So this is freedom

After the first of May, the third, which is World Press Freedom Day. To mark the occasion, Freedom House has issued its 2007 press freedom survey, and its press releases today include a number of regional reports on press freedom this year. The report categorizes the press in Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Serbia as "partly free," noting the types of pressure and attacks that have been discussed here and on other Balkan blogs, as well as a lot of other places.

Among the failed regional events scheduled to celebrate the day, the Union of Journalists of Serbia (UNS -- not to be confused with the Independent Union of Journalists of Serbia, NUNS) was to deliver an award to Denis Latin, editor and host of the popular TV program Latinica. Latin refused the award, telling Index:

"my moral principles and human conscience will not allow me to accept this award from the hands of the leadership of the Union of Journalists of Serbia who not so long ago showed themselves to be celebrators of crime, destruction, and the occupation of Vukovar. They may have had good intentions, and the award may have some some point. However, the problem is with the leading figures of that Union which played a quite infamous role at the time of the destruction and occupation of Vukovar. I am simply not comfortable accepting the award."

The same article from Index quoted above has some interesting explanation and self-justification from UNS president Nino Brajović about his own role at the time (it is cited to Slobodna Evropa, but I have not found the original). None of which prevented him from writing a letter to Latin in which he laments:

"Sadly, the situation is such that that it is still impossible to carry on a strictly professional discussion, without politicizing and malicious pressures."

But in that regard, he is probably speaking for himself (despite writing as the head of a professional association).

Živio 1. maj!

I neglected to post anything for International Workers' Day (in the Stati Uniti, Loyalty Day), but Seesaw most certainly did not.

The US is of course the only country in which I have lived where 1 May is not celebrated, which is odd, considering the events that led to its becoming an international holiday.

Concrete-eating dogs?

I can confirm that there are dogs who will eat anything, and also that it is vitally important to get a diet with sufficient minerals. This does not mean, however, that I find the story of the psi betonožderi of Piva wholly credible.

Update: Silly me. Rats. That resemble dogs. If you met my dog, you would understand how easy it was for me to become confused.

Ivica Račan

He was ill for a while, and it was expected, but this morning Ivica Račan passed away. He may have done less than what could have been hoped, but his influence was generally positive and hopeful, and in contrast with many of his contemporaries on the political scene, he seemed to be a decent person. The competition to take over leadership of his party has already begun, and if it produces a new generation of leaders who are oriented toward the future, that will be a unique legacy.

Adventures on the employment front

A happily anonymous friend writes of her recent job interview at an institution which will also remain happily anonymous:

The [adjective applying name of university] were not exactly a love at first sight. They are more like a former polytechnic with an excellent business school, 5 sociology people total so far, no research funds of their own, they were even asking how much money exactly I will be able to bring per semester if [name of a perfectly innocent friend whose project we work on]'s project continues, and can I guarantee that the article that I have under revision is going to be published by December 2008 (RAE cut-off deadline). Plus (or minus) large teaching load with students who take sociology for instrumental reasons mostly. Ooh, I should also mention one puffin-guy with a "am I not an aristocrat bohemian" look, who asked if for my research on antinationalism and women's groups I would not use Žižek's work on hegemony? My reply: I could not possibly rely on my concepts of hegemony vs. nationalism taken from a person whose empirical knowledge ends with the view of his kitchen (if that). There was also a [name of an academic discipline which is not ours] professor with the look "I should be at a better university" who asked how I would object to some Weberian criticism that what I am doing is too political. My reply: I don't think that Weber suggested that we abandon politics.

Hideous poor library they have for social sciences, old books, no money for JSTOR database even. But business school is thriving.

On the top of all, they staged the interviews like it was recruitment for a professorship, asking candidates to make two different presentations to two different audiences. I should say that there were some quite friendly faculty people who also looked like they would be trying to get jobs elsewhere.

Thank you, my comrades-musketeers, for writing the letters, let's hope that if you would be pestered to write them again it would be for a more research oriented interesting place. The proximity to [toponyms for locations more appealing than the unnamed one] was the primary reason for me applying. Apart from that, I, of course, do have some torments of conscience for criticizing [unnamed university], because such universities have 2, 3 times larger presence of students children of newer immigrants than, say, Uni [deleted toponym which appears frequently in the work of Billy Bragg]. And now you know everything you always did not need to know about [unnamed university].

One bonus detail I just remembered from yesterday:
Professor Dr. Herr [surname of a person] also asked (cautiously half-smiling like he feared I may jump and bite if he moves too swiftly) if I had instances when people were strongly objecting to what I am saying in class (I think he meant if some Serbs and Albanians were attempting to murder me or each other in my classes). The question really is why one SHOULD be AFRAID of that while doing research, and since when it is ordered that we should try not to disturb feelings of hatred or ignorance. Long live intellectuals' courage Made in the West (sadly it WAS made in the West)!

I am happy to say that she is happily employed at a happier place than this one.

Technocracy

As the weeks drag on from January's elections in Serbia, there is still no governing coalition in sight. SRS got more seats than any other party, but no party will enter into a coalition with it. DSS took a distant third, but cannot countenance the possibility of losing complete control over both the premiership and the "power" ministries. DS leads the pack among the Loose Grouping of Parties That Are Not SRS, but is demanding more than DSS is willing to give. G-17+ is happy just to be there, and LDP is not on anybody's list of coalition partners nor does it want to be.

Today the junior partner of DSS, Velimir Ilić, floated the possibility that everyone has been muttering under their breath since the elections: that DSS and whatever the heck his party is called would try to form a minority government with the support of SRS, which would be handed control over the parliament. It is not as implausible as it sounds, since DSS has experience with governing as a minority with distasteful backbench support, and DSS has more in common with SRS than with its other potential coalition partners. A government of this type would be short-lived, chaotic, and phenomenally unsuccessful, and at the cost of doing lasting damage to the country would have the beneficial side effect of demolishing DSS. A victory worthy of Pyrrhus of Epirus, in the eyes of some.

Naturally, it is not to be. SRS quickly declared that they were not disposed to carry the weight of another party's failure, and Mr Ilić's effort to scare his coalition partners into submission backfired. So now it is back to pretending to carry out negotiations with people he fully intends to stab in the back, and to treating the electorate as though its principal duty is to assure that anybody who once controlled a ministry will always have large quantities of public property at their disposal.

Jao, baš je super!

Kryptonite mining comes to Serbia.

Troljetka

The Let 3 blog has launched.

Another reminder -- get the guidelines and submit, submit, submit!

REMINDER - The Muabet Project at the Watson Institute at Brown University is accepting submissions for the essay competition entitled "Evaluating Intervention: Local perspectives on democracy-building in the Post-Yugoslav countries and territories." Students, scholars, professionals, activists and practitioners in the region are invited to submit essays which analyze the social, cultural, political or economic dimensions of international involvement in transition. Essays can be in English, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Albanian or Macedonian, and the deadline for online submission is MAY 18.

Further details, as well as downloadable versions of the call for papers in languages of the region, are available at http://watsoninstitute.org/muabet/contest.html

Does anybody regret the demise of SPO?

Interesting remarks today by a person who will not be minister of culture for very long, if by "interesting" you mean "utterly foolish and morally leprous." Dragan Kojadinović comments on the recent attempt to assassinate Dejan Anastasijević by pointing out that if he would just fail to do his job, live like a hermit, and have absolutely no expectation of anything as exotic as law enforcement, he would be just fine. Says Mr Kojadinović:

"Anastasijević is an exceptionally good professional, he does something which is unfortunately rare in this country, and that is analytic journalism. His themes are dangerous themes. If I were in his place, I would not permit my child to come home at 3:00 AM, I would not live in that apartment in Vračar, no matter how big it is. He could exchange that apartment for one that is not so nice, but more secure. This has affected me so much that I have considered all aspects of Anastasijević's security. If I were in his place, as a journalist, I would never let myself do this. We can blame the state, we can demand protection from the police, but first we should do everything to protect ourselves."

So for heaven's sake everyone -- do not do your job well, speak the truth, live a normal life, or in any way make anything inconvenient public, particularly if you live somewhere. We still do not know whether Mr Kojadinović has any comment on the housing situation of Dinko Gruhonjić. No doubt he knows where he lives, since the gentlefolk at Stormfront do.

On the off chance that you have not read it already, here is what Dejan Anastasijević has to say about the situation himself.

Update: Students get it, politicians do not. Surprise.

And Plan Nine?

The interview was certainly done before the first of many resignations from the negotiating team was announced this morning, but here is what sometime East Ethnian Florian Bieber had to tell Slobodna Evropa about the future of Kosovo and "Plan B."

For the record, na engleskom

Here is the letter that Geoffrey Nice sent to several newspapers, and here is the response by OTP.

And here is my take: whatever may have happened with regard to documents being made available (or, as it turned out, not being made available) to the parties before ICJ, the very narrow interpretation of the law by the court's majority would probably have produced the same verdict. That may be as far as it goes for the lawyers behind the bench and at either table facing. But of course, it goes a lot further for researchers -- make the documents public, and we will interpret them without the constraints that ICTY and ICJ have.

Horrifying, wretched story from Virginia Tech

You already know about it. Now tell me, since firearms are banned from every place where privileged people in positions of power and influence congregate -- and where ordinary humans who never carry weapons are subject to various forms of humiliation in order to enforce this ban -- why are they not banned from every other place as well? Get moving, irresponsible politicians.

Beasts of burden

Call it a big event, it would be better if wild horses were to drag them away.

Update: Elvis Burazerović has a fine name and a good point. He says, "Surely our big city has enough open spaces where even 150,000 people can fit in. We think the Hippodrome should be left to horses."

Essay competition: "Evaluating intervention"

Just a reminder to everyone that the deadline for submissions for the essay competition "Evaluating Intervention: Local perspectives on democracy-building in the Post-Yugoslav countries and territories," is coming quickly on 18 May. We are hoping for a whole lot of really outstanding articles.

Back from NY

We just got back from lovely New York City, were planning on spending a longer weekend but Sunday's rainstorm with high wind persuaded us to just pack up and begin the trek back to Boston more or less persuaded that it would be slow. Highlights of the ASN conference were mostly seeing friends, but there was a fine panel "fieldwork after fire" in which Orli Fridman, Chip Gagnon and Saša Milićević stepped down, in different ways, from the academic pose of objectivity to discuss ways in which the real experience of real contact with real people, good and bad, transformed their perceptions of what they were doing and why. There was also a screening of the very fine film on Vukovar by Janko Baljak and Drago Hedl -- great documentary work, with amazing footage of various bad guys (particularly Brana Crnčević and Tomislav Merčep) continuing to lie about what they did. Surprisingly, there was not much said in the film about various good guys, including Josip Reihl-Kir.

It was also nice to find out what you get when you type "hrpa bezveznjaka" into Google.

Ivica Račan

I have just been informed by a friend, but have not yet seen in the news, that Ivica Račan died this morning.

Update: I will have to guess, since nobody is confirming the news, that either there is a conspiracy or there is a false alarm. I'm going with false alarm.

East Ethnia: Back with you as if it had never been gone

After ten days of confusion, rushing about, and bricolage, my dear pet computer is back from the majstori. Apparently it needed a new hard disc, so Apple sent one, but it was a bad one, and Apple had to send another. Srpska posla s tim jabukama! This comeback post jets your way from some random hotel lobby, where I am waiting for the bus that will take me to bucolic New York, where every April the world's finest Balkanologists attend the ASN conference.

I know that I have missed major events which could have made for some fine blogging. Will be right on it.

An explanation for blog silence

Nothing dramatic. It's the usual end of the semester work crunch, plus my computer is at the vet. Posting will be fairly intermittent for a while. East Ethnia, as always, thanks its readers for their patience.

Guidance

If you are looking for sensible commentary, you can always rely on Richard Falk. And if you are looking for guidance on the difference between right and wrong, Anegdote has that.

Raštafarijanizam

One of our happier surprises last summer was going to dinner with some friends at a place they chose, Restoran Oskar in Dorćol. This was in fact a place we had passed hundreds of times but never noticed, its appearance is not remarkable from the outside and not much more remarkable inside (when we arrived, we were the only customers save for a couple of cops who were watching a football match). The food was traditional and perfectly prepared, and nicely set off by good rakija and some outstanding Slovenian wine.

Like in so many good places, the best approach at Oskar is to ignore the menu and ask the waiter what is good today. On that day they were featuring sarme (lamb sarme!) with raštan kupus, and the waiter more or less insisted that we have this Montenegrin specialty. Everyone at the dinner will support me in saying these were the best sarme we had eaten in our lives. And naturally we became addicted to raštan, got it and made some sarme of our own, and began to lament the fate the fate that awaited us on our return to a forlornly raštan-free Massachusetts. Apparently other lovers of that little slice of leafy heaven have confronted the same problem.

But now a friend of East Ethnia writes in to tell us that, after exhaustive and delicious research, he has determined that raštan is nothing more or less than that humble and hearty (and monumentally healthy) Southern staple, the collard green. I love them, children hate them, and the bitterness can be turned into a fine sweetness by sauteeing them with a bit of vinegar. Anyone who is intimidated by their healthiness should be reassured by the fact that they go best with some nice, greasy, salty smoked meat.

This also solves an old East Ethnian mystery. Way back in 2006, we posted a photo of a proud farmer with what had to be the biggest kupus anyone had seen. A canny philologist noted that it looked a lot like blitva. Well, there you have it.

Izadjite na terasu....

If you are not happy with your dictionary, that may be because of the way it subjects the nice Morava-Vardar race to the spendthrifty Dinarians. So say a bunch of deep thinkers, who will no doubt say it again.

Up jumped the US representative, he's the one with the tired eyes

I know I haven't been posting much lately -- it's been a busy period at work, and with Mrs Ethnia off on a trip, this has given me the heavy but delightful obligation of single-fathering it these past couple of weeks. Expect the pace to pick up over the weekend.

In the meantime, a faithful reader, who is just fine but prefers to remain anonymous, writes in to ask for your recommendations for the most fabulous new Balkan films. Recommend them in the comments!

The first time as tragedy, the second time as impossibly close to satire

Things that just cannot be made up: who is getting paid to advise the US military on how to transform the wretchedly disastrous and ill-conceived adventure in Iraq into something much worse? You must have already guessed: somebody with experience in that area.

News flash: Drunken twit makes fool of self

As reported here. And also here.

Hardly knew ye

A year ago Slobodan Milošević died. The manner of his death was different from those of the people whose deaths he caused. He was not shot in the street, or kidnapped and shot, or run into by a truck filled with sand on the highway. He was not pulled out of a hospital and shot in a field. He was not kidnapped from a train after which all trace of him was lost. He was not incinerated in a bombing or killed by sniper fire from the hills. He was not rounded up with the other surviving males from his town and shot. His body was not transported by freezer truck to an air base under cover of night. He was not left to face a bombing attack on RTS while the higher-ranking employees evacuated.

Most indications are that he is still dead.

69% support, sort of

I expect there is quite a bit more in the raw data than in the part of the announcement that is carried in this news story. Strategic's survey finds that 69% of people in Serbia support cooperation with ICTY, 15% for reasons of justice, 28% to avoid negative consequences, and 26% to satisfy the EU. I'd like to do some crosstabs and longitudinals on that.

Update: OSCE has the summary.

The royal y'all

My favorite newspaper Press carries a declaration from RS politicians. Pay attention to the prepositional phrase that begins the first sentence:

"U ime Republike Srpske, odbacujemo kao zlonamerne i štetne sve pokušaje da se nametne kolektivna krivica za zločine počinjene u proteklom ratu i na tako iskrivljenoj slici izazove nasilna i radikalna promena ustavnog uređenja Bosne i Hercegovine, na štetu RS i njenih građana, precizira se u zajedničkoj izjavi srpskih zvaničnika u BIH i RS."

Hey guys (and they are all guys):

1. Vas šestorica niste "Republika Srpska,"
2. Šteta ne bi bila po građane nego po vas,
3. Nije bre narod kriv nego ste vi.

Jean Baudrillard

Goodbye, Jean Baudrillard. It was real. Very real. Too real.

For your reading pleasure

Now available from the Džeferson Institut in Belgrade: Informal Economies of St. Petersburg: Ethnographic Findings on the Cross Border Trade, by Irina Olimpieva, Oleg Pachenkov and Lubov Ejova with Eric Gordy. It's a short text, perfect for an afternoon on the beach.

Passed on without comment

Man drives stake in grave of Slobodan Milošević.

Long post: Q and A on the ICJ verdict

As I promised, a review of the ICJ’s decision in the “Case Concerning the Applcation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro).” The decision is long and dense, 171 pages of pure lawyerese. Summaries are already available in other places, so what I will try to do here is discuss some of the most important issues in a question and answer format. I haven't taken the separate opinions and dissents into account.

1. What does the decision have to say about the jurisdiction of ICJ?

There are no surprises on the question of whether the court has the authority to hear the case. They affirmed their previous rulings. The first 53 pages of the decision are dedicated to recounting the history of the case and to supporting the court’s decision that it has jurisdiction in the matter.

The discussion of the applicability of the Genocide Convention begins on page 54. Here the court affirms its jurisdiction to rule on disputes under the Genocide Convention, but at the same time limits the scope of its ability to rule to Article IX of the Convention. The effect of this is stated in the judgment:

“[The court] has no power to rule on alleged breaches of other obligations under international law, not amounting to genocide, particularly those protecting human rights in armed conflict” (55, para. 147).

The effect of this is to stake the entire force of the judgment on the question of whether or not the events in question constituted genocide – the court has declared that it is not authorized to rule whether crimes against humanity or war crimes occurred. What this means is that any set of facts which are found to amount to something other than genocide are excluded from the verdict. There seems to be a strong implication in several of the court’s findings that the facts correspond to the definition of crimes against humanity, but in the paragraph cited above they have forbidden themselves from saying so.


2. Can a state be charged with genocide?

The next big issue which the court takes on is whether genocide can be taken up legally as a question of state responsibility rather than the responsibility of individuals. The position of the Serbian representatives was that “the Genocide Convention does not provide for the responsibility of States for acts of genocide as such. The duties prescribed by the Convention relate to ‘the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide’ when this crime is committed by individuals” (59, para. 156). The court concludes that the Convention does prohibit states from committing genocide, and that states can also be held liable for complicity (63-64, paras. 166-169). What may be most important here is the court’s affirmation of “the duality of responsibility” (65, para. 173), by which international law binds both individuals and states. So the court concludes that “if an organ of the State, or a person or group whose acts are legally attributable to the State, commits any of the acts proscribed by Article III of the Convention, the international responsibility of that State is incurred” (67, para. 179). The court goes on to establish that it can find a state has committed genocide even if no individual has been convicted (68, paras. 180-182).

The strongest implication of this relates to individuals who have been charged with genocide by the ICTY. The ICJ has nothing to say about their guilt or innocence, but it has restricted itself to determining whether their “acts are legally attributable to the State.”


3. Has the court applied an unreasonably narrow definition of genocide?

I don’t think that I can conclusively answer the question of what is reasonable or not. This would seem to depend on the outcome that the person asking the question prefers. Would you like future courts to determine that genocide happens frequently or rarely?

However, it is clear that the court opted for a very narrow definition of definition of genocide, and a very high standard for evidence for demonstrating the elements of the crime. The terms in the Genocide Convention that are the source of the most controversy are “intent,” “group” and “part.” So let’s take them one by one.

The issue of intent is, possibly, the source of the most controversy in the case. The Genocide Convention requires a showing of genocidal intent, and the court opts for a narrow definition: they demand specific evidence of genocidal intent, and repeat that it must be “defined very precisely” (70, para. 187), with evidence of “something more” (70, para. 187; yes, this is really the language they used!), and there must be “a sufficiently clear manifestation of that intent” (70, para. 189). The court did not find the evidence of intent presented by the plaintiffs persuasive (132-133, paras. 371-372; 133-134, paras. 374-376). This means that the fact that the crimes took place is not sufficient, nor is a pattern of facts sufficient. A finding of genocide as opposed to a finding of crimes against humanity requires specific and direct evidence of intent (70, para. 188). But Catch-22, the court has already found (55, para.147) that it has no authority to find that crimes against humanity were committed!

In a related fashion, the court finds that the popular term “ethnic cleansing” has no specific legal meaning, and finds that in absence of specific evidence of intent “[n]either the intent, as a matter of policy, to render an area ‘ethnically homogeneous,’ nor the operations that may be carried out to implement such policy, can as such be designated as genocide” (71, para. 190). This may be another Catch-22, as they appear to be ruling out the use of intent as evidence of intent.

Another part of the Genocide Convention that is vague has to do with the provision that genocide involves “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such” (Article II). The controversial elements have to do with defining “group” and “part.” The court draws mostly on ICTY and ICTR jurisprudence to arrive at a fairly narrow definition of “group,” which must have “a positive identification” (73, para. 194; this would appear to be confirming the respondents’ objection that the category “non-Serbs” was too vague to constitute a “group”). At the same time, they use interpretive criteria to set standards for the definition of “part” – the “part” must be “substantial” but can also be “geographically limited” (74, paras. 198-200). This is meaningful in the sense that it allows the court to find that genocide occurred in a particular place (say, Srebrenica) without having to find that it occurred in the entire country.


4. Did the court adopt an unreasonably high standard of evidence?

In another finding that will have major implications for future cases, the court finds that the standard of proof should be high: “claims against a State involving charges of exceptional gravity must be proved by evidence that is fully conclusive” (76, para. 209). So they rejected the claim that charges could be proved by “a ‘pattern of acts’ that ‘speaks for itself’” (76, para. 207). This also meant that they determined to “treat with caution evidentiary materials specially prepared for the case and also materials emanating from a single source” (77, para. 213), while they regarded ICTY decisions (but not indictments) as reliable, as they had been tested both by the internal procedures of the prosecution and defense and by cross examination (78, para. 214). They also gave weight to reports “from official or independent bodies” if they were “the product of a careful court or court-like process” (81, para. 227). The last finding refers specifically to the 1999 UN Secretary General’s report on the fall of Srebrenica.

Whether this high standard is reasonable or not is of course a matter for legitimate debate. A recurrent controversy in the definition of the “intent” requirement of the Genocide Convention is whether this requires that a document be shown in which genocidal intent is clearly stated. It is not clear that such a document exists in any known case of genocide, and the reasons a government would have for not producing such a document are probably too obvious to state. It seems as if the “fully conclusive” standard requires this, and together with the rejection of the “pattern of acts” standard this does indeed mean that genocide is a very difficult charge to prove before ICJ.


5. How could the court find that VRS was not under the control of SRJ?

On the relationship between VJ and VRS, and on economic support of RS by SRJ, the court makes notes of the arguments by both parties (85-87, paras. 236-240). Their conclusion is that SRJ “was making its considerable military and financial support available to the Republika Srpska, and had it withdrawn that support, this would have greatly constrained the options that were available to the Republika Srpska authorities” (87, para. 241). Much of the uncertainty over the verdict turns over why this factual finding was interpreted as “failure to prevent and punish” but not as “complicity.” The parallel conclusion with regard to paramilitary forces (138-141, paras. 385-395) may be instructive: in order to attribute responsibility for unofficial units to a state, the court requires a showing of their “complete dependence” (140, para. 392) on the state. This is an alternate standard to the one requiring a showing that the state exercised “overall control” (143-144, para. 402), which the court rejected as too broad (144-145, para. 406). The principal reason for not finding that the “Scorpions” were “completely dependent” is that their cases and the cases of Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic have not yet been completed (141, para. 395). This line of reasoning might be thought of as hugely evasive, and could easily be interpreted as severely weakening the finding (141, para. 395) that “the acts of genocide at Srebrenica cannot be attributed to the Respondent.” However, the court treats as an established fact that the genocide was committed by VRS (150, para. 417). As to whether this acquits SRJ of complicity in genocide (which is in fact what the court found), the reasoning in paragraph 422 is instructive, and here is the relevant text:

“Undoubtedly, the quite substantial aid of a political, military and financial nature provided by the FRY to the Republika Srpska and the VRS, beginning long before the tragic events of Srebrenica, continued during those events. There is thus little doubt that the atrocities in Srebrenica were committed, at least in part, with the resources which the perpetrators of those acts possessed as a result of the general policy of aid and assistance pursued toward them by FRY. However, the sole task of the Court is to establish the legal responsibility of the Respondent, a responsibility which is subject to very specific conditions. One of those conditions is not fulfilled, because it is not established beyond any doubt in the argument between the Parties whether the authorities of the FRY supplied – and continued to supply – the VRS leaders who decided upon and carried out those acts of genocide with their aid and assistance, at a time when those authorities were clearly aware that genocide was about to take place or was under way; in other words that not only were massacres about to be carried out or already under way, but that their perpetrators had the specific intent characterizing genocide, namely, the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a human group, as such” (151-152, para. 422).

In this case, then it seems that the grounds for rejecting charges of complicity is that “full awareness” had “not been conclusively established” (152, para. 423). There might be a bit of a disjunction here with the finding that SRJ “could not have been unaware” (165, para. 461).

This does not apply to the charge of failure to prevent genocide, however. There the court finds that “the Respondent has not shown that it took any initiative to prevent what happened, or any action on its part to avert the atrocities which were committed. It must therefore be concluded that the organs of the Respondent did nothing to prevent the Srebrenica massacres, claiming that they were powerless to do so, which hardly tallies with their known influence over the VRS” (158, para. 438). Similarly with the charge of failure to punish, the court accepts that Serbian authorities knowingly harbored at least one fugitive (160-161, paras. 448-449).


6. How did the court determine that genocide was committed in Srebrenica but nowhere else?

In the long section (89-98, paras. 246-277) in which allegations of crimes other than Srebrenica are considered, with the general finding that these are either unproven or that they constitute something other than genocide. The principal sticking point has to do with “specific intent” (98, para. 277), but the court explicitly states that the fact that other elements of genocide, particularly the killing of substantial numbers of members of a group, were present. A similar finding is made with regard to systematic rape and other physical abuse: the facts are established, but not the intent (115, para. 319). And again the same finding is made with regard to the systematic shelling and sniper attacks against urban populations: the facts are established, but not the intent (118-119, para. 328). And again the same finding is made with regard to expulsion and forced resettlement: the facts are established, but not the intent (120, para. 334). And again the same finding is made with regard to the treatment of prisoners in camps: the facts are established, but not the intent (127, para. 354). They specifically rejected arguments on a point which was a major part of wartime publicity: the use of rape and sexual violence as a means of forcibly influencing demographic change (128-130, paras. 355-367)

Considering the evidence on the destruction of cultural and religious property, where the evidence of Andras Riedlmayer was the source on which the court relied most, the court found that the evidence established the facts, but decided not to consider destruction of cultural property as genocide (144, para. 344). Given the court’s narrow interpretation of the Genocide Convention elsewhere, it is not surprising that they did not decide to set a precedent that would expand the definition. But their endorsement of the facts and their inclusion of them in the record may be important in their own right. And the court did endorse the ICTY finding that “where there is physical and biological destruction there are often simultaneous attacks on the cultural and religious property and symbols of the targeted group as well, attacks which may legitimately be considered as evidence of an intent to physically destroy the group” (144, para. 344). So this opens the door to future consideration of cultural destruction as evidence of genocidal intent, regardless of the fact the court decided not to take that step in this case.

Comparing this analysis to the court’s analysis of Srebrenica, the importance of the ICTY verdicts becomes clear: among the most important foundations of the finding that genocide was committed at Srebrenica were the findings of ICTY against Krstic (105-106, paras. 292-293) and Blagojevic (106-107, paras. 294-295).


7. Can the decision be interpreted to imply that Slobodan Milosevic would have been acquitted of genocide if there had been a verdict in his trial?

There are several reasons why the ICJ decision does not have bearing on the case against Milosevic. Probably the main one is that the court was ruling on a different issue – not on the innocence or guilt of individuals, but on the responsibility of the state. In fact, the decision has very little to say about Milosevic. It also leaves untouched what could have been the central issue that could have linked the two cases, which is whether Milosevic acted as an agent of the state or as an individual. However, the findings do seem pretty clear in placing responsibility on Mladic and VRS rather than on SRJ. A lot of this seems to depend on the unresolved status of cases in other courts, though.

They do offer up a little tidbit, however. They seem to determine Milosevic’s “failure to prevent” (157, para. 437), citing Wesley Clark’s testimony at ICTY.


8. So, is Serbia off the hook?

No. Failure to prevent and punish genocide is a grave violation of international law, and it carries with it positive obligations. The verdict could have been more severe, but it is not a finding that the state is innocent.

The court rejected claims for financial reparations (165, para. 462), but did find that Serbia remains in violation of its obligation to punish genocide (166, paras. 464 and 465).


9. Who the %*&@$% are you to second-guess the world’s highest judicial institution?

Second-guess the ICJ? I wouldn’t dream of it. They are the world’s top lawyers, and I am just some guy with a funny looking dog. In fact, I am not even a lawyer, and anybody who uses me as a source of legal opinion has got to be out of their mind.

In fact, you should ignore everything I have said and have a look at what some real lawyers have to say:

Phon van den Biesen (representative of BH before ICJ)
Sakib Softic (representative of BH before ICJ)
Radoslav Stojanovic (representative of SRJ before ICJ)
Antonio Cassese (former presiding judge of ICTY)
Edina Becirevic (University of Sarajevo)
Martin Shaw (University of Sussex)
David Luban (Georgetown University)
Anthony Dworkin (Crimes of War project)

Shaina at Bosnia Vault and Observer at Neretva River are keeping good track of what the lawyers have to say.

Yugo faster than yu ought to

This was a home project that probably had to happen. For better or worse.

Photo courtesy of Jalopnik. Ko je dasa u ekstazi /
Kada preko stotke gazi?

Guest post: Another response to the ICJ ruling

A view opposed to what I posted below comes by e-mail from friend of East Ethnia (and plaintiffs' witness) Andras Riedlmayer. Here it is, shared with permission:

As you know, a summary of the judgement is posted at:

http://www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/ipresscom/ipress2007/isummary_2007-2_bhy_20070226.htm

There's this bit:

"[...] With respect to the destruction of historical, religious and cultural property, the Court finds that there is conclusive evidence of the deliberate destruction of the historical, cultural and religious heritage of the protected group. However, such destruction does not fall as such within the categories of acts of genocide set out in Article II of the Convention."

In other words: my evidence was found to be convincing, but legally irrelevant. The latter is more or less as expected, though disappointing all the same.

But the logic of the World Court's decision as a whole is troubling. As Le Figaro aptly headlined its report on the ICJ ruling:

"Srebrenica, un génocide sans coupable"

There's some measure of reassurance in the words of the dissenting opinion appended to the ICJ ruling by the Court's vice-president, Judge Al-Khasawneh:

[...] On the merits, Vice-President Al-Khasawneh felt that through a combination of methods and assumptions, uncalled for in law and not suitable to the facts of the case, the Court achieved the extraordinary feat of absolving Serbia of its responsibility for genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina save for failure to prevent the genocide at Srebrenica, where in any case he thought Serbian responsibility was more actively involved than the mere failure to prevent.

Firstly, since intent is usually elusive and, together with attributability, often carefully concealed, the Court should have sought access to the papers of the "Serbian Defence Council" which would probably have made the Court's task much easier. Refusal of Serbia to divulge documents should have led at least to more liberal recourse to evidence. By insisting on a very high evidentiary "standard" and no shifting of "Burden of proof", the Applicant was put at a huge disadvantage. Secondly, the Court also applied a strict test of effective control: the Nicaragua test, to a different situation where inter alia shared ethnicity and shared purpose to commit international crimes, e.g. ethnic cleansing, require only an overall control test. Thirdly, the Court also refused to infer genocide from a "consistent pattern of conduct" disregarding in this respect a rich and relevant jurisprudence of other courts. Fourthly, the Court failed to appreciate genocide as a complex crime and not a single murder. Therefore, events which when looked at comprehensively gave rise to responsibility of Serbia, were instead seen in a disconnected manner, e.g. the participation of General Mladic in Srebrenica and the role of the "Scorpions". Fifthly, even when there was a clear admission of guilt, e.g. the Serbian Council of Ministers' statement as a reaction to the video showing the execution of Muslim prisoners by the "Scorpions" was dismissed as a political statement though legal weight is attached to such statements in previous Court jurisprudence some of which the Court did not even invoke.

The Vice-President concluded that had the Court tried to see for itself it most probably would have found Serbia responsible either as principal or an accomplice in the genocide in Bosnia. This it could have done without losing the rigor of its reasoning or the high standards of evidence it required. With regard to Srebrenica he was sure that active Serbian involvement was proved to satisfactory to standards in facts and in law. [...]

--

Unfortunately, he was in the minority.

Initial response

I am still going to have to give the ICJ decision some study, but my initial take (brace yourselves and prepare to disagree vehemently) is that the judges made a pretty good decision.

Some of the reactions in BiH are unsurprisingly less than delighted. Sulejman Tihić probably spoke for a lot of people when he said he was "not completely satisfied" with a decision that confirmed that genocide occurred but did not confirm the government's claims about who was involved and about the scale. Victims' associations are a lot less satisfied, which is also to be expected. There are a couple of things to keep in mind here, though. First, the suit was filed in 1993, while the war was still going on, with the intention of producing a legal finding that would obligate other countries to intervene. It made maximal claims about the events, and the evidence to support these claims to the satisfaction of a high legal standard was not available at the time and still is not. So it is not surprising that several years later the court's interpretation should do something less than support maximal claims. This is not necessarily a bad thing, either, in the sense that it offers a basis that will let the BiH government move away from rhetorics of pure victimhood, and maybe toward a more inclusive account of what happened between 1992 and 1995.

In Serbia it does not seem that the judgment is being taken lightly. Over on the far right, Tomislav Nikolić stepped back from self-congratulation to show that he is aware that the finding that genocide occurred will not be useful to RS. No doubt he had in mind the court's statement that Serbia is obligated to support and assist in undoing of the results of genocide. B92 is offering more initial reactions, and while there are unsurprising comments from Vojislav Koštunica and Milorad Dodik interpreting the decision as a complete negation of responsibility, people with real responsibility are offering statements that are more, well, responsible. The statements by the lawyers for the defense and by Serbian war crimes prosecution spokesman Bruno Vekarić are constructive in the sense that they point to the "failure to prevent and punish" finding as obligating Serbia. President Boris Tadić took the opportunity to remind citizens that the state is obligated to clarify its position on the genocide that occurred. These are mostly useful responses.

The greatest hope was always that the court might find a way of reaching a conclusion that would move the process of open discussion forward rather than fixing it at some predetermined point. For now I am inclined to think that they did the best they could. Time will tell us a lot more, of course.

Having said that, it seems that there are also some important issues that are not resolved in the decision. The finding that a crime occurred but that nobody is guilty of committing it tends toward a bizarre sort of mysticism. And the finding that the Serbian state is not responsible seems to be based on a very strict interpretation of rules of evidence, in which the destruction or withholding of documentation may have proved to be an effective strategy, and indirect evidence was not treated as relevant. This seems to offer a sort of legal invitation to criminals to cover their tracks, and the precedent will probably be controversial.

Not everyone will agree with me, of course. What I have seen in Blogland so far: Viktor Marković was hoping for a middle path and got it, while Neretva River flows colder, worried that the decision is a backhanded acquittal of Milošević. And Yakima Gulag finds the end run around the issue of guilt "lame assed" (and I have a feeling she is not thinking of an injured donkey).

ICJ's releases today

A press release, the full text of the court's decision and of separate and dissenting opinions, and a not very brief summary. I will have some sort of analysis, most likely tonight.

First signs of a mixed verdict?

No complete reports are in just yet, but the preliminary ones I am seeing seem to be pointing toward a mixed verdict. According to Reuters and Index, presiding judge Rosalyn Higgins is reading the ICJ verdict which defines the killing around Srebrenica in 1995 as genocide, but stops short of accepting the plaintiffs' argument that genocide was committed on the whole territory of Bosnia-Hercegovina. It will most likely be a few hours before it becomes clear how this adds up to a disposition in the case, and before the transcript of the decision is released (at this spot, when it is). I'm a bit busy with other things today, but will try to keep you posted as well as I can.

Update: Mixed as can be, BBC's report says ICJ rejected the charges, on the basis that the direct involvement of Serbia was not shown. These early reports will tend to be confusing, though, as reporters try to sum up what they have heard all of yet. I can link to each report as it comes in, or just hang on for the end. Probably better to hang on.

Another update: Back to Reuters, which is reporting the verdict as: 1) there was genocide at Srebrenica, but 2) Serbia did not commit it, but still 3) Serbia did fail to prevent and punish it.

Slika, prilika

Found these through a link at the Belgrade blog, 41 very fine photos of Belgrade (mostly) by Nikola Mrdalj. Set it up as a slideshow, sit back and enjoy.

Waiting for the verdict

Tomorrow the International Court of Justice in the Hague is expected to make its ruling on the lawsuit by Bosnia and Hercegovina charging the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (at the time of the filing of the suit; Serbia and Montenegro at the time the case was argued; Serbia and Montenegro separately now) with committing genocide between 1992 and 1995. While the case was being argued last year, I wrote a series of posts (1, 2, 3 and 4) looking at some of the issues involved. Of course I cannot predict what the ruling will be tomorrow, but in anticipation of it I'll offer just a few observations.

1. The ruling is going to be one on questions of law, not on factual questions. That is, ICJ is not being asked to rule on the issue of whether violations of international law occurred, but rather on the question of whether they fit the definition of genocide.
2. Some of the propaganda out there puts forth the contention that a guilty verdict would declare Serbia to be a "genocidal nation" or some such variation on this. This is pure nonsense, of course, since no such qualification exists in the law. A lot of the confusion may have to do with the question of what constitutes "guilt." I have argued in other places (in this article, at this lecture, and in my contribution to this book and this one, for example) that the framework offered by Karl Jaspers provides some useful guidance. He distinguishes criminal guilt (the only sort which law is able to declare, and which can only be attached to an individual perpetrator) from other types which might plausibly be thought of as collective or shared: political guilt (the shared burden on the part of all people who are part of a political community), moral guilt (the responsibility that all individuals have for deeds of commission and of omission, including acts of loyalty) and metaphysical guilt (the responsibility that all humans have for evil in the world of which they are aware). I have also argued that it is useful to think of only the first type of guilt as guilt, and the others as responsibility. The state might be guilty, and the people are always responsible, but the whole formulation shows the weakness of trying to cast moral and political questions as questions of law -- responsibility is not "guilt lite," and it is also not a condition which a court can impose on a person or free a person from. A guilty verdict would not change the criminal guilt of the people who ordered, facilitated and carried out crimes, nor would it change the legal innocence of the huge majority who did not. But it would mark a moment at which it would be appropriate to embark on various ways of recognizing responsibility. Of all of the potential definitions of "responsibility" out there, I prefer the simplest one: the ability to respond.
3. Whatever the court finds is going be very important in terms of how the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina is understood. One of the most controversial elements of the charges is that the BH government is asking the court to find not that there were instances of genocide during the war (such as around Srebrenica in 1995), but that the whole war was genocidal. The judges' decision can accept or reject that entire argument, or split the difference in various ways. No court is required to take the political consequences of their decisions into account, of course, but it seems that the way in which the decision is framed will make an important difference (assuming anybody reads it, naturally).

With that, all there is to do is see what happens tomorrow. This type of business will always be implicated in day to day politics. The Serbian Radical Party wants the country to quit the UN in the event of a guilty verdict. Afghanistan's parliament has passed a resolution granting amnesty to a whole hatful of powerful war criminals. And the general assembly of the state of Virginia has passed a resolution apologizing for slavery. Insistence on denial or opening up the books are pretty much the only options available. Time does not make anything go away.

Bajanaderbuk

Just out from Ashgate: The New Bosnian Mosaic: Identities, Memories and Moral Claims in a Post-War Society, edited by Xavier Bougarel, Elissa Helms and Ger Duijzings. It includes contributions by many very fine people. Following the link above will get you on the way to PDF files with the table of contents, the index and the introduction, but for the rest of the content they seem to want you to buy the book.

A sada krivim sudbinu što ja volim ženu zelenu

Not meaning to intrude on koleginica Catherine's territory, thanks to Davor for bringing attention to the "first massive landing of narodnjaci in fifteen years" in Zagreb. Despite the promise of "nothing but good music and beautiful women," and the promise of a huge profit for Marijan Crnarić and the BN television outlet from Bijeljina, police unions seem willing to forego the overtime, as the whole turbofolk business is a little bit controversial.

PS: Just so readers do not think that turbofolk is the only musical thing on offer from Serbia -- tamo daleko bilo! -- have a look at the new compilation album produced by the fine folks at Popboks (and published, amazingly enough, by PGP-RTS).

Dayton on the scales

Thanks to the Neretva River blog for bringing attention to this interesting lawsuit. The coverage of it includes, as Mr Observer notes, some level of freaky antisemitism. But the case is also interesting for reasons having to do with the basic structure of the agreement which has become the working document for Bosnia-Hercegovina's institutions. It seems surprising that there have not been more legal objections to a framework that treats (some) ethnic groups as though they were citizens, and citizens as though they were nothing.

The newest and finest editor of East Ethnia

Anybody who has read the post immediately below this one has seen the first contribution to East Ethnia by its newest editrix. It took a long time and one rotten film to bring her on board. And don't go thinking that the fact that we live together means that we always agree. Or always disagree.

Crash

Most people I talked to liked the movie Crash, some claiming it was the best movie they had seen on the topic of racism. I was, therefore, looking forward to seeing it but ended up being mostly appalled by cliches and wasted opportunities. (And of course by the fact that so many people see very differently from me; could it be that people are so eager to have this topic discussed that they will accept anything?! Or...what's wrong with me?!) The cast is excellent and the movie is well executed technically, but the story's plot, premises, and conclusions are much like many other Hollywood stories--superficial and ill-considered. Superficial is also the pretense of genre: the film wants to be a drama but ends up being an action movie--with surprises and twists galore.

Quick summary would be that several vignettes juxtapose several participants, white, black,
Latino, Asian and Iranian. Professional connections coexist with basic ignorance and lack of curiosity of each other's groups... and thus stereotypes prevail and fossilize. Closure is in the twists of action; what seems is not and what is good eventually gets spoiled. Great way to discuss race, right?!

Because of the TV-ish visuals, the movie has (too) many parallel stories, and consequently each story lacks depth. Perhaps the way the vignettes are connected is interesting and the irony is quite welcome, but several of the stories are cliches (Sandra Bullock's role, for example) and do not add much new--at least to somebody who knows and moves around the various communities this film tries to portray.

The superficiality of the plots and actions of Crash continues with the "magic twists", typical of Hollywood. One character realizes her past mistakes and, I suppose as a sign of repentance, grabs her maid and gives her a big hug, spontaneously and in a heart-felt way, but (now isn't that a bit too forward, Ms. WhiteGirl?!) one just wanders what their relationship is going to be like from now on? Best friends, closer than family? But it seems unnecessary to dwell on it because the movie does not seem to want to go there anyway, despite what the participants say: the whole film clamors to avoid discussing issues.

Because when something is so unrealistic and paradoxical, how does one discuss it? That lack of discussion goes hand in hand with superficiality, while present is also a solid chunk of cynicism. Cynical is not just the way in which the movie's brute turns hero while honest people turn murderous (and some even cowardly murderers), but how the various twists are left dangling...more mischievously, to surprise, than to raise any discussion points. How can a discussion proceed regarding the fact that the racist cop, who brutally humiliates a by-chance-pulled over African-American couple, then gets even to fight to save the woman's life? Even if we do not want to dwell on how this is possible, let's then just imagine how the experience has changed the two of them? We can imagine all we want but the movie is moving on: they are dropped from then on. Or, as in another case, how can we explain the change of heart in one of the most inclusive of the characters, somebody who almost stood up to his fellow cops for the sake of justice despite colour, but who at the end suddenly gets touchy and twitchy and commits a murder, which he then tries to conceal? How do we explain that twist of morality? Where does it come from? Well, the movie goes on because there are other plots to finish and we should suspend our disbelief.

Excited as I was to see a movie about racism, a very important topic in the US, I was utterly disappointed by yet another Hollywood product simply full of action, extremes, and in this case cynicism to the maximum.

Now my question is as follows: What feature movies (thus not documentaries, which abound) have been made that discuss race? I can come up with oeuvre of Mr. Spike Lee, Mira Nair's Mississippi Masala, which I enjoyed tremendously. There is always the good old To Kill a Mockingbird, but I'm looking for something more recent--80's onward. Anything there? Some movies address the topic a little bit: Matewan, by John Sayles, for example.

Paper's

In 1975, Dick Cheney was not able to distinguish a plural from a Saxon genitive. The NY Times is still covering for him, correcting his grammar when they quote it. Any resemblance of this fact to any other is most likely a coincidence. Or a coincident's.

Magical realism

A friend sent along this text, which seems to be a little bit about Kosovo, with the message: "Ovo je op-ed piece iz danasnje Politike. Slobodan Antonić je profesor sociologije na Filozofskom fakultetu u Beogradu. "Politika" znate sta je. U Minhenu 1937. nikad niste bili, ali evo prilike za ekskurziju." There are also insights into contemporary problems of skiing and parking. Oh, and sex. After a fashion.

Иза огледала
ЈЕДНОГА ДАНА!

Отварање коверте са Ахтисаријевим планом у Србији је било праћено једном од најжешћих медијских кампања. По сто пута, из различитих уста и на различите начине, могли смо чути три ствари. Прво, да треба бити реалистичан, а реалност је таква каква јесте и ту се ништа не може. Друго, да морамо гледати оно од чега живимо, а да емоције и митове заборавимо, како нам се не би поновиле страшне деведесете. И треће, да су наши грађани спремни да иду даље, али авај, има неких политичара који покушавају да злоупотребе питање Косова, па подбуњују народ, као некада Милошевић.

Сви ови разлози нису сасвим неразборити и свакако да јавност има право да их чује. Али занимљиво је да сте на поједином медијима могли чути само њих, и више ниједне друге. Када човек гледа Б 92 или чита Блиц не може а да се не запита: „Добро, како им само не досади? Све једно те исто. Што бар мало не прошарају, онако, реда ради”?

Ипак, не може се спорити да је у тој унисоности било и лепих примера личне креативности. Мени се, рецимо, највише допао наступ једног од припадника ,,златне” београдске елите на Б 92. Он је хладнокрвно образлагао све по уобичајеном репертoару: „Морамо бити реалистични”, „наши грађани највише брину о стандарду”, „Косово је ионако изгубио Милошевић”, бла, бла... Али, када му је новинар поставио питање могуће поделе Косова, одједном се узбудио. „Не подела, али корекција граница свакако”! Јер, замислите ужаса, косовска граница иде до врха Копаоника! Тако би неки неопрезнији скијаш могао да се нађе очи у очи са „мултиетничком” и „мултикултурном” полицијом Косова. Морам рећи да сам се одмах и ја потресао. Ма, ко сме да квари одмор нашој НВО елити! Него, да ми лепо трампимо Прешевску долину и још цело Врање за те скијашке стазе. У тој ствари никако не смемо бити реалистички! У тој ствари не треба да гледамо од чега живимо! У тој ствари није Косово изгубљено још 1999!

Да, доиста ми је драг тај аргумент из реалистичности. Али, пробајте да неком од припадника наше НВО елите заузмете паркинг место. Једно једино паркинг место. Кажем једно, јер се ових дана челник неке од тих НВО похвалио да му је годишњи буџет 1,1 милиона евра, да има 27 запослених и 36 сталних хонорараца. За толики буџет и за толико запослених заиста треба много паркинг места. Али, замислите да сте му заузели само једно место. Шта мислите, колика је вероватноћа да вам каже: „Добро пријатељу, бићу реалистичан, шта је ту је, заборавимо прошлост, нема везе ко је први, нема везе шта је чије, пустимо знаке, пустимо право, остани где си и да заједно корачамо у европску будућност”! А колика је вероватноћа да вам каже: „Марш, бре! И ако се одмах не склониш, узећу дизалицу из кола да те научим памети”!

Да, баш волим тај аргумент из реалистичности. Не само у оној варијанти да „не може шут с рогатим” и да је нужно помирити се са јачим злом. Али, мој фаворит је ипак варијанта која гласи: „Ма какво зло, чим схватимо да тако и треба, биће нам лакше”! Јер, „то ионако није наше”, „ко је икада тамо био”, „за тим жале само попови и митомани”, „много су већи проблем редови пред страним амбасадама”, „тиме нам само чине услугу” итд. Али, када то наш НВО елитник говори, он заправо говори о себи. Док његова уста кажу „то ионако није наше”, његове очи одају да мисли „то није моје, баш ме брига”. Док његова уста кажу „ко је икада тамо био”, његове очи кажу „ја тамо никада нисам био, шта се мене то тиче”. Док његова уста кажу „за тим жале само попови и митомани” његове очи говоре „ја ионако мрзим попове, једна црква више или мање, свеједно ми је”. Док његова уста кажу „много су већи проблем редови пред страним амбасадама”, његове очи говоре „зар ја да чекам у реду због тог Косова, до врага с њим”! Он је изједначио „бити модеран”, са „мислити само на себе и мислити само на новац”. И сада покушава све нас да убеди да и ми треба да будемо „модерни”, па ћемо се добро осећати, као и он што се добро осећа.

Неко је већ отмицу Косова упоредио са силовањем. Силеџије су велике и јаке, несрећна девојка би још могла добити и батине ако се буде превише опирала и можда је стварно боље да се много не брани. Али, забога, како јој још поврх свега можете рећи: „Ма буди паметна, јесу силеџије, али богати су, утицајни, не смеш никако да поквариш своје односе са њима, не смеш се жалити. Мисли на своју будућност, мисли на то да треба сутра да постанеш део њиховог богатог и лепог друштва. Отплачи мало, па се врати. И насмеши се – као да ништа није било”! Да ли стварно може да буде – „као да ништа није било”? Је ли ви то озбиљно мислите са смешењем? Да момцима не падне на памет још који пут да се забаве на сличан начин? А шта тек да кажем о онима који на све то добацују несрећници: „Ма дај, сестро, немој да си конзервативна, момци ти само чине услугу, ти треба да си модерна, да уживаш у сексу, а нарочито треба да уживаш када се на теби испружи Главни Баџа, е онда нарочито мораш да дахћеш, стењеш и узвикујеш – То! То! Још! Још!”.

Да, Главни Баџа баш воли да је велики љубавник. Али, Србијо мила, ипак, не мораш због њега глумити. Слободно плачи. И најважније је да их све запамтиш. И оне који су се по теби ређали и оне који су навијали и добацивали. Јер, једнога дана...

Да, да. Једнога дана!

Политички аналитичар
Слободан Антонић

By this does German song abide

East Ethnia offers its congratulations to Dr Faust.

Essay competition

I'll just bet that among the people who read this blog there are some who might have something to submit to this essay competition. We want to publish the ten best pieces on the theme “Evaluating Intervention: Local perspectives on democracy-building in the Post-Yugoslav countries and territories.”

Update: The announcement that is posted is not the final version. I will link to the final version when it is up. The deadline will be 18 May.

Notes on prosecution

We finally saw the fine old Orson Welles film The Stranger. A war crimes prosecutor (played with a lot of enunciation by the great Edward G Robinson) inexplicably releases a major suspect (played by somebody who resembles Janez Drnovšek) without trial. The suspect leads him to a small town where the principal suspect (played with arrogant menace by the great Orson Welles) is hiding in plain sight, teaching history. The failure of witness protection is made painfully apparent in several instances, and Edward G Robinson has only a friendly high school student to help him reach the truth and apprehend the suspect. Everybody in town is unfamiliar with the purpose of prosecution and with criminal procedure. When the truth comes out, the suspect lays claim to a transcendent rationale, after which he is permitted to die without trial. The greatest menace is represented by the functioning of devices to measure time, to which everybody objects.

Prescient little film, that.

Austrian and Serbian greetings

Photos of the head of the Freedom Party Strache in Austria with a three fingered salute caused a big scandal over the last weeks. But not because he was thought to secretly sympathize with the Serbian cause, but as this has apparantly become a replacement for 'classic' Nazi greeting.

His response... well Angela Merkel does it too...

and so do many Serbs (which he failed to mention)

A realist's adventures in Bosnia

I don't usually comment on official statements since they tend to be so boring and predictable. But over the last week or so, one phrase has been shopped around so frequently that I feel compelled to comment. It appears to have been coined to explain the sheer waste of time the Schwarz-Schilling-era in Bosnia has been, and it is a variation on "establishing the reality of the situation in Bosnia."

I first heard it in a phone call with an OHR spokesperson last week. Then the High Rep used it (in local-language overlay) in a TV appearance. Couple days later I read it in the High Rep's weekly column. This is evidently the message the OHR wants to convey to those who think that Schwarz-Schilling has been gambling with the future of Bosnia:

In the course of the past year [and by not using the powers vested in the OHR], it has become possible to make an objective assessment of how well or how badly the country is doing and where the problems lie. And it is only by establishing the reality of the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina that it is possible to develop the mechanisms to assist this country on the road to Euro-Atlantic integration.
Source: www.ohr.int

This deserves a fuller rebuke since it encapsulates everything that is wrong with the current HR, but let me point out just the obvious. Schwarz-Schilling was put in place by the consortium overseeing peace implementation in Bosnia (PIC) because the Germans insisted on getting a German HR, because no other German was available, because it was felt that his experience as a mediator in Bosnia qualified him for the job, and because the PIC had realized that jumping on the bandwagon of "local ownership" might provide an easy way out of a situation that already then was clearly deteriorating. Schwarz-Schilling believed in the idea -- and believe it or not, entire think-tanks have been built on nothing else -- that the "international community" and especially OHR were the key problem preventing Bosnia from reforming. This view was disputed by many thoughtful observers inside and outside Bosnia, people who were appalled by the intellectual thinness of the argument.

One year later, Schwarz-Schilling is conceding that they were right, and that the people he brought to Sarajevo as his closest advisers were wrong. To justify this enormous waste of time and other resources, he now talks about some "reality" that needed to be "established," and that could only be established by not doing anything for an entire year, which has completely undermined the authority of the office. (Reports on OHR's views now frequently take fifth or sixth spot on national TV's main newscast since nobody thinks they're worth listening to.)

Was that really necessary?

Before you think that this may be in some way personally motivated (which it isn't, since I quite like Schwarz-Schilling as a person and think he's a decent chap who genuinely believed he was doing the right thing -- though hey, I could be wrong), let me also point out that the main blame for this clearly needs to go to the PIC, which after all subscribed to all this faddish nonsense about OHR being at the heart of the problem. The PIC now has one last chance to get it right in Bosnia, when it meets at the end of February. I do hope that some foreign ministry staff are doing overtime.

A brief blog silence

I am off for a trip to the lovely Ukraine, there will not be much posting, maybe not any, until this coming Monday.

Đelić intervju

At Davos, Loïc le Meur had a chat with Božidar Đelić. In English here, and in French here. Thanks to Blogowski and Viktor (who also has an analysis).

Bieber is back

After a break of several months, I am back blogging at bieber blog, but of course I will not stop writing once in a while here (if Eric let's me).

Dewey Cheatham and Howe

Being an ICTY indictee is good work if you can get it. Aside from the room and board, there are special benefits for those indictees who decide not to use the services of a qualified attorney of international reputation. The expenses of whatever defence are covered by the Tribunal, and the recipient of these funds can use and distribute these funds to the benefit of whom they choose. Given the discrepancy between average earnings in the countries of origin of the indictees and the fees received by international lawyers, a considerable amount of money could be at stake. But this may not be enough for every defendant, which is why Vojislav Šešelj is telling the tribunal that he needs 6.3 million, or Toma Nikolić will cut him off.

Curiouser

A loyal reader writes in to point out: if you go (sometime in the very near future, before the spot changes) to the popular website of the Mideast historian Juan Cole, and look at the right side of the page, you will find this lovely ad. It shows Vojislav Koštunica in front of a wall with an icon and a flag, fingering a ballot box with a come-hither expression on his face. The ad is right above another one promoting the candidacy of Barack Obama, and it features the following text:

The New Serbia

A young democracy, rich in tradition, with religious and press freedom.

A democratic Serbia is the key to stability in the Balkans, an inspiration to all in the region.

The New Serbia

An investment in democracy that's working

Read more

There are links in the text, but they all lead to the same not so exciting site: the place where the government puts out its English-language press releases (among the news items: 3,334 votes means that "31.5% of diaspora casts ballot"--that is rather a smaller diaspora than other folks, some of whom might know what the government is saying, claim). If Professor Cole's source code is to be believed (and why should it not?) this ad was purchased through Blogads for the modest price of $100, and the buyer was promised that it would be seen by 193,732 people, of the type targeted by the "Liberal Blog Advertising Network." It's interesting company for a government which is led, for another few weeks anyway, by a party which releases statements claiming that visits by European diplomats before an election "are impermissible and damage the normal life of the country."

Technorati: dss advertising blogs

CNN rewriting Bosnian geography

Tonight's main news show on Bosnia's national broadcaster was all excited about CNN's weather site. BHTV had a story couple nights ago about CNN putting Sarajevo under "Yugoslavia," a country that no longer exists. In the meantime, CNN has fixed the site. The result is to the left.

On the uses of SRS

My post-election wrapup has now been posted at Open Democracy. A little polemics, a little prediction, plenty to disagree with.

Technorati: serbia elections srs ds dss g17 ldp articles

Last-chance exit

In June last year, the consortium of interested parties overseeing the international peace mission in Bosnia, the Peace Implementation Council (PIC), decided that the Office of the High Representative should close in June 2007. It was entirely clear back then that the OHR under Christian Schwarz-Schilling would spend most of the remaining time dealing with its own phase-out rather than with the pressing issues confronting Bosnia (including police and public broadcasting reform, constitutional amendments, and the blocked process of inching closer to the EU).

Now, even the PIC seems to have recognized that its decision was premature; when its Steering Board meets in Brussels at the end of February, it is very likely to extend the OHR's mandate. (The decision had always been subject to review in February.) Another piece of news: according to today's Dnevni avaz, Schwarz-Schilling will be replaced, presumably by someone who's actually interested in using his office to achieve concrete results. For this situation, however, the PIC deserves as much blame as Schwarz-Schilling, whose views on the extensive powers of the OHR were after all well-known even before his appointment. (Avaz is not known for meticulous fact-checking, but I've now heard the same from more credible sources.)

Rumor has it that Schwarz-Schilling is about to make a statement to the effect that he would not serve beyond June.

The whole episode is embarrassing because it suggests that the PIC hadn't done its homework before appointing Schwarz-Schilling, or before taking the decision to phase out in June. It is also a blow to the idea, already rather thin intellectually, that the pull of European integration would on its own be strong enough for Bosnia's elites to bring their irreconcilable visions for the future closer together. Thanks to the PIC, Schwarz-Schilling's term in office has been a complete waste of time.

The number of the beast?

Somebody in the Ukraine is the 66,666th visitor to East Ethnia. For you, a picture of the Beast.

Technorati: blog dog lajos

SRS 81, DS 65, DSS 47, G17 19, SPS 1, LDP 15, SVM 3, LZS 2, URS 1, RP 1

We drove, she voted, we enjoyed. This was our first experience with consular voting. It turns out that the Serbian consulate is in a fairly spare seventh-floor office on East 45th Street in New York. They use a Verizon address for electronic correspondence. No big crowds, but there were people coming and going the entire time, and no big security, but one NYC cop lounging by the desk. Then the commission with the list (they had an incorrect address for Mrs Ethnia) and a young volunteer with that stuff they put on people's fingers. The contribution made to the survival of democracy, we proceeded to enjoy our weekend in New York.

The result, as it turned out, was probably about as good as could be expected, neither the best nor the worst. Open Democracy asked for my response, so I'll have a link to that when it comes out. One blogger who could always be counted on to disagree with me (in a good way, and accompanied by the sounds of Balkan hip hop) seems to be hanging up his blogging skates, but we can hope that turns out to be temporary. Meanwhile, Viktor might need some help drinking all the beer he will be getting.

Technorati: serbia elections new york blogging