`The star is broken, but even from the dust bird is singing...`
Korin Kumar
On 9th of July in Breath Theater Women in Black have organized international table `Transitional justice - feministic approach`.
We met eachother uningrained, but ingrained in `impetus of hope` (Martin Alonso), we were Women in Black, `we walked asking` (Korin Kumar) throughout many meridians: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Spain, Italy, India, Amerika..
Gendering of justice
We were hearing about the experience of institutional law system in fulfilling the justice, throught words of Mioljub Vitorović ( deputy of special attorney on war crimes of Special Court in Belgrade ), when he quoted one of English philosophers : ` The only necessary thing needed for triumph of evel is that good people do nothing `, through the experience of Dragoljub Todorović ( in the name of Humanitarian Law Fund who had the authorisation to represent victim families regarding war crimes, in eleven cases ), through professional engagement of Vesna Rakić Vodinelić, who spoke about responsability of journalists during criminal regime.
`Imagine beyond lines...` ( Biljana Kašić )
We were gendering the justice. And then we have heared voices of women and men :
Memnuna Zvizdić ( Žene ženama, Sarajevo ) gave the introduction : ` Justice is a
human right on dignity `, Martin Alonso ( Kantabria ), spoke about Spanish republic
as ` building one dream `, Patricia spoke about Italian experience of fashism :
` thurst for thruth and justice `, Nora Ahmetaj ( Prishtina ), who said : ` To women
on Kosovo was very significant that Women in Black apology for Serbian regime
crimes in Kosovo during 90 – es `, Nataša Kandić ( Humanitarian Law Fund from
Belgrade ), talked about RECOM, Ljupka Kovačević ( Anima, Montenegro ), said
something about ` path of creating despair ` in Montenegro during 90 – es, Miloš
Urošević ( from Women in Black in Belgrade ) testifying about feministic ethics
of care : ` In the court we spent 225 days with victims, regarding crimes committed
in our names `, Christina Morus ( USA ) said : ` When USA became nation, there
was genocide committed on aborigin indian population, 80 – 90% of them were
exterminated `.
`Beauty should be approachable to everybody` ( Mothers from May square )
Beliving that ` Theater do not provide us with the answers easily, but asks difficult
questions `, we talked about Brecht thought - ` Will there be singing during the
hard times `..We heard women testimonies about engaged art in transitional justice from Dijana Milošević ( director of Breath Theater ) : ` with our theater as peace instrumentality, we establish lasting/remembering/historical memory `, actress Maja Mitić : ` I live utopia and I feel good that I belong to revolutionaries who are changing the world ` ..Sanja Krsmanović – Tasić : ` I started an important dream, that I am still dreaming `..Ivana Milenović..
` Women trials – sin of silence and risk of speech ` ( Memnuna Zvizdić )
We were silent and gave ourselves the opportunity to hear the others. We spoke about the alternative Law system – women trials. We were breaking the silence,..
Coordinator from India ( organized 24 women trials ) spoke about Comission for truth and reconciliation in South Africa, said : ` Comission offered the truth, there might of been a reconciliation, but justice intermeted `..Talking about women trials she said : ` We need different view to observe justice `. .` We watched the world with women ` s eyes ` said Lepa Mladjenović....Memnuna talked about women trials as ` humanization of justice in resistance against the alienation, toward the uniformity and differences in hopes of all women, as remembering and history in context of public testifying `..` By listening testimonies of victims, we put in context what happened `.., Korin Kumar concluded.
` Protective riddles – security as solidarity ` ( Staša Zajović )
She was knitting filaments throught ` activism throught seducing ` ( Yolanda Agilar ), ` in our alternative law system, victims are in focus `. ` She gave legitimacy to emotions, relief to pain, talking to all of us about meetings of Women in Black with women from Srebrenica. ` Each of us had fear and guiltiness. Their fear is because I am coming from the state who killed her beloved, my fear was how I will be accepted, because she is a victim of crime committed in my name. Her guiltiness is because she stayed alive, mine is in being a woman who comes from the state which organized those crimes `. ( Staša Zajović ).
Testifying through the experience of our bodies...
While mother Meira ( Bosnian women whose son and daughter were killed in Serbian concentration camp Omarska ) testified, we were going through experience of pain: ` When they took my children to the camp, I felt unhuman strength inside of me. I searched for them and when I found out that they are gone, then I searched for their dead bodies, knowing that they are not alive any more. When mass tombs started opening, I checked every bone searching for them `. Then Korine Kumar said sentence of one Budist monk : ` Please do not walk over my tears `..Mother Žanka ( woman who lost her son during NATO intervention ) who testified together with mother Meira who said: ` I got dead body of my son and I can visit his grave though many people ca not, they still have not found their dead`..
Weerisomeness of living in body – Presidency of Serbia/Republic Square and Serbian fashism
` Fashists want our physical destruction ` - Mariemme Helie Lucas
There were around one hundred women in black in front of Presidency of Serbia
holding banners : ` 11th of July – A day to remember Srebrenica ` s genocide – Proclaim it `, ` Responsibility `, ` Solidarity `, ` Women in Black for peace and human rights `. For six months already we protest every eleventh in month demanding that 11th of July should be proclaimed as the ` Day to remember Srebrenica ` s genocide `. We find only silence, we are under the burden of silence about crime committed in our names. Police squad on the Republic square devide us from the rest of population, protecting ` pro – mladic ` and ` pro – Karadzic ` from us and not vice versa. They are protesting during our vigil. Holding photos of Mladić and Karadzić, of Russian dictator Putin and insult us through their filthy tongue words like - ` `Black whores`, `Whores, dreg, may Soros fuck you`, `Ustas’ whores`, `Albanian whores`, `Out of Serbia`, `May Naser Orić fuck you`, `Kill, kill homos`, `Put those roses in your ass`, `Serbia to Serbs, get out Turks`, `Where are your witches: Biserko, Vučo, Kandić`, `We wont give you Mladić but will give you Tadić`, `Russia and Serbia, Orthodox Unia`, `Serbian Serbia, Kosovo and Metohia` , `Homo freacks`, `Come to us without police`, `Go to Kravica`, `Go to Bratunac`, `Rasim Turk suck the cock`, `You took our apartments that`s why we are on the streets`, `Who pays you`, `If the general is arrested we`ll take guns and kill you all`, `Where is Kandić – do you have kids whore`, `We wish you never to take off black robes`, `We are going never to come back` ( hymn of Unit for special operations), ` Honour, Serbia, Kosovo and Metohia`, `Federation go – fuck you, Srpska can live without you`, `Bullet in your heads`, `Srpska and Serbia, united as state`, `You have polluted this square, we`ll have to wash it with forcing pumps`, `Every Turk knows, every Turkish woman as well, that Obilić slayed Murat`, `You whores and junkies, how much they pay you for this`, `Did anybody of your families got killed in Bosnia`, 'Witches you`re laying`, `You are the garbage of Serbia`, `Throw bombs četniks`, `From Topola to Ravna Gora` ( četnik `s hymn ), `Get ready četniks`, `Let DOS pussies know that if they arrest the general, all the Serbs will take guns and kill you all’ etc..We hold big black banner on which is written with white letters : ` Not to forget Srebrenica `s genocide `. It is the act of civil responsibility. On the square there is a vinyl with 8.372 white roses and around it are three words : responsability, solidarity, we remember. White roses as a symbol of sadness and compassion with victims, words solidarity and responsibility consigned to victims of Srebrenica ` s genocide..
And Serbian fashists yell all the time. I feel ashamed. A cosmic loneliness at that moment and we in the public space of the state who with great burden of crimes that we inherited make visible the pain and suffering of others. Some of us transform guiltiness in the act of responsibility, some by feeling ashamed and in compassion with victims. And to some only shame is left. Together with us there are our friends from Bosnia and Herzegovina and our friends from all over the world.
Weerisomeness of living in body – Srebrenica/Potočari
` Through ritual of sadness/mourning we communicate in symbolic way with dead ones `
A bus full of us, fifty women and couple of men in black from Serbia and from abroad, departured to Potočari. Fourteen years have passed since Srebrenica ` s genocide happened. It ` s raining. In memorial center we layed the wreath of white roses and chrysanthemum : ` Not to forget Srebrenica ` s genocide `. We hold the black banner with white letters on which is written - ` Not to forget Srebrenica ` s genocide `. This year we witnessing of burial of 543 remains of dead. We are surrounded with coffins.
There is no justifying with - ` We did`nt know `, any more. The remains of the dead
say to us : ` it was not civil war, so do not speak about armed conflict, it was Serbian aggression and do talk of the context/character of the war `.We meet our friends, women from Srebrenica. Here are Haira, Nura, Rejiha, Naza, Munira, Zumra, Kada. We meet our friend Šuhra Malić, Hatidža Mehmedović, those who came back among the first to Srebrenica/Potočare. There are many friends of ours who burry someone from her/his family. We embrace, beside graves and then we are going to Srebrenica, in the House of Confidence. I think of Belgrade in Srebrenica, of Srebrenica in Belgrade and remember Susan Sontag ` s words - ` here and there `.
Noted by Miloš for Women in Black.
Following the trials on war crimes :
Punishment of crimes – a way to just peace.
This has been a constant part of Women in Black’s activities both before and after the war. After the military intervention in 1999 and 2000, we followed the trials of victims of political repression.
- Trials before the fall of the regime:
Installed/political trials to members of Albanian nationality from Kosovo and from Serbia, in Niš and Belgrade: ( trial to Flora Brovina, Albin Kurti, Djakovica group, brother Mazreku, group of five Albanian students. )
In Serbia in 2003 a law was passed on the processing of war crimes. Institutions which are obliged to it are : Attorney on war crimes, War Crimes Council within District Court of Belgrade or Special Court and Service for Revealing war crimes within Ministry for Internal Affairs.
It is important as one of the institutional mechanisms for transitional justice.
Besides all the difficulties, these trials are going on. This court should be something like the domestic Tribunal in the Hague and once the Tribunal in the Hague has ended its work, the Special Court should take over and continue the work.
The advantages are that it deals with those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other severe violations of international humanitarian law. Since it was founded, the Attorney processed 275 persons, ( on the first level accused 24 persons, and legally-bound accused 5 persons, 5 of them received acquittals, 91 persons were accused and against 150 persons was organized investigation ).
Special Court on war crimes in Belgrade, like Hague Tribunal, does not have
in it’s statute crimes against peace/leading of the aggressor war, what Nuremberg Tribunal had, and this led to the context of war not being investigated, so the conflicts in former Yugoslavia were defined as armed/civil war and not Serbian aggression. All the crimes, as well, are presented as isolated cases/incidents and not as planned, organized and executed by the state. Further, the Special court only deals with low level accused persons and does not deal with perpetrators who were high level military and political officials.
They still remain beyond justice and continue living unpunished. There are many
examples ( from Goran Radosavljević – Guri, to Obrad Stevanović, Božidar Delić,
Veljko Kadijević, Blagoje Adžić, Života Panić and of course Dobrica Ćosić. )
The following trials either already occurred or are still occurring:
• Ovčara, ¸¸škorpioni¸¸, Anton Lekaj, Sinan Morina, Zvornik, Sjeverin, Podujevo, Banski Kovačevac, Grubješino polje, Lovas, Suva Reka, Tuzlanska kolona.
There are a lot of war crimes and even more perpetrators, but there is not enough space, so the trials are too long and there are too few of them. Thus lack of capacity is a huge problem. Also, There is a lack of financial resources. It has only five judges for war crimes. The Constitutional Court of Republic of Serbia overturns every verdict and starts a new trial, continuing the policy of not punishing. The families of victims are not attending or following the procedures because it is humiliating and exhausting for them.
Women in Black have followed and are following those trials :
• ¨škorpioni¨ ( od decembra 2005 do aprila 2007. ) – 39 dana
• Suva Reka ( od oktobra 2006. do aprila 2009. ) – 97 dana
• Lovas ( od aprila 2008. ) – 52 dana
• Podujevo ( od septembra 2008. do juna 2009. ) – 27 dana
• Zvornik ( od marta 2009. ) – 10 dana
Women in Black has spent 225 days following trials.
It is not significant because it is covered only by two press agencies. This shows that Serbian society is not interested in facing the past and punishing war crimes. Society keeps living in an unpunishing culture, incapable of empathy with all those who are other and different, and with all those who survived war crimes committed in our names. Our activist Persa Vučić follows all the trials and writes and publishes her reports in the journal ¨ Republic ¨.
No, we cannot.News on the trials is always very short and not so frequent in the press and electronic medias. The public is also not very interested in being very well informed on the war crimes process because the public’s attitude is that they should not deal with the past, that it should be forgotten because it was bad and that we should turn to the future. Further, many believe that the past is unchangeable and that it should be hidden under the carpet. In a society that seeks collective amnesia, war crimes that were committed in the name of that society should not be spoken about. Society desires a future without critical review, and without it, an ideal and desired future is impossible.
It is important for many reasons. It is the best way of gathering knowledge on the current model of transitional justice within the institutional law system. It helps us better understand how transitional justice can create a stronger feeling of responsibility in civil society in terms of facing the past. It also contributes to making the public more sensitive toward war crimes committed in our names. It is also our way to express solidarity with victims. Contacts with relatives of the victims, who also follow the trials, is precious to us in a moral, political and emotional sense. We organize meetings with relatives of the victims as a part of our activities. We also hold meetings with representatives of organizations from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo, who attend the trials. We organize discussions both within the Women in Black network and in public, and we write reports and analysis.
We attend trials, because we want to hear the voices of those who survived, to hear their story, what happened to them, to open the space for confidence, compassion, to say that we know what happened, to recognize their suffering, to say we are sorry. To be together with them in the state we inherited, in the one who led war, was killing them, to make it easier for them in the court.
Milos for Women in Black
