Might Makes Right: War-Related Payments in Bosnia and Herzegovina

ABSTRACT

This article explores the patterns of distribution of material reparations (compensation) for victims and veterans in post-1995 Bosnia and Herzegovina. Drawing on bottom-up approaches to reparative justice and critical peacebuilding, it explains the existing material reparation schemes in Bosnia as outcomes of the post-war transition and interests of the main transitional actors. It first explores the different approaches to war-related compensation for victim and veteran groups and then demonstrates that veterans have formed powerful pressure groups, drawing on extensive political and economic resources. Their organizations have been receiving socioeconomic support in exchange for electoral endorsement and public political support. As victims are fragmented ethno-nationally, by categories, and also lack capacities, their means to leverage the authorities for change are limited, even when matched with NGO and international support. This paper argues that unless material reparation is distributed in a transparent and consistent manner, it may create additional social cleavages and tensions.

KEYWORDS:

• Victims
• veterans
• reparation
• compensation
• Bosnia and Herzegovina
• peacebuilding
• transitional justice
• socioeconomic justice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Jessie Hronešová is a DPhil candidate in politics at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, and an associate researcher at South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX). Her research interests are in post-war institutional designs, ethnic and national identities, transitional justice and democratization in the Western Balkans. In her doctoral work she focuses on reparations for civilian victims of war and veterans in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

ORCiD

Jessie Hronešová http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6727-4207

Notes

1. There are a number of other conceptualizations, such as Rama Mani's (2002, 12) approach to negative peace as the absence of direct violence and positive peace as ‘the removal of structural and cultural violence’.

2. I also use the abbreviation BiH or simply Bosnia for the sake of brevity.

3. When and where necessary, pseudonyms are used.

4. Veterans here are used as a term to include soldiers of the official armies in the Bosnian war, while the term victims is used for people who were exposed to serious breaches of human rights during the 1992–95 war.

5. On the different conceptualizations of socioeconomic justice, see also Lai (2016).

6. According to the International Monetary Fund, Bosnia ranks 103rd of 185 countries in GDP per capita for 2015.

7. Compensation and rehabilitation are two of the five primary components of the international definition of reparations, together with as restitution, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition. See UN General Assembly 2006).

8. The Sarajevo based Research and Documentation Centre came to a total casualty figure of 99,940 people (Tokača 2012), while the ICTY came to a slightly higher number (see below).

9. In 1999, the District of Brčko was set up as a separate administrative unit.

10. The summary of the judgment can be found at http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?sum=667&code=bhy&p1=3&p2=2&case=91&k=f4&p3=5 (accessed 13 Oct. 2015). BiH could still re-open the case if new evidence emerged by 2016.

11. Interview with Matthew Holliday, International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), 19 Aug. 2015, Sarajevo.

12. Interview with a senior representative of IMP BiH, 27 March 2015, Sarajevo.

13. The two armies recognized in FBiH are the Army of BiH and the Croatian Defence Council. RS recognizes officers from the Yugoslav National Army until 18 May 1992 and the Army of RS thereafter and until 19 June 1996.

14. According to respective laws on civilian victims in the entities.

15. In rare cases, persons suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) have been included in the schemes.

16. An interesting theoretical debate to the distinction between reparation and assistance is offered by Dixon (2016) on the Colombian and Congo cases.

17. 2.44 per cent of GDP goes to non-contributory cash transfers for veterans while only 1.44 per cent for civilians, including war unrelated social benefits (World Bank 2012, 36).

18. Interview with Zukan Helez, 19 Sept. 2014, Sarajevo.

19. According to another study, 40 per cent of those killed were civilians and 60 per cent were soldiers (Tokaca 2012, 112).

20. Interview with a Bosnian human rights activist, 6 April 2015, Sarajevo.

21. Interview with a representative from the Camp Inmates Union in FBiH, 26 March 2015, Sarajevo.

22. Mean net salary in BiH for 2015 was 840 KM, i.e. around €420.

23. Article 2 of The Law on Rights of War Veterans and their Family Members, Official Gazette of FBiH 33 /04 and 72/07.

24. Interview with a local director of a veteran organization, 14 April 2014, Bihać.

25. Interview with a human rights activist, 1 Sept. 2015, Bijeljina.

26. Law on Rights of War Veterans and their Family Members (Official Gazette FBiH, 33/04 and 56/05). Information for 2015 provided by the Ministry for Veterans of the FBiH.

27. This figure was crosschecked with documents provided by Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Policy.

28. The Law on Principles of Social Welfare, Protection of Civilian Victims of War and Protection of Families with Children (Official Gazette of the FBiH, 36/99, 54/04, 39/06 and 14/09).

29. On the lack of judicial accountability see Jeffrey and Jakala (2014).

30. Interview with Mirsad Tokača, Research and Documentation Centre, 8 April 2015, Sarajevo.

31. Interview with a senior economist in an international organization, 21 March 2015, Sarajevo.

32. Interview with a senior representative of ICMP, 20 Sept. 2014, Sarajevo. Three years after being entered onto the central registry of missing, people are automatically declared dead if not found.

33. Interview with representatives of Camp Inmates of Brčko District, 7 Sept. 2015, Brčko.

34. Interview with Sandra Orlović, Humanitarian Law Centre, 4 April 2014, Belgrade.

35. The term veteran was not used in Yugoslavia (Karge 2010, 21).

36. Focus group with veterans of the Army of BiH, 6 Sept. 2015, Sarajevo.

37. Interview with representatives of Camp Inmates of Brčko District, 7 Sept. 2015, Brčko.

38. With the exception of missing persons' organizations, especially in Srebrenica (Wagner 2008; Helms 2013; Nettelfield and Wagner 2013).

39. Only around 24,000 police officers were screened by the International Police Task Force (see Maxwell and Olsen 2013).

40. Interview with a senior staff member from the Centre for Investigative Journalism, 23 March 2015, Sarajevo.

41. Interview with a representative from the Camp Inmates Union in FBiH, 26 March 2015, Sarajevo.

42. Some similarities are found for Nepal (Sajjad 2015) and East Timor (Roll 2014).

43. Interview with a political official in Bihać, 6 Aug. 2014, Bihać.

44. Interview with senior international staff member in Sarajevo, 20 March 2015.

45. Interview with a Bosnian policy expert, 20 Aug. 2015, Sarajevo.

46. Interview with Svetlana Broz, 26 March 2015, Sarajevo.

47. Interview with a former camp inmate, 27 March 2015, Sarajevo.

48. Email exchange with human rights activist in Sarajevo, 23 March 2016.

49. See the list of NGOs in Mostar at http://www.ldamostar.org/publikacije/adresar-NVO-mostar.pdf (accessed 3 May 2015).

50. See list of associations in FBiH: http://www.fmp.gov.ba/index.php?part=tabele&vrsta=ug (accessed 3 May 2015).

51. Interview with a Bosniak veteran, 14 Sept. 2015, Sarajevo.

52. A similar murkiness exists on the side of some prominent victim associations. This is, however, beyond the scope of this paper.

53. Interview with a civil servant, 24 July 2014, Bihać.

54. Interview with the Bosnian sociologist Žarko Papić, 27 March 2015, Sarajevo.

55. Interview with a representative from the Missing Persons Association in Eastern Sarajevo, 27 March 2015.

56. Interview with a director of a local NGO, 14 July 2014, Bihać.

57. Interview with a Bosnian human rights activist, 8 April 2015, Prijedor.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [ES/J500112/1].