criminalized political acts and are in jail in Serbia proper. Another set of difficult cases are those of foreign journalists and activists from foreign and international nongovernmental organizations (CARE-Australia, for example) who were arrested and sentenced during the state of war. These are in addition to many different forms of political games and manipulations and false narratives and causation.
For now, there is not the political will to enact official policies on amnesty in Serbia. Additionally, the political parties—the governing parties as well as the opposition—do not think that amnesty is a burning question or that it is necessary for truthful renewal, reconciliation, and democratization. For now, the international community and the UN are not interested in pressing this issue. They are leaving this issue-as well as many others-to the citizens of SR Yugoslavia to resolve on their own.
The political complexity of the issue of amnesty is amplified because of strained and unresolved relations between the federal union and Montenegro and because of the new status of Kosovo. It is especially significant that a large number of Yugoslav citizens were mobilized and that the number of victims is still not reliably known. Because of this, one cannot have insight into the public mood towards the issue of amnesty for military deserters and the perpetrators of criminalized political acts. It is quite certain that this is one of the most sensitive issues that Serbia and SR Yugoslavia must resolve in the near future.
Knowledge about existing conditions, delicacy and information about this problem are needed among relevant legislative, judicial, and high executive offices in SR Yugoslavia and in the international community.
Biljana Kovacevic-Vuco
