Societies in Transition: The Caucasus and the Balkans between Conflict and Reconciliation [1 ed.] 9783666522062, 9783525522066

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Carolina Rehrmann / Rafael Biermann / Phillip Tolliday (eds.)

Societies in Transition The Caucasus and the Balkans between Conflict and Reconciliation

Research in Peace and Reconciliation Edited by Martin Leiner in co-operation with Beno%t Bourgine (Louvain-la-Neuve), FranÅois Dermange (GenHve), Dennis Doyle (Dayton/Ohio), Matthias Gockel (Jena), Makoto Mizutani (Kyoto), Arie Nadler (Tel Aviv), Bertram Schmitz (Jena) and David Tombs (Belfast/Dublin) Volume 5

Carolina Rehrmann / Rafael Biermann / Phillip Tolliday (eds.)

Societies in Transition The Caucasus and the Balkans between Conflict and Reconciliation

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: https://dnb.de.  2020, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Theaterstraße 13, D-37073 Gçttingen All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Cover image:  nedomacki, Locomotive of Josep Tito’s Blue Train (Belgrade, April 2019). Typesetting: 3w+p, Rimpar Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage j www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com ISSN 2197-0947 ISBN 978-3-666-52206-2

Contents

Carolina Rehrmann/Rafael Biermann/Phillip Tolliday Introduction to the present volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Carolina Rehrmann Emotional Reconciliation: Challenges, Prospects, and Inherent Contradictions Reconciliation as Concept and Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Phillip Tolliday Reconciliation: A Negotiation Between Anamnesis and Amnesia . . . .

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Rafael Biermann The Politics of Reconciliation in Former Yugoslavia – Assessing Progress Across the Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Eva-Maria Auch Conflict, Identity and Reconciliation in the South Caucasus . . . . . . . 103 Jovana Janinovic The Socialist Heritage of Tito’s Yugoslavia: Memory between Disneyfication and Reconciliation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Ekaterina V. Klimenko Russia in the Aftermath of the Chechen Conflict: Fostering Tolerance as Reconciliation Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Fernando Avakian Discursive Construction of the Islamic Threat in the Russian Federation in the Early 2000s A Political Tool Hampering Reconciliation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Michael Humphrey/Michelle Veljanovska Between the ICTY and Dayton: Obstacles to Justice, Reconciliation and Peace in Postwar Serbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

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Contents

Mariat Imaeva Deferring Human Rights: Humanitarian Exhumations as an Alternative Approach to Resolve the Issue of the Missing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Despina Angelovska The Failure of Macedonian Post-Communist Transitional Justice: Purging the Opponents, Lustrating the Dead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259 Sonja Arsham Kuftinec Theatrical Facilitation in Post-War Societies: The Case of Bosnia

. . . 293

Vesna Nikolic´-Ristanovic´/Sanja C´opic´ Dealing with Conflicts in a Post-Conflict Society : A Restorative Initiative in Serbia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323 About the Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343 About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345 Index

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Carolina Rehrmann/Rafael Biermann/Phillip Tolliday

Introduction to the present volume

Since the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of Yugoslavia the Mediterranean and Black Sea regions have been faced with multiple upheavals of interethnic violence, bloody secessions and ethnic cleansing. Up to the present, both regions are confronted with unresolved border, minority and security issues, matters of recognition, protracted traumata and claims for justice. After the fall of the iron curtain, simmering ethnic tensions turned into hot wars that created new states, new power-political hierarchies and a heritage of violence. Reaching back to the early 1990s, several international and national transitional justice measures have been applied to face these heritages and lay the foundations for a common future. For the former Yugoslavia they range from broad criminal trials to a series of restorative justice mechanisms, in the North and South Caucasus they encompass numerous mediation measures and primarily restorative justice efforts. However, central disputes remain. The Russian-Georgian war of 2008, ongoing disputes over the status of Kosovo, the mediational deadlock of Nagorno-Karabakh and its renewed escalation in 2016, the Russian annexation of Crimea and the secessionist conflict in Donbass or the still simmering tensions between Russia and Chechnya on the latter’s status within the Russian Federation are the most visible indicators that there is much need for rapprochement between the conflicting parties. In view of the above mentioned, the present volume is concerned with strategies of profound and sustainable conflict resolution and prevention subsumed under the concept of reconciliation. As a scientific concept reconciliation aims at understanding the socio-emotional root causes of political cleavages and daily realities of (post-) conflict societies, especially regarding the impact of competing narratives and unprocessed pasts on exclusive identities and strategic political choices. Applying reconciliation theory, insights from collective memory and transitional justice to a series of selected field studies, it sheds light on the origins of interethnic violence, aims at finding explanations for the fact that many of the above-mentioned conflicts have become intractable and discusses the chances and challenges for transforming interests, emotions, perspectives, roles and identities between and within the respective societies. The current collection of essays is Volume Five of the larger series “Research in Peace and Reconciliation” (RIPAR). The idea of the series has been

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launched by Martin Leiner from the Jena Center for Reconciliation Studies (JCRS). RIPAR focusses on conflict transformation and reconciliation in different regions of the world. Up to now four volumes have been published within the series covering transitions in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia-Pacific, the former Soviet Union and East Central Europe, with further volumes on Europe, North America, the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent projected to be published in the coming years. Thus, the series provides a unique overview of world-wide research on peace and reconciliation.1 With regard to reconciliation in the Caucasus and the Balkans, the authors of the present volume investigate internal (intra-state) as well as international (inter-state) reconciliation, different stages of reconciliation, including current conflict situations and role models for successful reconciliation. They also tried to find answers to some common guiding questions. One of the central guiding questions is, why are so many post-conflict societies still not reconciled when it comes to victim-perpetrator relations, reparations for inflicted harm, acknowledgement of committed deeds and diverging conflict narratives? To shed light on this question reconciliation has to be interpreted both as a protracted process faced with obstacles and inherent contradictions, as well as an ideal outcome. Understood as an overarching concept that indicates complex, multi-layered and inherently ambivalent processes of conflict and post-conflict transformation it encompasses both socio-emotional (reconciliation for healing) and instrumental (reconciliation as means to an end) dimensions. It is further shaped by ethical maxims, constraints of realpolitik, hampering power political interests, emotional barriers, attempts of silencing or projection of guilt, colliding needs of various conflict parties, as well as by inherent contradictions between retribution and restauration, and the delicate difference between knowledge and acknowledgement, forgiveness and forgetting. As the present volume’s theoretical arguments and related case studies show, reconciliation endeavors within the sphere of transitional justice have to 1 Founded in 2013, the JCRS aims at developing guiding principles and practices for reconciliation and conflict transformation from within a global, inter-disciplinary and comparative perspective. Regarding conflict transformation the series draws on what Martin Leiner has denoted in his reconciliation theory the “Hölderlin Perspective”. It assumes that reconciliation does not necessarily have to start after the end of conflict, but to the contrary at its height (Leiner & Flämig 2012, pp. 7–20). Against this backdrop, the wide range of concepts and mechanisms for the promotion of reconciliation spans approaches from political science, psychology, sociology, economics, law, history, media, cultural studies, theology, philosophy, religious studies and ethics. The different backgrounds and expertise of the present volume’s authors reflects this interdisciplinary range. The authors have been drawn from among accomplished experts in the fields of reconciliation, the Balkans and the Caucasus, as well as from promising young scholars who presented their work on this topic at the eponymous 2015 JCRS Summer School. The volume is thematically connected to its preceding volume, titled “Societies in Transition. The Former Soviet Union and East Central Europe between Conflict and Reconciliation”.

Introduction to the present volume

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strike a sensitive balance in reprocessing the past without endangering social cohesion and a common future. This balancing act is often placed in jeopardy whenever transitional justice measures and collective memories of troubled heritages are highjacked and threatened by present-day non-reconciliatory interests of groups who want to keep the proverbial “book of the past” closed or instrumentalize ethnic, religious or socio-economic cleavages for their own power-political purposes. As representatives of holistic approaches to reconciliation underline, a sustainable transformation cannot be achieved without, first, a calling to account of those responsible for human rights violations, with their consequent dismissal or conviction. Second, for a sustainable conflict transformation there is a need to foster empathy and promote dialogue and mutual understanding of the former conflict parties within a newly established democratic framework by providing (ideally an institutionalized) space for constructive encounters between perpetrators and victims. Eventually, one of the greatest tasks is to build up an inclusive collective memory that transgresses ethnic, political, social, racial or religious boundaries (Bar-Tal/Bennink 2004; Kelmann 2008; Nadler/Malloy/Fisher 2008). Consequently, related key questions are: What are the main challenges to reconciliation from both a domestic and an international perspective? Is the general climate (un)favorable to political transition and socio-emotional reconciliation? Has there been criminal prosecution for committed deeds and if so, has it served as a catalyst for reconciliation or has it impeded it? Have there been significant and foundational institutional reforms, including vetting and lustration or are the same people in key positions? Is there a political culture of cross-ethnic dialogue or have the (former) conflict parties established a mutually exclusive, self-whitewashing story of their conflicted heritages? What is the role of political elites, established institutions, public figures, the media, and civil society with regard to their potential and willingness to engage in reconciliatory practices? To shed light on these challenges the present volume is sub-divided in three parts. It starts with a theory-based part on challenges and strategies for postconflict reconciliation with a focus on transitional justice, and collective memory and proceeds with two introductory articles summing up the legacies and prospects for reconciliation in the Balkans and the Caucasus region that are followed by a series of in-depth case-studies dealing with competing memories and dominant discourses in the former Yugoslavia, Russia, and North Caucasus, and with internal and external transitional justice mechanisms in both regions. The latter comprises the work and reception of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), challenges of dealing with enforced disappearances in Chechnya, and the evaluation of lustration measures in Macedonia. The volume concludes with two studies focusing on civic initiatives for conflict transformation comprising theatrical facilitation in Bosnia, and restorative approaches of societal reconciliation in Serbia.

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Introducing the theoretical part, Carolina Rehrmann in her chapter “Emotional Reconciliation: Challenges, Prospects and Inherent Contradictions” discusses the concept of reconciliation in a socio-psychological perspective in order to demonstrate the importance of a profound paradigm shift of identities, emotions and inter-group relations, as well as its inherent challenges. The latter comprises the tensions between retributive and restorative justice, as well as the perpetuating power of devious interests, the power political instrumentalization of trauma and competitive memories. The paper concludes with a short case study on intra-German reconciliation over its GDR heritage. It claims that a lack of constructive and eye-level dialogue both between the West and East German societies and within former East Germany has negatively affected social relations while keeping up stereotypes, alienation, frustration and a sense of injustice in dealing with the GDR heritage and the post-reunification period. As such, within Federal Germany collective memory is most indicative of the quality of both intra-East German and East-West German relations today. In this light, Phillip Tolliday elaborates on the role of memory in postconflict societies. His chapter “Reconciliation: A Negotiation between Anamnesis and Amnesia” underlines the complexity of reconciliation in its social and political dimension and in its pragmatic, ethical and emotional conceptions. Tolliday discusses the chances and challenges of varying approaches to the past ranging from silence and amnesia to omnipresence. Shall one do away with traumatic past in order not to endanger social cohesion and create a basis for a peaceful, democratic future or is a profound legal, ethical and emotional confrontation in fact the only way to reach that goal? As the author shows in his subtle reflections on the tensions between (political) apology and (personal) forgiveness, the danger of institutionalized routines, the delicate difference between amnesty and impunity, the difficulty of factual approaches to the past and of the limits of negotiating competing and subjective memories, there is no easy answer to this question. His arguments underpin the importance of acknowledgement and dialogue for the reintegration of victims, for the remembrance of past atrocities, and for the establishment of an integrative and sustainable culture of memory. After these theory-guided arguments Rafael Biermann and Eva-Maria Auch provide a summary overview over the two regions’ histories of conflict, reconciliation measures challenges and prospects. In “The Politics of Reconciliation in Former Yugoslavia – Assessing Progress Across the Region” Rafael Biermann takes stock of how Serbs, Bosnians, Croats, Albanians and Kosovars have come to terms with their troubled past. Defining reconciliation as a process of radical transformation of former identities and values that lay the foundation for mutual trust and for a common democratic future, he discusses the chances, but also the inherent tensions and pitfalls of transitional justice measures that complement Tolliday’s distinction between maximalist and minimalist approaches. Applying his theoretical analysis to the region, he

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then shows the perpetuation of the competing, self-whitewashing and othermaligning conflict narratives, the preponderance of denial and silence and its various manifestations in political discourse, media, and commemoration. Having brought the reader to this melancholy point, Biermann then asks the reader to consider to what extent it may be ameliorated. He goes on to examine the measurable, though limited success of the ICTY’s retributive justice implementation, the appearance of public apologies as a lip service with little political or material consequences, and eventually the difficulties of civil society activism to counter the dominant narratives and practices. His arguments are a thought-provoking impulse as to the general effectiveness of reconciliation measures when internal groups are hardly interested in reconciliation and measures are introduced mostly from outside. The overall prospect for reconciliation seems even more bleak in the South Caucasus. As Eva-Maria Auch shows in her article “Conflict, Identity and Reconciliation in the South Caucasus” with regard to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan and the conflicted territories of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh long-term initiatives of rapprochement, justice and reconciliation have been practically absent from the post-Soviet region. In historical perspective Auch traces the evolution of exclusive national narratives and their interplay with the respective territorial conflicts and rival prerogatives of interpretation within an arena of competing political and economic interest groups. The above mentioned underpins that there is a complex interaction between national identities, memory, media and politics that may heavily impede conflict resolution and protract conflicted heritages. Here, a series of regional case studies illuminates mostly the challenges, but also the chances of political and social engagement for reconciliation, and the potential of transforming imagined national communities. In her article “Commodification of Collective Memory : Socialist Heritage between Disneyfication and Reconciliation?” Jovana Janinovic demonstrates how the past may change over time, assuming commercialized traits, while undergoing a process of aestheticization and de-politicization. On that note, she critically reflects on the romanicization and growing touristic exploitation of former socialist lieux de m8moir. Drawing on prominent memorials (eg. Tito’s birthplace, his grave and the “Blue Train”), holidays and related practices, Janinovic shows how some contested, sensitive and uncomfortable memorials of socialist heritage have been transformed into a highly selective, nostalgic, de-politicized public space that simultaneously serves as new, common, and pleasant points of reference that blank out inconvenient realities. Her reflections provide an important contribution to the question of how the past might change in the light of present-day reconciliatory shortcomings, economic interests, needs for a positive self-image and romantization; tendencies that also connect to Rehrmann’s case study on the dynamic of East German heritage discourses.

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How is the past reflected in present day conflict? With regard to RussianChechen relations two articles discuss the inherent alienation of both sides as demonstrated by their dominant crisis discourses. Ekaterina V. Klimenko in her article “Russia in the Aftermath of the Chechen Conflict: Fostering Tolerance as Reconciliation Strategy” analyses the focus, effect and reception of Russian government-led reconciliation programs aimed at countering what is perceived as a growing Caucasus-phobia in the aftermath of the ChechenRussian conflict. Postulating a series of discursive tendencies in the government’s official announcements referring to these programs, such as the trivialization of xenophobia with regard to Chechenia, the idealization of the past, the prioritization of security issues over rapprochement and reconciliation, the implicit reification of cultural differences and eventually the blanking out of specific social, economic, political and legal aspects of the conflict, she shows the shortcomings of these programs in living up to their own ambition of fostering tolerance between the two communities. As basic reason for this phenomenon the author identifies the preponderance of an ethnically exclusive and primordial understanding of the (Russian) nation. As such, Klimenko touches on the broader question of when and why reconciliation measures remain broadly ineffective as a consequence of a broad failure of transforming identities and related interests. This is precisely where Fernando Avakian’s subtle analysis titled “Discursive Construction of the Islamic Threat in the Russian Federation in the Early 2000s: A Political Tool Hampering Reconciliation?” supervenes. Drawing upon the Kremlin’s and pro-Putin Chechen governments’ declared “war on terror” and related policies, media discourses and military action, the author shows both the discursive construction and reproduction of deeprooted clich8s vis-/-vis the Chechen society and their cultural othering. Within that frame Chechens who deviate from a clearly defined sphere of accepted Islam are depicted as dangerous Muslim fundamentalists. As the author shows in illuminating the case study of Zara Mourtalalieva’s sentence in 2004, this ideological bias serves powerful political purposes, stimulates extremist oppositional voices, and impedes the amelioration, let alone reconciliation, between Russians and Chechens. Consequently, both between Russia and Chechnya and within Chechnya it hampers a thoroughgoing rapprochement of political parties and religious groups and thus a differentiated and integrative reprocessing of the two wars’ legacies. Within scientific and political discourses, the designation and conviction of war criminals has been presented as the key measure of retributive justice and the individualization of guilt. In this context the Nuremberg Trials against high-level Nazi officials are an often-cited successful case in point, while by way of contrast broad amnesties granted in post-dictatorship Argentina and Spain have been criticized as instruments of impunity and denial. However, retributive measures aimed at legal accountability and moral acknowledgement of human rights violations and victims suffering may have a limited or

Introduction to the present volume

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downright deleterious effect, if the legitimacy of the respective mechanisms is judged to be low. In this respect, Michael Humphrey and Michelle Veljanovska in their contribution titled “Between the ICTY and Dayton: Obstacles to Justice, Reconciliation and Peace in Post-Milosevic Serbia” discuss Serbia’s critical reception of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia’s work by juxtaposing the ICTY’s official aims and positions with internal Serbian discourses. In line with Biermann’s afore-mentioned arguments, the authors illuminate the continuity of exclusive nationalist narratives, show post-war Serbia’s understanding of the peace negotiations as a painful defeat, and thus also explain why the international community and the ICTY have been accused of ethnic bias against one’s own community (victor’s justice). As they underline, within such an unfavorable climate the ICTY’s trials triggered broad resentments, which eventually promoted the aggravation of ethnic cleavages instead of laying a foundation for interethnic rapprochement. This raises a central issue: In how far need comprehensive approaches to conflict transformation to go hand in hand with other measures of political and cultural transformation in order to minimize the risk of inefficiency or even counter-effects of reconciliation efforts? This issue is deeply connected to what Mariat Imaeva discusses in her article “Deferring Human Rights: Humanitarian Exhumations as an Alternative Approach to Resolve the Issue of the Missing”. In her paper, the author focusses on the strenuous emotional in-situ state of the relatives of the more than 5000 missing persons that resulted from the Russian-Chechen wars of 1994 and 1999. Assessing the work and effectiveness of international approaches by the Council of Europe and the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as civic local initiatives, the author criticizes the broadly legalistic, retributive focus of these initiatives, which – as she explains – in their aim to find and convict the perpetrators do not meet the relative’s needs. Drawing both on the broad ineffectiveness of these mostly externally introduced retributive measures and on empirical data from interviews with relatives of victims, Imaeva shows the emotional burden of a life suspended in uncertainty about the circumstances of death of loved ones and the possible location of their mortal remains. She thus underlines the importance of measures, such as truth seeking, location and exhumations as a basis to provide closure and acknowledgement for the relatives. While transitional justice measures introduced from outside may suffer from a higher risk of being perceived as illegitimate and of being ineffective in consequence, they can also be internally used as power political instrument, more specifically an instrument against parliamentary or civic opponents. In “The Failure of Macedonian Post-Communist Transitional Justice: Purging the Opponents, Lustrating the Dead”. Despina Angelovska sheds light on the Macedonian lustration law of 1991. While lustration as pivotal measure of screening and removing actors with a questionable role in the former regime from present day key positions has been widely considered both a necessary

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step and a yardstick for democratic transition, it is particularly with regard to post-communist Europe that lustration of state employees has been criticized for its impact on social cohesion (see Rehrmann) and its instrumentalization when used as a weapon against political opponents. Analyzing critical discourses on related policies in Macedonia, the author shows how lustration – absurdly enough even applied posthumously – has served as a self-whitewashing tool for suppressing inconvenient aspects of the past and as an instrument of revenge and intimidation towards inconvenient politicians, judges, journalists and even civil society. In view of the shortcomings, inherent tensions and risks of political and legal mechanisms of transitional justice that the aforementioned authors suggest, the two concluding articles of this volume are concerned with civil society initiatives that range from trauma reprocessing to de-escalation, political moderation and mutual acknowledgement between former opponents by means of grass-roots transformation of identities. One of the most immediate spheres of emotional transformation, constructive dialogue and bonding of former rivals (including perpetrators and victims) may be discerned at the social and community level. Here, interactive and emotionally expressive approaches of theater work have proven to be a promising tool for closure, acknowledgement and reconciliation. In her article titled “Theatrical Facilitation in Post-War Societies: The Case of Bosnia” Sonja Kuftinec discusses the potential of theatrical facilitation and community-based staging for the transformation of trauma, and the preservation of sensitive memories in post-conflict societies. Presenting civic theater activities as a unique space of re-negotiating the past and for providing alternative opportunities of artistic and expressional enactment across ethnoreligious borders, she demonstrates the potential of theater for reclaiming public space. As Kuftinec argues, this may be achieved through personal testimony, by broadening civic engagement through reconciling conflicting narratives and by promoting inclusive discourses on the future. On a broader level, she thus illuminates how artistic grass-roots activities can contribute to an open and pluralist discourse that for post-conflict societies – particularly divided ones – is essential for overcoming their previous cleavages. Drawing on her decade-long experience with community theatre in Bosnia and Herzegovina, she concludes her argument with illustrating theatre projects carried out with urban youth in the city of Mostar in a bombed-out hotel on the former frontline, while underlining its affective and geo-ethnographic potential. ´ opic´ in their article Similarly, Vesna Nikolic´-Ristanovic´ and Sanja C “Dealing with Conflicts in a Post-Conflict Society : A Restorative Initiative in Serbia” present a restorative justice measure employed by the Victimology Society of Serbia. Titled the “Third Way” it is understood as a middle course of approaching the past between exclusive nationalism and anti-nationalism. In their article the authors draw on self-conducted participatory seminars in

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three different Serbian communities that are all aimed at fostering victimoriented dialogue. The two authors illustrate the positive dynamic of interethnic personal encounters and open dialogue, as well as the favorable emotional effects of including joint recreational activities as ice- breaker for promoting constructive communication on sensitive, painful and contested issues of the past. Their seminars appear as milestones in the process of deconstructing stereotypes and negotiating new, common perspectives on a democratic and pluralistic living together.

References Bar-Tal, D & Bennink, GH 2004, ‘The Nature of Reconciliation as an Outcome and as a Process’, in From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation, ed. Y Bar-Siman-Tov, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 11–38. Kelman, HC 2008, ‘Reconciliation from a Socio-Psychological Perspective’, in: The Social Psychology of Intergroup reconciliation, eds A Nadler ; TE Malloy & JD Fisher, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 15–32. Leiner, M. & Flämig, S. 2012 (eds), Latin America between Conflict and Reconciliation, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen. Nadler, A; Malloy, TE & Fisher, JD 2008 (eds), The Social Psychology of Intergroup reconciliation, Oxford University Press, New York.

Carolina Rehrmann

Emotional Reconciliation: Challenges, Prospects, and Inherent Contradictions Reconciliation as Concept and Strategy Eric Hobsbawm (1994) has called the Twentieth Century a short “age of extremes”. Indeed, it was a century of hitherto unforeseen atrocities, genocides, and mass prosecution, the decades-long polarization of the world into opposing blocks, followed by the outbreak of simmering ethnic and religious conflicts. “The development of Social Psychology during the 20th century took place against the backdrop of intergroup conflicts between and within nations”, Nadler and Shnabel (2008, p. 37) write, suggesting how the theories of conflict studies emerged and transformed as a reflection of these upheavals and violent confrontations. Here traditionally, the focus of conflict analysis had rested on the role of material resources and power struggles to be negotiated for purposes of conflict resolution: “The use of this terminology”, the authors say, “reflects more than a semantic preference. It underscores the prevailing view in much of the social science literature that conflicts are attributable to disagreements on the division of scarce and coveted resources and that their ending is predicated on the parties’ ability to agree on a formula for their division” (Nadler/ Malloy/Fisher 2008b, p. 4).

By way of contrast, ethno-territorial and ideological conflicts such as those of South Eastern Europe after the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the Caucasus with its pending disputes over the status of Chechnya, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Nagorno Karabakh, the Middle East or Central Africa show that intractable conflicts (moreover if rooted in century-old feuds) easily result in deeply polarized societies of selective cognition and negative emotions. Conflicts of this kind are often characterized by unprocessed traumas, competing narratives and biased, stereotypical perceptions of one another. Thus, they are difficult to be negotiated on a pragmatic quid-pro-quo-level, for they fail to tackle the basic needs of the conflict parties that result from the experience of violence, suppression, loss or degradation (Bar-Tal 2007, p. 1438). Referring to the great number of protracted, simmering and recurring identity conflicts considered as being in a state of “no peace, no war” (Khutsishvili 2008, p. 282), socio-psychological approaches to conflict resolution underline the importance of self-categorization, ingroup-outgroup-relations, emotions (such as guilt complexes and the sense of powerlessness), basic needs (such as security, acknowledgement of suffering, and a positive self-image), and the importance of justice for sustainable conflict

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transformation. In this perspective these, so to say, “post-conflict-needs”, can only profoundly be addressed by socio-emotional reconciliation. However, as shall be discussed in the following, reconciliation is an intricate and demanding process that harbours a considerable potential for tensions and renewed conflict. According to Bar-Tal, to achieve a fundamental paradigm shift by socioemotional reconciliation one needs to address “truth, which requires open expression of the past; mercy, which requires forgiveness for rebuilding new relations; justice, which requires restitution and new social structuring; and peace, which underscores common future, well-being, and security for all the parties in a society” (Bar-Tal 2000, p. 356).

Accordingly, reconciliation, first, reflects the central tasks of confronting the consequences of violence: Unmasking crimes, naming the perpetrators, healing past traumas and reconciling former opponents in their cognitions, emotions and interests. Second, as Rafael Biermann (in this volume) aptly underlines, reconciliation does not only look into the past, but also into the future, for by overcoming past injuries and injustices it aims at laying the foundation for a reliable prospect of sustainable peace. In this sense, theorists such as Kelman, Nadler, Bar-Tal and others call for a differentiation and deepening of traditional approaches to conflict resolution, by focusing on the multiple challenges for creating a constructive climate for political cooperation and integration of the polarized groups (Bar-Tal 200, p.355; Bar-Tal & Bennink 2004, p. 14). Here, Kelman suggests three qualitative layers of conflict transformation: settlement, resolution and (ultimately) reconciliation. The first merely implies the absence of military conflict on the basis of an often externally imposed truce. Others refer to this as a state of “negative peace” that actors adhere to following a logic of consequences (rule/agent control). Such an outcome marks a fragile peace dependent on power relations and is limited to coercion of the elite-political and/or military strata. The Dayton Accords (1996), implemented only after massive international diplomatic pressure, are a case in point, since long-term success and legitimacy of this peace agreement on the part of the war parties remain highly contested until today (Dragnic 2006; Lippmann 2006; Gerard/Dahlman 2001). The second layer – resolution – refers to peace that the conflict parties (most often) have negotiated out of pragmatic interest. It involves a change of attitude towards each other, marking a relationship based on pragmatic trust that affects some parts of the respective societies and can be labelled a state of peaceful coexistence (change of roles). Obviously, in reality such a clear-cut conceptualization is not possible and often remains a matter of interpretation. In his sense, the Oslo Accords (1993) can be assigned to both levels: They were a settlement in as far as they were externally mediated and were a simple agreement on the framework condition for further talk. However, to a certain degree they also reflected the parties’ interests related to power-political

Emotional Reconciliation: Challenges, Prospects, and Inherent Contradictions 19

concerns and (social) war-weariness (Hallward 2011, pp. 185–188). The fragility of rapprochement may explain why the Accords were quickly succeeded by renewed ruptures of violence. As Staub (2002, p. 868) states: “Violence may resume even if it was halted by negotiations and agreements between parties. This is the case because agreements are often not satisfying to all segments of the hostile groups, because they may not be appropriately carried out, and by themselves they do not sufficiently alter the psychological realities of group members created by past history.”

As opposed to the former, reconciliation presupposes a significant transformation of identities and values and is perceived here as the result of a paradigm shift pertaining to central beliefs, cognitions and emotions vis-/-vis one another. A paradigm shift of central beliefs includes overcoming selfvictimization and the demonization of the outgroup by revising monolithic historical narratives through the inclusion of divergent (or hitherto suppressed) perspectives, including “the other’s griefs and losses, but also critical, moderate voices of one’s own community. Accordingly, Staub (2002, p. 867) in his definition of reconciliation sheds light on the psychology and the resulting daily realities of the conflict parties: “The essence of reconciliation is a changed psychological orientation toward the other. Reconciliation means that victims and perpetrators, or members of hostile groups, do not see the past as defining the future (…). It means that they come to see the humanity of one another, accept each other, and see the possibility of a constructive relationship.”

Here reconciliation can be considered both a process of individual and social transformation towards an ideal goal and an outcome (the realization of that goal). According to Staub (2006, p. 887) this involves entering a direct intra-, and inter-communal dialogue about conflict-related issues, while he strongly underlines the importance of personal contact: The so called contact hypothesis postulates that personal meetings and direct communication between opposing parties (which in many intractable conflicts and in postconflict societies do simply not exist on a daily-life-basis) may initiate a significant process of de-stereotyping, re-humanization and, consequently, contribute to the differentiation of an outgroup formerly perceived as homogenous and bad. Consequently, if the parties can maintain and expand a constructive climate of communication, their engagement and reprocessing of the past may lay the foundation for an inclusive memory, an overarching, common identity and shared norms that are ideally backed by an established routine of institutional cooperation. Such a process of socio-emotional rapprochement, however, is long and complex. It may be significantly facilitated by symbolic acts, such as confidence building measures, goodwill gestures, and public apologies (Kelman 2008, pp. 15–32; Boraine 2006, pp. 22–23).

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However, to broaden and transform deep-rooted exclusive identities, seemingly natural group affiliations or traditional narratives is likely to be met with opposition and debate for three basic reasons. First, transformation naturally threatens the self-evident, familiar and cherished (threat to one’s group identity). This may above all relate to deeprooted identities, gender roles, a sense of coherence based on an engrained world view, political ideologies or beliefs about one’s own group and heritage that are an essential condition for psychological well-being and for coping with conflict-related stress and insecurities (for theoretical approaches see Sheff 2009; Rehrmann 2017; for the case of Israel-Palestine see BraunLewesohn/Sagy 2013; Mana/Sagy/Srour/Mjally-Knani 2015). Second, transformation endangers one’s material possessions or social standing through a redefinition of existing social, economic or political hierarchies that have been legitimized by exclusive narratives or ethnic affiliations (threat to one’s status). So, actors may out of material or powerpolitical reasons be opposed to any form of rapprochement (for the case of Cyprus see Rehrmann 2019). Third, also the tensions and contradictions inherent in the very notion of reconciliation itself pose forensic (legal), emotional, as well as ethical challenges. As has been outlined in this volume’s introduction, tackling the past comes with multiple tensions that are related to the notions of memory, amnesty and amnesia (how to give the past a prominent role in the present without endangering the future), to legal accountability versus social cohesion, the difficult task to reach a profound and honest acknowledgement of committed deeds and achieve victims-empowerment and also to secure compensation and economic integration of formerly excluded minorities – even if this includes the abolition of former privileges. In sum, it is exactly these factors that might not only impede post-conflict transformation but have caused the evolution and escalation of conflict in the first place. Two profoundly analysed case studies – South Africa and Israel-Palestine – might be revealing in this context – the former to show the importance of deep-rooted world views, the second to show the socio-emotional dynamic of intractable conflicts. First, the example of Apartheid South Africa with its deeply ingrained routines of dehumanization, discrimination and exclusion might be revealing. Concerning the above-mentioned aspect of ideology and affiliations as root causes of conflict escalation, Staub (2002, p. 871) aptly observes that “mass killings and genocide are the end points of an evolution of doing harm. In the course of this evolution the victims are increasingly devalued, are identified as enemies of an ideology that perpetrators create and are harmed in varied ways.“ In line with this argument, former South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu (2010, pp. 83–96) narrates the numerous discriminating practices of Apartheid, the daily humiliations, economic degradation, and social exclusion

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that people were born into, while they considered it an irrevocable reality. He recalls an incident when as a child entering a shop with his father, the white girl behind the counter – Tutu describes her as “barely even a teenager“– confronts his father with the words “Ya, boy?“ Incisively, he contextualizes that moment with the words: “She was only living what she had learned – disrespect for an elder of a different race. (…) Apartheid was instituted as a sweeping set of laws and regulations that determined every aspect of a person’s life on the basis of their race. It was experienced as a series of daily injustices and humiliations against people of colour that (…) dulled the sensitivities of white people. In isolation, each of the incidents (…) was a small thing. But these hurts and hardships that white South Africans inflicted on their black compatriots were part of a process that got white people used to dehumanizing black people.”

In order to make that daily reality work and prevent any possible remorse, he continues, powerful institutional mechanisms guarded the status quo, giving it the appearance of routine and lawfulness, thus lowering the inhibition threshold for discrimination and violence: “They [the Apartheid officials, C.R.] understood the importance of the details of dehumanizing: separate doors, different amenities, exclusive beaches and benches. (…) The horrors of Apartheid didn’t spring from nothing into full bloom. (…) In order to permit ourselves to inflict wanton harm, our actions must be accompanied by a host of rationalizations and justifications. Those we call national enemies are described first as ’them‘ and then in progressively less human terms before the bombing can start. The rhetoric of the Nazis, the propaganda of the apartheid government, the voices of those who stroked the fury of the Rwandan genocide – in example after example throughout history the drums of war have been preceded by caricatures of those on the other side” (p. 86–89).

Tutu’s descriptions underline the fundamental importance of including analyses of radicalization, discrimination and exclusion into the concept of reconciliation and to see the long-term impact of deep-rooted ideologies. Understood in this broad conception reconciliation applies to a pre-, as well as to post-conflict contexts.1 As such it is a powerful yardstick of social integration and democratic values. Critical evaluations of the quality of reconciliation in South Africa – I will come back to this aspect in the next sections – suggest that even South Africa as an often cited example of a successful reconciliation process has failed in achieving a fundamental 1 It this sense reconciliation defines the quality of what Richmond (2006, p. 2) calls “liberal peace” and Boulding (1988, p. 159) labels as a process of reaching a “stable peace” measured in line with the degree to which a (fragile) stability is based on deterrence, defiance, (economic or political) compulsions, and threat instead of a common identity, social cooperation, economic interdependence and shared norms (Boulding calls them “taboo lines”) that make actors refrain from infringing (national) sovereignty or (personal) integrity.

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paradigm shift that would break down engrained economic disparities and political cleavages (see Zenker 2014; Tambe Endoh 2015). This underlines the tenacity of socio-emotional structures and related interests. This is also the case for protracted, which means politically unresolved conflicts characterized by pending territorial, civil or humanitarian questions, economic depravations related to high military expenditure and profound security concerns. As Bar-Tal (2007) discusses with regard to Israel-Palestine, societies with a heritage of violence, ongoing tensions and security issues have evolved a “socio-psychological infrastructure”. This infrastructure consists of common emotions and collective beliefs that strengthen group cohesion and common action. Cohesion provides strength to cope with security concerns, stress and trauma, helps maintain a positive self-image and unites against the rival. Even a long time after the cessation of the conflict through a peace treaty, this orientation characterizes identities and social practices of actors in the respective societies: It shows in selective narratives of ingroup-victimization and outgroup-demonization in history textbooks, exclusive memory places and related media discourses, while whole generations are brought up in the spirit of mistrusting and avoiding “the other” and perceiving the inter-group relations as a zero-sum-game. As a result, actors may not only be impeded in their engagement with reconciliation because of delicate emotional or identity reasons, but they simply may not believe in the benefits of a paradigm shift. Moreover, the longer a conflict lasts, the more actors may have arranged themselves in a specific interest structure of power, influence, image, wealth and affiliations that may be threatened by social and political transformations. Thus, they can be considered as having vested interests in maintaining the status quo. In the context of Israel and Palestine interest groups, such as the Israeli Defence Forces, religious groups on either side, and political parties seem to profit from the status quo in terms of power, prestige and income. I will come back to this point in the next section when discussing the role of devious objectives. Finally, confronting past trauma, crimes, and material claims in post-conflict societies to lay the foundations for a stable peace, is accompanied by a series of inherent challenges and contradictions. Here, transitional justice (TJ) refers to all kinds of measures legal accountability for crimes, and symbolic acknowledgement of harm and material compensation. TJ-science analyses the challenges and chances for social reconciliation through measures aimed at “doing justice” (in a legal, as well as in an ethical sense), healing trauma, reconciling former opponents and initiating a political, cognitive and emotional transformation of the respective societies: It does so by means of trials, institutional reforms, vetting and lustration, by truth seeking (often by establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission), by taking care of the diverse needs of victims, and by ideally creating an inclusive memory of the past. As a range of post-conflict countries show, some preferred to keep the book

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of the past closed, and those who have opted for a profound transformation or where imposed from outside to do so, have been left with shortcomings and disputes. Chile, Argentina or Spain, for instance, promulgated broad amnesties to protect the perpetrators – amnesties partly lifted by subsequent governments, while victim’s associations to date strive for truth and acknowledgement. In Israel-Palestine and Cyprus – although the latter seems to be a cold conflict – TJ measures have been almost inexistent. Hence, the absence of TJ endeavours is always a powerful indicator for the lack of reconciliation. By way of contrast, criminal tribunals such as the ICTY for the Former Yugoslavia or the ICTR for Rwanda, have been successful in demanding accountability for massive human rights violations of the central political and military actors. However, they also struggled with problems of legitimacy. South Africa’s TRC – the most prominently cited example of successful reconciliation through moral accountability and integrative social dialogue – can indeed be considered a cornerstone of South Africa’s journey towards healing and political transformation. But it has likewise been accused of providing only symbolic acknowledgement for victims that expected legal accountability and profound economic assistance. Germany’s shortcomings in coming to terms with its GDR-heritage – as I will later shortly illustrate – has let to denial, frustration and alienation within East-Germany and between the Eastern and Western communities. In view of the abovementioned, I will now proceed with an introductory discussion of different qualitative approaches regarding readiness and willingness of societies to enter a process of reconciliation. Here different techniques for confronting socio-emotional barriers, as well as tackling counterproductive strategic interests of interest groups shall be demonstrated. After giving a short overview over the related theoretical concepts and practical applications of TJ, I will juxtapose and compare the elements of TJ shedding light on its inherent contradictions and dangers, while underlining the added value of a comprehensive approach towards reconciliation. Finally, I will analyse in depth the socio-emotional chances and barriers of doing justice with a focus on criminal tribunals and TRCs to demonstrate the importance of an integrative, socio-emotional approach to conflict transformation.

The Stony Path towards Rapprochement: Different Approaches in Response to Differing Social Realities “If reconciliation is to succeed”, says Alexander Braine (2006, pp. 22–23), former vice chairman of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, “it must have an impact on the life chances of ordinary people.

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If genuine coexistence is to take place, then the building of trust is indispensable. If trust is absent, citizens will not be prepared to invest their energies in the consolidation of democracy”. But how does a society engage into the long process of trust building, if the status quo is characterized by mutual distrust, a collective identity that is based on negative images of “the other” as an established social reality, where social institutions, such as education and the media, victims’ or martyrs’ associations have been constructed that routinely disseminate and guard their divisive narratives? How can a conflict be resolved, when the status quo secures the power-political and material interests of certain groups, where the perpetrators of the past still command political power as potent veto groups, and where the political culture is based on consensus, hierarchies and mechanisms, which exclude or delegitimize internal critique or deviation from a majority’s norms? Societies in intractable conflict, says Bar-Tal (2000, p. 360–361), “maintain societal mechanisms to guard consensus evolved around the conflictive ethos, which is viewed as a functional system for coping with the threatening and stressful situation. Individuals and/or groups, who express deviating beliefs from the conflictive ethos, are informally and sometimes even formally sanctioned. The sanctions, thus, inhibit appearance of alternative ideas and opinions.”

With the aim of tackling those challenges a series of approaches including topdown and bottom-up transformation or multi track diplomacy have emerged. They comprise high-level talks between political representatives and prestigious public figures, as well as civil society, while they can be process- or outcome-oriented. On the macro and meso level top-down engagement aims at broad political and institutional impact. Therefore, it involves elite level, including political representatives or religious leaders that can either serve as multipliers of new ideas, or directly introduce political reforms. Conversely, bottom-up approaches will rather include non-governmental actors, such as public figures with prestige, think tanks, humanitarian organizations or artistic initiatives. They are aimed at mobilizing resources and exercising influence on stakeholders and public opinion (Böhmelt 2010, pp.167–178). While political initiatives are more outcome-oriented, “designed to generate ideas for political agreements that can be adopted by official diplomats”, civic engagement is most process-oriented, “designed to build relationships, trust, and mutual understanding among adversaries at both the elite and the grassroots level to prepare the groundwork for peace to take hold” (C ¸ uhadar/ Dayton 2012, p.158) The latter encompass scientific, cultural or educational initiatives that bring together peace activists or people from diverse ethnic or religious backgrounds to promote dialogue and mutual knowledge-enhancement. These initiatives can be based on the training of locals to engage as mediators into

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promoting transcultural understanding between former conflict parties, as does the “Karuna Center in Bosnia and Herzegovina” (Karuna Center, n.d.). Or else, it may include initiatives established by affected persons, such as the Israeli-Palestinian “Parent’s Circle Family’s Forum”2 (Parent’s Circle, n.d.). The Parent’s circle’s motivation and effects prominently appear in Israeli filmmaker Shelly Hermon’s documentary “The Eyes of the Storm”. It features two fathers, a Palestinian and an Israeli, whose children have both fallen victim to the conflict (one was killed by an Israeli sniper, the other by a Palestinian suicide bomber). Both bereaved fathers engage into a journey of deconstructing the exclusive, national narratives of their respective communities, which they perceive as ideological basis of ongoing violence. Having once been representatives of maximalist and non-reconciliatory positions, the documentary traces how the loss of their daughters triggered their mutual engagement to open up to the perspective and pain of the other. In a bicommunal radio-show they talk about key moments in their lives on the path towards rapprochement, they hold speeches in front of multi-ethnic audiences, talk to pupils about the need for a paradigm shift and mingle with nationalist protesters in the street. Various scenes depict both the scepticism, but also the fierce opposition against dissenters (Hermon 2012). Thus, the documentary can be considered a vivid example of socio-emotional transformation. Such an inner transformation, however, presupposes a basic willingness to leave known spheres behind, while at least implicitly allowing for the possibility of new, potentially inconvenient insights to have an impact on traditional understandings of self and other. If this willingness does not exist, if the wounds of the past are weeping and ethno-national cleavages are so deep that any form of intercommunal dialogue might be like a blind person’s exploration of a minefield, other methods of rapprochement have to be applied. Here, instrumental approaches aim at creating a common basis for communication, understanding and (pragmatic) trust (resolution-level) beyond the “hot” issues. This includes cooperation on technical or environmental issues that are not directly conflict related. Since, intractable conflicts are often characterized by non-communication and stereotypic perceptions towards one another, encounters of people who usually do not meet can help undoing stereotypes (as postulated in the mentioned contact hypothesis). Common engagement in, say, environmental issues, may promote a common identity by uniting in a shared goal and by temporarily blanking out the

2 Weder et. Al. attest in their psychological analysis that members of the Parents Circle-Families Forum expressed a significantly lower Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder and a lower ProlongedGrief-Disorder and displayed more hope and trust in the future of the intercommunal relations. (Weder et. Al. 2011).

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exclusive ethnic identities. Bi-communal environmental youth camps are a case in point (for Cyprus see Avgousti 2005; 2008). Thus, the instrumental approach is based on the idea of, first, offering a neutral ground that would make it more likely for the conflict parties to be willing to meet in the first place and, second, of, so to speak, causing an unintended, unconscious transformation of the participants’ belief system and emotions by (temporarily) blanking out the conflict-related sphere. Another prominent example is peace education. It aims at sensitizing for peace-related concepts, such as human rights, (ethno-) empathy, tolerance, and employs means of multi-perspectivity or role-switch. When it comes to history education, for instance, which in ethnic rivalries often comes as a monolithic, sacred narrative to be memorized, peace education would encourage open, critical self-reflection, and show the contingency and complexity of historic events from more than one perspective (for the case of Cyprus see e. g. Makriyianni/Psaltis 2007). Peace education can be nonconflict related or – if the climate allows it – directly touch on the “hot” issues. Moreover, it may help actors become aware of possible double standards in their conflict-related daily reality. Since, in societies that are in a state of protracted conflict central conceptions, such as respect, tolerance, human rights or security often appear in media debates as central demands to back one’s own perspective, while they are implicitly denied to the rival community. Thus, peace education might serve as counterweight against maximalist positions and zero-sum-perspectives (“no alternative”), against selective representations of a conflict’s root causes, and /gainst biased and unfavourable interpretations of the outgroup’s actions, beliefs, and intentions. Rehumanizing and being able to empathise with the other may help bridge the cognitive cleavages between the in- and the outgroup and find common ground. Social Identity Theory (SIT) reinforces this assumption when proving how people can undergo an even revolutionary change of attitudes towards one another. This happens when a specific situation invites them to preserve or enhance a positive self-image. Greece and Turkey, for instance, whose relations appear to be based on a deep-rooted ethnic rivalry, would in 1996 by a hair’s breadth have become embroiled in a hot war over a small inhabited island (Imia Crisis). Only three years later two consecutive earthquakes in the respective countries were the catalyst for a wave of mutual empathy and help. This has even been considered as initial spark for a paradigm shift of traditional Greco-Turkish relations until the present. Speaking from a social psychological perspective, this remarkable finding illuminates the tremendous importance of social, moral and emotional structures for triggering both deadlocks and change: Greeks and Turks were invited to temporarily let go of their traditional, ethnic-exclusive identity under the imperative of humanitarian aid, thus preserving their positive self-image albeit not through aggressive differentiation, but through the expression of altruism and

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kindness (for a historical account on the Greco-Turkish relations and their sudden shift see Dembinsky 2006, p. 29). Still, all occasions and attempts of socio-emotional transformation might be ineffective, if – as mentioned in the previous section – actors out of strategic interests oppose the resolution of conflict. Here, Richmond and Newman aptly point to the fact that even if parties concede to engage in peace negotiations, they may harbour devious objectives, for they may not perceive the resolution as a desirable goal. As mentioned before, governing elites, parties and (economic) interest groups, military, police, or religious and educational institutions may benefit from the ongoing conflict materially and in terms of power political or social influence. Thus, actors may engage in negotiations for the sole purposes of face saving or for avoiding painful concessions. The insistence on maximalist positions whilst engaging in long-term and low-level negotiations, politicians conceding to internal or external pressures, while simultaneously deploying a maximalist rhetoric when referring to domestic constituents or party members may be a sign for devious objectives (Newman, Richmond, 2008, pp 1–19). These phenomena are visible in Cyprus, as well as in the Israel-Palestine or in Serbia (see Biermann, in this volume). Moreover, declarations of goodwill on the political level are also often in harsh contrast with the continued existence of exclusive narratives, the establishment of exclusive places of memory, and ongoing discriminating practices. Indicators and contradictions of this kind can be perceived in the Middle East (see Ranstorp 2006), but also in the Cyprus Conflict, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. While in the two former cases colliding interests and perceptions have withstood a solution until today, in the latter these interests impede the comprehensive implementation of the agreement. In all three cases, the status quo of ethnic division seems to serve political circles and economic interest groups within the respective communities. As Tocci (2008) aptly illustrates for Cyprus, both parties hide behind maximalist positions giving reasonable ground for suspicion about their sincerity to negotiate. Similarly, also the establishment of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina ran, and continues to run against specific interests, socio-economic dependencies and political cultures. In particular, as BojicicDezelilovic (2008, p. 203) states, the profiteers of a patronage and client system of intra-group privileges ranging back to the time of war have left their imprint on a system of loyalty and ethnic separation until the present: “War, sanctions and large population movement within and across the borders of newly created Yugoslavia’s successor states opened many opportunities for irregular activity, including organized crime with links to the highest political establishment. The combatants were provided privileged access to resources, including looting and dispossession of other ethnic groups, and diversion of humanitarian assistance to compensate for irregular payments of salaries. The fact that this was condoned by the political leadership, and indeed sometimes openly encouraged, affected the combat-

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ants’ perceptions of their position and expectations regarding their status (and the distribution of the spoils of peace) once the war was over. This type of profoundly irregular political economy survived the conflict to become one of the key obstacles to peace consolidation, as its operation could only be sustained in an ethnically divided and antagonized space.”

Eventually, apart from the measurable material or political gains that conflict parties might see connected to an unresolved status quo, also the exclusive narratives themselves, together with unresolved trauma and loss, might hamper the willingness to reconcile and be exploited for political purposes. This is more likely, since in Cyprus, as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina parties have been left behind with the feeling of being treated unfairly. The Bosnia and Herzegovina feelings of injustice are reinforced and perpetuated by transmitted traumas, fears, a long-time reality of ethnic separation and by the “three mutually exclusive ethno-national narratives about the role of their own community and the role of others in the Bosnian war“ (Kostic´ 2012, p. 653). Aptly, the author sums up, how these narratives are being exploited by respective stakeholders for their own political purposes: “In order to justify their own visions of the past and relate these to the present, political elites engaged in commemorations of tragic events, and continue to propagate their own side’s views about the causes of the war, the hostility of the “other” and their own victimhood (…)” (p. 654).

In this sense, maximalist positions are a symbol of maximalist perspectives resulting from divergent realities, traumas and groups affiliations, and expressions of vested interests based on endeavours for maximum personal and ingroup profit. With this in mind, one can conclude that strategies of instrumental and socio-emotional reconciliation based on goodwill gestures, concessions, peace education, cooperation and dialogue, can serve two purposes: First, they can help promote mutual understanding by disseminating formerly suppressed knowledge about “the other”, while decreasing fear and defensiveness, and encouraging empathy. Thus, mechanisms of boosting sensitization and cooperation in order to redress the cognitive prism (Bar-Tal) of the respective societies can bring about the next step, the direct, emotionally delicate and contested, conflict-related issues to be confronted. Second, the de-legitimization of maximalist positions and monolithic narratives through the establishment of a new climate of moderation and understanding can help isolate, expose and “put on the spot” spoilers that try to take advantage of the political polarization, relying on the legitimacy and self-evidence of exclusive narratives to underpin their policies.

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Pictures’ description: Public signs urging not to forget the atrocities of the past in Mostar (top) and Nicosia (bottom) DEN XEXNY (I don’t forget) has become a slogan of the Greek Cypriot Community’s dominant discourse for the memorialization of the islands division, and the Greek Cypriot community’s pain and loss. In Cyprus it is also increasingly considered a strategic instrument of promoting an image of self-victimization legitimizing maximalist political positions. The ironical completion of the slogan with the added words MA BOUQTSISY TA DOMTIA LOU (to brush my teeth) might be considered a sign of mocking opposition to the dominant narrative.

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Transitional Justice: Coping with Troubled Pasts In the preceding sections different forms of post-conflict rapprochement, and accordingly various methods that take into account the basic challenges for initiating change have been presented. As introduced in the first section, one of the most extensive research areas of reconciliation is related to the concept of Transitional Justice (TJ). Justice relates to the legal, as well as to the broader, ethical meaning of justice, encompassing notions like righteousness, equity and fairness. As part of the overall question of how to tackle hot or protracted conflicts TJ is concerned with how to judicially, emotionally and ethically confront legacies of violence, of gross human rights violations, in order to (ideally) reconcile the former opponents and promote sustainable peace. Thus, TJ can be seen a means to reconciliation based on the establishment of justice ranging from its collective, comprehensive to its more individual, subjective dimensions. The two pillars of TJ are retributive (focusing on punishment) and restorative (focusing on healing and reconciling) justice. The latter comprises reparative (aimed at compensational issues) and transformative justice (measures to initiate a paradigm shift), while a number of other overlapping conceptions may be used to define the specific quality and goal of justice. Charles Villa–Vicencio, Director of Research for the South African TRC, adds “deterrent justice; compensatory justice; rehabilitative justice; justice as an affirmation of human dignity ; and justice as exoneration“ (Clark 2008, pp. 333). When it comes to the implementation of TJ, there are six pillars: “Trials, truth commissions, vetting, reparations, memorialization and institutional change” (Fletcher, Weinstein & Rowen 2009, p. 165; ICTJ). They are directly related to the four cited elements of reconciliation (truth, mercy, justice and peace). Each of them has an important part to play in coming to terms with the past. However, each also bears dilemmas and dangers.3 Criminal or retributive justice is the first and most direct measure for calling to account those responsible for mass atrocity crimes, including genocides, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression, as the Rome Statue of the ICC states (Rome Statue, 2002). The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (as the first of its kind), the ICTY for exYugoslavia or the ICTR for Rwanda, as well as the many local courts, have become international symbols for legal accountability. They represent the individualization of guilt, the visualization of pain and help avoid vengefulness, circles of violence or lynch law (Leebow 2008, p. 110). However, as will be discussed later, criminal justice without further reconciliation is limited in 3 As a standard work into theory and practice of TJ see Kritz (1995) and the ICTJ; for a recent analysis of “vetting”, including several case studies, see Mayer-Rieckh/de Greiff (2008).

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effect, and – when externally imposed – is confronted with questions of legitimacy and ownership. The second measure, the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), foremost belongs to the sphere of restorative justice. TRCs are considered organs of truth investigation and function as loci of catharsis for victims and perpetrators (Rim et. al. 2011, p. 695). Complementing or replacing criminal justice, they are installed when criminal trials, due to the large number of perpetrators, might be practically difficult and dangerous for social cohesion. Exceeding the scope of criminal trials, they aim at the reprocessing of past crimes, re-empowerment of victims and of social reintegration of both victims and perpetrators. In TRC’s hearings victims are offered a platform to publicly communicate their stories that are broadcasted and filed. Perpetrators have been invited to testify and to apologise. Thus, in providing space for unusual encounters and acknowledgement TRC’s are instrumental in creating a long-term memory of victims’ suffering. More than thirty TRCs have been established since the 1980s, ranging from South Africa, to Serbia and Montenegro, where unfortunately the Komisije za istinu i pomirenje due to internal disputes dissolved before it could start functioning. Third, TJ provides reparations. They are “the most tangible manifestation of the state’s efforts to remedy the harms they have suffered” (Boraine 2006, p. 24). As case studies show, democratic transition processes have handled the question of material compensation quite differently : Post-communist Russia, for example, has appeared reluctant to acknowledge and compensate victims’ claims, and has focused instead on symbolic acknowledgment of past crimes. By way of contrast, Chile, although it had until recently opted for comprehensive amnesties for crimes committed in the Pinochet-era, “undertook instead one of the most comprehensive programs of compensation and rehabilitation (…) encompassing life-long-pensions for survivors (…), compensation for prison time (…), educational benefits, a national network of medical and psychological services for victims and their families, and exemptions from military service” (Kritz, 1995, pp. xxvii). Eventually, TJ encompasses vetting and institutional transformation. That is (individual) replacement and (structural) renewal of corrupted political systems. While vetting is defined as “processes for assessing an individual’s integrity as a means of determining his or her suitability for public employment” (Mayer-Rieckh/de Greiff 2008, p. 17), it is only one of a wider range of measures comprising institutional reforms. The latter include the rearrangement and reform (disarmament, dissolution) of existing institutions to increase transparency and legitimacy (through new, controlling organs), the establishment of new policies and legal frameworks to foster human rights protection, and ideally also an educational reform turning away from former (national) narratives (ICTJ 2016). Eventually, the broadest measure of reconciling former opponents and also a long term yardstick of success, is the establishment of an institutional, trans-,

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inter-, intra-communal and intersubjective memory “that can be acknowledged by those who created and implemented the unjust system, those who fought against it, and the many more who were in the middle and claimed not to know what was happening in their country” (Boraine 2006, p. 22). In view of the above mentioned, it is clear that the concept of TJ – as does reconciliation – goes far beyond criminal prosecution and the replacement of corrupted political structures. In addressing the needs of post-conflict societies, it seems indispensable for achieving a profound paradigm shift that minimizes the risk of a relapse into past conflict structures.

TJ: Irreconcilable Goals, Related Dangers, Adverse Effects However, TJ mechanisms are confronted with a multitude of inherent contradictions and societal challenges that complicate or even impede reconciliation. This section will discuss dilemmas and dangers of TJ measures to underline the importance of integrated approaches and socio-emotional reconciliation’s share in a stable peace. The first difficulty refers to the tension between legal and moral accounting and truth seeking on the one hand, and the promotion of hope and trust for the future on the other. This refers to the essential tension between retributive and restorative justice. Here, a rising number of authors, while acknowledging the need for criminal prosecution and its success in providing accountability and closure, criticize an exclusive focus on retributive justice: In particular, as mentioned in the previous section, the questionable impact of the ICTY on reconciliation has met with criticism. Clark (2008, pp. 332–344), for instance, diminishes the theoretical claim of criminal trials to ensure justice, provide accounts of the truth and individualize guilt by showing how in the case of the ICTY the disputes and frustrations around the court’s decisions as perceived by the related communities – foremost Serbia – corrupted those claims for the exclusive narrative of the conflict remained the same. Recounting the widespread rejection of the ICTY’s proceedings by a Serbian majority that considered it as NATO-friendly, Western-oriented and biased against them, Clark (2008, p. 335–336) aptly illustrates the subjectivity of the term justice: “Truth, like justice, is a disputed concept. For example, the ‘truth’ about the wars in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s will vary according to whether one is speaking to a Serb, a Croat, or a Bosnian Muslim. Each side is prone to see itself as the principal victim of war crimes“. As visible in the reactions to the trials against Milosevic, Mladic or Karadzic, the Serbs perceived the convictions of their political or military leaders as personal humiliation. This underlines that endeavours for justice and reconciliation need a fertile, respectively a favourable ground. Furthermore, the ICTY’s trials are an example of externally enforced justice. Beyond the lack of consensus on guilt

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and blame, this has also stimulated opposition and denial on the part of the offenders and related interest groups. This underlines the importance of legitimacy, respectively of “local ownership” of transitional processes. International intervention, say Fletcher et. al. (2009, p. 190–207), “leaves an indelible mark on the nature of the transitional justice response adopted by a country” (for further critical accounts on the ICTY’s legitimacy see Garbett 2012; Kostic´ 2012; Meernik 2005)4. Therefore, a broad constituency within a country supporting TJ measures and the involvement of central local actors appear crucial to minimize the risk of downright rejection of the TJ process. As particularly the cases of Rwanda and South Africa show, the effect of TJ seems far more effective, if it is initiated by local actors and resonates with local traditions. Vora and Vora (2004, pp. 305–306), for instance, report that the hearings of witnesses in the South African TRC used to be preceded by prayers and singing. Similarly, the process of legal and moral accountability in Rwanda has been, apart from a small number of trials by the ICTR, based on the local Gacaca tribunals that tried roughly 1.9 million people. These public tribunals were staffed with local people and concerned with crimes committed in the respective village or area (Herrmann 2012, p. 106). In view of the tremendous atrocities committed and the fact that there were no institutional reforms and no material compensations for the victims who had to relive their traumas through public testimony, Rwanda – albeit far from being reconciled – shows how much can be achieved when the transformation is undertaken under the leadership and with the involvement of the affected people. However, local ownership cannot solve the problem of (far-reaching) impunity. The larger the number of perpetrators in a respective society, the more difficult it will be to impose universal justice. A significant amount of TRCs confronted that challenge by focusing on truth finding and healing. For this aim, however, they “paid the price” of very limited criminal authority. They did so not only for purposes of social integration, but also for practical reasons. In order to establish truth and thus provide accountability, acknowledgement and closure TRCs often have to rely on testimonies from large numbers of people who would not easily make a statement under the threat of punishment (Boraine 2006, p. 20). Here, TRCs run the risk of lacking credibility and thus diminishing the social impact of their findings. Moreover, opting for impunity in order to promote dialogue and avoid an eruption of social disputes, may be considered by victims as offering perpetrators a legal framework to “buy themselves free”. This applies especially to those cases, in which confession, as the case in South Africa, is rewarded with impunity. A recent study with South African students, asking what they thought about the effectiveness of the TRC in bringing about truth and reconciliation in their 4 A lack of legitimacy can also hamper the effect of local ownership: That appears to be the case in Serbia, where the local courts deriving from the ICTY seem limited in their impact (see Biermann, in this volume).

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country, shows that a significant amount believed perpetrators lied or stated half-truths to avoid image loss and penal consequences (Vora, Vora 2004, pp. 309–310). Furthermore, the process and outcome of truth finding and moral accountability instead of healing can be detrimental for the relationship between victim and perpetrator. Rim et. al. (2011, p. 704) report a dramatic increase of negative emotions, such as anger and disgust, on the victims’ side in the Gacaca tribunals in Rwanda, caused by the confrontation with the perpetrators and the resurgence of traumatic memories. Perpetrators, in contrast, seemed to benefit from the legal certainty they gained: “In sum, the fairness of the procedure and the outcomes of the ritual justice proved more satisfactory for the former [here: the perpetrators, C.R.] than for the latter. For perpetrators, these trials meant the end of a long state of uncertainty about their fate as well as their possible reintegration in the community.”

These findings show that TJ mechanisms have to be carefully balanced and supervised with regard to their immediate and long-term effects and their mutual impact. They also underline the added value of a prudent combination of retributive and restorative measures. Here, Clark (2008, p. 344), for instance, underlines the importance of an integrated approach for the former Yugoslavia, that comprises also the socio-psychological, legal and integrative potential of NGOs like the “Group 484” (assisting refugees in returning), the “Victimology Society of Serbia” (carrying out opinion polls and promoting dialogue on the past and measures for the institutionalization of memory – see ´ opic´ in this volume), or the “European Initiative for Nikolic´-Ristanovic´, C Democracy and Human Rights” (undertaking teacher training). The mutual dependency of TJ measures is also visible in the question of reparations and acknowledgement: As already stated, acknowledgement of harm without criminal trials can appear as lip service and a lack of sincerity. The same is true for acknowledgement without reparations. Conversely, reparations without public recognition of harm may seem like blood money. As South Africa’s ongoing debates about compensation claims, and the lack of material compensation for victims of sexual violence in Kosovo and Bosnia indicate, compensations are rare. This might be due to a general lack of TJ measures, out of concern that compensation might be seen as admission of guilt (both relevant in Cyprus), or because of economic strain: “More often than not, the legacy left by departing totalitarian or authoritarian regimes includes a weak economy and empty government coffers, depleted through corruption or mismanagement. The nascent democratic government must use its limited resources to turn the economy around, restructure the bureaucracy to restore public trust” (Kritz 1995, p. xxvii).

However, it is obvious that those economic reasons are most often intertwined with a lack of criminal justice that is related to compensation procedures. In

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Bosnia and Herzegovina, for instance, international legal institutions, human rights organizations and victims’ associations criticize the implementation of TJ measures as incomplete. They refer to the lack of reparation laws, the low ratio of trials against war criminals, the extensive shortcomings of vetting (Moratti/ Sabic-El-Rayess, 2009, pp. 25–27), and – while there has been a comprehensive property restitution – to the inexistence of indemnity payments for victims of human rights violations resulting from legal claims (Hanusˇic´ 2015). Bojicic-Dezelilovic (2008, p. 206) attributes this to a lack of professional qualification, organization and inefficiency of victims’ groups within and across ethnic lines, as well as to the far-reaching persistence of traditional hierarchies and perceptions: “The responsibility for the implementation of the peace agreement (…) rested with the same parties, and indeed by and large the same people in the political establishment of the country who waged the war, and held the view that the agreement failed to provide satisfactory solution to their demands.”

Here it is obvious that a lack of institutional transformation and socioemotional integration poses challenges to the implementation of legal claims. Conversely, as shall be shown in the next paragraph, the application of TJ measures can only be effective in the long run, if it succeeds in introducing a socio-emotional transformation and a political paradigm shift.

Transnational Justice as Emotional Reconciliation: The Power of Dialogical Truth, Acknowledgment and Apology One of the central differences between criminal and transitional justice is that the former focuses only on the perpetrators, the latter on both, yet with an emphasis on the victims. Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, psychologist and member of the South African TRC, refers to the different needs and roles of the actors at the outset of the South African reconciliation process: “There was the question of perpetrators: Not only those, who committed acts sanctioned by the government but also those, who in the fight against Apartheid committed human rights abuses. And as in all societies that have suffered mass trauma there were bystanders, the beneficiaries of Apartheid privilege. Most important, there were victims, all of whom wanted to heal […]. The […] TC was established to provide a public platform for all these groups of people, to try and deal with South Africa’s traumatic past and to break the circles of violence that so often repeat themselves historically. […] Its mandate was clear : To restore hope and justice in a country ravaged by years of violence, fear, hatred, and to do this not through a process of rigid justice that condemns but through one that invited dialogue” (Gobodo-Madikizela 2004a).

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Similarly, based on in-depth research in Rwanda, Staub (2002, p. 872) illustrates the various effects and needs resulting from the impact of massive violence against the entire society. He calls attention to the alienation between the various groups, and to the resulting corruption of social ties (victims, perpetrators, bystanders). While the victims are suffering from unprocessed trauma, inferiority complexes, anxiety neurosis, and mistrust resulting from decades-long degradation, perpetrators and bystanders tend to take refuge with denial and disassociation from the victims. Thus, even after the end of violence the socio-emotional cleavages may grow in the light of each group’s isolation in dealing with its specific needs. In acknowledging the various socio-emotional realities of post-conflict societies, restorative measures aim at opening the “black box” of trauma, guilt and denial in order to include preferably everyone on the new societal course. First, they do so by highlighting the victim’s stories, giving voice and power back to those who were suppressed and silenced. Beyond the essential feeling of empowerment and public acknowledgement the very process of storytelling gives the victims the possibility of re-structuring and rendering tangible their possibly fragmented and painful memories into coherent experiences that are shared, discussed, preserved and so eventually (at best) enter into the collective national (respectively the local, tribal or ethnic) memory. At the same time offering those voices a public platform is a powerful symbol of social reintegration (Godwin Phelps 2004, p. 123). “Truth reports sponsored by the state are visible manifestations of a country’s willingness to listen to its citizens and to incorporate their voices. In this way, the reports can be sacramental, in the sense that a sacrament is grace made visible. In the acts of storytelling, both public and private, something even more profound can occur. In remembering, we re-member. We put back together that which was broken apart – ourselves, our families, our communities, our countries. In this new space, which may be both carnivalesque and sacramental, the unimagined may occur” (Ibid).

Second, restorative measures of TRCs – as their name already suggests – seek reconciliation by obtaining evidence about the troubled past. In doing so, they acknowledge the victims right to know what may have happened to loved ones and thus to provide the certainty that is needed for reprocessing and emotional closure. This evidence seeking, however, in many TRCs differed from a merely legal approach of war tribunals, for their aim was to also initiate a broader social dialogue on the investigated “truth”. Since in antagonistic, ethno-national or ideological conflicts “truth” is often been presented in its forensic definition, and thus as one-dimensional – as something to unmask and preserve against malignant attempts of manipulation – it is important to seek a deeper nuancing of this concept. There is, according to Boraine, the narrative truth constituted through the illustrated process of sense-making. It may include both victims’ and perpetrators’ perspectives. Communication

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between divergent perspectives he calls the “dialogical truth” that should pave the way for “healing or restorative truth” (Boraine 2006, p. 20). Thus, as opposed to conflict contexts, where truth is often used as an exclusive, absolute means of reinforcing one’ own position, Boraine underlines the intersubjective dimension of truth and its fundamental importance for reconciliation. Albie Sachs, Anti-Apartheid activist and constitutional judge, calls all these dimensions a process moving “from knowledge to acknowledgement” that is created via social communication that constitutes the “living memory” of a community (Soft Vengeance 2015). Such a conception of truth may assist in reducing the risk of social upheavals and defensive responses to legal or restorative TJ measures. Furthermore, these concepts suggest that communication about the past should be an open and integrative process that fosters cognitive understanding and emotional rapprochement of the alienated groups. For Staub (2002, pp. 875), the success of such a process that he labels a process of “healing” (for both: perpetrator and victim) includes knowledge about the root-causes of conflict and self-awareness. He recalls his own initiative in postgenocide Rwanda, where he trained Hutu and Tutsi in peace education and in establishing forms of semi-public group therapy : “Rwanda in particular is a collectivist, community-oriented society. To promote healing, in small groups (and through the radio), we provided information about the impact of traumatizing events on people. The purpose of this was to help people understand changes in themselves and in others around them as a natural, normal consequence of extreme, and in their case, horrendous events. In small groups, people also engaged with their experiences during the genocide, with empathic support from others. The radio programs provided community education, through the example of people in radio dramas as well as in informational programs, including people supporting each other through empathic listening.”

The author, furthermore, demonstrates how participation in these groups had a significantly positive impact on all members in reducing stereotypical outgroup-perception and the emotional barriers of both victims and perpetrators (pp. 876–877). Here, one can see a process of mutual acknowledgement and dialogue at work. Under the surface of the debate about acknowledgement, integration and collective healing lie the basic needs of the involved actors in post-conflict societies. To directly name those needs may help explain the psychological barriers to reconciliation and why reconciliation understood as emotional reprocessing is so difficult to achieve. Scientists, as Baron, Bar Siman-Tov, BarTal, Fiske, Glasford, Kelman, Malloy, Nadler, Pratto, Worchel-Coutant and others, are concerned with the emotional imbalances that result from violence and accounting. Only if these are resolved, they hold, can reconciliation, based on a “changed psychological orientation towards the other” (Nadler, Shnabel 2008, p. 116), be achieved. Bar-Tal et. al. call security a fundamental need

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people have to experience for a society to step out of the “conflict ethos”, since security brings “satisfaction, tranquillity, contentment”, while a lack of it may trigger “frustration, fear, and dissatisfaction and may lead to the most extreme behaviours, including violent conflicts, wars, and even genocide” (Bar-Tal, Halperin & Rivera 2007, pp. 449–452). Similarly, other basic needs that result from either inflicting or suffering pain may be the perpetrator’s need to forget, to suppress guilt and fear of social consequences. On the victim’s side it is the need for empowerment and revenge, but also for forgiveness. Eventually, there is the need for positive identification with certain actors or groups that motivate solidarity, defence and protection. The danger for reconciliation lies in the negative emotional spirals or continuous nervous states in limbo that can be aroused from unresolved emotional issues (see Sheff 2009, p. 331). In his famous and fierce critique of the German post-World War II society Theodor W. Adorno describes such a collective state of neurosis that results from denial and guilt complexes as part of a desperate attempt to get rid of the past. The past, however, continues to be silently ubiquitous. As he aptly illustrates, a guilty conscience needs no accuser : “Now it is indisputable that, in relation to the past, there is much that is neurotic: defense gestures when one isn’t attacked; massive affect in situations that do not fully warrant it; lack of affect in the face of the most serious matters; and often simply a repression of what was known or half-known. Thus, in a study of groups conducted by the Institute for Social Research, we discovered many times that recollections of deportation and of mass murder were described by saying expressions or euphemistic circumlocutions, or that a vacuous discourse formed around these memories – the universally accepted, almost benevolent expression “Kristallnacht”, used for the pogrom of November 1938, is evidence of this tendency. A very large number of people claim not to have known what has happening then, although Jews were disappearing everywhere (…). One may certainly suggest that a proportional relation exists between the gesture of “I didn’t know anything about all that” and an indifference that is obtuse and frightened, at the very least” (Adorno 1986, p.116 [translated from German by Timothy Bahti and Geoffrey Harman]).

Nadler and Shnabel suggest in their concept of the “apology-forgivenesscycle” how such states of hate, denial, frustration and confrontation can be remedied for both sides. Would the perpetrator apologize, and the victim forgive, the former would experience a diminished threat of exclusion and could stop denial, the latter would be able to let go of hate and frustration through the newly acquired equilibrium (Shnabel, Nadler 2008, p. 117). Although this cycle might seem somewhat idealistic, one has only to investigate history to see the symbolic importance and impact of public apologies. Willi Brandt’s kneeling down in Warsaw, Pope John Paul II’s asking for forgiveness to the victims of prosecution by the Catholic Church, Kofi Annan’s admission of failure of the United Nations in preventing the genocide

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of Rwanda, or Kevin Rudd’s representative manifestation of remorse for expropriation and repression of the Australian aborigines have been some of the most powerful gestures and can serve as initial impulses for paradigm shifts (see also Nadler/ Shnabel 2008, p. 39). In this sense, authors have underlined the importance of inclusive emotions that might have traditionally been conceived as signs of weakness. In fact, Gobodo-Madikizela underlines that forgiveness on the part of the victim is not only a sign of strength, but is also rewarded by immediate empowerment and liberation and thus can even be, paradoxically enough, a kind of revenge: “For just at the moment when the perpetrator begins to show remorse, to seek some way to ask forgiveness, the victim becomes the gatekeeper to what the outcast desires – readmission into the human community. […] In this sense, then, forgiveness is a kind of revenge, but revenge enacted at a rarefied level. Forgiving may appear to condone the offence, thus further disempowering the victim. But forgiveness does not overlook the deed: it rises above it. ‘This is what it means to be human‘, it says. ‘I cannot and will not return the evil you inflicted on me.‘ And that is the victim’s triumph” (Gobodo-Madikizela 2004b, p. 117).5

Similarly, Albie Sachs who as a consequence of his political struggle had fallen victim to a bomb attack, has made popular the notion of “soft vengeance” based on freeing oneself from consuming emotional states and remaining true to one’s values: “Getting the wonderful constitution that we drafted as part of soft vengeance, getting democracy in South Africa, voting as equals for the first time: That is part of soft vengeance. It is more powerful than hard vengeance” (Soft Vengeance 2015). However, harbouring negative emotions against someone who has caused evil, sometimes appears easier in the short run than letting oneself in for a potentially long process of comprehension and ultimate forgiveness: Hate “blinds” and as such shields from a potentially inconvenient or painful confrontation and allows the externalization of guilt. Moreover, as GobodoMadikizela explains, forgiveness might be avoided by victims out of fear that they could be “compromising their moral stance and lowering the entry requirements into the human community” (Gobodo-Madikizela 2004a). ˘

5 Similarly, a bereaved husband s facebook-post in honor of his wife that was killed at the Paris Terrorist Attacks of November 13th 2015 has become a symbol of moral superiority, mental strength and emotional freedom, viewed within 72 hours more than 50 million times. In a direct address to the perpetrators he states: “On Friday night you stole away the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hatred. (…) If the God for whom you kill so blindly made us in His image, each bullet in my wife’s body would have been a wound in His heart. (…) Therefore, I will not give you the gift of hating you. You have obviously sought it but responding to hatred with anger would be to give in to the same ignorance that has made you what you are. You want me to be afraid, to cast a mistrustful eye on my fellow citizens, to sacrifice my freedom for security. Lost. Same player, same game. (…) We are only two, my son and I, but we are more powerful than all the world’s armies.”, Available from: .

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Particularly in societies involved in intractable conflicts, forgiveness may also be seen as weakness for undermining the united front against the enemy. Conversely, hate and revenge are easier to instrumentalize for political purposes, because they trigger action. That is why, as Hutchison and Bleiker explain, conflict societies mostly follow negative impulses, although the “unleashed emotional energy” could also be used for a positive transformation. In this sense, they evoke empathy, compassion and wonder : three key emotions that could be triggered if one was willing to encounter dehumanized or demonized out-groups (Hutchison, Bleiker 2008, p. 390). Although these emotions may be easier to collectively apply in contexts where groups contain both victims and perpetrators, it is also conceivable for a single, clear-cut victim-perpetrator confrontation: As one may say, what on a mental level is praised as willingness and intellectual skill to think “outside one’s box”, is matched on the affective level with exactly these three emotions. The mentioned Israeli-Palestinian parent’s circle can be considered a locus of these kinds of constructive emotional encounters. To sum up: Negative socio-psychological dynamics of denial, trivialization, guilt complexes on the one hand, and consuming fears, hate and frustration on the other can cause vicious circles and alienation in post-conflict societies. Conversely, apology and forgiveness, empathy, and gestures of compassion might encourage cognitive rapprochement and emotional closure.

Case Study : Intra-German Reconciliation German re-unification was followed by broad institutional reforms, vetting, reparations for those prosecuted by the GDR-regime and the establishment of an omnipresent institutional memory of the GRD. However, these measure – as shall be shown in this section – have neither led to reconciliation within East Germany, nor have they encouraged a broad consensus between East and West about the GDR and the quality of German reunification. As Ahbe (2013, pp. 27–58) or Franke et. al (2013, pp. 221–238) illustrate, the process of legal accountability and critical reflection of the GDR and its heritage was in effect undertaken by West Germany (thus not locally owned), while retributive measures to promote intra-communal dialogue between East Germans were not undertaken. Both seem to have caused broad resentment and fear of degradation on the part of many East Germans, while it also prevented constructive dialogue and reconciliation between former socialist elites and victims of prosecution. Indicators are the GDR officials’ widespread denial of their deeds, a glorification and trivialization of the GDR-system, a lack of public apologies, widespread victims’ frustration about a perceived marginalization and the still existing alienation between East and West Germans. As

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shall be outlined in the following, a profound lack of socio-emotional reprocessing and the has encouraged the creation of three parallel German (hi)stories about the GDR: A negative political GDR memory expressed in holidays and statesponsored lieux de m8moire, and a positive, unofficial memory shared within parts of the East German community. Interestingly enough, and distinct from the two formers, also a third, public but more international memory has evolved that depicts the GDR as pop-culture. The institutional level is expressed by ceremonies, holidays, a series of memory places and media products as mementos of the human rights violations of the communist regime. Politicians recall the anniversaries of the “peaceful revolution” that caused the end of the GDR regime, while paying tribute to memorial sites, such as the “Wall Documentation Center” or the Museum that once was the Ministry of the “State Security” in Berlin. Countless documentaries bring to mind the former GDR opponents’ repression and resistance of the so-called “second German dictatorship” (Assmann 2013, pp. 107–109). At the same time, and somewhat in contradiction to the first frame, one can also perceive a form of romanticised cult and glamorization of the GDR and her products, that Assmann titles “HisTourism” (ibid., pp. 107–108). In Berlin the newly inaugurated “GDR Museum” promises tourists a first-hand experience of socialist daily life, while they also may drive through the capital in restored, brightly coloured “Trabbis”, or acquire GDRsouvenirs. The public memory of the GDR thus seems divided into a dictatorship memory, solemnly and ritually recalled in the political sphere and omnipresent in the media, and a romanticized daily reality of socialism popularized as part of an entertainment business.6 Beneath the surface of this memorialization, an East-German memory has evolved as a – so to speak – socio-emotional counter reaction to the official memory that consists of positive, daily-life memories that many East Germans, who do not feel represented by the official “dictatorship memory”, employ to defend their own heritage, particularly the non-political sphere. As a result, West Germans have accused East Germans of idealising the past as a consequence of their inability to adapt to the new system’s expectations. However, reality is far more complex. The defensive stance of many East Germans does indeed comprise profiteers of the GDR regime who seek refuge in denial of the past and their own deeds. However, it also comprises those, who had aligned themselves with the system official conforming to it, 6 This phenomenon shows certain parallels to the collective Holocaust Memory, which is also highly ritualized on the one hand, and has become somewhat of a German export brand on the other, raising critical scientific discussions on whether the memory of Nazi-Germany has been deprived of meaning and content, transformed into an empty shell of political correctness and catchphrases (see Assmann 2013).

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while swerving into the private sphere. Thus, East Germans attitudes can also be considered an act of negotiating and re-evaluating identities in view of what they perceive an unfavourable comparison with a West German standard and West Germans’ sense of superiority as “winner of history”. The latter is perceived in a general suspicion of East Germans vis-/-vis their role in the GDR system, and a negative bias in depicting the GDR. This appears to have triggered feelings of injustice and frustration in East Germany. Another reason for the need of re-assurance and re-evaluation seems to stem from the political and economic transformation after reunification – which meant the integration of East Germany into the West German political and economic system. High unemployment rates in the East, the dismissal of many highranking GDR people in media, science and politics from their positions, and the long persistence of high economic disparities between East and West left many East Germans disappointed. The threat to their positive self-image (identity disadvantage) and the perceived economic discrimination (material disadvantage) seems to have inspired East Germans to defend the ethical principles of the GDR, while pointing to social justice and solidarity – values perceived as being lost in the unified Germany. In this sense many – among them also former critics of the GRD regime – defend “their real lives in the false system” underlining the broad spectrum of kinship and solidarity, of creativity and intellectual productivity that evolved beyond, or even in opposition to the political sphere. Remembering only its repressive elements would be an unfair reduction of the GDR, they hold. Competing discourses of East Germans perceiving West Germans as contemptuous, disinterested and ignorant and, conversely, a widespread West-German perception of East Germans as being alien to the new society, has significantly affected intra-German relations (Deutz-Schröder 2009, pp–7–31; Schröder 2009, chapters I–IV; VII). Opinion polls indicate that a significant number of Easterners and Westerners share these mutual stereotypes. While East Germans are assumed to be excessively lamenting, dissatisfied, and distrustful, West Germans appear as arrogant, know-all, superficial and avaricious (Short Report, n.d.). For a long time, East Germans have shown significantly lower satisfaction rates with their economic status, and lower identification rates with the common state7. As I want to show in the following paragraphs, these perceptions have been significantly encouraged by the form and implementation of the chosen TJ measures. These measures have themselves been shaped by political preferences, historical conditions and practical constraints. First, it is obvious that the leading West German political circles were far 7 42 % of East Germans have indicated to feel as second class citizens; poll from 2009; available from: [accessed 25 November 2015].

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more concerned with the political, economic and international challenges of reunification, than with questions of fostering reconciliation within the East German society. So, human rights violations of the SED regime under the auspices of West German lawyers were practically answered with impunity for the sake of accelerating the unification process. About 100 000 preliminary proceedings were followed by 750 convictions, only 40 of which resulted in prison sentences (Eppelmann 2007, p. 4). Many victims of the regime left with the bitter feeling that their concerns had been widely ignored. Second, the decision to open the Stasi files immediately and comprehensively to provide for accountability and truth seeking has had ambivalent effects. Until today former GDR citizens are entitled to request access to their personal files, which include the names of the formal and informal employees that were spying upon them.8 Since the spying network comprised more than 180 000 unofficial members and permeated all possible areas of daily life, the inspection of the records also gives insights into one’s family, neighbours or local network. More than two and a half decades after reunification tens of thousands still applied for insight. The opening of the files is a measure to provide truth. The high amount of people seeking access to this truth underlines its relevance. However, many felt disturbed with the information they found in the files and were left alone with it. There is no institutional framework or a social debate that would encourage dialogue between perpetrators and victims. Third, the length of lustration posed a permanent and imminent threat on the Eastern community. Due to the inconsistencies in the checking of political actors in the first years of reunification, and the fact that an examination of a person’s life outside the official sphere is undertaken only upon request (for instance by employers), the uncovering of former unofficial agents is still taking place today. This is evident from the fact that there is still a significantly high number of review requests. Until today, media from time to time uncover Stasi-entanglements of prominent personalities (Der Spiegel 2009). While lustration is a necessary instrument of TJ, the length of the process appears to negatively affect the East German population for they need to cope with an implicit and continuous suspicion. Fourth, institutional transformation aimed at integration of East Germany into the West German system and was necessarily based on the political, administrative and economic expertise of West German actors. Wollmann et. al. (1997, p. 11) call it a transfer of West German institutions, humans and finances. After 1990 West Germans came to the East as administration assistants, entrepreneurs, or legal practitioners and usually occupied leading positions. Thus, East Germany witnessed two profound transformations, a “double identity shift” as Assmann (2013, p. 110) aptly called it. The first was 8 Available from the BStU-homepage at: [accessed 22 February 2016].

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caused by the overthrow of the old regime, the second by the transfer of West German elites and the reformation of the political, economic and administrative system. Many Easterners lost their positions due to the lack of professional qualification. Many criticize that the resulting feelings of insecurity and degradation have been neglected in public awareness. Thus, the socio-political, economic and legal decisions have caused and aggravated the socio-emotional cleavages within East Germany and between East and West Germany, favouring denial, alienation and ideological competition. It is only now, almost three decades after reunification, that one can perceive a broadening of the monolithic state memory in favour of a comprehensive dialogue between East and West Germans and between the former regime and its opponents. This is mostly due to the activities of the selfproclaimed “Third Generation East”, a mediating generation that lived its childhood in the GDR and grew up in the united Germany. Its members are concerned with the traces of their cultural roots, with engaging in dialogue with their parents about the latter’s silences, and with the moral issues and challenges of daily life under a regime that was utterly repressive to their opponents, though appreciative to their (passive) supporters. That is why German poet Günter Grass rightly called the GDR a “comfortable dictatorship” (kommode Diktatur).9 In view of the above mentioned, it is obvious that TJ measures might have a limited or even unfavourable effect, if they do not succeed in transforming the socio-psychological infrastructure of a respective society, in imbuing a feeling of “justice” for the society as a whole and if they lack legitimacy.

Conclusion This paper has been concerned with illuminating the role of transitional justice and reconciliation for post-conflict transformation. As opposed to a rationalist, quid-pro-quo understanding of conflict resolution it first discussed diverse qualitative layers of conflict resolution, as well as different strategies of top-down, bottom-up, indirect and instrumental approaches for initiating change when conditions are unfavourable to socio-emotional reconciliation. Drawing on the central characteristics of intractable conflicts with their maximalist perspectives, stereotypes, and negative sentiments entangled in mutually exclusive narratives, the following section focused on the self-perpetuating tendencies of socio-psychological conflict structures and the risk of these structures being instrumentalized for political and economic purposes. Eventually, the need to bridge the ideological and 9 [accessed January 22 2017].

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emotional cleavages to open up paths for rapprochement and to delegitimize, expose and isolate spoiling actors, who profit from and hide behind stalemates, was underlined. Subsequently, with the aim of introducing mechanisms that are concerned with establishing justice, healing the wounds of the past, laying the foundation for democratization and the implementation of human rights, the six pillars of TJ were discussed. Here, the aim was to underline the relevance of the retributive sphere. Broadening the narrow scope of retributive justice and factual knowledge, conceptions such as dialogical truth, the importance of material and symbolic acknowledgement of inflicted pain, of victimperpetrator encounters, institutional reforms and memorialization were introduced. This was followed by an in-depth discussion of the tensions and risks, as well as of the potentially very limited impact of TJ measures in unfavourable contexts. These included the difficulty of individualizing guilt, when acts against single perpetrators smack of collective blaming, the lack of legitimacy of external actors and the danger of social stirs and opposition against legal or investigative proceedings, as opposed to the similarly dangerous consequences of impunity. Eventually, the fundamental importance of socio-emotional reconciliation and, as such, the importance of a comprehensive and dynamic approach to post-conflict resolution was shown. This section addressed the needs of the victims, accountability and reintegration of perpetrators and the power of apology and forgiveness to provide closure and thus, eventually, apply “justice” that is perceived as such by at best all social groups. The case study of inner-German reconciliation demonstrated how the most significant TJ reprocessing of past wrongs can have a limited, or even adverse effect, when the divergent perspectives and needs of the opposing parties are not reconciled.

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Emotional Reconciliation: Challenges, Prospects, and Inherent Contradictions 49 Rehrmann, C (2017), ‘Made for goodness? Women, conflict and reconciliation’ in Alternative Approaches to Conflict Resolution, eds M Leiner & C Schließer, Palgrave Macmilan. – (2019): Der Zypernkonflikt: Eine sozialpsychologische Diskursanalyse [The Cyprus Conflict: A socio-psychological discourse analysis], Springer, Berlin. Richmond, O 2006, ‘The linkage between devious objectives and spoiling behaviour in peace processes’ in Challenges to Peacebuilding: Managing spoilers during Conflict Resolution, eds E Newman & O Richmond, United Nations University Press, New York pp. 1–19. Richmond, O & Newman, E 2006, ‘Obstacles to Peace Processes: Understanding Spoiling’ in Challenges to Peacebuilding: Managing spoilers during Conflict Resolution, eds E Newman & O Richmond, United Nations University Press, New York, pp. 59–77. Rim, B; Kanyangaram, P; Yzerbyt, V & Paez, D 2011, ‘The Impact of Gacaca Tribunals in Rwanda: Psychosocial Effects of Participation in a Truth and Reconciliation Process after a Genocide’ in European Journal for Social Psychology, vol. 41, pp. 695–706. Rydell, RJ; Mackie, DM; Maitner, AT; Claypol, HM; Ryan, MJ & Smith, ER 2008, ‘Arousal, Processing, and Risk Taking. Consequences of Intergroup Anger’ in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol. 34, no. 8, pp. 1141–1152. Schröder, K 2010, Das neue Deutschland. Warum nicht zusammenwächst, was zusammengehört, wjs, Berlin. Sheff, TJ 2009, ‘Collective Emotions in Warfare’ in Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, ed. L Kurtz, Academic Press, San Diego. Shnabel, N & Nadler, A 2008, ‘A Needs-Based Model of Reconciliation: Satisfying the Differential Emotional Needs of Victim and Perpetrator as a Key to Promoting Reconciliation’ in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 94, no. 1, pp. 116–132. Staub, E 2006, ‘Reconciliation after Genocide, Mass Killing, or Intractable Conflict: Understanding the Roots of Violence, Psychological Recovery, and Steps Toward a General Theory’ in Political Psychology, vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 867–894. Tambe Endoh, F. 2015, ‘Democratic constitutionalism in post-apartheid South Africa: The interim constitution revisited ’ in Africa Review 7:1, pp. 67–79. Tocci, N 2006, ‘Spoiling Peace in Cyprus’ in Challenges to Peacebuilding: Managing spoilers during Conflict Resolution, eds E Newman & O Richmond, United Nations University Press, New York, pp. 262–281. Tutu, D & Tutu, M 2010, Made for Goodness, Rider, London. Vora, JA & Vora, E 2004, ‘The Effectiveness of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Perceptions of Xhosa, Afrikaner, and English South Africans’ in Journal of Black Studies, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 301–322. Weder, N; Garc&a-Nieto, R & Canneti-Nisim 2010, ‘Peace, Reconciliation and Tolerance in the Middle East. The Impact of People-to-People Peace Building Initiatives Among Israeli Jews and Palestinians Who Lost a First-Degree Family

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Phillip Tolliday

Reconciliation: A Negotiation Between Anamnesis and Amnesia

In the first chapter of his comparative study, The Guilt of Nations, Elazar Barkan suggests that the effort to amend historical injustices is fairly recent. In an attempt to fix a date, he plumps for March 5, 1997. The significance of that date is that it marks the time when in “response to accusations of profiting from Jewish suffering during World War II, Switzerland announced its intention to sell substantial amounts of its gold to create a humanitarian fund of five billion dollars” (Barkan 2000). Barkan’s point was that the Swiss were responding to a novel phenomenon – that “nations act morally and acknowledge their own gross historical injustices” (Ibid.). This mood really commenced after the end of the Second World War and throughout this whole period we have seen growing attention being paid to issues of morality and justice, which have now become political questions in their own right. The ending of the Cold War in 1989 has served only to accelerate this mood and to make it more manifest, not least because of the outbreak of so many wars and conflicts in the aftermath of the dismantling of the so-called Iron Curtain. The insight that “nations act morally” when they “acknowledge their own historical injustices” suggests that there is an implied dialogue to be had or at least an encounter between victim and perpetrator, and that “this interaction is a new form of political negotiation that enables the rewriting of memory and historical identity in ways that both [victim and perpetrator] can share” (Barkan 2000). This is part of what we mean by reconciliation. But though a useful beginning it is very far from being a full definition. “Notwithstanding the consensus that reconciliation is necessary in divided societies there is no consensus as to what reconciliation actually entails, either across cultures or even within a single culture” (Daly & Sarkin 2007). This lack of a consensus is not due to a lack of linkages with ideas, words and practices, for these abound – consider, for example, justice, truth, history, amnesty, forgiveness, impunity, apology, harmony, closure, consensus, vengeance or revenge. It is probable that a lack of consensus is the result of there being too many possible linkages, all purporting to explain what reconciliation actually is. “Is reconciliation compelled political correctness, a spiritually-imbued act of forgiveness, or a pragmatic decision to move on?” (Daly & Sarkin 2007). It may be all of these, and more. Part of the difficulty here is that often our theorizing about reconciliation

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does not take seriously the complexity of the situation in which reconciliation is actually to unfold. So, for example: “As a political matter, people use this single term to describe different levels of recovery—from personal healing to interpersonal relationships, to community building, to national stability and international peace … At a conceptual level, people associate reconciliation with justice, with truth, and with forgiveness” (Daly & Sarkin, 2007).

But this observation, though certainly correct, simply points to the complexity which is further elaborated by Ernesto Verdeja. In his book Unchopping a Tree: Reconciliation in the Aftermath of Political Violence, Verdeja has distinguished four levels – the political, institutional, civic society and the interpersonal – at which reconciliation is working. Accordingly, reconciliation is multivalent. Verdeja worked on developing a multi-levelled approach to theorizing reconciliation because he was dissatisfied with the two univalent methods that were, he believed, the only ones on offer. These were minimalism and maximalism. Minimalism tends to focus on the demands of the present to the near exclusion of engaging the past. Thus, it inclines toward what I have called the pole of amnesia. It is called “minimalist” because it seeks to move forward with the least possible amount of justice. Its aim “is to create a space where former enemies can become political opponents within the bounds of the rule of law” (Verdeja 2009). Minimalism is concerned that a stringent examination of the past may destroy the fledgling stability of the transitional present and they therefore wager that it is better to move on despite perhaps maintaining some of the institutions and supporting some of the people that were responsible for past crimes. Thus, when countries such as the United States and Australia turned a blind eye to war criminals after the Second World War it was in part because they weighed the then present alleged Communist threat against the Nazi background of those wishing to enter their countries and judged that the threat was more important than the criminal background. Maximalism, on the other hand, argues that the aim of reconciliation is realized when “perpetrators acknowledge responsibility, repent and are then forgiven by their enemies” (Verdeja 2009). Thus, maximalism moves reconciliation toward the pole of anamnesis or remembrance. Accordingly, the past is fundamentally important and our failure to engage with it will mean that reconciliation cannot be said to have been effectual. If under-determination was the problem with minimalism, here in the case of maximalism the fear is that the reconciliation process may be over-determined. In this latter case there is a strong intentional move toward consensus, indeed even harmony ; an ideal that may be impossible of achievement, and which at root, may be undesirable because it tends to a position that is illiberal. Reconciliation does not, or at least it ought not, require “the substantive agreement on moral issues and perspectives (…) that tends to smooth over real and

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legitimate differences – differences that are ineradicable elements of any political order” (Verdeja 2009). Common to both the minimalist and maximalist positions is that each is univalent. Consequently, though often without explanation, reconciliation theorists anchor their particular notion of the reconciliation process in a specific discourse, though without indicating how or even whether it translates into the other discourses that are germane to its successful implementation. “How do disparate calls for justice interact at different social levels?” (Verdeja 2009). Neither minimalism nor maximalism can answer this critical question satisfactorily. Neither can answer, for example, how forgiveness could be institutionalized in public policy, while nevertheless maintaining its expiatory and transcendental character. If forgiveness requires unpredictability – precisely because it must be the action of a free agent, and thus if we know that forgiveness always follows transgressions, the faculty loses its moral force – its institutionalization and routinization will result in predictability and consequently, its debasement (Ibid.). Is this simply clever sophistry or does Verdeja make a salient point? I am inclined to the latter view. At the very least, his observations raise the question of whether one may speak properly of political forgiveness at all. Ought one perhaps follow Griswold (2007) here and speak instead of an apology when the context is one of public policy? In his essay, “Politics as a Vocation”, Max Weber distinguished between two different ethical systems in the political world: the ethic of ultimate ends, which is committed to the attainment of certain ideals regardless of the consequences, and the ethic of responsibility, which recognizes that one’s conduct must be guided by what is possible in the real world, with all the limitations and frustrations that this may entail. Weber’s distinction between these two ethical systems has ready application to Verdeja’s discussion of maximalism and minimalism. The danger with maximalist approaches to reconciliation is that in their attempt to capture the moral high ground, as it were, they often set impossible ideals which, when not reached, lead to disappointment and the threat of a probable reversion to violence. However, on the other hand, the danger of combining reconciliation with minimalism is that one may fail to engage with the past in a sufficiently robust way, and thus according to the views of some, render any reconciliation superficial. Is there a way through this impasse? In his work Griswold set out to provide a “defensible analysis of forgiveness in both its interpersonal and political dimensions. Consequently, forgiveness, political apology and reconciliation are [its] central themes” (Griswold 2007). In his analysis he argued that vis a vis reconciliation, “the political sphere possesses structural characteristics, tensions and dynamics that in relevant and significant ways differ from those present in the interpersonal context” (Ibid.). Accordingly, as a result of such differences, Griswold concluded that one ought not speak of

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political forgiveness at all. The language of forgiveness is misleading in a political context and we should instead speak of an apology. This then raises the question of whether an apology in the political sphere serves the same purpose as forgiveness in an interpersonal context. Can the essence of a political apology be mapped onto or over an instance of interpersonal forgiveness without remainder? Significantly his answer to this question is, no. Griswold concludes that the complexity of the situation in which reconciliation is always already embedded and in which it will unfold means that we may speak of forgiveness in the interpersonal sphere, but that when it comes to the political sphere, and when, in the political space, it becomes apparent that we are encountering something like forgiveness, we find, on closer examination, that the political structures conspire against the possibility of it being the same thing as the interpersonal phenomenon. It is, instead, an example of political apology. This, he argues, indicates how reconciliation is variously framed by the twin logics of the interpersonal (forgiveness) and the political (apology). Verdeja (2009) has further refined Griswold’s discrimination between the interpersonal and the political and has extended them so as to speak of four levels: “the political, institutional, civil society and the interpersonal”. At each of these levels reconciliation happens, each level is necessary, though each by itself is insufficient to bring about “broader societal regeneration” (Ibid.). While each level is conceptually distinct, each is, as I point out below, imbricated in the three other levels and this mutual interaction has consequences both positive and negative. Reconciliation develops through the contextually specific actions and strategies of actors, and thus any theory must maintain sensitivity to these different contexts. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that these different types of responses to the past will work in harmony ; they may, in certain instances, work at cross-purposes, undermining the larger goal of reconciliation and social regeneration. Trials may end in acquittals and kindle calls for vengeance, while truth commissions may bring to light awful crimes but leave perpetrators untouched. Civil society groups may radicalize public discourse and raise unrealizable expectations of justice, or conversely, so actors may actually serve as apologists for past crimes, arguing that the crimes were legitimate responses to a real or perceived threat. And of course, efforts at treated trauma will sometimes fail. Thus, reconciliation does not unfold harmoniously along different levels. Rather, it is best theorized as disjunctured and uneven, and its complex and multivalent character means that institutional responses are by themselves insufficient to guarantee its success (Ibid. [Emphasis in the original]). That which holds true for institutional responses in isolation is also true for interpersonal responses considered in isolation. Though here it should be noted that the four levels to which Verdeja refers are only conceptually distinct. In reality each of the levels is imbricated in all of the others.

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Reconciliation is based upon mutual respect; indeed, this is the central value around which others cluster. Evidence for the existence of mutual respect is to be found in those societies where former enemies have come to respect one another and to see each other as moral equals. The existence of mutual respect, does not, however, signify the end of contestation and so the end of politics. For “political life includes more than the search for consensus; it also contains something of an agonistic dimension” (Verdeja 2009; Hirsch 2012; Little 2007). Upon the foundation of mutual respect are “four further normative concepts that play a role in achieving reconciliation: truth, accountability, recognition of victims and the rule of law” (Verdeja 2007). To speak of truth – about which I will have further to say later – is, of course, to make an implied reference to the past, though it also has consequences for the present and the future. In the second place, there must be some accountability. While reconciliation may take place in a culture of amnesty (South Africa being one such example), it is unlikely that reconciliation can happen in a culture of impunity. Thirdly, the recognition of victims plays its part in reconciliation because it aims to restore a sense of dignity and self-worth to those who have been abused. And last, but certainly not least, there is the rule of law, by which a space is constructed in which there is an acceptance that political differences will not be decided through recourse to violence or force. Reconciliation is an amalgam of these normative concepts: mutual respect, truth, accountability, the recognition of victims and the rule of law. Each concept is related to all the others; “they engage one another and presuppose each other” (Verdeja 2009). But within this engagement there are inevitable and perennial tensions. So, for example, if truth, accountability and victim recognition often result in further estrangement among different groups (if only because they may destabilize an already delicate political state of affairs) the rule of law and mutual respect point to a closing of the moral distance between groups, showing that reconciliation requires in the last instance, a reconstruction of the political order that allows for past enemies to work and live in the same political and moral space (Ibid.). There is, therefore, a delicate negotiation that must take place between these concepts in order to permit a formerly splintered society to work together, albeit often grudgingly. In mapping out some of the terrain in which reconciliation unfolds we have only gestured toward an implied past, but it is now necessary to make our treatment of that past more explicit. Amnesia and anamnesis, two of the poles between which I contend reconciliation is negotiated, each adopt a stance toward the past and they do so because they share at least two assumptions. Firstly, they agree that the past is implicated in the present and the future. Secondly, they each accept that the treatment of the past is a moral question, as opposed to say, being simply an issue of epistemology. And hovering in the background is a further assumption: that whether remembered or forgotten,

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the past is the place where one may begin a quest for the truth of what happened. Memory, the past and the truth are closely connected with each other. Memory connects us with the past and the comportment that we adopt toward the past cannot be dissociated from the issue of contemporary societal identity. “Memory is neither a retrieval nor a reliving of the past, but an interpretive process of selection that often results in conflicting versions of the past” (Kattago 2001). This means that memory, as well as being personal, is inherently political and is connected with “the broader processes of socialization and identity formation” (Barahona de Brito2010). There is, of course, an essential connection between personal and collective memory. “Although remembering is an activity that can be undertaken only be individuals, because such memories are socially communicated and socially and historically embedded, we can speak of social or collective memory” (Barahona de Brito 2010). The politics of memory, as it is sometimes called, assumes the historical and social embeddedness of memory when it aims “to shift the boundaries, and patterns, of social and political inclusion and exclusion, thus marking new social and political continuities and discontinuities” (Ibid.). So, memory does not simply recall the past; it has a creative dimension whereby it generates both meaning and structures. Consequently, remembering and commemorating have less to do with a process of recording and more to do with making a selection between remembering and forgetting. In this regard it is worth noting that Nietzsche argued that forgetting or amnesia was an inevitable concomitant of human existence. In the second book of his Untimely Meditations, Nietzsche argued that while it may be possible to live without memory – and here he gave the example of the blissful cow – he thought it utterly impossible for humans to live without forgetting. Of course, he was not advocating complete forgetfulness, but rather what we might describe as a selective amnesia about the past. He drew attention to what he called the “plastic power” of individuals, cultures and nations. Sometimes translated as agency, Nietzsche (1990) meant by plastic power “the capacity to develop out of oneself in one’s own way, to transform and incorporate into oneself what is past and foreign, to heal wounds, to replace what has been lost, to recreate broken molds”. Thus, we can see here that memory is far from being an uncritical, all-encompassing and passive recollection of the past. Instead, memory understood as plastic power or agency creates what has been called a “kind of bounded historicity that is perhaps an acknowledgement that the dynamics of memory involves a certain degree of forgetfulness” (Kattago 2001). This juxtaposition between remembering and forgetting, while particularly pertinent to the times of transition in the process of reconciliation, is in fact a perennial feature of any society at all times and serves to constitute its identity. Where histories clash or differ, and to some extent they are always differing,

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even during times of stability, nothing less than the negotiation of social identity is at stake. In order to gain a glimpse into how this works one needs to consider that collective memory is, as Connerton (1998) has observed, not simply what individuals remember from their past experience, but consists of concentrated or packaged memories that are transmitted by cultural forms and institutions, including enactment through commemorative ceremonies. Monuments too, will ensure that memory is constructed in one way and not another, which is to say, that certain portions of the past will be recalled while others will be forgotten. We see examples of this in societies where a change of government can lead to the removal of some monuments and the erection of new ones. A further point to consider here in regard to memory is what has been called “the heuristic device of the mnemonic community” (Barahona de Brito 2010). These mnemonic communities are memory groups and typically the nation is identified as the main such group. However, there are many mnemonic groups that exist within the larger core of the nation, and this includes groups of victims and perpetrators, political parties and churches. These different groups socialize us as to what should be remembered and what should be forgotten. They affect the “depth” of our memory ; they regulate how far back we should remember, which part of the past should be remembered, which events mark the beginning, and which should be forced out of our story (Barahona de Brito 2010). Each community will make its own selection of the past through a negotiation of remembering and forgetting, and hence we may appreciate Nietzsche’s emphasis on the importance of forgetting as a way of shaping what shall be remembered and what form identity shall take. One will not, however, travel very far along the path of memory before one is confronted with the issue of truth. The relationship alleged to exist between truth and reconciliation is far from being an uncomplicated one. As a theologian by training I am aware of the citation from the New Testament which reads: “You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free.” This is a theological truism from within a Christian frame of reference. But is it a truism outside of that reference? Some may believe so, and perhaps this was principal reason why Archbishop Tutu was so keen on uncovering the truth about the abuses of the past in South Africa. Perhaps it was also why, under his chairmanship, South Africa opted not for a Truth Commission, as had been the case in some other societies, but significantly chose a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. However, not everyone has thought that the truth is beneficial to the process of reconciliation and/or peace building. Many, including Michael Ignatieff, have wondered whether the truth might have a counter-productive, indeed even a corrosive effect particularly where the transitional situation remains unstable. It can be argued that truth actually impedes reconciliation, because the truth can be so terrible that attitudes harden and forgiveness and empathy

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are all but impossible. Consider, for example, the following vignette from Weistein and Stover (2004): “In the summer of 1998, we spent a month travelling to villages and towns throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia (…) The encounter we remember most vividly was a meeting one warm evening with a group of Bosnian Muslim women on a hilltop outside of Sarajevo who surrounded us and demanded ‘the truth’ about their lost men. The women were refugees from Srebrenica (…) When we asked the women what justice meant to them, an elderly woman (…) stood up and grabbed a young boy standing by her side. Placing him in front of her, she demanded, ‘Do you see this boy? He is my grandson. And I will teach him to remember and to hate. I will teach him to kill!’ For this sad woman, justice meant vengeance. And knowing the truth did nothing to soften her attitude, indeed it strengthened it”.

One need not endorse the principles of postmodernism to discern that the truth which is being referred to here is much more complex that a simple search for the facts. Indeed, in some cases, for example, with the so-called “disappeared”, the facts may never be known fully, though what facts are uncovered can prove immensely beneficial for the families of victims. But there are many other cases where the facts were certainly suspected and perhaps even in some instances known. Nevertheless, the purpose of truthtelling is not only to give people information they may not have known previously ; rather, truth-telling also serves as a public acknowledgement. This suggests that truth is more than a recounting of facts. Reconciliatory truth, according to Verdeja (2009) contains three aspects: (1) an objective component; (2) a phenomenological, experiential component; and (3) a broadly narrative component that works to combine the first two aspects into an intelligible account that explains the past. Factual or objective truth, is, as the terms indicate, concerned with empirically ascertainable events and actions – the questions of who did what to whom, when and where. Although it is concerned with investigating and classifying empirically identifiable phenomena it is, as we have already seen, necessarily selective. So, at this level, searching for the truth is both an historical and political enterprise “because it creates winners and losers and reframes historical understanding” (Verdeja 2009). And it does so because searching for the truth is necessarily selective, so that, for example, in the case of trials it is not possible to put all the perpetrators on trial and therefore a selection must be made unless the judicial system is to be hopelessly bogged down as it was in Rwanda. However, once the prudential move of selection takes place the inevitably political nature of factual truth is revealed. Secondly, there is phenomenological or experiential truth. It is this component of truth that is emphasized in Truth Commissions, although increasingly in some judicial systems what are referred to as “Victim Impact Statements” are also an example of this component of truth. Phenomenological truth deals with the physical and psychological legacies

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of violence on victims and their families. The importance of such stories goes beyond their immediacy. Telling stories establishes a connection between the individual and collective memory, facilitating broader comprehension of what occurred: “(…) [It] has two dimensions: (1) as a reflection of the individual’s personal experiences and (2) as a way of enriching and giving greater substance to social history” (Ibid). Phenomenological truth points toward the intuition that one’s own truth, no matter how intensely personal, is always embedded within a social matrix and it is this latter that provides the language by which the former may be however hesitatingly described. So, we can agree that there is a “dialectic in phenomenological memory, for it is both a response to and a further development of broader narratives – that is to say, it is not wholly the product of the speaker but also formed and shaped by other accounts of the past (Ibid.). In this way the individual and the collective begin to weave together, and a connection is made between individual experiences to narratives about social conflict and thereby provides a “wider and deeper understanding of the past” (Ibid.). It is this “deeper and wider understanding of the past” that gives rise to narrative truth, Verdeja’s third component. In transitional settings, any historical inquiry is politically charged. There is a difficulty in giving a “fair” appraisal of the past because of the political and ethical stakes involved and the difficulty of combining factual and phenomenological claims in a coherent, convincing manner. “(…) It requires making sense of each part, each ‘fact’ in relation to the whole story, which in turn affects the larger narrative picture. The goal of such a hermeneutic combination is to create larger narratives that make sense of events by placing them in culturally intelligible—and persuasive—language. Narrative truth refers to these broader understandings” (Ibid.).

Narrative truth is always open – in principle and in practice – to revision. However, this hermeneutic synthesis is “not the same as wholesale relativism” (Ibid.), for the latter would suggest that the relationship between truth and reconciliation is adventitious. To construe things in this way would, I think, be a mistake, for it would entail that principles such as accountability and the rule of law would fail to have any foundation on which they could be grounded. Nevertheless, truth itself has a mercurial quality that eludes simple definition and indeed apprehension. One of the difficulties facing anyone who wishes to define reconciliation is that one must confront multi-levels of discourse which are sometimes uneven. Nowhere is more evident than when it comes to a discussion of what is meant by truth. In an essay entitled Considering Truth, Michelle Parlevliet distinguishes the value of truth as acknowledgement from the varied perspectives of the personal, the social, the political and the national, which bears a structural similarity to the four-four schema outlined earlier from the work of Ernesto Verdeja. On a psychological level it [truth as acknowledgement] is an affirmation

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that one’s pain is real and worthy of attention. On a social level, it puts an end to the isolation and fear that accompany gross human rights violations. On a political level, it symbolizes that the state takes responsibility for what happened in the past. Symbolically, the state acts as it should have done when atrocities were committed but failed to do so at the time (Parlevliet 1998). She concludes that “this indicates that the significance of truth in relation to human rights violations goes beyond sheer factual knowledge” (Ibid.). Moreover, there is, she argues, a distinction to be made between truth at an individual level and truth at a societal level; “the former is more factual and concrete, the latter more abstract and normative” (Ibid.). Claims such as “Bringing the truth to light!” suggest that the truth is absolute, singular and certain. Yet at the same time it is readily recognized that there are conflicting versions of the past. Juxtaposed with this recognition is the view, often taken for granted, that one, non-controversial truth can be established that clears up the confusion about the past. However, a moment’s thought that demonstrate that this is a problematic mix. Why should it be possible to establish this one, clarifying, non-contestable truth if there is no agreement about which version of the past is correct? Is a unified history a sine qua non for reconciliation? The notion that truth is singular and non-contestable trades on the idea that it is objective and this “presupposes that facts can be fully separated from opinions, and that reality as it is can be set aside from perceptions of reality. These assumptions are doubtful” (Ibid.). If all facts were utterly transparent – and here I readily grant that some facts are transparent – then there would be no need to go about “ascertaining the facts” (Ibid.). That we do continually have to make an attempt to ascertain the facts seems to vindicate the claim made by Van Dongen (1996): “(…) that despite people claiming vehemently that they believe in truth, what they really believe is their impression of what reality or truth really is. Indeed they can do nothing other than this. Perception is reality. In this environment the fact-finder or truth-seeker is necessarily influenced by his or her own perceptions.”

The extent to which the truth mediates between the poles of objectivity and subjectivity is of intense importance for those who would convene truth commissions. If truth is reduced to a purely personal matter then it seems difficult to be able to associate it with principles such as morality and rightness. Yet without relating truth to some such principles it will be impossible to point out who was right and who was wrong in the conflict situation. And this becomes important in those post-conflict environments where the claim “the truth will be told”, forms a source of hope for people – as if, at some point, it will be revealed that the perpetrators, or the state apparatus, were in the wrong; as if truth operates exclusively on the side of the morally correct (Parlevliet 1998).

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Parlevliet claims that “telling the truth” has six aims, though she does not suggest that all six claims are always realized. They are: “The rehabilitation of victims and the restoration of their dignity ; The assertion of the rule of law and the building of a human rights culture; The legitimization of the state and its institutions; The establishment of an authoritative record of the past that can prevent future manipulation and distortion; The creation of a so-called collective memory that should contribute to a moral revival, and provide the basis for national unity ; and The education of the population and the deterrence of potential perpetrators” (Parlevliet 1998).

As is readily apparent, there are a wide variety of functions that truth-telling is meant to encompass on Parlevliet’s view. There are, however, two points of significance. The first is that truth-telling is considered to be important not only for individual victims but also on a broader scale for the society as a whole. Secondly, while its retrospective impact may be geared primarily toward individuals; its prospective impact is geared more toward society and this twofold aim shows a little of how the past and the future are linked together, and it was this insight that was recognized by the mandates of the Chilean and South African TRCs. So, in summary, what truth-telling attempts to do is to “neutralize the moral, social and political repercussions that gross human rights violations have had on individuals, society and the state” (Parlevliet 1998). It remains for the time being an open question whether finding the truth will always contribute to reconciliation. However, Baehr (2007) makes a good point when he writes that “in the end one has to start finding the truth first and then see whether or not it will lead to reconciliation”. One of the reasons why defining reconciliation is so difficult is because many of the concepts with which it is linked are so slippery. We have seen that reconciliation is always embedded within a multivalent environment, which in turn requires that we undertake a discussion that is cognizant of these multilevel discourses and their respective actors. We have also seen that the concept of the truth about the past is a complex reality and is certainly more than a simple accounting of facts. One needs to recognize that similar complexities confront reconciliation from whichever angle it is contemplated. For example, as Daly and Sarkin (2007) point out, “justice” can be “restorative, distributive, retributive or punitive”. Each of these taps into the well of justice, so to speak, but each does so very differently ; the gap between restorative justice and punitive justice is considerable. Or consider the fact that “trials can sometimes impede and at other times advance reconciliation, as can amnesty, as can doing nothing at all” (Ibid.). Despite the real and manifold difficulties of dealing with the past, a simple policy of forgetting the unjust past instead of dealing with it has not really

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received much support in the literature. If one had been minded to test this, then one would have expected to encounter substantive arguments sustaining the thesis that it would have been better for the Latin American and South African Truth Commissions never to have existed. Certainly not everyone was happy that they took place, but there was no really serious move to say that those countries would have been better off in their absence. On the contrary, precipitous attempts to forget or dismiss the past prompted observers to worry that a “past that has not be properly reckoned with cannot be properly buried, and that sooner or later, it will rise up and demand just attention” (Biggar 2003). Biggar’s comment invites consideration of the way in which the past is to be treated. It must, on the one hand, be addressed properly. However, on the other hand, the past is dealt with in order that it may be properly buried. In other words, there is a time, and more importantly there is a way, in which to place the past in the past. But unsurprisingly there is an eagerness to reach this place as soon as possible, and alas, many arrive there prematurely. So, for example, more than a decade after many had declared transitional processes of truth and justice to be complete in Argentina and Chile, memory politics resurfaced with potentially profound political consequences in both countries (Sieder 2003). The question of whether or not the past has been dealt with properly and can now be buried will depend on the levels of residual resentment that may be festering within those amongst whom the actual violation of human rights took place. This simply goes to show “That what is ‘forgotten’ at an official, national level may not be at all forgotten at the local communal one, where many of the actual violations of human rights took place and where rough justice is meted out amongst neighbors” (Biggar 2003).

This is what happened in France after the Second World War and it vindicates Verdeja’s theoretical point made earlier, that different levels in a society may well hold simultaneously opposing views of what best makes for reconciliation. The past, on Biggar’s view of the evidence, resembles a pile of hot, mushy, not to say rather oily chips, that no matter how carefully they were wrapped, will eventually seep through the paper in which they were originally bound. For Biggar, this is no bad thing. As he puts it: “(…) the truth about the past will out, and sooner or later, justice will press its claim. Humans, it seems are not satisfied with peace in the present. They are constituted by moral as well as political needs” (Ibid.). How a nation deals with its past also has repercussions for its present. The success of the new regime will often be judged by its treatment of the past – of just “how victims and perpetrators are treated as viewed by themselves, each other and the society in general” (Daly & Sarkin 2007). Therefore, in transitional societies close attention is usually being paid to the past, for as the

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Orwellian-style quip has it: “in transitional cultures the future is known, it is only the past that is unpredictable” (Daly & Sarkin 2007). Given the legitimate caution that we should not seek to come to terms with the past too quickly, it seems to follow – though perhaps not psychologically – that the past cannot and indeed should not “be remembered and resolved in an instant” (Biggar 2003). In an age that professes to value transparency, any attempt to draw a discreet veil over some aspects of the past is liable to provoke cries of outrage. But sometimes the call for transparency cannot be delivered, or at least not all at once. This may be because the burden of history is sometimes too big and complex to manage. It will also be because, since the truth can as easily destroy as liberate, it needs to be handled charitably and prudently. And for these reasons at least, in public life as in private, remembering and dealing with the past is likely to be a process rather than an event (Biggar 2003).

Conclusion Reconciliation is poised between compromise and purism, between pragmatism and principle. Earlier in this essay I considered this continuum under the categories of reconciliation as minimalism and reconciliation as maximalism. I suggested that the minimalist construal inclined toward the pole of amnesia while the maximalist approach favored anamnesis. I would want to conclude in favor of a qualified minimalism. That is to say, I do want to address the past, but I believe that when rightly addressed (and that is meant as a significant qualifier), the resonances of the past should fade in time. Societal reconciliation is, in its most basic sense, about reconciling individuals, although by now I hope it is clear that I do not think this can be done without attending to social and institutional processes. Reconciliation must take hold in the toxic moral space between victims, bystanders and perpetrators. However, the achievement of a broadly-based social reconciliation is not dependent upon every citizen being reconciled with everyone else. It would as Verdeja (2009) argues, “be illiberal to ask for a degree of mutual acceptance that is achievable only through ideological coercion”. Instead we should push for a thinner and, in my view, a more defensible conception of reconciliation. Emphasizing mutual respect and tolerance, reconciliation would be principally about renouncing violence against each other and coming to acknowledge the basic moral status of those with whom we have been at enmity. This would take time – no one could be sure just how much time. Reconciliation would therefore be a process rather than an event, though doubtless there would have to be event-like markers along the way. Such a view of reconciliation would not be inclined to endorse an immediate transparency toward the past. Instead the past would not be encouraged to surface all at

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once, but rather, slowly and partially. There would be the recognition “that a certain distance from the past is necessary, and while any future will carry the weight of the past, it is incumbent to create a space where new relationships can take root” (Verdeja 2009). I will conclude with some words from the Anglican theologian, John Milbank. He is referring to forgiveness – a subject that I have deliberately eschewed here – however, for all the differences between forgiveness and reconciliation, which in my view are many, the following sentiment seems apposite and may be permitted to stand as bridging both forgiveness and reconciliation. How are evil and violence to be overcome? If we are to be saved from their grip, then we must partake of the waters of forgiveness [reconciliation] which flow down the slopes of Mount Purgatory. However, right at the top, these waters divide: down the near slope pour the waters of Lethe, or of forgetting; down the farther side rush the waters of Eunoe, or of positive remembrance. According to Dante, this stream works not if first it be not tasted on this side and on that (Milbank 2003).

References Baehr, P 2007, ‘How to Come to Terms with the Past’ in Atrocities and International Accountability : Beyond Transitional Justice, eds WA Schabes, R Takur & E Hughes, Tokyo, United Nations University Press. Barahona de Brito, A 2010, ‘Transitional Justice and Memory : Exploring Perspectives’, in: Southern European Society and Politics, vol. 15, no. 3, pp. 359–376. Barkan, E 2000, The Guilt of Nations: Restitution and Negotiating Historical Injustices, New York, Norton. Biggar, N 2003, Burying the Past: Making Peace and Doing Justice after Civil Conflict, Washington, Georgetown University Press. Daly, E & Sarkin, J 2007, Reconciliation in Divided Societies: Finding Common Ground, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press. Griswold, C 2007, Forgiveness. A Philosophical Exploration, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Hirsch, A (ed.) 2012, Theorizing Post-Conflict Reconciliation. Agonism, Restitution and Repair, Abingdon, Oxon, Routledge. Kattago, S 2001, Ambiguous Memory. The Nazi Past and German National Identity, Westport CT, Praeger. Little, A 2011, ‘Disjunctured Narratives: Rethinking Reconciliation and Conflict Transformation’, in International Political Science Review, vol. 33, no. 1, pp. 82–98. Nietzsche, F 1990, Unmodern Observations [Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen], New Haven, Yale.

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Parlevliet, M 1998, ‘Considering Truth: Dealing with a legacy of gross human rights violations’, in Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 1–36. Sieder, R 2003, ‘War, Peace and the Politics of Memory in Guatemala”, in Burying the Past: Making Peace and Doing Justice after Civil Conflict, ed. N Biggar, Washington, Georgetown University Press. Verdeja, E 2009, Unchopping a Tree: Reconciliation in the Aftermath of Political Violence, Philadelphia, Temple University Press. Weinstein, H & Stover, E 2004, My neighbor, my enemy : Justice and community in the aftermath of ethnic cleansing, New York, Cambridge University Press.

Rafael Biermann

The Politics of Reconciliation in Former Yugoslavia – Assessing Progress Across the Region

Belgrade, 16 December 2000. The local Humboldt Club had invited its members to its 10 th anniversary for what would become a memorable evening. Last October the Serbs had finally shaken off the rule of Slobodan Milosˇevic´. The new Prime Minister Zoran ¯Dind¯ic´ promised a comprehensive democratic transition. He embodied the hope of many in the Western world. Holm Sundhaussen, one of the most recognized historians on Yugoslavia, was invited to speak about the breakup of Yugoslavia and its root causes. I was asked to sketch out the perspective of a supposedly rapid integration of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro at the time) into the European Union and the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. My topic turned out to be much less controversial than Holm Sundhaussen’s. The Humboldt Club rightfully assessed that looking back and looking ahead inextricably belong together when countries embark on a transition from authoritarian to democratic rule and from conflict to peace. My expectation was to meet a highly sympathetic audience. After all, these were alumni of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation all of whom had been extensively exposed to democratic and human rights norms while spending years of research in Germany. This group of eminent scholars from all disciplines would, I assumed, pioneer the democratic change in Serbia, based on a profound new understanding of Serbia’s burdened past. The reality was different. Certainly, Holm Sundhaussen’s presentation was frank, though not confrontational. He reviewed the rise of Milosˇevic´ in the late 1980s and focused on the notorious memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Science in 1986 as a crucial vehicle for the surge of ethno-nationalism in Serbia, thus alluding to the Serbian academy’s own responsibility for what followed (Biermann 2006, pp. 174–177). However, the ensuing heated discussion revealed that this audience almost unanimously cultivated a completely different narrative of the Milosˇevic´ years. It disputed strongly what my research had brought me to understand as historical facts and thus ‘truth’. The message was, to use terminology Michael E. Brown (1996) framed to characterize discourses in ethnic conflict, one of self-whitewashing and othermaligning. Not Serb politicians or academia are responsible for what happened but the other former Yugoslav republics and the ‘West’. Puzzled and deeply annoyed I came back, doubting whether such a posture of denial

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would be compatible with the European perspective Serbia was just embarking on.1 Mostar, eight years later, 9 October 2009. My research on secessionist sentiment in post-conflict Bosnia and the moderating influence the EU integration perspective exerts on that sentiment had brought me to those places where the ethnic polarization of this still-so-much divided country would best be studied: in Brcko, Sarajevo, Banja Luka and now Mostar. My visit occurred at a time when the power-sharing system of the Bosniak-Croat Federation, established in response to U.S. and German pressure in 1994, was on the brink of collapse. At the time, both groups were for fourteen months not able to appoint a joint mayor and adopt a budget in Mostar, bringing legislation to a “standstill” and threatening wholesale “ungovernability” (ICG 2009). During the war, the famous bridge across the Neretva, an Ottoman masterpiece of the 16th century which was destroyed in 1993 by Croat artillery, became a sad symbol of the deep ethnic rift running not only through that city, but through all the Balkans. Since then, an almost complete ethnic segregation, with Bosniaks populating the part west of the Neretva and Croats the Eastern part of Mostar, is the continuing legacy of the war. The bridge was rebuilt in 2004, in the hope that the Croat and Bosniak communities would finally learn to live together. After all, the new democratic leadership of Croatia took part in the ceremony unveiling the bridge and Croat President Stipe Mesic´ confessed “Croatia’s shame” about what happened. However, the local bishop and the cardinal from Sarajevo boycotted the ceremony. Instead, the monumental, 100 foot high Jubilee cross above the city on Hum hill, illuminated at night, vividly symbolizes the Croat nationalist quest for dominance in a Federation, canton and city jointly governed by both communities. My own encounter with that city turned out to be deeply depressing. In my interview the dean of social sciences and his colleague at the Croat university, after some initial praise of multi-ethnicity, fiercely turned against the “muslims” and “muselmans” who supposedly “oppress” Croat life in “our land”, especially the Croat language and the flag (which is displayed all over the Croat part of the city). In a long litany of verbal assaults against their fellow citizens, they portrayed themselves as “losers” in a struggle against increasing marginalization and creeping Islamization. Without continuing NATO’s presence and establishing a third entity for the Croats in Bosnia war would break out again.2 Afterwards, my taxi driver, asked to bring me back to my hotel on the Bosniak side of the Neretva, hesitated first, then drove without much orientation across the river, repeatedly asked pedestrians for direction,

1 It came to my surprise that our presentations were later published in the main media outlet of the Serb Humboldt Club; see Sundhaussen (2001) and Biermann (2001a). 2 Interview at Mostar University, October 9, 2009. My research was published in Biermann (2014).

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before explaining to me, “I am never on this side”. Mostar is a small town of some 113,000 inhabitants. However, there were also more encouraging signals. In the early 2000s I was able to organize with the European Commission, the German MFA and the Croatian Diplomatic Academy three biweekly ‘Stability pact Summer Schools’ in Dubrovnik where young diplomats from the entire region not only studied European Union politics but also mingled casually at the beach and in the old town. And in May 2009 I was invited by the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence (BFPE) to give a presentation at their Annual Conference in Palic´, a town in liberal Vojvodina, about NATO and its enlargement process in the Balkans – a courageous invitation given the vivid memories in Serbia of the NATO air campaign ten years before. I was struck by the high-level political attendance and the openness to discuss a version of the past deviating considerably from the Serbian mainstream narrative. The Belgrade Fund is a Serb NGO dedicated to the democratization of Serbia with much access to politics. Certainly, this is all anecdotal and selective. However, the impressions represent accurately the findings of research thus far on reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia. Overall, the message is distressing: all the multifarious instruments and initiatives, many of them imposed from the outside, to reconcile the former antagonists failed to move societies out of the still dominant posture of denial and confront the past. Only a few authors see some more encouraging signs or plead at least for more differentiation. To be sure, reconciliation involves incremental and often painfully slow change over time, making short-term assessments dubious. However, if there has been change it should be readily visible today, twenty-five years after the Washington Agreement (1994) ended the war among Croats and Bosniaks, twenty-four years after the Dayton Accords (1995) put an end to the war in Bosnia and normalized relations between Croatia and Serbia, twenty years (1999) after Franjo Tud¯man was ousted in Croatia and NATO conducted its air campaign on Kosovo, nineteen years after Slobodan Milosˇevic´ was toppled in Serbia (2000), eighteen years after the Ohrid Agreement (2001) ended the Albanian armed rebellion in Macedonia and eleven years (2008) after Kosovo gained independence. Thus, this contribution tries to assess how far reconciliation has progressed in the countries of former Yugoslavia. It surveys the prevalent mechanisms to come to terms with the past, ranging from denial to apologies and reparations to the International Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Overall, the contribution tries to pinpoint some major factors impeding reconciliation. This dovetails with Carolina Rehrmann’s overarching question posed in her introductory chapter, namely “Why is reconciliation so difficult to achieve?” Assessing progress in reconciliation for a region such as the Balkans is challenging. Janine Natalya Clarke (2011) rightfully observed that research on reconciliation and transitional justice, broad as it is, suffers from a serious

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“impact gap”. Even though most empirical studies somehow evaluate the effectiveness of individual instruments of reconciliation or progress in individual countries, methodologically sound measurement based on the sophisticated insights of effectiveness research, e. g. in management, sociology or political science, is rare.3 Without such in-depth studies, Clarke (pp. 244–246) warns, scholars (and politicians) generate unrealistic expectations about what reconciliation measures can achieve, thus provoking later popular disappointment. Without sound impact research, neither can they answer the critical questions of what works and what doesn’t. This contribution basically reviews the extant literature on the topic, synthesizing major findings based on an in-depth knowledge of the entire region and its history (esp. Biermann 1999, 2002a, 2004, 2006, 2014). Much of this is derived from country-specific surveys, interviews and participant observation. Research is often based on meagre methodological reflection which puts into doubt the robustness of the findings and the extent to which they may be generalised. Cross-country comparisons are largely missing. My contribution starts from a definition of reconciliation which aspires to more than mere co-existence but less than the overly ambitious goals of forgiveness or healing, which individuals might well pursue but which are difficult to implement on a collective political level. Here, reconciliation is understood as a process of rebuilding relations between victims and perpetrators in post-conflict or transitional settings encompassing both, working towards a common understanding of the past and towards a common future, with the goal of allowing new trust to grow and thus preventing a renewed outbreak of violence and attaining a sustainable, stable peace. This definition highlights some crucial dimensions. First, reconciliation is less a harmonious outcome than a highly contested process of individual and collective transformation of identities and values, aiming at a paradigm shift of central beliefs, cognition and emotions (Meernik & Guerrero 2014, p. 393; Rehrmann, in this volume). This process is often fragile, incremental and slow, unless shocks (crises) create new openings. It can stall and even revert. Consequently, timing is crucial when evaluating the progress of reconciliation. Second, reconciliation is relational. It is about rebuilding broken relations, in the Balkans after years of genocide, ethnic cleansing and mass atrocities. After civil wars, other than after inter-state war, this challenge is increased by the fact that perpetrators and victims (those who did not flee) continue to live together in one country. This distinguishes relations of Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs in Bosnia from relations between Serbia and Croatia. Roy Licklider (1995, p. 681) grasps the essence of this challenge when reminding us “How can you work together … with the people who killed your parents, siblings,

3 An insightful discussion of how to measure the impact of the ICTYoffers Orentlicher (2013). On measuring effectiveness in general see for example Hegemann, Heller and Kahl (2013).

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children, friends, or lovers? On the surface it seems impossible, even grotesque.” Ariel Dorfman (2004, p. xiv) adds, “How can survivors coexist with those who killed their most beloved kin? How can trust be restored to a community where our best friends betrayed us, refused us refuge? … Indeed, can reconciliation ever be truly achieved in a society where the perpetrators deny their crimes? How is the damage repaired? Through money? … And can the ruined fabric that once held a society together ever be sewn together again?”

Third, reconciliation is backward- and forward-looking (Burema 2012, p. 8), aiming at a situation where the past no longer defines the future. Working towards a common understanding of the past is about memory and truthseeking. It involves overcoming denial and silences, reconciling diverging narratives and perceptions of ‘truth’ and trying to reach a common understanding of what happened. These common understandings are institutionalized in common practices. Reconciliation implies that institutionalized practice (which is what we mostly observe) moves along a continuum from denial to acknowledgement to apology and reparations, from separate memorials and museums, days of commemoration and street names, geographical maps and history books to a common version of the past told in art and literature, children’s books, school and university curricula, and other daily practices. These are major indicators of progress in reconciliation. When memories of former enemies converge, we should see increasing community in daily practice. Working towards a common future is a perspective that grows as new trust emerges. The goal is to prevent a renewed outbreak of violence by attaining a sustainable, stable peace. Conflict research has observed a troubling trend in recent years. While the number of new conflicts breaking out decreased considerably in the post-Cold War period, the number of renewed conflicts breaking out among long-time adversaries increased significantly. In the mid–2000s, the number of recurring conflicts exceeded the outbreak of new conflicts seven-fold. Most of the conflicts we manage to terminate today have a recurrence history (Hewitt 2010). Obviously, reconciliation is a major mechanism preventing the resumption of violent conflict. It is a key mechanism in moving from negative to positive peace. This future-oriented dimension can be measured by observing how conflicts move from segregation to integration. On the state-level it is the move towards fair political cooperation across formerly adversarial lines; on the societal level it is the move into inter-communal contact, joint education and intercultural cooperation. Discourse, opinion polls, interviews, events and non-events (things not happening due to reconciliation) indicate how far the process has proceeded. Word limits prevent me from providing a detailed discussion here. It is evident how much we enter current-day politics here. My overall argument is that we need to pay more attention to both the politics of memory

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and reconciliation. According to Carolina Rehrmann (in this volume), reconciliation takes place from the bottom-up on an everyday, interpersonal basis in homes, neighbourhoods and villages. However, on the political level it is designed as top-down by political elites according to current interests and power distribution. Much is at stake when reconciliation is designed and implemented. Commemoration and reconciliation measures serve instrumental needs. Memorials strengthen nation-building, legitimize post-war elites and support claims for material compensation. War crimes courts shape political discourses, election campaigns and outcomes, the personal future of war-time leaders and, overall, the still very fragile stability in post-conflict countries. Since reconciliation creates winners and losers, we should expect local as well as international leaders to decide on any issue of reconciliation based on multiple competing rationales. Safeguarding the stability of a new beginning is one of them, and it is legitimate, for it is the sine qua non for reconciliation to proceed. However, we should also expect the vested interests of those harbouring devious objectives, such as war criminals, veterans or those who profited from the fighting, to engage in spoiling behaviour as they design reconciliation politics. Thus, there is indeed a distinct logic of the political in reconciliation, as Phillip Tolliday (in this volume) observes, who employs the term “politics of memory”. He highlights that memory is “inherently political” (p. 58) in that elites constantly select between competing versions of the past, between remembering and forgetting, in order to construct collective identities serving their needs. Indeed, whether politicians opt for a minimalist approach, prioritizing the stability of the present by silencing a divisive past (amnesia), or a maximalist approach, prioritizing the need to come to terms with the past irrespective of political repercussions today, very much depends on the political correlation of forces. This logic makes reconciliation highly context-specific. It is embedded in a particular political, socio-economic and cultural post-conflict setting. In the post-conflict Balkans, on a regional level, this setting encompasses the triple transition from war to peace, from a federal state (Yugoslavia) to a group of new neighbouring states, and from autocracy to democratic rule, including from a planned to a free-market economy. Each of these challenges, running in parallel to reconciliation, shapes the choices political leaders make. Thus, in Bosnia the Dayton constitution not only set the parameters for intercommunal relations since the war (Biermann 2014). It also set the parameters for reconciliation politics, e. g. by allowing war criminals such as Radovan Karadzˇic´ to be re-elected in 1996 and making ethnicity the main organizing principle in state institutions and civil society. Before moving into the empirical part of this chapter, two caveats should be made. First, reconciliation occurs when mind-sets change which mostly, but not necessarily, affects behaviour towards the former “other”. Thus, it is primarily personal and individual. It is also probably much more varied than

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scholars assume. Any attempt to aggregate it on the collective level risks falling into the same trap reconciliation struggles with, namely ethnic framing and stereotyping. Obradovic´-Wochnik (2013) warns, based on her interviews in Serbia that NGOs and academics tend to construct an expert narrative which “implicitly collectivizes, homogenizes and flattens the society and its experience of the past”, disregarding complex realities and marginal experiences. Since here I am less interested in individual than in collective change, offering country- and even region-level observations, readers should be aware of these pitfalls. First, not all mental change needs to cause behavioural change, in particular when that change deviates from norms of acceptable behaviour within one’s group, thus stimulating silences if only to avoid sanctioning. In post-conflict settings, in-group identities are strong and starkly contrasted with supposedly homogenous out-groups. This militates against translating intra-personal change into reconciling behaviour. Thus, what we see, even what is expressed in surveys or interviews, might not fully reflect reality.4 Second, we should expect multiple inter-personal encounters among perpetrators, victims and bystanders deviating from what I subsequently distil as the norm. The very diverse personal accounts of war-time experience in former Yugoslavia where the roles of perpetrators and victims mix and merge, overlap and diffuse in a highly complex conflict setting should prevent us from sweeping generalizations.5 As a scholar not living in the Balkan region I am fully aware of this dilemma. Third, reconciliation is fluid, but the literature I review is not a snapshot of where reconciliation stands in 2018. The publications range over many years. The question as to whether some findings do not hold any more is difficult to assess as long as studies are not replicated. My second caveat pertains to the regional level of analysis on which I focus. Analysing reconciliation in former Yugoslavia requires disaggregating a plethora of overlapping and interdependent conflicts and reconciliation processes. The five consecutive wars in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia from 1991 to 2001 were mutually constitutive, creating what we might call a regional conflict cluster.6 Individual conflicts are embedded in a network of conflicts which created a strong impact on the genesis, dynamics and results of each individual conflict. Multiple spill-overs such as crossborder military campaigns, the breakdown of regional markets, the creation of 4 Orelicher (2013, p. 543) argues, “denial does not necessarily reflect ignorance or disbelief but instead a refusal publicly to acknowledge facts that are privately known. We cannot know to what extent this phenomenon skews responses to surveys”. 5 See, for example, the war-time experiences Obradovic´-Wochnik (2013, pp. 341–42) reports: Serbs refusing to go to war, committing suicide after returning home from Kosovo, hiding opponents of the Milosˇevic´ regime or circulating stories about atrocities. 6 Stefan Troebst (1999) uses the metaphor of “communicating tubes” to characterize the interdependence of the Kosovo and the Macedonian conflicts.

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safe havens for rebels or the proliferation of dark networks internationalized those conflicts (inside-out), while all kinds of international conflict management as well as patronage efforts intervened from the external environment (outside-in). Disentangling such a conflict cluster is unavoidable here; however, it is reductionist, simplifying a much more complex causality. The same is true for the trans-border nature of the reconciliation processes in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, which I subsequently treat in a discrete manner while being aware that they are deeply interwoven. In order to reduce complexity, I will, however, focus on Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia, where reconciliation is most challenging.7

Mechanisms of Reconciliation Research has started both mapping the mechanisms commonly employed to deal with past injustice and analysing individual mechanisms, assessing their prevalence, effectiveness and other variables. A principal classification runs along the major dichotomy of retributive and restorative justice, which is better understood as poles on a continuum. Retributive justice is primarily backward-looking, privileging the perspective of victims and their moral right to achieve justice, especially by making perpetrators accountable and compensating victims. In contrast, restorative justice is more forwardlooking, privileging the post-conflict need of a stable transition. For many, this perspective implies sparing perpetrators from bearing the brunt of justice, for example by extending amnesties, or even allowing collective amnesia to spread, especially in mass violence scenarios. In between these extremes are those mechanisms such as truth and reconciliation commissions or civil society projects which mediate between both logics. This conception is well captured in a diagram produced by Engbert and Jentschke (2011), which I adapt, especially by inserting those mechanisms most prevalent on the countries of former Yugoslavia: In the Balkans, a broad spectrum of retributive and restorative justice mechanisms can be seen at work, many of them running in parallel. Subsequently, I will single out denial, memorials and commemoration, apologies and reparations (treated together) and courts as those mechanisms prevalent in the former Yugoslavia. Civil society projects are considered when other mechanisms are discussed. Some amnesty laws were issued after the wars to pardon crimes of a severity not persecuted by the International 7 For more information on Croatia’s reconciliation processes see Banjeglav (2013), on Macedonia Angelovska (2013), on Montenegro Freeman (2004) and on Albania Elbasani and Lipinski (2013). Slovenia is hardly treated in the reconciliation literature so far, even though the Slovene-Serb conflict and the horrendous legacy of World War II deserves more attention.

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Source: Engbert / Jentschke (2011, p. 28, modified)

Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the ICTY (such as desertion) and thus to facilitate multi-ethnic coexistence and refugee return. For example, the Dayton Accords already agreed on an amnesty for “any returning refugee or displaced person charged with a crime, other than a serious violation of international humanitarian law” (Art. VI of Annex 7). Upon strong pressure by the international community, reluctant local governments such as the Bosnian Federation and the Serb Republic introduced amnesties in 1996. This is not further considered subsequently, as is vetting.8 Remarkably, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC) were barely established in the region until now. The decision to create the ICTYduring the war complicated this option which is often perceived as a more victimoriented, softer version of truth-finding based on local ownership. The perspective of offering an amnesty for those testifying, such as in South Africa, might have acted as a further deterrent; the horrific nature of the crimes committed in the Balkans precluded any serious debate about amnesties after the wars. Furthermore, any national TRC would have had to deal with the regional dimension of past crime, implying that they are strongly dependent on the neighbouring countries’ willingness to cooperate (extraditing perpetrators, handing over documents, allowing witnesses to testify etc.). Given the existing deep divisions about war crimes, any commission would probably only selectively have gained access and been highly controversial, including

8 For more information and further links on amnesties see Mallinder (2008, pp. 89–90); for information mapping the vetting laws in the Balkan countries see Mayer-Rieckh and de Greiff (2007).

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time-frame and geographic scope. In fact, attempts to create such a commission failed in Bosnia in 1997, while in Serbia and Montenegro a TRC was created in 2001, which was however abolished just two years later. The members could not agree on its mandate and composition and its impartiality was also in doubt (Dimitrievic´ 2008, pp. 16–22; Simic´ & Daly 2011, p. 481). In Kosovo, calls to press for the establishment of a TRC in the final status talks since 2006 and the Ahtisaari proposal of 2008, based on OSCE and UNHCR recommendations, were disregarded (Sverisson 2006). More prominent is the ongoing campaign to establish a ‘regional commission for the establishment of facts about war crimes and other serious violations of human rights’ (RECOM). The transnational initiative was launched in 2005 by three NGOs, i. e. the Humanitarian Law Center in Serbia, the Research and Documentation Center in Bosnia and Documenta in Croatia, and supported by the International Center for Transitional Justice.9 The RECOM Process has so far (end of 2017) organized ten regional / international forums. In 2011, the consultative process on the establishment of RECOM, based on fora and debates of around 200–300 participants, had already involved more than 6,000 human rights activists, associations of victims’ families and veterans, religious organizations and others. In 2008 the network of approximately 100 civil society organizations throughout the region supporting RECOM was established, based on a joint statute. While all organizations meet in the Assembly, the ten major NGOs form the Regional Council. Resolutions of the European Parliament, of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and European Commission annual reports have supported RECOM, as do multiple individual politicians of the region. As part of the outreach, a regional team of public advocates and envoys to RECOM were nominated. Nevertheless, the fate of the initiative is uncertain. Local governments fear a loss of control over what they perceive as vital national interests. Others argue that the fact-finding is largely completed, while denial and diverging interpretation are the real challenges. Doubts as to whether such an initiative can overcome the problem of “multiple truths” (Meernik & Guerrero 2014, p. 387) continue to exist.10

9 The following is based mainly on the webpage of RECOM, available from ½4 April 2017A. 10 See the Conference Report by Ivan Brcˇicˇ, Versöhnung auf dem Balkan – rechtliche und politische Fragen, available from ½4 April 2017A.

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Denial and Silences Many observers perceive denial as the prevalent pattern of coping with the past throughout former Yugoslavia. It is a defensive psychological mechanism refusing to confront or minimizing the accountability of one’s own group for past crimes by cultivating an image of one’s own victimhood, with the result of intentionally or unintentionally creating silences.11 Evidence is rich on denial. A 2004 survey in Bosnia revealed not only the perpetuation of divisive ethnic narratives among the three major groups. It also demonstrated that only small minorities recognized their own group’s accountability for starting the war, while strong majorities attributed responsibility mainly to the other ethnic groups or to international actors. Asked about who is to blame for the war and the problems it created, 1.500 respondents rated the following reasons as “very significant”:

Source: Irwin (2004, p. 16).

This blame game is reflected in many surveys and interviews across the region. For Bosnia, Janine Natalya Clarke (2012) reported from 120 interviews with ‘ordinary people’ throughout the country in 2008/9 that “interviewees from all three ethnicities maintained that their ethnic group was the primary victim during the Bosnian war while the ‘others’ were the aggressors” (p. 62). When asked about Srebrenica, Serbs claimed, inter alia, that those killed were combatants and therefore legitimate military targets; that no genocide 11 Parent (2017) argues that denial is a psychological mechanism to protect oneself from guilt, shame and trauma in line with expectations that can be derived from social identity and selfcategorization theory.

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occurred because only males were targeted; and that Bosnian Muslims had greatly inflated the number of deaths, thus masking the fact that many of the so-called ‘victims’ of Srebrenica are in reality alive and well and living abroad.” Interviewees from Srebrenica were “most prone to denial” (p. 67). They “frequently claimed they were not in the area during the war and were themselves victims of the conflict”; they talked about endless “provocations”, portrayed the genocide as a revenge for earlier Bosniak crimes around Srebrenica and were generally “looking to blame anyone but themselves” (p. 61). Clarke points to the instrumental character of such allegations by highlighting that “genocide denial serves as a means of defending the legitimacy of Republika Srpska from Bosnian Muslim claims that the Serb entity ½recognized in Dayton by the international community; the authorA is built on geocide and must therefore be abolished” (p. 67). On the other hand, many Bosniaks could not grasp, according to Clarke, how their own group, being the main victim of the war, could be accused of war crimes. Fearing that admitting own accountability would qualify their own victimhood, they were not willing to discuss the war crimes of their own ˇ elibic´i detainment camp. Thus, the “competition of group, such as at the C victimhood” (p. 69), perceived as a zero-sum game, ultimately serves current agendas in a struggle which determines the future power distribution in Bosnia. Timothy Donais (2015) found that nationalists instrumentalized economic hardship in Bosnia in order to undermine multi-ethnicity and reconciliation. Investigating two Bosnian towns to where a remarkable number of refugees from minority groups returned (Drvar in the Federation and Focˇa in Republica Srpska), he shows how both majority populations wage a quiet campaign to drive the minorities out of town by creating, perpetuating and exploiting their difficult socio-economic situation. Donais concludes: “While Bosnians of different ethnicities once again live together, and individual examples of tolerance and mutual respect are now so common as to be unremarkable, Bosnia has yet to experience anything resembling the cleansing, healing, and reckoning exercise of South Africa’s TRC ½Truth and Reconciliation Commission; the authorA. On the contrary, in many ways the final shape of Bosnia’s post-war settlement is still being worked out, and the main lines of contention still run along ethnic lines.” Therefore, “unresolved issues of political status and economic survival have prevented greater progress towards genuine post-war reconciliation. Bosnians (…) have neither forgotten nor forgiven” (p. 31). Regarding Serbia, there is broad consensus that the public remains generally silent and disengaged from debates about the past (Mehler 2015). Official policy is at best ambivalent, if not openly obstructive of efforts to come to terms with the Milosˇevic´ years. Conspiracy theories still circulate. A survey in 2010 among 1.000 Serb citizens found that 55 per cent regarded Srebrenica as one crime among others, ‘the magnitude of which has been intentionally

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overstated by our enemies and the media’; it was denied or perceived as invented by 7 per cent, while 22 per cent had no views.12 Nenad Dimitrievic´ (2008, pp. 5–7) attributes this “relativist attitude” primarily to political elites, media, intellectuals and extreme right-wing organizations. He distinguishes literal and interpretative denial. The former, simply implying ignorance of basic facts, might have been dominant during the Milosˇevic´ years due to wartime propaganda; however, especially the Srebrenica accounts “entered the public realm with such a force that the event itself cannot be denied anymore.”13 Thus, literal denial has become “the lack of readiness to publicly acknowledge facts that were privately known.” Serb society has, though, largely moved from literal to interpretative denial. In essence, this kind of denial aims at giving facts a meaning which supports one’s own narrative of the past. Parent (2017, p. 17–18) explains, interpretative denial “recreates the conditions under which the victims’ extreme suffering is perpetuated and further victimization (…) is made possible by reviving indifference, dehumanization and hostility.” The reasons for this “dominant attitude of denial” (Dimitrievic´ 2008, p. 7) in Serbia are complex. There are the current-day needs, especially of those parties in power which once supported the Milosˇevic´ regime: “What is at stake is the nation’s identity” as portrayed by ruling elites. This identity was strongly shaped by the “populist criminal regime” of Milosˇevic´. According to Dimitrievic´ (2012, p. 10), he re-invented an “image of the victimized innocent nation” and fabricated enemies against whom Serbia had to unite. The goal was to mobilize Serb society for Milosˇevic´’s nationalist agenda and silence political alternatives. Manipulation of media, education, science and popular culture served to internalize this ideology. Dimitrievic´ recognizes three types of attitudes: those who continue the nationalist agenda, deny or minimize own war crimes as a matter of patriotism and cultivate an image of Serb victimhood – this attitude “won out” according to Dimitrievic´ (p. 12); those who advocate closing the history books and looking ahead pragmatically ; and those who pursue a reformist political agenda, are willing to cooperate with the ICTY, but prioritize political ‘stability’ and thus “failed to realize the full moral and political weight of the past.” Dimitrievic´ is very outspoken in his verdict: Most Serbs are prisoners of the past, remain in a state of confusion and have become incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, which has generated a normalization of crime. For the neighbors this generates uncertainty as to future intentions and behavior of Serbia. For the European Union, it complicates Serbia’s accession process. For Serbia itself it undermines the democratic transition. 12 The remaining 16 per cent were not reported (Simic´ & Daly 2011, p. 483; also Karge 2011, p. 134). 13 For other crimes, though, Dimitrievic´ (2008, p. 7, fn 3) reports lack of knowledge from survey and that ignorance was even increasing in the 2000s.

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Civil society groups such as the Humanitarian Law Centre, the Helsinki Centre for Human Rights in Belgrade or Women in Black vigorously advocate an end of denial. Their advocacy includes silence-breaking activities (Simic´ & Daly 2011). Women in Black, for example, organizes weekly vigils in the centre of Belgrade where the women wearing black clothes stand in a circle, in silence, holding placards saying for example “Remember genocide”. They visit sites of crimes, express empathy for the victims and organize campaigns such as “One pair of Shoes, One Life’ for the Srebrenica victims. The request to erect a Srebrenica memorial in Belgrade was turned down by city officials arguing this happened outside the borders of Serbia: “Can you imagine that we erect monuments in Belgrade for all events?” (Simic´ & Daly 2011, p. 490). Jelena Obradovic´-Wochnik (2013), however, observing a disconnection between these NGOs and the general Serb public, argues that these advocates themselves “enact practices that silence the public” (p. 331). She observes multiple layers of silence in Serbia, which the confrontational approach of transitional justice advocates tends to overlook. First, the most direct form of silencing was enacted by Milosˇevic´’s propaganda and physical violence against dissenters. Post-Milosˇevic´ governments, meanwhile, “have been complicit in an insidious form of silencing by not creating conditions under which speaking about the past is welcomed” (p. 338). These conditions are complex and fragmented, as the interviews of Obradovic´-Wochnik revealed. She encountered “silent knowing” (p. 339), i. e. people acknowledging but not verbalizing the past: a respondent archiving press clippings detailing Serbcommitted atrocities; one travelling to Sarajevo trying to imagine what it must have been like to live under a siege; others just finding the atrocities they learned about too horrific to speak about. This corresponds to the shift in literal denial Dimitrievic´ observed. Meanwhile, in Kosovo basically two narratives of victimhood compete, a Serb one in the Serb enclaves and in northern Kosovo (Mitrovica) and an Albanian one in the remaining country, each denying the other’s legitimacy. Both communities “compete for the status of the ‘real’ and only victim” and “neither community is willing to recognize the significance of the other’s suffering” (Burema 2012, p. 4). Inter-ethnic relations have clearly improved. However, trust-building is complicated by current politics. For Serbs it is difficult to trust the Kosovar institutions as long as the most prominent Albanian political leaders are former leading KLA members. The Serb narrative is fed by the ongoing struggle of whether northern Kosovo should integrate into Kosovo, remain independent or even join Serbia. Most important, the open issue of Kosovo’s final status “perpetuates a feeling of insecurity (…) and exacerbates mistrust”, acting as “an important spoiler” for coming to terms with the past (p. 19). Thus, “the most basic precondition for reconciliation – the cessation of conflict and a basic agreement on the need for non-violent coexistence – is clearly missing in northern Kosovo”, generating “little prospect of reconciliation” (pp. 12–13). In contrast, in southern Kosovo

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more and more Serbs understand that the reality of Kosovo’s independence cannot realistically be reversed, motivating increasing pragmatic engagement with the Kosovar institutions.14 Summing up, Burema finds in southern Kosovo “coexistence based on separation”, in northern Kosovo “little sign of willingness to engage in dialogue with each other”. Overall this “cannot be considered anything but the very beginning of a reconciliation process” (p. 22).

Memorials and Commemoration During the Balkan wars of the 1990s the systematic destruction of cultural heritage was one instrument of ethnic cleansing. In Bosnia, 92 per cent of the mosques and 75 per cent of the Catholic churches were heavily damaged or destroyed. “In many cases”, Beth Dougherty (2017, p. 2) notes, “not even the ruins survived; sites were bulldozed and the rubble was trucked away. The spaces were converted into parking lots, trash dumps, public parks and other use.” No trace of the ‘other’ was tolerated. Even villages and street names were replaced to annihilate the past and prevent any future claims at reconstitution. After the war, the instruments to establish ethnic hegemony changed, while the goals persisted (Fontana 2013). The local NGO Balkan Transitional Justice, producing films, radio programmes and online news reports in all major Balkan languages to disseminate knowledge about reconciliation in the former Yugoslav countries, published a well-investigated feature on war commemoration across the region.15 The report illustrates vividly how each group cultivates its own version of war-time ‘truth’. It is a bitter dispute about who started the war, who bears how much responsibility and how many were killed, tortured, raped and expelled by whom. “In a region where history is disputed”, the report argues, “monuments are potent symbols of past conflicts. One person’s liberator is another’s aggressor ; victory for one symbolises mass murder and ethnic cleansing for the other.” The Balkans are littered with monuments and memorials representing “ethnic divisions set in stone”. Whoever controls territory controls, which monuments are erected, and which events are commemorated. Monuments in Kosovo tell the Albanian narrative while monuments in Serbia transport the Serb narrative. Even more, monuments mark public spaces and territory, just as during the war cultural sites were systematically destroyed to claim ownership and eradicate all relics of a multicultural past. Monuments select what political elites would have us 14 In how far this impacts their views of the past is yet little researched; but see Gold (forthcoming). 15 Elvira M. Jukic et al., Ethnic Divisions Set in Stone, Feature, 25 June 2013, available from http:// www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/ethnic-divisions-set-in-stone [30 March 2017].

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remember, for instance who the true war heroes are, and silence what deserves no commemoration, especially the victims of the other side (see also Frankovic´ & Vukosavljevic´ 2016; Moll 2013). Where ethnic groups still co-exist, such as in the Bosnian Federation the Bosniaks and the Croats or in Macedonia the Slavic Macedonians and the Albanians, multiple narratives and the corresponding memorials compete. Memorials are blown up and cemeteries are vandalized. For example, Bosnian Serbs and Bosniaks each year hold rival commemorations of a clash in 1992 in which members of both groups died. Both commemorations take place on 3 May in Dobrovoljacka Street just on opposite sides of the same street. Each commemoration, heavily guarded by riot police, pays tribute only to its own victims.16 Commemoration is still largely segregated along ethnic lines. What is identity-forming for one group is divisive and provocative for others, feeding antagonistic sentiment and polarizing societies. The monumental project ‘Skopje 2014’, launched in 2009 by the ruling party VMRO DPMNE, has transformed the Macedonian capital in a stronghold of Slavic Macedonian nationalism, with more than thirty heroic, larger-than-life sculptures presenting a narrative of a past in which Albanians and other groups have almost no place. Similarly, once the Albanians took control of Kosovo, they built up a new memorial site in Prekaz, which was for centuries a hotbed of resistance against Ottoman, Yugoslav and Serb rule (see also Di Lellio & Schwandner-Sievers 2006). In early 1998, Milosˇevic´ ordered the massacre of the renowned Jashari clan there, which sparked the war in Kosovo (Biermann 2006, pp. 555–565). The memorial site features the Jashari houses scarred by grenade fire, the marble graves of the Jashari family and a huge KLA monument showing the Jashari brothers with machine guns and munition belts clothed in traditional Albanian garment. For the remaining Kosovo Serbs such a site tells a story they vigorously oppose. Promoted as the major national monument of the almost sacred national hero, Adem Jashari, it has replaced Gazimestan, the Yugoslav (Serb) memorial site in Kosovo remembering the ‘Battle of the Blackbirds’ against the Ottomans in 1389. Huge sculptures of Jashari were erected throughout Kosovo and in Macedonia. In contrast, the few campaigns to build memorials which try to unite rather than divide meet strong resistance. More pluralist narratives of the past are hard to convey and institutionalize. Dougherty (2017) visited two cemeteries which were highly popular in Tito’s time, the Vraca Memorial Park in Sarajevo and the Partisans’ Cemetery in Mostar. She found both in a state of utmost decay caused by neglect, marginalization and vandalism. Representing the collective memory narrative constructed by Tito after World War II, they stand for a ‘de-ethnicized’ history not belonging to any one group. In today’s exclusivist ethnic climate this renders them not only politically unusable but 16 Ibid.

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even dangerous for those forces who de-legitimize the past in order to lend legitimacy to the new regimes. In countries where almost all male adults were involved in fighting a war, the organizations of veterans and invalids strongly shape collective memory, as Bougarel (2008) reports for Bosniak and Ostojic´ (2009) for Croat veterans. Isabel Ströhle (2010) conducted interviews with KLA veterans and local experts, participated in commemorative events and analyzed TV debates and film documentaries, biographies and newspaper articles on war commemoration in Kosovo. According to her findings, the multiple veterans’ organizations in Kosovo portray the independence of Kosovo as the culmination of a hundred-year-old struggle for national liberation from foreign occupation. Strongly irredentist, commemorative practices aim to create a “Greater Albanian commemorative space” (Ströhle 2010, p. 509). At the same time, the political discourse “remains dominated by militarized narratives about armed resistance, self-sacrifice and the heroic death of fallen KLA fighters” (p. 482). The many biographies of fallen fighters (martyrs) and living heroes cultivate a master narrative of victimization, resistance and armed struggle in Tito’s Yugoslavia and later heroic sacrifice for liberation from Serbian rule. Annual commemorative events at national memorial sites serve to re-activate the past and legitimize current power structures based on past ‘sacrifice’. Due to the lack of a national day of commemoration, the key dates of the informal festive “KLA calendar” span the entire year (p. 505). Thus, ‘Albanianness’ is defined, the collective biography of a nation is constructed and those with a different biography are marginalized, among them the many who had opted for peaceful resistance under Ibrahim Rugova (see also Schwandner-Sievers & Di Lellio 2006). War commemoration both constructs national identity and serves personal needs. Military leadership in the ‘war of liberation’ in Kosovo was skillfully transformed into political leadership after the war. KLA commanders Hashim Thaîi and Ramush Haradinaj, building on heroic self-representation and powerful clientelistic networks, formed political parties which today dominate Kosovar politics. In 2010, according to Ströhle (p. 481), one third of Kosovo Albanian deputies were former active KLA members, four major parties had distinct KLA backgrounds and three out of the five Prime Ministers to date held leading positions in the KLA. Former lower-ranking fighters raise objections against such an instrumentalization of the war. They object to veteran organizations serving as party branches and the former KLA leadership becoming rich overnight, while ordinary fighters do not receive the assistance and respect they think they deserve.

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Apologies and Reparations Given the prevalent culture of denial and victimhood, it is remarkable how many apologies were extended either by high-ranking individual politicians or via declarations of parliaments or other institutions (Horelt 2016a, 2016b). It started five years after the Bosnian war in June 2000 when Montenegro’s President Milo Djukanovic´ apologized to the citizens of Dubrovnik for shelling the city in 1991 (Denti 2013, p. 107). Montenegro was at the time still in state union with Serbia under Milosˇevic´’s rule. After the fall of Tud¯man and Milosˇevic´ the number of apologies rapidly increased. After the first visit of Croatian President Stipe Mesic´ to Belgrade in 2004, he as well as the then President of Serbia and Montenegro, Svetozar Marovic´, apologized for crimes committed against one another in almost identical words (ibid., p. 108). Two months later Marovic´ also apologized to the citizens of Bosnia for “any evil or calamity that anyone in Bosnia-Herzegovina suffered at the hands of anyone from Serbia-Montenegro” (quoted in ibid., p. 109). Serb President Boris Tadic´ apologized in 2004 to Bosnia and in 2007 to Croatia; he also travelled to Vukovar in 2010 and asked to be excused for the massacre in 1991. Already in 2005 Tadic´ had visited Srebrenica and participated in an event commemorating the 10th anniversary of the genocide; he returned in 2015 as I will discuss later. In 2010 Serbia promulgated the Declaration Condemning the Crimes in Srebrenica (Simic´ & Daly 2011, p. 482). In the same year, on the Croatian side, Croat President Ivo Josipovic´ visited the village Ahmici where one of the worst massacres of Croat troops against Bosniaks had taken place during the war and offered his apologies in the Bosnian Parliament; the Sabor excused for the role of Croatia in the Bosnian war. Bakir Izetbegovic´, Bosniak representative in the State Presidency, on his part apologized on Serb radio B92 for “all innocent people killed by the army of Bosnia and Herzegovina.”17 What has not occurred so far is any apology between Serbia and Kosovo, which would also open the door to clarify the fate of missing persons and presumed mass graves in Serbia. Kosovo’s Justice Minister revealed how strongly reconciliation is linked to the status of Kosovo: “Serbia needs to recognize the independence of Kosovo, the territorial integrity of our country, which will ease our efforts in the reconciliation process. At least apologize, as a moral act, since any other approach from Serbia makes inter-ethnic reconciliation impossible.”18 A closer look is necessary to understand why many apologies were met with much distrust or even open resentment throughout the region. The overarching reason is the “shadow of ambiguity” (Denti 2013) hanging over these 17 These apologies are mentioned in Karge (2011). 18 Quoted in Aliu, F, Kosovo: Serbia Should Apologise for its Crimes, 23 May 2012, available from [21 April 2017].

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apologies. First, the practice of commemoration presented above conveys a different message: our war was legitimate, we are the victims, and our war heroes deserve respect and honour, whatever they might have done. In such a climate of self-righteousness and exculpation apologies lose credibility. Second, apologies are rarely accompanied by material compensation, reparation or consistent vetting. Even though the weak post-war economies and the depleted state budgets hardly allow for substantial indemnities, even symbolic gestures are rarely forthcoming. Serbia, for example, compensates its people for damage inflicted by the ‘enemy’, but not for damage or suffering caused by the Serbian state to others. Those who perceive themselves as victims of the Serbian state must initiate civil proceedings before Serb courts to receive compensation and acknowledgement. And although Serbia promulgated a vetting law in 2003, it was not applied (Simic´ & Daly 2011, p. 482). Such an approach smacks of reconciliation on the cheap. Third, apologies are highly politicized, drawing heavy criticism from nationalists and from media as well as from victims. In such an atmosphere it is unsurprising that victims doubt the sincerity of apologies. Fourth, credibility hinges on the integrity of those extending the apology. Since many of those apologizing were war-time leaders with a dubious record of involvement in crime their apologies are very controversial. Thus, former Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucˇic˙ was forced to flee the 20th anniversary commemoration of the Srebrenica genocide while laying a wreath at the memorial when the crowd hurled objects at him. People held up posters quoting Vucˇic˙ days after the genocide in 1995 with his infamous threat “for every killed Serb we will kill 100 Bosniaks.” At the time, Vucˇic˙ was a prominent member of the extreme-right Serb Radical Party of Vojislav Sˇesˇelj and a member of the Serb National Assembly before he became the information minister under Milosˇevic´ during the Kosovo air campaign. Fifth, apologies remain controversial because they are accompanied by political messages signalling ambivalence. The events surrounding the 20th Srebrenica anniversary are illustrative in this respect. Clearly distancing himself from his past, Vucˇic˙ not only campaigned at the time for EU accession, but also advocated reconciliation. In a statement before the anniversary he said, “There are no words to express the regret and pain for the victims as well as the anger and bitterness towards those who committed that monstrous crime. (…) Serbia clearly and unambiguously condemns this horrible crime and is disgusted with all those who took part in it”.19 Still, sceptics quickly noted his terminology – “monstrous crime”. During these same days he managed to convince the Russians to veto a resolution of the UN Security Council which he branded “humiliating” for Serbia. The proposed resolution 19 Quoted in Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Bosnia Marks 20 Years Since Srebrenica Genocide; Serbian PM Pelted By Crowd, 11 July 2015, available from [10 April 2017].

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would have called the events of Srebrenica a genocide. Then Serb President Tomislav Nikolic´ called the Russian veto a “great day for Serbia”.20 Sixth, apologies are not singular events but become embedded in the politics of commemoration. Vucˇic˙’s Srebrenica policy in 2015 was shaped by the preceding years of struggle of how to qualify the events of Srebrenica (Karcˇic´ 2015; Karge 2011). In a context of the gradual discovery of more and more mass graves, exhumations and reburials and ongoing trials in The Hague, the Serb and the Bosnian Serb governments were forced to finally acknowledge without any reservation the genocidal nature of Srebrenica. Following the decisions of the ICFY in 2004 and the International Criminal Court in 2007 labelling the events of 1995 ‘genocide’, resolutions of the European Parliament in 2005 and 2009 ascertained the participation of Serb irregular troops in the event, institutionalized 11 July as a “day of commemoration for the Srebrenica genocide all over the EU” and called on Serbia and others to do the same (quoted in Karcˇic´ 2015, p. 202). Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia and other countries adopted similar resolutions.21 However, the subsequent declaration of the Serb National Assembly, while “strongly condemn[ing] the crimes” in Srebrenica, did neither use the term ‘genocide’ nor declare 11 July as Srebrenica remembrance day (p. 207). It even contained a paragraph calling for a similar acknowledgement of Serb victims and was followed by a declaration on Serb victims (Karge 2011). The Srebrenica declaration was a compromise after five years of divisive negotiations in the Serb parliament, adopted by 127 out of 250 members of that parliament.22 The Bosnian parliament could not even pass any resolution on that topic because the Bosnian Serbs blocked the negotiations entirely.23 The highly political nature of this struggle is striking. This is not only, as Serb nationalists argue, a debate about attributing ‘collective guilt’, minimizing NATO’s ‘crimes’, thus amounting to historical ‘revisionism’. There is also an ongoing debate about whether only the events of 11 July 1995 or further atrocities at other places and times of the war should be defined as genocide. Mass graves of Srebrenica victims were found in other municipalities. The ICTY and national courts handed down genocide verdicts for a number of other cases, and several resolutions of the U.S. Senate and House qualified the entire Serb war campaign as genocide. This affects not only the chances to 20 Ibid. 21 In Montenegro, though, the Serb parties voted against the resolution (which just used the term “crime”), arguing the declaration portrays “just one nation as victim” (quoted in Karge 2011, p. 138, translation of the author). In Macedonia, the Serb party argued and acted likewise (ibid.). 22 These years are reconstructed in detail in Karge where the major resolutions are also annexed in copy (2011, pp. 139–150). 23 In 2004 a Srebrenica Commission set up by the Republica Srpska Assembly had acknowledged the killing of at least 7.000 in Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces, and the government had subsequently apologized. However, RS politicians still subsequently declined to participate in the annual commemoration in Srebrenica (Ker 2007, p. 382; Karge 2011, p. 133).

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attain financial compensation via lawsuits from Serbia; it also determines the pace of Serbia’s and Bosnia’s EU accession. Overall, the Serb internal debate is still stuck in between nationalist denial, democracy and human rights ˇ avic´ acknowladvocacy and EU pressure. Bosnian Serb President Dragan C edged that the “road to Brussels goes only through The Hague” (quoted in Kerr 2007, p. 382). As we will see in the next section, this is true – yet it raises doubts about the sincerity of Serb apologies and nurtures assumptions about “instrumental compliance” (Kerr 2007, p. 383) with the terms of reference defined in Brussels.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia and domestic courts Most prominent and controversial is the Tribunal in The Hague. The ICTY was created in 1993 by the UN Security Council upon an initiative by outgoing U.S. President George Bush sen. who, morally outraged, was mainly interested to deter a further escalation of violence without becoming engaged militarily.24 This first ad hoc tribunal since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II would trigger an upsurge of efforts to institutionalize international humanitarian law worldwide. It was supposed to make accountable all those in the entire region responsible for major war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Thus, a retributive top-down instrument established already during the wars, located outside the region and installed by external actors became the primary instrument to kick-start a process which would make high-level perpetrators individually accountable, allow victims to express their suffering, establish a war-time record of gross human rights violations and assist post-war societies to come to terms with their own past. Selecting such a mechanism was highly innovative, but also an experiment carrying considerable risk. At the beginning pessimism dominated. Sceptics focused on the adverse role allocation between the Tribunal, the international ‘community’ and the Balkan states. The ICTY relied on “voluntary compliance” (Kerr 2007, p. 377) and could only employ its soft power of persuasion, bargaining, lobbying and shaming, while depending on powerful governments to enforce its indictments (Lamont 2009, p. 345). These were serious obstacles. Would the local governments arrest those indicted? Would they extradite them? Would they make accessible their war-time files, protect witnesses and help locate mass graves? 24 Clarke (2012, p. 64) emphasizes that the goal to deter war crimes and strengthen the respect for the rule of law did not materialize in the first two years of the ICTY (Srebrenica occurred in 1995); consistent evidence for the claim that tribunals have a deterrent effect is still missing. For a short historical account of the ICTY see Kerr (2007).

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It is one of the most remarkable successes of the Tribunal that it managed to overcome the worldwide tradition of impunity for war crimes. More than 160 senior leaders, including highest political and military leaders such as Slobodan Milosˇevic´, Radovan Karadzˇic´, Ratko Mladic´, Vojislav Sˇesˇelj and Ante Gotovina were indicted, arrested and tried; no fugitives are still on the run. Thus, major potential spoilers were removed from the political scene. The vast truth-finding effort included 4,000 witnesses being heard. A historical record of the war was established, thus laying bare myths and propaganda. International criminal law and procedure was refined. Maybe most important in the long run, the ICTY inspired both the rise of local civil society groups advocating accountability as well as the establishment of local courts (Orentlicher 2013). It transferred lower-level cases, including evidence, to these courts and helped train their judges.25 Once the Tribunal is completed the local courts will carry full responsibility.26 Why did the local governments increasingly comply? To be sure, most governments of the region portrayed the Tribunal as illegitimate, heavily criticized every indictment as unfair and distorting historical ‘truth’, continuously asserted their own group’s victimhood, paid often only lipservice to international human rights standards and for a long time largely refused to cooperate with the Tribunal, not seriously tracing the whereabouts of those indicted or even hiding them with or without assistance from officials. Two-thirds of those indicted were Serbs (from different countries) and once the Tribunal also started pursuing high-level Bosniak, Kosovo-Albanian or Croat cases, its reputation in the entire region dropped rapidly. Arrests and extraditions did hardly reflect an acceptance of own accountability. Facing strong domestic opposition, vested interests of those in power prevailed, or what Lamont (2009, p. 343) called the “politics of international law enforcement”. These interests were shaped by subtle or outright coercion, including both sanctions and inducements, based on the conditionality spelled out in the Dayton Accords and successive EU programmes for the region (Lamont 2010; Peskin 2008). It is difficult to assess how much the increasing willingness to cooperate with the Tribunal was also motivated by norm internalization; literature is rare here. Furthermore, causality is difficult to trace due to many intervening factors influencing the calculus of local actors. Still, the EU accession perspective and the multiple financial and other rewards this holds obviously played a major role in overcoming local resistance and moving elites towards compliance with the Tribunal27, as did the Tribunal’s and the EU’s willingness to negotiate formal and informal bargains with local governments. 25 For a more detailed account of these accomplishments see the ICTY’s informative webpage, available from [30 March 2017] . 26 The “completion strategy” foresaw a closure of the tribunal in 2010, which was however postponed several times. 27 EU conditionality policy towards Serbia regarding the ICTY, including its dilemmas and

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Such instrumental compliance allows us to hold principal perpetrators accountable, infuse a sense of justice and thus open a space for reconciliation. However, the way the ICTY was construed and the way it was perceived in the region did little to encourage reconciliation as I defined it, namely as a process of rebuilding relations between victims and perpetrators which stimulates a common understanding of the past and builds trust for a common future to make a very fragile peace sustainable. The fundamental lack of legitimacy the Tribunal faced throughout the region, documented in opinion polls, surveys and interviews of ‘ordinary’ citizens alike, allowed nationalists to continue their blame game, delayed the arrest of indicted war criminals28 and undermined self-scrutiny and internal reflection of the past as advocated by pro-European groups.29 This holds true especially among Serbs who were much more critical from the beginning about the Tribunal than the other groups (Orentlicher 2013, p. 543; Orentlicher 2008). This legitimacy gap had multiple reasons. First, this geographically distant Tribunal, imposed by the international community, devoid of local involvement and packed with legal experts speaking a language inaccessible for most local people, lacked regional ownership. A Bosniak ICTY spokesman complained that the Tribunal was more interested in “courtroom battles aimed at refining international law than in the people of former Yugoslavia.” The people of the region “remained merely objects” of the ICTY and were “never seen as its primary constituency” (Hodzˇic´ 2013). Hardly surprising, many citizens had far more immediate concerns and priorities (Clarke 2012, p. 63). Second, many saw the Tribunal’s interpretation of international law as victor’s justice. They perceived the Tribunal as a hegemonic instrument of Western powers, for example by not pursuing the Serb charges against NATO in the aftermath of the air campaign. Allegations that the Tribunal spared nonSerbs and allowed war-time leaders such as Hashim Thaci to remain in power were widespread. Third, some perpetrators represented themselves at the trials and misused the hearings as a platform to humiliate victims, spread ethnonationalist ideology and ridicule the Tribunal (eds Swart, Zahar & Sluiter 2011). The most prominent among them was Milosˇevic´ who seriously undermined reconciliation efforts when “manipulating the court and turning it into a political pulpit to justify his regime (…) in the eyes of the Serbian public” (Biermann 2002b, p. 71). Up to two-thirds of the Serb population followed his daily appearances on TV. Defending himself without attorney allowed him to compromises, represents a vivid example of the politics of reconciliation. Its ups and downs are well reconstructed in Peskin and Boduszynski (2011). 28 Not a single person had been detained and transferred to The Hague by the authorities of the Bosnian Serb Republic until 2005 (Kerr 2007). 29 The causal link between the ICTY and reconciliation is empirically tested in Meernik and Guerrero (2014).

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direct the spotlight of media attention on himself when he intoned litanies against “Western aggression”, ‘unmasked’ Albanian witnesses in blistering cross-examinations, or contemptuously dismissed the court’s competence. In a subsequent survey in Serbia 41.6 per cent rated his performance excellent (mark: 5), 20 per cent gave him a 4, 20 per cent a 3, 5 per cent a 2 and 11.6 per cent a 1 (ibid., p. 72). Fourth, many victims and witnesses remained embittered, complaining sentences were too lenient, many major perpetrators were never tried30 and investigations so slow that some perpetrators died before arrest while others died during their trial (Clarke 2012, p. 64). Furthermore, the impression that the Tribunal as well as the EU was horse-trading with local governments to gain their cooperation31 undermined its credibility, as did the many trials that ended without conviction, often due to a lack of highest-standard evidence. The mysterious death of many witnesses (e. g. nineteen during the trial of Ramush Haradinaj) further contributed to bitterness, as did the half-hearted efforts of NATO, which had 60,000 troops in Bosnia on the ground in 1996, to track and arrest war criminals. This all contributed to locking in rather than ameliorating victim identities. Finally, the international community did not attain its major goal to individualize guilt and avoid assigning collective responsibility. Overall, the perception reigns that anyone on trial stands for the ‘nation’, is tried for fighting a just war and acted in defence of the ‘nation’ whatever he or she did. Contrary to expectations, the salience of ethnic identities, group boundaries and ethnic self-categorization obviously did not recede since the war, especially in the most difficult setting of Bosnia, where Parent (2017) even diagnoses a deterioration of inter-ethnic relations in recent years (see also Orentlicher 2008). The ICTY is perceived by many as an instrument, which unintentionally fosters ethnic identification and inter-ethnic mistrust and animosity. It did not manage to mobilize the ‘black-sheep effect’, singling out those from the group violating basic human rights norms, but strengthened the ‘we-feeling’ of ethnic groups, which marginalizes and stigmatizes those who dare to deviate from the norms prevalent within the group and acknowledge the own group’s crimes. This is why those standing trial are largely perceived as war heroes at home and celebrated upon their return from The Hague. Thus, the trials, rather than evoking shame, empathy and attempts

30 For instance, since Zelljko Raznatovic´, alias Arkan, was killed in 2000 no member of his paramilitary group Arkan Tigers was jailed. Arkan was closely linked to Serbian politics, police and organized crime. The Tigers were infamous for their brutal crimes during the war in Bosnia; Denis Dzidic´ et al., Arkan’s Paramilitaries: Tigers Who Escaped Justice, Balkan Insight, 8 December 2014, available from [24 April 2017]. 31 For example with Zagreb to get general Ante Gotovina arrested and extradited (Lamont 2009, p. 344).

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to acknowledge crimes of the own group and redress them, have stimulated denial and silencing. This counterproductive effect of the ICTY is particularly pronounced among Serbs, as the multiple visits and interviews of Parent (2017) in Bosnia between 2011 and 2015 revealed. It was the genocide label which bolstered ethnic self- and other-categorization and thus complicated rebuilding interethnic relations. Quotes from Serb interviewees vividly illustrate this, such as “anywhere I would go, everybody hates me because I’m Serb. The whole world hates Serbs”, or “I avoid discussing about my identity as a Serb, I try to hide it … I believe it is not something we discuss among ourselves either. (…) We are seen as killers. (…) I was a child at the time” (quoted in Parent 2017, p. 18). Being identified with the stigma of genocide, the “crime of crimes” (Clarke 2012), affects everyday life, including job opportunities: “I want to apply to other European countries but I don’t think I have much chance to obtain a job because I’m Serb” (quoted in Parent 2017, p. 19). Such stereotyping is even more appalling when personal war experiences strongly deviate from the genocide label.32 The ICTY is proud of the fact that it finally managed to stimulate the establishment of local courts persecuting smaller-level crimes and taking over from the Tribunal once it finally closes. Thus, the Trial Chamber of the Belgrade Higher Court’s War Crimes Department was inaugurated in 2003 and the Section for War Crimes Chamber of the State Court in Sarajevo in 2005. In Croatia, chambers dealing with war crimes were set up in local county courts based in Osijek, Rijeka, Split and Zagreb.33 In Kosovo, however, the responsibility for war crimes still falls under the authority of EULEX, formerly UNMIK.34 While the move into ownership is indeed crucial, the anecdotal evidence so far demonstrates that these courts need more local support to become effective instruments of truth-finding: trials are few, witness protection remains a severe problem and overall courts confront much obstruction. Effectiveness is further reduced by the fact that many perpetrators live in neighbouring countries, which barely cooperate when terms of persecution or extradition are negotiated. Overall, the record of the ICTY is ambivalent. What was clearly underrated is the effect on ethnic identity formation, particularly in Bosnia. “Perceptions of international courts are critical”, write Fletcher and Weinstein (2004, p. 30). “These tribunals must be seen as legitimate by those on whose 32 “I have lived in three camps since the war. I was detained during the war … Most of my family were detained in different concentration camps and were beaten. My brother died in detention. Am I supposed to listen to Bosniak’s exeggerations and accusations and stay silent when I am being called a Nazi because all Serbs are Nazis?” (quoted in Parent 2017, p. 27). 33 See

½11 April 2017A. 34 See the statement of Berndt Borchardt, head of EULEX, titled EULEX and War Crimes, available from [11 April 2017].

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behalf they operate in order for their work to be accepted.” The negative local legitimacy assessments of the ICTY seriously complicate reconciliation. Overall, many observers agree to what Janine Natalya Clark (2012, p. 59) writes. Her 120 interviews in Bosnia in 2008/9 “yielded little evidence of any positive correlation between ICTY trials and reconciliation.” There is little evidence that those who persistently refuse to acknowledge the own group’s war-crimes were stimulated by the ICTY to reconsider their stance. Obviously, processing of information coming from The Hague was strongly filtered by pre-existing ethnic frames. Despite bringing to trial the most notorious war criminals, the Tribunal did not bring closure. However, we should be aware that “the story of the ICTY’s impact is hardly finished.” Orelicher (2013, p. 546) reminds us that it needed generational change in post-war Germany to ameliorate the opposition to the Nuremberg trials and reassess the atrocities they documented.

Conclusions This contribution has tried to assess how far reconciliation has progressed in the countries of former Yugoslavia since the wars ended between 1991 and 2001, focusing largely on Bosnia, Kosovo and Serbia. It has surveyed the major mechanisms employed to come to terms with the past, in particular, denial and silences, apologies and reparations, memorials and commemorations as well as the International Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The thrust of the argument corresponds well to Carolina Rehrmann’s overarching question posed in her introductory chapter, “Why is reconciliation so difficult to achieve?”. For the Balkans, the answer depends on whether we see the glass half empty or half full. Pessimists can point to still prevailing ethnic stereotyping, the cultivation of victimhood, the literal and especially interpretative denial of crimes committed by one’s own group and the attempts to silence deviant voices which, by extension, implies a lack of empathy towards the suffering of the other. Conversely, optimists can point to the cycle of apologies throughout the region, the increasing number of civil society projects engaged in silencebreaking and the willingness, even though under pressure and after much obstruction, to arrest and extradite all major war criminals indicted by the ICTY. To be sure, each reconciliation process is at a different stage – among Serbs and Kosovo Albanians it has hardly started, within Bosnia it is still in its infancy while among Serbia and Croatia it has progressed significantly. Overall, truth-seeking proves to be easier than trust-building. Twenty-two years after Dayton we are still in the very early stages of rebuilding the broken relationships. I argue that the politics of reconciliation and memory, that is, how the

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political logic of current elite interests and power distribution, shapes the way the past is faced and explains much of the lag in reconciliation. Overall, local as well as international actors opted for a rather minimalist approach (Tolliday, in this volume), fearing that any strong effort to face the past would erode the weak democratic regimes and risk the re-election of nationalist parties, thus prioritizing current political stability by silencing a divisive past. Current politics shape the Balkan reconciliation process in several ways. First, the multiple peace agreements ending the Balkan wars succeeded in ending the violence (negative peace) but hardly managed to lay the foundation for anything resembling positive peace. Largely imposed by external powers, they focused on finally ending the atrocities, but left major groups dissatisfied, and try to gain in peace what they did not manage to attain in war. Such revisionism, however, not only undermines the power sharing systems in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, but also reconciliation. Second, where major political status issues are unresolved, secessionism or even irredentism is vibrant and ethnic groups continue to advocate diametrically opposing solutions. No group is willing to make major concessions about the past since any acknowledgement of guilt could undercut one’s own bargaining position in running or upcoming negotiations on these issues (Biermann 2014). Thus, we should hardly expect Serbia to seriously acknowledge the crimes Milosˇevic´’s regime committed in Kosovo as long as the independence of Kosovo is not acceptable for Belgrade. Likewise, we should not expect Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs to agree on a common understanding of the past as long as the Dayton constitution is open to revision and each party struggles to re-organize the power structure in a way, which maximizes its own power position. As long as Macedonia remains a fledgling new state without full international recognition struggling to construct is own national identity, internal relations among Slavic Macedonians and Albanians will remain tense. Uncertainties over borders, territory and statehood invite competing nationalism and antagonistic identity formation, thus breeding psychological mechanisms which undermine reconciliation. Third, as long as politicians remain in power who held major military and political positions during the war we should expect strong vested interests advocating denial and silencing and continuing distrust among former adversaries. Reconciliation is much more likely when a clear break with the past occurs than when war elites continue to hold power positions. Reconciliation is particularly promoted when new leaders with undisputed authority and a willingness to reconcile shape post-war politics (Biermann 2001b). The elite continuity in Bosnia until 1998 (the year when Karadzˇic´ was finally voted out of office), in Croatia until 1999 (the fall of Tud¯man) in Serbia until 2000 (the ouster of Milosˇevic´) and in Kosovo and also Macedonia until today left war-time power structures in place during the crucial first years of transition. This perpetuated the politics of self-whitewashing and other-

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maligning and allowed old elites to adapt their clientelistic networks. The failure to achieve a clear cut with the past continues to haunt both democratization and reconciliation. Fourth, where multiple conflicts form clusters within regions, the interconnectedness of conflicts complicates not only conflict resolution, but also reconciliation. Reconciliation processes are intertwined, and progress in one can be undermined by setbacks in others. The highly complex conflict cluster in the Balkans very much complicates reconciliation. Most crucial is Serbia, which is the core state for both conflict resolution and reconciliation in terms of geographic location, size and war involvement. Fifth, the major exception from the minimalist approach to reconciliation was the creation of the ICTY. However, not only did the international pressure to extradite those indicted heavily depend on political opportunity costs, especially in election times (Peskin & Boduszynski 2011). Possibly this initial focus on externally imposed transitional justice was also counterproductive. First, it institutionalized a path-dependent role division in which the internationals became the demandeur and the locals the reluctant compliers. The imposition of justice from outside thus undermined self-reflection and self-cleansing. It helped the blame-game to continue since the ICTY just became another culprit to blame. Second, the ICTY also inspired a rather minimal understanding of reconciliation, in that reconciliation is equated with bringing to justice the ‘big guys’ while silencing the supporting role of entire societies. Third, the ICTY also stimulated an instrumental understanding of reconciliation in that reconciliation was framed as a bargaining chip. Any step of reconciliation became an act of compliance with international transitional justice demands. Local politicians weighed costs and benefits largely by calculating international rewards (such as financial aid or progress in EU accession) or punishment (mostly the threat to withhold those rewards). Such an instrumental understanding of reconciliation erodes the internalization of basic human rights norms. Sixth, current politics is responsible for the institutionalization of denial and silences in memorials, public holidays, street names, museums and other institutions transmitting self-whitewashing and other-maligning narratives to future generations. Education in schools, universities and other places of learning is probably most consequential. In countries or regions where one dominant ethnic group can frame the war narrative, such as in Serbia and Croatia, there are few checks and balances, apart from civil society groups and international organizations such as the Council of Europe, to prevent the institutionalization of denial in school books, curricula, school boards, teacher selection and all kinds of learning settings. In countries such as Bosnia, Kosovo or Macedonia where the war-time adversaries still co-exist in segregated communities “parallel truths” (Clark 2012, p. 62) continue to be taught at school. Most problematic is the practice of ethnically divided schools. In Kosovo, Albanians and Serbs are taught in completely separate

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educational systems where they never get into contact (Burema 2012, p. 17). In the ‘two schools under one roof ’ system of the Bosnian Federation children learn in separate classes in the same building according to separate curricula which are developed by separate school boards and taught by teachers from their own ethnic group in different languages. Efforts to end this system have largely failed due to political obstruction. Meernik and Guerrero (2014, p. 402) warn, “If segregation continues in the schools and attitudes against the ‘other’ continue to harden, prospects for reconciliation will surely diminish. More research in this area is needed to determine how such harmful effects can be counteracted.” For reconciliation time is precious. Certainly, generating new trust after war takes time, to which impatient politicians are loath to commit. As already mentioned, Germany also needed several decades to confront its past after World War II and rebuild relations with Israel, France and others. Here, education was an engine, not a structural impediment for reconciliation. The vector is pivotal. Time is also running out. A report by Amnesty International (2014, p. 6), deploring that only about 160 perpetrators have so far been tried before the Special War Crimes Court in Belgrade, cautions “The next few years are crucial in tackling the climate of impunity in Serbia. Time is passing, witnesses are dying, memories are fading. Perpetrators of war crimes must urgently be tried to ensure victims receive justice before it is too late.”

References Amnesty International 2014, Serbia: Ending Impunity for Crimes under International Law, London, available from [18 April 2017]. Angelovska, D 2013, ‘The failure of Macedonian post-communist transitional justice: Lustration, between cleansing and parody’ in Simic´, O and Volcˇicˇ, Z (eds.), Transitional justice and civil society in the Balkans, Springer, New York, pp. 51–67. Banjeglav, T 2013, ‘Dealing with the past in post-war Croatia: Perceptions, problems, and perspectives’ in Simic´, O and Volcˇicˇ, Z (eds.), Transitional justice and civil society in the Balkans, Springer, New York, pp. 33–50. Biermann, R 1999, The Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe – potential, problems and perspectives, Bonn: Center for European Integration Studies (ZEI), Discussion Paper C 56. Biermann, R 2001a, ‘Eine europäische Perspektive für die Bundesrepublik Jugoslawien im Rahmen des Stabilitätspaktes für Südosteuropa’, Mitteilungen des Humboldt-Clubs Serbien, 10, pp. 10–16. Biermann, R 2001b, ‘Robert Schuman’s Perspective of Peace and Stability through Reconciliation. A Legacy of Continuing Actuality – also for the Balkans?’ in

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Ankara Review of European Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 45–60 (re-printed in EuroAtlantic Review, vol. 1, no. 1, Spring 2002, pp. 67–79). Biermann, R 2002a (ed.), Deutsche Konfliktbewältigung auf dem Balkan. Erfahrungen und Lehren aus dem Einsatz, Nomos, Baden-Baden. Biermann, R 2002b, ‘Milosˇevic´ Stars at The Hague’, in Internationale Politik (Transatlantic Edition), vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 71–74. Biermann, R 2004, ‘Back to the Roots. The European Community and the Dissolution of Yugoslavia – Policies under the Impact of Global Sea-Change’ in Journal for European Integration History, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 29–50. Biermann, R 2006, Lehrjahre im Kosovo. Das Scheitern der internationalen Krisenprävention vor Kriegsausbruch, Schöningh, Paderborn. Biermann, R 2014, ‘Coercive Europeanization. The EU’s struggle to contain secessionism in the Balkans’ in European Security, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 484–508. Bougarel, X 2007, ‘Death and the nationalist: martyrdom, war memory and veteran identity among Bosnian Muslims’ in Bougarel, X., Helms, E. and Diujzings, G (eds.) 2008, The New Bosnian Mosaic. Identities, Memories, and Moral Claims in a Post-War Society, Ashgate, Aldershot. Daase, C, Engert, S, Horelt, MA, Renner, J, & Strassner, R (eds.) 2015, Apology and Reconciliation in International Relations: The Importance of Being Sorry, Routledge, London. Denti, D 2013, ‘Public Apologies in the Western Balkans: The Shadow of Ambiguity. Public’ in Cuypers, D et al. (eds.), Public Apology between Ritual and Regret: Symbolic Excuses on False Pretenses or True Reconciliation out of Sincere Regret?. Rodopi, Amsterdam, pp. 103–22. Di Lellio, A & Schwandner-Sievers, S. 2006, ‘Sacred Journey to a Nation. Site Sacralisation and ‘Political Reproduction’ of a New Shrine to the Kosovo Nation’ in Journeys. The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing, no. 7, pp. 27–49. Dimitrievic´, N 2008, ‘Serbia After the Criminal Past: What Went Wrong and What Should be Done’ in The International Journal of Transitional Justice, vol. 2, 2008, pp. 5–22. Dorfman, Ariel 2004, ‘Foreword.’ in Stover, E and Weinstein, HM (eds.), My Neighbor, My Enemy. Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. xiii–xv. Dougherty, BK 2017, ‘Letting Nature Swallow the Past’, Paper presented at the 58th Annual Conference of the International Studies Association in Baltimore, 22.–25. Feb. 2017. Elbasani, A & Lipinski, A 2013, ‘Transitional Justice in Albania: Historical Burden, Weak Civil Society, and Conflicting Interests’ in Simic´, O and Volcˇicˇ, Z (eds.), Transitional justice and civil society in the Balkans, Springer, New York, pp. 105–121. Engert, S & Jetschke, A 2011, ‘Einleitung: Transitional Justice 2.0 – zur konzeptionellen Erweiterung eines noch jungen Forschungsprogramms‘ in Die FriedensWarte, vol. 86, no. 1–2, pp. 15–43.

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Fletcher, LE & Weinstein, H 2004, ‘A world unto itself: The application of international justice in the former Yugoslavia’ in My neighbors, my enemy : Justice and community in the aftermath of mass atrocity, eds. E Stover and H Weinstein, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 29–49. Fontana, G 2013, ‘War by Other Means: Cultural Policy and the Politics of Corporate Consociation in Bosnia and Herzegovina’ in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, no. 19, pp. 447–466. Frankovic´, I & Vukosavljevic´, N (eds.) 2016, War of Memories: Places of Suffering and Remembrance of War in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Belgrade: Centre for Non-Violent Action. Freemen, M 2004, ‘Serbia and Montenegro: Selected Developments in Transitional Justice’ in International Center for Transitional Justice, New York. Gold, J (2019), Multiethnizität in Alltag und Konflikt. Schein und Realität von Identitätskonstruktionen in der multiethnischen Stadt Prizren, Berlin: Springer VS. Hegemann, H; Heller, R & Kahl, M 2013 (eds.), ‘Studying Effectiveness’ in International Relations, Barbara Budrich, Opladen. Hewitt, JJ 2010, ‘Trends in Global Conflict, 1946–2007’, in: Hewitt, JJ, Wilkenfeld, J, Gurr, TR (eds.), Peace and Conflict, pp. 27–32. Hodzˇic´, R, ‘Accepting a Difficult Truth: ICTY Is Not Our Court’, Balkan Insights, 6 March 2013, available from ½30 March 2017A: Horelt, MA 2016a, ‘Montenegro – Croatia: the pragmatics of apology’ in Daase, C, Engert, S, Horelt, MA, Renner, J.& Strassner, R (eds.) 2015, Apology and Reconciliation in International Relations: The Importance of Being Sorry. Routledge, London, pp. 146–163. Horelt, MA 2016b, ‘Serbia – Croatia, Bosnia and herzegovina: different apology packages, different successes’ in Daase, C, Engert, S, Horelt, MA, Renner, J.& Strassner, R (eds.), Apology and Reconciliation in International Relations: The Importance of Being Sorry, Routledge, London, pp. 164–193. International Crisis Group 2009, Bosnia: A Test of Political Maturity in Mostar, Europe Briefing no. 57, Sarajevo/Brussels. Irwin, C 2004, Baseline Survey for Our Town, Our Future. A project about democratization, good governance and the rule of law in Bosnia and Herzegovina, available from ½31 March 2017A: Karcˇic´, H 2015, ‘Remembering by resolution: the case of Srebrenica’ in Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 201–210. Karge, H 2011, ‘Nie wieder Srebrenica: Eine Dokumentation der SrebrenicaErklärungen und ihrer Wirkungen’ in Südosteuropa, no. 1, pp. 128–167. Kerr, R 2007, ‘Peace through Justice? The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 373–385.

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Lamont, CK 2010, International Criminal Justice and the Politics of Compliance, Ashgate, London. Lamont, CK 2009, ‘Negotiating justice: from liberal legalism to war crimes realism?‘ in Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 339–346. Licklider, R 1995, ‘The Consequences of Negotiated Settlements in Civil Wars, 1945–1993’, The American Political Science review, vol. 89, no. 3, pp. 681–690. Mallinder, L 2008, Amnesty, Political Rights and Transitions. Bridging the Peace and Justice Divide, Oxford, Hart Publishing. Mayer-Rieckh, A & de Greiff, P (eds.) 2007, Justice as prevention: Vetting Public Employees in Transitional Societies, New York, Social Science Research Council. Mehler, D 2015, Serbische Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung. Normwandel und Deutungskämpfe im Umgang mit Kriegsverbrechen, 1991–2012, transcript, Bielefeld. Moll, N 2013, ‘Fragmented Memories in a Fragmented Country : Memory Competition and Political Identity-Building in Today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina’ in Nationalities Papers, vol. 41, no. 6, pp. 910–935. Obradovic´-Wochnik, J 2013, ‘The ‘Silent Dilemma’ of Transitional Justice: Silencing and Coming to Terms with the Past in Serbia’ in The International Journal of Transitional Justice, vol. 7, pp. 328–347. Orentlicher, DF 2008, Shrinking the Space for Denial. The Impact of the ICTY in Serbia, Open Society Institute, New York. Orentlicher, DF 2008, That Someone Guilty Be Punished. The Impact of the ICTY in Bosnia, Open Society Institute, New York. Orentlicher, DF 2013, ‘From Viability to Impact: Evolving metrics for Assessing the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. A Review Essay’ in The International Journal of Transitional Justice, vol. 7, pp. 536–46. Ostojic´, M 2009, ‘Collective Memory in Personal Accounts of Veterans of the Croatian War 1991–1995’ in Socio-Anthropologie, vol. 23–24, pp. 75–114, available from b30 March 2017c. Parent, G 2017, ‘The importance of individual responsibility for halting the cycle of violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina’, Paper presented at the 58th Annual Conference of the International Studies Association in Baltimore, 22.–25. Feb. 2017. Peskin, VA 2008, International Justice in Rwanda and the Balkans: Virtual Trials and the Struggle for State Cooperation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Peskin, VA & Boduszynski, MP 2011, ‘Balancing International Justice in the Balkans: Surrogate Enforcers, Uncertain Transitions and the Road to Europe’ in The International Journal of Transitional Justice, vol. 5, pp. 52–74. Schwandner-Sievers, S & Di Lellio, A 2006, ‘The Legendary Commander. The Construction of an Albanian Master-Narrative in Post-War Kosovo’ in Nations & Nationalism, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 513–29. Sundhaussen, H 2001, Serbien auf dem Weg zur Zivilgesellschaft? Mitteilungen des Humboldt-Club Serbien, 10, pp. 2–9. Sverisson, HB 2006, ‘Truth and Reconiliation Commission in Kosovo: A Window of Opportunity?’ Peace, Conflict and Development, no. 8, pp. 1–26.

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Swart, B; Zahar, A & Sluiter, G. (eds.) 2011, The Legacy of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Troebst, S (1999), ‘Kommunizierende Röhren: Makedonien, die Albanische Frage und der Kosovo-Konflikt’ in Südosteuropa-Mitteilungen, vol. 39, no. 3, pp. 215–229.

Eva-Maria Auch

Conflict, Identity and Reconciliation in the South Caucasus

Introduction To analyse the connection between conflict and identity in the South Caucasus and the prospects of conflict transformation and reconciliation is a conceptual challenge regarding the latter’s different interpretations1: “Conflict transformation is best described as a complex process of constructively changing relationships, attitudes, behaviours, interests and discourses in violenceprone conflict settings. Importantly, it also addresses underlying structures, cultures and institutions that encourage and condition violent political and social conflict (…). It is a multi-dimensional, non-linear and unpredictable process involving many different actors in moving from ‘latent and overt violence to structural and cultural peace’, as V8ronique Dudouet has put it. It is particularly pertinent in situations of protracted and asymmetric conflict involving social justice issues. Especially in such settings, it is an approach that calls for long-term engagement and political skill.”

Senghaas’ (2007) “civilizational hexagon” (2007), Miall’s (2004) model or Johan Galtung’s (2004) conflict triangle have proven to be viable tools for highlighting the deficits and potentials for conflict resolution in the South Caucasus. This is particularly with regard to cultural factors and to explaining the failure of peace efforts to date. All authors underline the importance of a differentiated approach to conflict analysis and the role of history and memory in the emergence, escalation and resolution of conflict. The present paper focuses on collective memory and the power-political instrumentalization of national narratives in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan and the potential of these narratives for peace building. Theoretically, it draws on the premise that collective memory is constructed for the purposes of strengthening group identity and solidarity and can thus be transformed (see Anderson 1991; Gillis 1994; Smith 1996). Accordingly, it also holds that any peace and reconciliation project in the region should include a special program of narrative intervention aimed at countering monolithic and exclusivist memories and their destructive consequences. 1 The term conflict transformation is used here in the understanding of the Berghof Foundation (2012, p. 23) on the basis of John Paul Lederach (1997), Diana Francis (2010) and others, since it reflects the multidimensionality of conflicts, identity(s) and reconciliation processes.

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Before delving into the question of memory politics, I will start out with a brief summary of the scientific state of the art and the region’s conflict history. All three regions – Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia face a common heritage of three decades of alternating hot and cold phases of conflict, as well as an equally long chronicle of futile international efforts for dialogue, and rapprochement with “global players” with diverse interests involved. In tracing these developments, a plethora of studies in conflict and mediation efforts’ analysis employ a political-scientific approach and are narrow in their regional focus and expertise.2 However, many conclusions and recommendations of these analyses are being contradicted by the developments on the ground. In contrast to South-Eastern Europe, there is little interregional and interdisciplinary research on the Caucasus region. The view comparative analyses (see e. g. de Waal 2003; Cheteryan 2009; Zürcher 2007) examine the instrumentalization of memory, history and identity by certain elite groups as power-political instrument. Rather than focussing on quick resolution efforts “from above”, they encompass deep-rooted cultural factors, unmasking how the past is used for the purpose of escalating inter-ethnic violence (“war of memories”)3 (Müller 2002, p. 1–2). How do mediation and reconciliation efforts connect to this? Understanding narratives of the past as intellectual and emotional backbone in the construction of national identity (Assmann 2006, pp. 17–18) (especially within newly established states) paves the way for approaches that illuminate how collective memory can be used for peace building. However, and interestingly enough, international conflict researchers and mediators are often referred by local peace activists as “flipchart tourists”, for often these actors – funded by external and limited grants – on measurable and effective mechanisms for conflict resolution which are disentangled from local realities and grass-roots activities.4 Disappointed by a “conflict resolution diplomacy of the West” perceived as biased, many locals criticise that although much humanitarian aid has been provided, the focus of international politics lies on “big solutions” on the diplomatic scene. Thus, they call for a “democratisation” of peace efforts by involving both local peace activists, but also Western civil society hitherto broadly neglected in conflict resolution.5 2 An overview is provided by Heinemann-Grüder (2016). 3 Viktor Shnirelman in his book Memory wars: Myths, identity and politics in the Transcaucasus (Shnirelman 2003). Voiny pamiati: mify, identichnost’ i politika na Zakavkaze [Memory wars: Myths, identity and politics in the Transcaucasus]. IKTs Akademkniga: Moscow. 4 Not only the economic damage caused by the destruction of war, military expenditure, isolation and blockades are offset, but also international funding for peace projects. Gafarli et al. (2016, p. 45). 5 The statements are based on years of experience in dialogue forums conducted by the author and EuroKaukAsia e.V. as part of the Federal Foreign Office’s “Conflict Prevention Program” and the program “East-West-Dialog”.

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In recent years, they have been engaged in broadening and reconciling competing national narratives for the purpose of inter-communal rapprochement. Within their ranks are many young scientists – offsprings of the conflict generation with no direct involvement in the past, who have undertaken mediation training abroad or participated in international peace projects.6 While former analyses had been based on the perspectives of one conflict community only (Aliev, Grigorjan & Musabekov 2006), these actors promote common perspectives (Gamaghelyan 2016; Karpenko and Javakhishvili 2013) and have an important share in empowering and connecting civil society to renegotiate its heritage, while they also critically address its current powerpolitical instrumentalization. Here, they illuminate the pivotal role of national narratives in the perpetuation of conflict by showing how both old and new elites use selective narratives of the past to appeal to exclusive national identities, and demand cohesion and conformity of their electorate.7 In the field, peace activists often also engage in dangerous practices, such as regularly crossing ceasefire lines to promote and organize inter-communal contact. As facilitators of cross-border-cooperation they often run the risk of being marginalized or even prosecuted, for peace activism based on engagement with the former (or current) enemy is often regarded as treason. This underlines the relevance of civic networks and platforms for dialogue and the need to integrate them into international peace efforts and diplomacy. This seems even more important in view of the state of “frozen conflicts”. In contrast to the Balkans, where there have been joint actions to separate the conflict parties and – with some success – establish long-term mechanisms of justice, and cooperation (see particularly the efforts of the ICTY), there were none in the post-Soviet region. In 2009, Russia conducted a violent “pacification” in the North Caucasus (the so-called Second Chechen War), while the South Caucasus (Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh) find themselves in a state of fragile ceasefire. There are no peace agreements, no NATO missions or UN protection zones, no international commissions on border regulations, no international court dealings with war crimes or even genocide. Further, while the three South Caucasian states are members of the Council of Europe, they do not share land borders with an EU country and are no candidates for accession either. Thus, the framework for conflict transformation differs significantly from the situation in the Balkans. Apparently, overburdened with the need for urgent decisions at the end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc, German reunification, the Gulf War and 6 See e. g. International Alert. Available from: or The South Caucasus and Neighborhood 2016, which brings together scholars, journalists and peace activists from the South Caucasus, Turkey and the Russian Federation. Available from: . 7 See Tevzadze (2009); Chkhartishvil (2012, pp. 189–206); Beukian (2014, pp. 247–269); Shahnazarian (2010); Marutyan (2009); Agadjanjan & van der Zweerde (2015); Mammadli, Braux & Mahmudlu (2017).

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the political transformation of the USSR, the events in the Caucasus remained essentially “peripheral” for the world’s public. Until today they appear primarily as a “Moscow problem” despite the dissolution of the Union in 1991, state independence and diplomatic recognitions of Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1992.8 Meanwhile, the longer the conflicts lasted, the more radical they became. New actors, new interest groups and (political and economic) war profiteers appeared on the scene. Nowadays, not only the territorial losses of sovereign states and the political and economic structure of breakaway territories seem consolidated. Also – as mentioned – history appears a central “political actor” fuelled by national master narratives and discourses that are backed by alleged scientific evidence and serve the power-political status quo. Thus, differentiated approaches to conflict resolution should include an analysis of dominant discourses and how these discourses legitimize underlying interests. They should target the deconstruction of master narratives and promote their transformation to provide common ground for dialogue, and mutual acknowledgment of inflicted harm (Hawel 2011).9 Before coming back to this fundamental aspect, I shall briefly recall the conflict landscapes of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.

Retrospective – Overview of the Conflict Histories “The conflicts of the Caucasus are an example of how strongly interests and identities, rational and irrational motives, ethno-psychic in-depth-dimensions and tangible economic incentives intertwine. The conflicts escalated before the energy boom in the Caspian region led to the reopening of the Great Game and the geo-economic upgrading of the Caucasus as a potential transport corridor for energy raw materials. The secessions that did not emanate from the elites but from the masses were primarily driven by the chosen traumas and the chosen glories of the past” [translated by the author].

This quote by U. Halbach (2002 p. 1) reflects the complexity of conflict-causes and histories in a region that rather than being perceived as homogenous should be defined by its fragmented and mingling diversity in geographical, political and, above all, cultural terms. At the same time, the quotation also marks the shortcomings of “Western” perceptions on the causes of conflict in the region. Firstly, it sheds light on the local, regional and global distribution struggles, which took place during the legalization of black-market resources and “perestroika” – processes still hardly considered in science, let alone 8 Cf. the studies on German media coverage of the Karabakh conflict 1988–2008, Auch (2016). 9 For questions on to what extent these mechanisms and insights of social psychology can be used for peace building see Garagozov (2012a); Hawel (2014).

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placed in a global context (see Auch 1992; Dragadze 1989; Koehler & Zürcher 2003). The quote also suggests how the respective conflicts might have been simplified in traditional conflict analysis by being simply labelled “ethnic” or “ethno-confessional”.10 When Halbach writes, that it was chosen traumas and chosen glories that drove the masses to demand secessions, he underestimates the geopolitical or geo-economic factors as main triggers of conflict in the South Caucasus.11 Since memories and traumas as such do not have an automatic effect on the masses, but are rather being strategically employed by political and economic elites as a valuable ideological basis for action – particularly in crisis situations. Thus, attention should also be given to the actors and powerpolitical structures that enable their instrumentalization. On that note, Zürcher (2007, x–xi) stresses: “But all organizers of violence actually accumulated their start-up capital in the shadow and criminal economics of the Soviet Union.” Particularly, one should examine which groups or individuals acted as driving forces in the 1980s with the aim of securing their access to resources during the disintegration of the USSR12 by means of reforms or by attempts to safeguard the old system by introducing a controlled market-economy and democratic elements (Auch 1992, pp. 3–4).Without ignoring the Soviet factor, a more profound understanding of the actual “winners” of the conflicts in the peripheries13 (Central Asia and the Baltic states would have to be included here in a comparative way) would allow for a better understanding of today’s interests of decision-makers and the high risk of conflict narratives being biased and manipulated. It would eventually also pave the way for a more realistic and effective approach to conflict transformation. Moreover, also the geopolitical background of the conflicts does not seem to be sufficiently analysed. According to Halbach (2002), it has been only in the Chechen conflict that international attention was paid to the economic 10 In order to attenuate ethnicity as a determining causal factor for sub-state conflicts and to clarify the political character, the term “violent ethnonational conflicts” is used according to Brubakers and Laitins (1998, p. 428). 11 See also Kaufmann (2001, p. 100): “In none of these cases did economic concerns play an important role in political mobilization, however. Both Georgians and Abkhaz mobilized around almost entirely noneconomic issues in 1988; those economic issues that did come up were primarily proxies for issues of ethnic balance or political power.” 12 As commonly known, in 1982 the „Thieves in Law“ met in Tbilisi and split into „traditionalists“ and „legalists“; see a.o. Rahr & Pochomow (1998). For the transition from informal practices and the role of legal vacuums within disputed territories and the case study of Georgia see: Hensell (2008, pp. 18–46); Kukhianidze, Kupatadze & Gotsiridze (2004). 13 Since the records of the period between 1985 and 1991/94 are not yet accessible, more attention should be paid to interviews with contemporary witnesses and their memories in order to reconstruct actual backgrounds and processes. See, for example, the memoir of Zardusht Alizade on the role of the Karabakh conflict in Azerbaijan’s independence movement and the ambitions of various politicians, Alizade (2006).

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potential of the Caspian region. However, both Bukold (2009) and Baghirov (2007, p. 19–20) point out that the oil and gas resources of the Caspian Sea had already attracted international corporations’ attention in the 1980s. The Azerbaijani deposits of Güneshli and Ciraq had been known from 1985 on. Gorbachev’s opening policy broad concrete investment opportunities for foreign capital, which were discussed on the occasion of Gorbachev and his wife’s visit to Washington in 1987.14 Here, too, one sees the role of international actors involved in peace negotiations since the 1990s and their interests for conflict transformation.15 Even if more research is needed to understand the root causes of the conflicts in the region, it is obvious that the transformation they caused has left a heavy impact on the people’s collective consciousness and self-understanding (Engels 2008, p. 18). Both can be shaped to fuel fears and thus mobilize for violence, while in turn the experience of violence reshapes people’s self-understanding.16 Coming back to the regions’ various conflicts in synoptic perspective: Directly intertwined with the seven territorial units north of the Great Caucasus Mountains in the North Caucasus that belong to the Russian Federation, Transcaucasia (respectively Southcaucasia) encompasses three politically independent republics: Armenia (30,000 km2, 2.9 million, Erivan), Azerbaijan (86,600 km2, 9.6 million, Baku) and Georgia (69,700 km2, 3.7 million, Tbilisi/Tbilisi). However, among them there is breakaway territory. The state territory of Georgia officially includes the autonomous local authorities of Abkhazia (8,700 km2, 1989: 524,00 inhabitants, of which 46.2 % are Georgians, 17.3 % Abkhazians, 14.6 % Armenians, 14.2 % Russians; 1993/4 flight of approx. 250.000 Georgians, Sukhumi), Adjaria (3,000 km2, 2002: 350,00 P.E., of which about 80 % are Muslim Ajarians, Batumi) and South Ossetia (3,900 km2, approx. 100,000 of which 68 % are Ossetians/proper designation Irons, Tskhinvali). Abkhazia and Ossetia are regarded as “renegades”, for they are 14 The meeting of Gorbachev and his wife with representatives of the Dashnakcutjun, the Armenian nationalist diaspora, during their state visit to the USA in December 1987 caused violent reactions. The Georgian journalist T. Chadadze said that this meeting had a similar effect as if it had been said that ‘a state leader R. visited Hess in the Spandau prison and had a long and friendly conversation with him at breakfast in the morning’. In November 1987, at a reception for the economists in Paris, Abel Aganbegjan – Gorbachev’s close advisor on economic issues – brought the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh on the international agenda. The accession of Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia would be favorable only from an economic point of view. Today Abel Aganbegjan and his son are members of the Supervisory Board of the Pension Fund of “Lukoil-Garant”. Lukoil is still in the Azerbaijani oil business. 15 It is interesting to note that even the most recent Russian conspiracy theories are now moving into the limelight. See also Egorcenkov (2018). 16 The extent to which these mechanisms and findings of social psychology can be used for the process of peace building has also been discussed for some years now for the Caucasus, Garagozov (2012a).

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not centrally governed, while politically and economically they had to manage up to 300,000 refugees and displaced persons.17 The situation is similar to Azerbaijan, whose state territory officially includes the Autonomous Republic (AR) of Nakhichevan (5,500 km2, 300,000 inhabitants, 96 % Azerbaijanis, Nakhichevans) as an exclave and Nagorno-Karabakh (4,400 km2, 1989: 192,000 inhabitants, 2/3 Armenians, Stepanakert/Chankendi) as an enclave. In the armed battles of 1994 Azerbaijan lost not only the sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh, but also over the neighbouring districts Kelbadschar, Fizuli, Kubatli, Dschebrail, Zangelan, Agdam, Latschin and Shusha (9,788 km2). As a consequence, about 18 % of Azerbaijani state territory is occupied by Armenian troops. In the 1990s, the displaced population18 mainly lived in refugee camps, and a large proportion of the Armenian population emigrated to Russia or Armenia. Relations between the Republic of Armenia and Azerbaijan are broken at all levels until today. In the end of the Soviet Union roughly half of all simmering or hot ethnicterritorial trouble-spots were to be found in the Caucasus. In their entirety, five areas of tension have shaped the perception of space to date: the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh and seven additional occupied territories (1988–1994, 2016), between Georgia and Abkhazia (1992–1993), as well as Georgia and South Ossetia (1991–1992, 2008), and the two Chechen wars (1994–1996, 1999–2009) within the Russian Federation. Georgia and Azerbaijan experienced bloody battles between carried out between the population and the Red Army (Tbilisi 19 April 1989, Baku 19/20 January 1990), surpassing the Baltic events in terms of both duration and scale. Refugee and migration flows were set in motion, uprooting more than 2 million people and changing the ethnic, religious and social structure as well as the cultural memory of an entire region. War, flight, expulsion, and migration led to the loss of regional demographic and economic structures, traditional social and family net17 In official statistics of Georgia (GEOstat 2017, Survey 2014) the number of IDP’s with 259.247 persons (86.283 families) is given. The responsible Ministry for Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Refugees, and Accommodations reported 271,525 IDPs in August 2016, including all IDPs from the 1992–93 and 2008 conflicts. UNHCR (June 2016) refer to 166,000 persons as “IDP-like” (volatile security situation and needed protection and humanitarian assistance). Another category are so-called “repatriates” (law of 11 July 2007), Meskhets, who were deported from Georgia (about 80 thousand) to Central Asia in 1944 and returned in the context of ethnic conflicts in the late 1980s/early 1990s. 5,841 submitted an application for recognition, by 2010 a number of 1,254 have been approved to date. 18 According to UNHCR (Dec. 2016): 613,129 registered IDPs (right of residence only with official registration/authorization) – official reduction of the poverty rate from 75 % (2003) to 19 %. At the same time, NGOs refer to “tens to hundreds of thousands” who are supposed to be in the country without papers. According to the State Committee for Refugees and Forced Displaced Persons (2017, interview) there are 250,000 Refugees (1988–1991 from Armenia, plus about 50,000 Meskhets from Central Asia) and about 700,000 IDPs from Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions (1992–1994).

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works, collective and private property, but also to the loss of knowledge and education through the destruction of archives, museums, educational institutions and, above all, through the migration of educated strata with their specific cultural memory (including the memory of peaceful coexistence). Around 30 % of these countries’ population are younger than thirty and therefore bear no first-hand memory of interethnic cohabitation. This fact together with a lack of civic structures and democratic experience has favoured the evolution of an exclusive and nationalist collective memory and its instrumentalization by politics, media, and education. In their democratic transformation, all three South Caucasian states faced simultaneous conflicts on different levels: The struggle for greater sovereignty or independence of the republics vis-/-vis Moscow’s central authorities was accompanied by vertical conflicts between republic authorities and national territorial authorities (autonomous republics or territories). Moscow’s inability (or unwillingness?) to ensure public order and security in the region triggered escalations that have ever since developed their own dynamics and became uncontrollable. This is the case, because local confrontations kindled by competing political and economic interests between and within national elites were presented to the public as ethnonational confrontations. Despite thematic differences, all three states have shown structural similarities with regard to how memory was instrumentalized to underpin mutually exclusive identities. It all started with Gorbachev’s reform policies of Perestroika and Glasnost, combined with the “coming to terms with the ‘white spots’ of history” and its impact on party, state nomenklatura, and cultural and educational elites. Films such as “The Repentance” by T. Abduladze, “You Can’t Live Like This” by S. Govruchin, novels such as “The Justice Square” by T. Ajtmatov, “The Children of Arbat” by A. Rybakov represented this new freedom. With the de facto abolition of censorship, however, also the role of the mass media changed. Periodicals jumped up, and the CP’s monopoly on information was broken. At the same time, the first results of the economic reforms with partial privatizations in agriculture and industry, combined with the outbreak of an economic crisis, became apparent. However, it turned out that the general public was not prepared for a radical change in values and above all for the negotiation of various social, economic, political and religious interests. The frame of reference of national aspirations was Stalin’s definition of nation from 1913 – later implemented in Soviet national politics in spite of all contradictions: “A nation is a historically developed stable community of people, developed on the basis of the community of language, territory, economic life and the psychic nature revealed in the community of culture.” With regard to “Marxism and the national question” Stalin had emphasized that “none of the listed characteristics, taken individually, is sufficient to

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Georgians Abkhazians Ossetians Armenian Karabakh Azerbaijanis Armenia

Economic and social crisis

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distribution battles x

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Identity crises in x fragile statehood in the collapse of the Soviet empire

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Recourse to Natio- x nal Identity Models of Communist Nationalities Policy

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National construc- x tion in fragile statehood after 1991 and internal power struggles

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define the nation. Moreover, if only one of these characteristics is missing, the nation ceases to be a nation” (Stalin 1913) [translated by the author]. A persistent and fierce discourse developed precisely along these criteria, for they were directly related to the right to exist as a nation and thus to claims in the hierarchical administrative system of the USSR. Zürcher (1998) rightly points out that the administrative-territorial units (ATU) of the Union served not only the spatial division, but “defined units by inscribing boundaries into the territory and thus creating subjects; organized dominion by linking the units with a vertical, central bureaucracy ; organized accumulation and allocation by allocating resources from bottom to top and from top to bottom along this bureaucracy ; defined the possible spaces for interaction and communication of the functional elites (…) and assigned a precisely defined status within the hierarchy to the functional elites. This status determined the amount of ‘administrative value date’ – influence, resource access and bargaining power” [translated by the author].

Using ATU to create a hierarchy between the ethnic groups on the basis of Bolshevik nationality politics ensured that – despite the social revolution and all the incantations of Soviet collective identity – the structural significance of ethnicity remained intact. Thus, ethnic identity was by no means diminished

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but could even increase again after 1956 through the promotion of national cadres and renewed support for mother-tongue education. The crisis of the Soviet system as uniting point of reference paved the way for social and political mobilization based on ethnic identity along the lines of titular nations promoted by the respective educational elites. This is why tensions would later evolve into group conflicts along ethnic lines: In the course of glasnost and perestroika, authoritarian statehood was called into question. By 1988 the political Union had lost its integration capability ; a political transition had started that destabilized all areas of society, so that a variety of social problems could no longer be solved. Moreover, economies of violence affected the legal sphere. Old and new leaders used ethno-political propaganda and historicized group conflicts. As Kaufmann (2001) aptly says, the “ethno-politicization” of these conflicts turned them into essential conflicts, directly relevant for the peoples’ self-understanding. In the course of various violent events the identity of the participants was little by little narrowed down to become more homogenous, conflict-related and sacred. The next section shall focus on how collective identities shaped the courses of conflict in the three South Caucasian states. Georgia Three divine treasures were passed down to us by our ancestors: Fatherland, language and faith. If we don’t even stand up for this, what kind of people we are then? (Ilia C’avc’avadze, St. Petersburg, November 5th,1860, as cited in Reisner 2004, p. 78, [translated by the author]).

Throughout the 19/20th century, Georgia had been traditionally conventionalised as Russian, later Soviet “Orient”, broadly a synonym for Black Sea holidays, generous live-style and open spaces, which were often exoticized and tolerated as “Caucasian”. After 1956 (“called the period of political thaw”), in Georgia (as in the other union republics) a new generation of national dissidents grew up. They dominated the political scene of Georgia until the mid–1990s. Among them were the English studies professor Swiad Gamsachurdia (1939–1993) and the musicologist Merab Kostawa (1939–1989). Encouraged by the Helsinki Process, from the early 1970s small groups of dissidents were formed which linked the Georgian language and cultural heritage debate with civil and human rights issues. Gerber (1997, p.73) noticed: “(…) that the Georgian dissidents were not civil rights activists whose central concern was the observation of human rights. Rather, they were opposition members who rigorously rejected the Soviet Union as a state and social model and saw their

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nation as a victim of Russian expansionism. (…) Their future plan was therefore based primarily on achieving state autonomy and a national-integrative understanding of culture, which saw its most important pillars in the preservation of the Georgian language and the renewal of the Georgian church.”

In this statement there are two characteristic features of Georgian identity formation which would have an impact on the political debates: a special sacred narrative and a particular understanding of cultural heavily drawing on Georgian language and the church. Andronikashvili points out that “Georgian historiography shows that politics constantly referred to ‘martyrdom for Christianity’: [this was used as] a kind of meta-sujet that gave every political conflict with an external enemy a smack of martyrdom, thus portaying the country itself as martyr”.

At the same time, it was Ilia C’avc’vadze (1837–1907) – figurehead of the early national movement who in his poetry (The Ghost, The Mother of Georgia, King Demeter of Self-Sacrifice, etc.) secularized this traditional subject by reinterpreting the relationship between the political and the sacred (Andronikashvili 2008; in detail 2012, p. 85–121). In his works, not only is Christianity closely linked to the fatherland, but he also passes on a kind of “fatherland religion”, declaring “self-sacrifice for the fatherland to be the central virtue, the supreme duty and the goal of every mamulishvili (son of the fatherland). Thus, not only drawing on the role model of Christian martyrdom was pivotal, but also on the fundamental connection between saints and sacrifice that extends much further back: the sacrifice in its meaning as the constituent of the nation in an eschatological struggle that creates community” (Andronikashvili 2008).

The idea of being an outpost of (Western) Christendom against hostile powers and the martyrdom suffered did indeed “secularize” in the succeeding generation’s struggle with their parents19 (Reisner 2004), but still the struggle for the fatherland is deeply intertwined with Georgian language and Orthodox faith. According to Reisner (2012), the Georgian language was elevated to become a symbol of exclusive, cultural identity. “The territory, the ‘homeland’ (mic’a-c’qali) and the mamuli, reinterpreted from ‘hereditary property’ to signify the ‘fatherland’, where one can communicate in Georgian, served as the spatial reference point of the nation. Orthodox Christianity followed in third place to distinguish it from its numerous Muslim neighbours and as a stronghold of a long, independent tradition and written culture.” Even though the canonization of Cavcavadze in 1987 – eighty years after his assassination – by the Georgian Orthodox Church sacralised his person, it was precisely these 19 The Georgian elites of the first third of the 19th century were called the “father generation”, their “sons” had often crossed the Terek and studied at Russian or Western universities, where modern intellectual currents (including nationalism) became known.

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elements of Georgian identity that shaped the political conflicts between radical and moderate forces within the Georgian independence movement as well as towards the “foreign rule of Moscow”. Gia Nodija (1996) formulates the thesis that Georgia was the only republic in which an “irreconcilable” mentality dominated the opposition’s program and all actions. In view of the above mentioned, the political forces certainly drifted apart in questions concerning the relationship between titular nation, ethnic minorities and ethnic-territorial local authorities. Men like Zwiad Gamsakhurdija were able to assert themselves with slogans such as “Georgia to the Georgians” and “Whoever is not with us, is against us”. He not only mobilized against the Moscow headquarters, but fuelled the citizen movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia by drawing on concepts of the enemy. In March 1989 there were public demands for Russian protection of Abkhazia’s autonomy vis-/-vis the central power in Tbilisi. Mutual accusations and Abkhazian-Georgian attacks were the result and became the central theme of the national movement (Auch 2005). After the bloody dissolution of a demonstration with 19 dead and about 3000 injured on April 9th 1989 the collapse of the CP and it’s institutionalized value system could no longer be prevented. A “revolutionary radicalism” increasingly drowned out the moderate opposition. A particular expression of this radicalization can be observed in the paramilitary group Mkhedrioni. Founded in 1989 by Jaba Ioseliani, the Mkhedrioni presented itself as the heir to historic Georgian guerrilla groups who fought Persian and Ottoman occupiers. Mkhedrioni literally means “horsemen” but can also be understood as “knights”. Each member of the organization would take an oath to defend the Georgian people, the Georgian Orthodox and Apostolic Church and Georgian land. Each was further given a medallion with a scene of Saint George slaying the dragon on one side and the bearer’s name on the other. Zwiad Gamsakhurdia also used historical symbolism with the electoral alliance ”Round Table – Free Georgia” when in May 1990 he was the only radical to run for the Supreme Soviet of Georgia. He conducted his election campaign under a dark red-black-white flag, which had already been the state symbol of the Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1918–1921 (and again became the official banner of the Republic after Georgia’s declaration of independence from 9 April 1991 to 2004). Red represented the bright past, black the dark experiences under Russian and Soviet rule and white the hopes of a peaceful future. Surely, no one would have seen back then that these colours would also come to symbolise Georgia’s future problems. For the strongly mythologized historical self-understanding as an “old Georgian cultural nation” were in conflict with the lack of experience in modern citizenship. The relationship with the Russian-Soviet past remained ambivalent with a confrontational foreign policy vis-/-vis the Russian Federation. Also, the hope for a unified, peaceful nation-state remained unfulfilled. The rebellion against foreign rule and centralism led to a

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fratricidal war. On August 26th 1990 the Supreme Soviet of Abkhazia declared in Sukhumi the restoration of the 1925 Constitution (and thus de facto independence), while on November 14th the newly elected Supreme Soviet elected Sviad Gamsakhurdia as parliamentary chairman. At the same time, a law was passed in favour of state independence and against a new Union treaty planned by Gorbachev. Georgia’s declaration of independence followed on April 9th 1991. On May 26th 1991 Gamsakhurdia was elected the first President of the Republic of Georgia with the support of 86 % of the electorate. In the months that followed, Gamsakhurdia suppressed both the radical nationalist and democratic opposition, curtailed the freedom of the press, and treated any criticism of his government as lese majesty and treason of fatherland. Through legislation he expanded his powers, while local warlords and criminal gang leaders sought to exert influence on him. His stance towards ethnic minorities remained repressive and further aggravated the conflict. By October 1991, Georgians died on at least two fronts: when Gamsakhurdias and his supporters were overthrown by the National Guard under General Tengiz Kitowani (born 1939) in alliance with the Mchedrioni under Jaba Ioseliani and as civilians and soldiers in the Georgian-Abkhazian fratricidal war. With Russian troops intervening from summer of 1992, after North Caucasian voluntary organizations had sided with the Abkhazians, even the military council set up by the “Democratic Movement of Georgia” on 5 March 1992 under the chairmanship of E. Shevardnadze could not achieve appeasement. It was not before May 1994 that a ceasefire was reached – a ceasefire that in the case of the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict marked the beginning of countless international mediation efforts.20 The South Ossetian-Georgian conflict was aggravated in a way similar to the Abkhazian conflict by the Georgian desire for independence and the dispute over citizenship regulations in the collapse of the Soviet Union (Sammut & Cvetkovski 1996). On 20 April 1922 South Ossetia had been created as Ossetian Autonomous Region (AG) in the holdings of the Georgian SSR, while North Ossetia two years later received the rank of a National Circle and in 1936 was proclaimed the Ossetian ASSR within the RF. In 1989, half of 598,000 Ossetians lived in the North Ossetian ASSR, a little more than 10 % in Georgia’s AG. In 1989, the South Ossetian “People’s Front” emerged, demanding reunification with the North Ossetians. On September 20th, 1990 South Ossetia declared its sovereignty and proclaimed itself the “South Ossetian autonomous Oblast”. 20 The “Moscow Agreement” in 1994 led to the deployment of a CIS Peacekeeping Mission (CISPKF), which in fact consists exclusively of Russian soldiers. In 1997, the then UN Special Representative Liviu Bota initiated the “Geneva Process”, in which both parties and other European states were involved. The discussions led to the establishment of the Coordination Council. Since then, the Council has been the central negotiating framework for the settlement of the Georgian-Abkhazian problem. The Coordinating Council has three thematic working groups: 1) permanent renunciation of hostilities and security, 2) refugees and displaced persons within the country, and 3) social and economic issues.

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Under the government of Gamsakhurdia, Georgia reacted by declaring a state of emergency and revoked the autonomy status of South Ossetia. Military confrontations and inter-ethnic collisions first stopped after the RussianOssetian-Georgian armistice agreement of Sochi (06/24/1992). South Ossetia further developed its autonomy status, however tensions remained. In October 1992, an armed conflict between the Ingush and the Ossetians started in Vladikavkaz, which further aggravated the situation. Numerous refugees fled to South Ossetia. However, political conditions in Georgia had stabilized by the end of 1995, for it adopted a new constitution and a variety of reforms. Chaired by the president the “Union of Citizens of Georgia” became the strongest party with 108 of 233 seats in parliament. Shevardnadze became president with 72.9 per cent of the total votes. However, also the “teething pain” of the National Movement became clear : Only three of the 54 parties that participated in the election could reach more than 5 per cent of the total votes. Within a system of followers and fraternity party’s fragmentation continued. Opposition, parliament and media struggled in vain to keep the president’s power at bay (pyramid principle). Assassination attempts and conspiracies against the president, who was accused of “renouncing Abkhazia”, and of “dependence on Russia” and of persecution of political dissidents, were signs of a political radicalization. They, however, also offered a pretext to revive power hierarchies based on the patronage and loyalty networks of the Soviet era. Although the legislative term 1999 to 2003 reaffirmed the “Union of Citizens of Georgia”, from 2001 on party positions started shifting against the president. The unresolved, primarily economic problems of the country had become to obvious, and foreign partners refrained from financial help. Had Georgia been perceived throughout Europe (especially in Germany) as the broader region’s primary partner, now stagnation, corruption and a reform backlog motivated increasing criticism. Avast majority’s fall in living standards as opposed to the simultaneous enrichment of a few clans, the economic burdens caused by about 230,000 refugees, and not least the unresolved territorial conflicts and tensions with Russia triggered resentment by an increasing portion of the Georgian people, headed by “young reformers” (actually, political ”foster children” of Shevardnadze). The “United National Movement” under Mikheil Saakashvili and the “United Democrats” under Zurab Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze led the opposition when mass demonstrations followed the undemocratic parliamentary elections of November 2nd 2003. They culminated in the storming of the constituent session of parliament on November 22nd/23rd 2003 and caused president Shevardnadze’s resignation. In the elections the “Rose Revolution” brought about in January 2004 M. Saakashvili was elected President with approximately 96 % of the votes cast. His reform policies (settlement of tensions with Adjara, closure of Russian military bases, anti-corruption campaigns in police and army, investment promotion, infrastructure projects,

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stabilization of the state budget, economic growth, first local and municipal elections, targeted orientation towards the West with the request for membership of NATO, EU) were to a certain extend successful. However, right from the start he also drew heavily on historical symbolism: Newly elected he swore his oath at David the Builder’s grave (1089–1125) indicating the significance historic greatness would have in his governance. From early 2004 the white five-cross flag based on the Jerusalemite George cross (which remained known in Georgia until the 15th century) replaced the flag of the first republic. Shortly after parliament decided on a new national anthem, titled “freedom” (Tavisupleba) in autumn of the same year. The first two lines are: “My icon is my motherland, and the whole world is its icon-stand, bright mounts and valleys, are shared with God”. In November 2006 a freedom monument with Georgia’s patron St. George was built on the central freedom square replacing the fountain, which in turn in 1990 had replaced the Lenin monument. All these symbolic actions bore witness to the mythologization of history and the political recourse to medieval models. Although the Sameba Cathedral (“Trinity Cathedral”) had already been planned by the Georgian Church in 1989 and construction began in 1996, its completion in 2004 with the help of the businessman Bidsina Ivanishvili also became a symbol of Georgia’s national and religious “rebirth”. In this context, the constitutional amendment of 2004, which gave the president almost unlimited power, was almost a logical consequence. In the same sentence of the constitutional article which enshrines religious freedom and the separation of state and Church, the “special role of the Orthodox Church in the history of Georgia” is emphasized. Just as the state uses the church as point of reference for almost all public actions, so the church claims profound political participation and economic privileges from the state. In addition to the increasingly authoritarian rule of Saakashvili, insufficient transparency in the privatization of state property, continuing unemployment and impoverishment, and the difficult relationship between Russia and Georgia became major points of criticism. Therefore, the majority of the opposition in the alliance “National Council” consolidated in autumn 2007, called for early parliamentary elections and protests against government policy. The President declared that he would run in early presidential elections in January 2008. Among seven candidates, President Saakashvili was re-elected for a second term with 53.47 per cent of the votes, but was once again under pressure to succeed, as the resolution of the conflicts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the normalization of relations with Russia were core promises of his election campaigns. After serious provocations, the Georgian leadership decided in August 2008 to advance into South Ossetia. Russian troops not only entered Ossetian and Abkhazian territory, but also destroyed military and civilian objects near Tbilisi. The ceasefire announced by the Georgian side was followed two days later by the Russian side. Although Russian troops largely withdrew afterwards, the Russian presence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia were strengthened by

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agreements of friendship and assistance. Shortly after Medvedev declared recognition of the independence of the secessionist territories. To sum up, within conflict dynamics and identity developments, the Georgian (as well as Abkhazian and Ossetian) elite focused on a completely abstract symbol of historical memory : The glorified Middle Ages. According to Gia Nodija (Coppiter 2002), Georgia was better equipped for democratic transition in 1918 than in 1990. Decades of Communist rule had diminished what had been an early stage of a civil society and a bourgeois-national identity. Rather communist ideology had been filled with corrupting medieval conceptions. The lack modern statehood heritage (e. g. as in the Baltic States) and the mythical glorification of Georgia’s past (“The Golden Age” under David the Builder and Queen Tamara, in literary paraphrase “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin”) inspired intellectual elite and broader public to embrace medieval ideals of political behavior that drew on an abstract symbolism of pre-modern “independence”. Interestingly enough, uncompromising positions and appeals to knightly sacrifice in the name of the nation were far more popular than concrete and realistic political means for conflict resolution. A similar symbolism was used in foreign policy : Georgia as the early cradle of Christianity, as the bearer of hope of medieval crusaders, understood itself as fortress or at least as an ally of Western Europe against a militant Islam in the neighborhood and opponent of the Russian Federation’s annexationist ambitions in the region. Thus, any willingness to compromise and reconciliation in the conflicts over Abkhazia and South Ossetia would be interpreted as weakness and failure. This understanding was based on the idea of “Mamuli” (fatherland) with its three pillars of language, faith and glorifying struggle as expressed in the “holy warrior, martyr and victor”.

Azerbaijan “Our history, our traditions, our geography actually dictated that Azerbaijan could be and should be an area where civilizations meet. And for centuries, people who inhabited Azerbaijan, have always lived in a diverse environment. Multiculturalism, ethnic and religious diversity is our history and is today’s reality.” (president Heydar Aliyev 2017)

Also, Azerbaijan is a USSR-successor state, and with its explored and suspected deposits of crude oil and natural gas, also of considerable global economic, and geopolitical interest. With a Muslim majority population Azerbaijanis see themselves culturally connected to the Caucasus, Caspian region and Europe. Muslim, Turkish, Caucasian and European identities are by no means contradictory, but rather are perceived as overlapping realities and,

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particularly, as opportunity that can promote the process of integration of a secular and market-oriented state of Azerbaijan towards Europe. The actors of the reform-movement in Azerbaijan emerged above all from the new national educational elite, which in the 1970s had been increasingly educated at universities and colleges inside and outside the Soviet Republic and took over positions in science, culture, business and politics. At the same time its two neighboring states witnessed a growth of black-marked forces that increasingly demanded legal conditions of utilization and consumption of their accumulated capital. In view of an increasingly desolate economy since the early 1980s, they were joined by “flexible elements of the Nomenklatura”, who saw the gradual shift towards a market-economy as an opportunity to maintain the system or to boost their careers under Gorbachev. As in Georgia and Armenia, questions of national identity (mainly defined by language, heritage and territory) have played an increasingly important role since the 1970s. However, Azerbaijan had been one of the reliable partners of Moscow without any dissident movements. Only the outbreak and – from an Azerbaijani point of view – the toleration and promotion of Armenian nationalism became a catalyst for uniting vast portions of the people in a common front since 1988 (Auch 1992; 1994). However, the impression that Azerbaijani interests in Karabakh were not enough taken into account with neither Moscow nor Baku relenting, as well as with the pressure stemming from the refugee flows from Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, the common front hardened towards the end of 1989, ousting more moderate voices. Disappointment for not being able to restore the status quo triggered calls for “self-justice”. A growing alienation from the Soviet system and the central government in Moscow became visible in the public sphere: Lenin Square became Freedom Square, the Soviet flag of Azerbaijan was replaced by the flag of the first independent republic (1918–1920), while an atmosphere of discrimination and suspicion vis-/-vis Armenian and Russian citizens set in. After the evacuation of the Russian and Armenian people from Baku (midJanuary 1990), on 19th/20th January Russian troops occupied the capital. The 131 Azerbaijani casualties and their funerals attended by over a million people have deeply engrained in the nation’s collective consciousness and are still kept alive today in the “Alley of the Martyrs”.21 The event caused a full break with Moscow and mass exits from the CPSU. Historic witnesses carried and transferred their traumas into the present. Arrests and bans weakened the opposition camp and deepened the division within the civil movement. The latter shifted from its social-democratic orientation to nationalist pan-Turkish ideas under Elchibey (Alizade 2006). As a result, new parties emerged and actors from the citizens’ movements founded their own organizations. Simultaneously, the traditional Intelligent21 In Soviet times, where the Kirov memorial dominated the city and a Turkish mosque was built, the “martyrs of the Karabakh war” were honored alongside the victims of the “Black January”.

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sia was pushed into the background by a Nomenklatura of politics and businesses ready for reform: Ayaz Mutallibov – since January 1990 Chairman of the Supreme Soviet and from September 1991 President of the Independent Republic – initiated significant economic transformation. However, both reformers underestimated the persistence of Soviet hierarchies and allegiances and failed to establish a civil society. Moreover, by nationalizing the oil industry and opening negotiations with Western companies, relations with Russia deteriorated rapidly. After all, reform endeavors were subject to the Karabakh question. After an independent parliament was formed in January 1992 by “Arzach” (Armenian name for Karabakh), Armenian troops advanced on the StepanakertMartakert line to Khojaly and committed a massacre there. Shortly after, Mutallibov had to resign. New elections brought the chairman of the Popular Front, A. Elchibey-Aliyev (1938–2000) to power and a year later the former head of the KGB (until 1969) and CP secretary (until 1982) Heydar Aliyev became president of the republic. With the elections of a new 125-member parliament (majority from the Alivev party ”Yeni-Azärbaycan”) and the adoption of a new constitution in 1995, the process of stabilizing presidential power was largely completed. The signing of the so-called ”Century Treaty” with international oil and gas consortia in 1994 and the opening of the BakuTbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline in 2005 flooded the country with huge investments and revenues and expanded the scope for the development of a modern infrastructure, social and cultural facilities. But the challenges of the Karabakh conflict, national state building and international profiling remained. Eventually, every Armenian historical narrative was opposed by an Azerbaijani narrative drawing on clear-cut victim-perpetrator roles, with Armenians perceived as the only ones guilty for the events of 1905–07, the March massacres of 1918 and the events of Khodzaly in 1992. There was talk of territorial losses, deportations, and genocide of Azerbaijanis.22 The role of the leader Heydar Aliyev, who had found his way into history textbooks and historical propaganda as the savior and father of the nation, entered this conflicted heritage. To this day, the unresolved conflict and the constant military threat by Armenia (in alliance with the Russian Federation and the Western Diaspora) serve as stabilizing tools of political cohesion. A new element in recent years, however, has been a distancing from the proTurkish heritage. Although there are still claims to the national epic “Dede Qorqud”, the improvement of the international image is mainly driven by displaying a deep-rooted multicultural heritage and religious tolerance.

22 An overview of the development of Azerbaijani historiography can be found in Adam (2005), Gasimov (2009), Winter (2011).

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Armenia Blessed is the one that dies For the freedom of his nation. (Refrain last verse of the Armenian national anthem)

Armenia’s political transition has been defined by the profound replacement of the communist elites by nationalist actors (although it is often overlooked that all previous officials also belonged to the “nomenklatura”– albeit taken from the ranks of the Komsomol or the Red Army that were and still are profiteers of the Karabakh conflict). The conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (created in 1923 as part of the Azerbaijani Republic) has been used (and still is using) as an instrument of legitimacy for the preservation of the political, economic and socio-cultural hierarchies within the Republic of Armenia and Karabakh. It has furthermore served as the most important emotional point of reference connecting a diaspora of approximately 10 million people with their homeland. According to Cohen’s idealtypical criteria23 there are central characteristic of the Armenian diaspora: They are widely scattered, but share a common memory of their original country. While its founding myth shaped in the 19thcentury with the idea of Armenians referring to antiquity, its core remains biblical and thus claims to be sacralized itself. Here, Mount Ararat became the center of a mythical historical Armenia, which at the same time sees itself as the birthplace of mankind and – through its early adoption as a state religion – also of Christianity. There common reference points serve as unifying factors that counterweigh the shrinking integrative power of the Armenian Apostolic Church and the decrease of Armenian as common language. A second criterion of Cohen’s diaspora concept is the expulsion from the original homeland, combined with a traumatic experience. This also applies to the Armenian diaspora. In the second chapter of his introduction “Global 23 According to Cohen’s definition, diaspora communities are thus characterized by the following properties (Cohen 1997, p. 26): 1. Dispersal from an original homeland, often traumatically, to two or more foreign regions; 2. alternatively, the expansion from a homeland in search of work, in pursuit of trade or no further colonial ambitions; 3. a collective memory and myth about the homeland, including its location, history and achievements; 4. an idealization of the putative ancestral home and a collective commitment to its maintenance, restoration, safety and prosperity, even to is creation; 5. the development of a return movement that gains collective approbation; 6. a strong ethnic group consciousness sustained over a long time and based on a sense of distinctiveness, a common history and the belief in a common fate; 7. a troubled relationship with host societies, suggesting a lack of acceptance at the least or the possibility that another calamity might befall the group; 8. a sense of empathy and solidarity with co-ethnic members in other countries of settlement; and 9. the possibility of a distinctive creative, enriching life in host countries with tolerance for pluralism.

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Diasporas”, Cohen (2008, pp. 48–59) classifies the Armenian diaspora as an ideal-typical victim diaspora. This is also underlined by the above-cited verse of the Armenian national anthem. The anthropologist Nora Dudwick (1994, p. 81) speaks of the “Genocide 1915 as an inclusive symbol of suffering, persecution and martyrdom, which Armenians describe” as a signal word that constitutes a “community of suffering”. Thus, the events of 1915 and the demand for the connection of “Armenian settlement areas” served as unifying factor of diverse Armenian interest groups within the USSR, but also as ideological bridge between SovietArmenians and the diaspora. Jacoby (1998, p. 51) also points to another aspect: “It is the close intertwining of genocide with the motives of loss and resistance that is responsible for what in this context signifies a perception of options for action in existential categories. It is this dichotomization of options for action into ‘fatal in the sense of inevitably leading to catastrophe’ and ‘necessary to save the Armenian people’, which is responsible for the mode of conduct of conflicts in the Armenian present as well” [translated by the author].

This means that at least two elements, i. e. the narratives of the community of suffering and the “preventive resistance” to save the Armenian people shaped and still shape Armenian collective identities and their relations with “the others”. The predominantly Turkic-speaking Azerbaijanis, of whom about 230 thousand until 1988 lived in the Republic of Armenia, were quickly identified as “non-autochthonous”24 in the outbreak of the distribution struggles of Perestroika, i. e. as “immigrants”, “foreigners” and finally as “Turks” and “Muslims” (i. e. historical enemies). By way of contrast, “the Armenian brothers of Karabakh” were seen as liberated from oppression. The first refugee movements and experiences of violence in 1987/88 (events of Askeran and Sumgait) brought about the danger of a civil war. In February 1988, in the midst of Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost, the local Soviet of the NKAO adopted a resolution demanding the transfer of the NKAO from AzSSR to ArSSR. Some months later the Supreme Soviet of Armenian SSR passed a resolution supporting the decision of the NKAO authorities’ request to transfer the NKAO to ArSSR. In July 1988, the USSR Supreme Soviet confirmed the previous decision on retaining NKAO within Azerbaijan SSR on the basis of Article 78 of the USSR constitution, “which prevents territorial changes without the agreement of the republics concerned”. However, Moscow also temporarily transferred the NKAO to the jurisdiction of the USSR central 24 The Armenian-Azerbaijani historians’ dispute over the history of Caucasian-Albania under Farida Mammadova not only called into question the Armenian sole claim to the ancient and early medieval history of the South Caucasus, but also derived territorial claims and “autochthonous rights” from the scientific discourse in a populist manner.

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government in January 1989, a move that was seen in Azerbaijan as the first step in undermining its right to the province. Successes in the expulsion of the Azerbaijani population from the Republic of Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region and the events of Sumgait and united various movements connected to the “Karabakh Committee” (KRUNK)25 founded in 1987 into the “Pan-National Movement”. Its spokesman, Levon Ter-Petrosian, was the first non-communist to take office as President of Parliament as a result of the new elections to the Supreme Soviet of Armenia and on in August 1990 announced the beginning of the “transition towards state independence”. In September 1991, 94 % of Armenians decided in a referendum to leave the USSR in the following month. Ter-Petrosian was directly elected president with 83 % of the votes, while until the Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire in May 1994 not only the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, but seven surrounding districts, which were occupied as “protection zone” were elected. At the latest, the fall of Ter-Petrosian in February 1998 by the then incumbent Prime Minister and former President of the (internationally unrecognized) Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, R. Kocharian, and the assassination attempt26 in the Armenian Parliament on 27 October 1999 marked the end of a redeployment process of political figures that led to the “real Karabakhization of Armenia” with local and regional key positions in politics and economy occupied by Karabachians. The purchase of offices, preferential treatment in office, patronage and clientele relations as well as the “immunization” of oligarchs through their election to parliament were accompanied by an increasing sellout of the country’s limited resources to Russian business circles. The subsequent presidential elections also confirmed the monopolization of power in the hands of the Karabakh Armenians, headed since 2008 by Serge Sakisjan27 (born 1954 in Stepanakert; re-elected in 2013). 25 In Armenian Krunk means crane and is the symbol for separation and sadness. At the same time, it concealed the abbreviation “Komitet revoljucionnogo upravlenija Nagornym Karabachom” (KRUNK). 26 Eight politicians died in the armed attack on Parliament on October 27th, 1999 – including Prime Minister Wazgen Sarkisian and President of Parliament and former KP (1974–1988) Secretary Karen Demircan. 27 Lewon Ter-Petrosjan led the Karabakh movement for the unification of the Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia in 1988 and was the first President of Armenia 1991–1998. Vazgen Sargsyan (1959–27 October 1999) was the first Defence Minister of Armenia from 1991 to 1992 and then from 1995 to 1999 (June – October 199 Prime Minister). In 1989 and 1990, Sargsyan took the command of Armenian volunteer groups fighting on the Armenian-Azerbaijani (Nakhchivan) border. Between October 1992 and March 1993, Sargsyan served as the Presidential Adviser on Defence Affairs. In the position as State Minister on Defence, Security and Internal Affairs s, Sargsyan had a major role in the advance of the Armenian army. With other key commanders, he regulated the operations to the Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. The 2nd President Robert Kocharyan (1998–2008) was from 1988 a leader of the Artsakh

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Despite all the protests that were repeatedly voiced against government policy in Erivan, there is evidence of the continuing viability of an ideological framework that refers on the one hand to a mythological state and original Christian state church tradition, on the other to a long history of persecution and suffering and protracted trauma (Minasyan 2009) and derives from this the necessity of (counter) violence and remains uncompromising. These are difficult preconditions for negotiations about the Karabakh conflict.

Summary In summary, to return to the relationship between identity and conflict dynamics, one can stay that “it is not simply traditionally divergent collective identities that lead to conflicts, but rather conflicts (whatever they are about) create a collective identity or are used to radicalize it” (Eckert 2002 [translated by the author]). In Armenia, under the conditions of glasnost and perestroika, an intensive public discourse on taboo topics of history (“genocide”, loss of Western Armenia, first republic 1918–1920) was able to institutionalize relatively quickly (Jacoby 1998) and connect different political and cultural currents. The trauma of the “genocide” and the “Turkish threat” as well as the memories of a “Greater Armenian Empire” inspired patriotism and fueled the Karabakh movement in their ultimate aim of conquering the region and seizing power in Erivan. In Azerbaijan, on the other hand, the rapidly escalating dispute over Karabakh suppressed academic discourses on the blank spots of national history, as well as criticism of the Soviet system and nomenklatura. The brutality of the clashes favored the more radical parts of the Azerbaijani Popular Front movement, which prevailed against moderate reform forces from the educational elite and the nomenclature camp. In search of international support in the Karabakh conflict, their leaders reactivated a “Pan-Turk legacy” (“Two States – One Nation”) that also affected the victimperpetrator constellations of 1915. The failure of the government was closely movement, which called for secession from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic and for later union with Armenia; member of group Krunk; led the Miatsum organization; President of Nagorno-Karabakh from 1994 to 1997 and Prime Minister of Armenia from 1997 to 1998. The 3rd President, Serzh Sargsyan (2008–2018) was from 1979 to 1988 first a Division Head at the Stepanakert City Communist Party Youth Association Committee, then second secretary, first secretary, the Stepanakert City Committee Propaganda Division Head, the Nagorno-Karabakh Regional Committee Communist Organizations’ Unit Instructor, and Assistant to Genrikh Poghosyan, and the First Secretary of the Nagorno-Karabakh Regional Committee. From 1989 to 1993, Serzh Sargsyan led the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Self-Defense Forces Committee. In 1990, he was elected as a deputy to the Supreme Council of Armenia. From 1993 to 1995, he was the Minister of Defence of the Republic of Armenia.

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related to Armenian troops entering into areas of Azerbaijani territory outside Nagorno-Karabakh. However, in the official memory of its successors it was anchored as a “time of anarchy” and “failure of a democratic experiment”. Thus, they stepped onto the stage as “saviors” with the experiences and relations of the Soviet era and actually achieved a ceasefire and stabilization of the country in 1994. In Georgia, in turn, the annexation by the Soviet Union in 1921 and its Soviet heritage triggered an uprising movement. It was the credo of the early national movement (“Fatherland-Language-Belief”) that paved the way for the exclusivist “Georgianization” of the country (Suny 1994), and lead to confrontation with the (supervising) headquarters in Moscow. The following table shall summarize the competing narratives in the discourses of the conflict parties: Narratives

Georgia

Abchasia (South?) Ossetia

Armenia

KarabachArmenia

Azerbaidjan

Victim-perception (perpetrators are the “others”)

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

Trauma-capital Ethnic minorities x and local autonomy aspirations perceived as internal threats guided by external powers Actor-centered memory

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

Enactment of one’s x own suffering

x

x

x

x

x

Fluent transition of “Other”, “Foreign” and “Enemy”

x

x

Sacralization of the x national sphere Fatherlandlanguagefaith

x Autocephalous church, genocide

x Church, christianity, genocide,

x “Turkification”

x Ottoman, Persian, Turk, Azerbaidjani

x Ottoman, Persian, Turkish, Azerbaidjani

x Persian, Russian, Soviet

Heritage of foreign rule and related present-day tensions

x Persian, Russian, Soviet

x x Georgian Georgian

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(Continued) Narratives

Protective power

Georgia

Abchasia (South?) Ossetia

Armenia

KarabachArmenia

Azerbaidjan

x (western European countries)

x (Russia)

x (Russia)

x (Diaspora) – Russia

x (Diaspora)

x Turkey/Russia

x

x

x

x

x

Identity crisis x stemming from fragile statehood after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and forced identity construction to counter that fragility after 1991

Roughly, the table underlines the overall similarities with regard to each country’s national narrative that is based on a competing interpretation of the past. While in the beginning of the conflicts in the 1980s these narratives were object of academic discourses and occasionally taken up by the media with the aim of filling the “blank spots in history”, later political and economic elites used them to mobilize the masses. The institutionalization of competing national memories helped to consolidate the biased and selective narratives and fueled stereotypes and enemy-images (Astourian 1994; Shnirelman 2001; Abbasov & Rumyantsev, 2008; Rumyantsev 2010; Gamaghelyan, Huseynova, Karapetyan & Rumyansev 2016; Winter 2011).28 Thus, a joint “reappraisal” of history based on multi-perspectivity and through the analysis of opposing systems of interpretation and diverging historical references as prerequisites for reconciliation processes is currently unthinkable at the official level.29 Central parameters for conflict transformation by facilitating dialogue and reconciliation would have to focus on the different needs, collective beliefs, fears, and hopes of the conflict parties. On that note, a study was conducted based on interviews with Armenian and Azerbaijani citizens between 2007–2014. It came to very similar conclusions: Economic (infrastructure development, job creation, stabilization of the region) and security concerns were pivotal (Gamaghelyan, Rumyansev & Sayan 2016, pp. 11–33). Both groups, moreover, were also particularly concerned about protecting their identity, including cultural security, the restoration of intellectual, economic, 28 See also reflections on the website: . 29 Within the framework of international projects and civil society initiatives, however, the applicability of the experiences of German-Polish and German-French textbook commissions is also being examined. See the publications of International Alert. Available from: ; Karpenko (2014).

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political and cultural infrastructure, and political and religious freedom. Fear of loss of identity, life and livelihood for the family and of an escalation of the conflict was also a recurrent topic. While on the Armenian side fears of PanTurkism or a new genocide were expressed, some Azerbaijanis suffer from an Armenophobia and seem concerned about a possibly stronger Russian support for Armenia and the final loss of Karabakh, also motivated by the international community’s decreased interest. The interviews show that the people are perfectly capable of articulating their expectations of a solution to the conflict. While older generations point at the peaceful coexistence of the Soviet era, the younger underline the responsibility of stake holders in politics, media, culture and education to overcome one-sited accusations and negative stereotypes in order to foster dialogue and reconciliation. However, interviewees also deplore the lack of integration of civil peace activists into official peace negotiations. This underlines the need to overcome the public demonization of the “other” (Kaufman 2000) and the promotion of intercommunal dialogue, as well as the examination of broader formats of mediation that might prove more successful than the failed diplomatic attempts.

Ways to Conflict Transformation – International Efforts for Compromise After the failure of all attempts to end the conflicts in the South Caucasus within the framework of Soviet institutions, the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and the newly independent states joining the later Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 1992, the so-called Minsk Group was established from among its ranks (Dehdashti 2000). The Co–Chairmen of the Minsk Group came from the Russian Federation, France and the US. A HighLevel Military Planning Group (HLPG), under the auspices of the OSCE, had been active in the Vienna Secretariat of the organization since 1994. Composed of military experts from the member states the HLPG discussed the establishment and requirements of a multinational OSCE peacekeeping force for Nagorno-Karabakh. Under the auspices of the UN in Geneva and in cooperation with the “Group of Friends of the UN Secretary General” (Germany, France, Great Britain, Russian Federation, USA, since 1999 also Ukraine) and the OSCE, a framework for intensifying the peace process in Abkhazia was established (“Geneva Process”). While Russia would have a pivotal role in it, the central challenge came with the question of which legal principle the framework should be built upon: Territorial integrity or the right to self-determination? Divided by competing interests the Western representatives could not agree on a common formula,

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so that each of the breakaway sides hoped for some international support for their respective positions. The conflicting principles of international law overshadowed the negotiations from the outset. At the Lisbon OSCE Summit in 1996 (Lisbon Declaration on a Common and Comprehensive Security Model for Europe for the TwentyFirst Century), the principle of territorial integrity was established for the first time as the basis of negotiations against Armenia’s vote. In 1997, the stalemate lead to the proposal to separate peacekeeping and status issues. But it was not until 2007 that the Karabakh negotiations began to move forward: In Madrid the ministers of the US, France, and Russia presented a preliminary version of the “Basic Principles for a settlement to Armenia and Azerbaijan” (“Madrid Principles”), which in a modified form remains on the negotiating table until today, but only gained importance again with the “Five-Day War” in 2016. It was followed by meetings of the Minsk Group, as well as between Putin and Armenian president Sargsyan, the former of which declared: “It is necessary to find approaches and arrangements where, as I mentioned, no one feels like a winner or a loser. There must be a solution developed by the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan that is accepted by the societies of both countries” (Commonspace 2016, also see OSCE 2016, Kremlin 2016). The statement underlines the need for a win-win-perception of a solution based on political willingness for compromise and broad societal support. This should motivate civilian peace activists to increase their share in the public conflict discourses. However, it also makes clear that the fronts remain strongly entrenched, since the political leaders of both sides can be sure to have public opinion behind them. Three years ago in Azerbaijan an Armenian-Azerbaijani dialogue-platform was established. The outcome remains to be seen. The OSCE (OSCE 2017) continues to monitor, appeals to the conflict parties and the international community not to allow renewed escalation and pave the way for rapprochement. Since the disillusionment of 2008, Georgia has been following a more realistic path of rapprochement. It seems to have come to the conclusion that only an increase in the country’s prosperity by means of political, socioeconomic and cultural transformation offers realistic opportunities for rapprochement.30 An Association Agreement within the EU’s Eastern Partnerships in 2013 and the visa waiver in 2017, as well as measures for the treatment of the sick and relief for students from Abkhazia, can be considered decisive steps of progress. For the time being, however, the findings of the Munich Peace Conference of 2012 remain unchanged:

30 It interrelates legitimate monopolies of violence, the rule of law, political participation, distributive justice, emotion control and the culture of constructive conflict management.

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“After two decades of effort, it is not possible to conclude that a sense of common destiny has developed in the Euro-Atlantic region. Nations continue to pursue traditional goals in traditional ways, and statesmen and politicians still think in terms of a world long past. There is generally great reluctance, if not downright opposition, to employing means to bring their citizenry or civic institutions into the processes of conflict resolution, historical reconciliation, or development of a more secure environment. Historical enmities remain strong and, perhaps most importantly, ongoing conflicts are being handled as diplomatic negotiations rather than as efforts toward reconciliation among societies. Overcoming the historical grievances that fuel these conflicts requires a broadbased, comprehensive, multilevel process—one that transcends official diplomatic efforts and that engages many different sectors of society in an active, positive dialogue with counterparts from the other side.” (EASI 2012, Conclusion, p. 13.).

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Jovana Janinovic

The Socialist Heritage of Tito’s Yugoslavia: Memory between Disneyfication and Reconciliation

Introduction Twice there was a country called Yugoslavia – once during the interwar period (1918–1943) – the country known as The Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and the second time, after the Second World War, when a country named Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia came into existence. The latter, a confederation of six Balkan republics (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Serbia), was renamed into the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1963. It is the country to which media, scholars and most of the people nowadays refer when discussing “Yugoslavia” and its legacy. Led by the charismatic socialist dictator Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980), the country based its political identity on its distinctive socialist experiment, combining elements of both the Soviet ideology and the Western free-market system. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe (1989), economic instability and political crises at the beginning of the 90s intensified the resurgence of nationalist tensions, which eventually brought the country into a series of atrocious civil wars. In the course of what was to mark the ultimate dissolution of Yugoslavia, more than 140,000 people lost their lives, and some 4 million were displaced. Seven independent states (autonomous region of Serbia, Kosovo, unilaterally declared independence in 2008) constitute the post-Yugoslav space today. Painful economic transition from socialist central planning and a state-run economy to privatization and capitalism, the (re)building of national identity and the (re)drawing of borders, as well as the unsettled historical accounts made the countries and people who shared language, culture and traditions over the most part of the 20th century alienated from each other, postponing reconciliation with their own past and with their closest neighbours. In other words, rather than to engage in a full reconstruction of the ‘broken’ relationships, the region seemed to opt for what is closer to Croker’s (2003) “thin reconciliation, a simple agreement to live non-violently, – more than simple coexistence, but less then friendship” (Bryan 2010). Despite the ambitious political promises and engagements, the region remains highly divided, volatile and troublesome (Bebler 2008). The immigration crisis of 2016, the rise of populism, ethnic tensions and recent border disputes and economic sanctions confirmed the dangerous potential of the region for

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conflict and destabilization, acknowledging the importance of long-term reconciliation and restoration of good neighbour relations.1 In order to build a future of durable peaceful coexistence, it is thus necessary, on the one hand, to come to terms with the turbulent past, acknowledging past wrongdoings and historical deeds, but on the other, to move away from the deadlock of accusations, ambiguities and competing historical narratives by focusing on the present moment and necessity to solve bilateral disputes (Simic, Volcic & Philipot 2012).

Reconciliation in the Balkans The present-day situation in the Balkans is often described as an absence of violent conflict, rather than peace. While systematic efforts of the international community, local authorities and ordinary citizens significantly contributed to re-establishing relations, there is certainly a long way to go from “rendering no longer opposed” (Borneman 2002) to reaching full reconciliation. It is important to emphasize that the way reconciliation is understood and addressed in this paper is closer to Bryan’s (2010) idea of the process aiming to “restore, rebuild or transform relationships to a more harmonious or mutually respectful state or level”. In Zagar’s words (2010), it could be understood as a specific form of non-retributive post-conflict justice which might be instrumental in the process of normalization and social reconstruction. Furthermore, the paper follows on from Zagar’s understanding of reconciliation as a past-oriented process of healing, “that leads to the commonly acceptable and accepted (re)interpretation of the past” (Zagar 2007). According to Dwyer (2003) reconciliation also involves negotiating narratives – of friendship, community, family, identity, and, as the paper will argue – of memory. Thus, memory, which Ferrari (2015) addresses as “the present of the past which allows the archaeology of reconciliation”, and more broadly collective remembrance, assume historical and social accountability and are often referred to as one of the main obstacles to forgiveness entailed in reconciliatory processes. More often than not, scholars argue that reconciliation and peacebuilding are constructed through the engagement of international institutions, civil society initiatives, public apologies, acceptance of collective moral responsibility, truth commissions and restorative justice (Simic, Volcic & Philipot, 2012; Romaniuk 2012; Cehajic-Clancy 2012). Rather than questioning these 1 In recent months, Kosovo imposed customs tariffs on Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, ongoing construction of Peljesac bridge raised tensions in both Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo’s refusal to ratify the demarcation with Montenegro prevented visa liberalization for the Kosovo citizens for over.a year, while Dodik‘s announcement of the name changing initiative and referendum in Republika Srpska additionally heated the region.

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processes in the Balkans, which has already been subject of much of the scholarly work on the region (see Simic, Volcic & Philipot, 2012; Romaniuk 2012; Cehajic-Clancy 2012), I would suggest to analyse the reconciliatory potential of shared memories and common heritage of the socialist period. Building on Dwyer’s (2003) argument that reconciliation is about diminishing tensions and animosities and making sense of the narrative context of a personal or national life, this paper questions the reconciliatory role of socialist history, memory and heritage in former Yugoslavia. It is important, at this stage, to acknowledge the impact of reconciliatory tools which were most often cited in literature dealing with the post-Yugoslav space, encompassing the significant legal work of the ICTY (see Humphrey/ Veljanovska in this volume), public apologies (see Daase et al. 2016), justice (Fischer & Simic 2016), regional cooperation (Anger 2012), community engagement (Kostovicova 2013), conflict transformation (Vukosavljevic 2007), peace education (Georgieva 2017), and interethnic dialogue (Van der Haar & Schennink 2006). These reconciliation-related efforts have certainly contributed, to varying extents, to repairing and restoring relations in the region, paving the way toward forgiveness and rapprochement of the former compatriots of the war-thorn country. What this paper will argue, however, is that the heritage of Yugoslav socialism (and popular Yugo-nostalgia), generally overlooked in discussions on reconciliation, might be mobilized in reconciliation efforts and would represent a valuable contribution towards the goal of achieving long-term stability and peaceful cohabitation in the region. Contrary to the established conception of politics of memory impeding reconciliatory efforts, this paper asks if memory, commemorative practices and heritage may serve as a catalyst for reconciliation – simply by choosing to acknowledge and accommodate in one’s “narrative identity” the different periods, artefacts and events. According to Volf (2006), the same memory, put into a certain context and employed in a situation of conflict turns into a deadly weapon, while, mobilized within a different framework, and approached with compassion, forgiveness and open-mindedness might become an instrument of peace. Thus, following Nora’s (1989) conceptualisation of the –“intention to remember”, this paper sheds light in the question of how the deliberate choice of establishing a collective memory of peaceful cohabitation rather than violent confrontation, highlighting positive aspects such as security and prosperity rather than disorders and hardships, brotherhood and unity and not diversity and shared spaces instead of contested ones, might act as a tool for overcoming animosity and getting a step closer towards regional reconciliation. Reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia is addressed through a discussion of the process of ‘coming to terms with the past’ through marketable forms of heritage tourism, transcending the borders between market-driven socialist nostalgia and state-imposed heritage policies. In order to do so, the paper uses

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mostly qualitative methods and draws on a number of official documents, media and policy reports and a selection of scholarly interpretations of the phenomenon. Since the interplay between memory, history and identity is best presented through heritage, the paper will in the first place discuss these concepts, putting them into a context of reconciliatory studies. Further, it will address the complexity of memory management in the post-Yugoslav space, focusing on how these processes interacted with reconciliatory agendas and how different commemoration and commodification practices instigated different social responses. Finally, the paper will address the socialist heritage and the possibility of mobilizing it to pursue reconciliatory efforts in the region, by creating a space for common memories, shared culture and a sense of belonging.

History, Memory and Heritage Most academic debates on the concept of heritage and related commemorative practices start by discussing Maurice Halbwachs’ monumental work on collective memory (Halbwachs 1992). Halbwachs, a prominent French sociologist and father of the notion, in the posthumously published “La m8moire collective” argued that memory (both collective and individual) is a socially constructed phenomenon, which cannot be observed in an isolated and unbiased way, independent of the social context. Every person, in order to evoke his or her own memories, often needs to make reference to the remembrance of the others. Thus, one’s memory should not be understood as a faithful reproduction of the past nor as a necessarily accurate historical account. It is a reconstruction (often highly controversial) of the past events, negotiated through the complex process of multi-levelled collective retrieval which may considerably alter the official history. Through acts of remembrance, one travels through time and constructs one’s own historfgical narrative, a combination of fiction and reality, based on the fragments of experience (Hartog 2011). Collective memory is thus the shared social framework through which one tries to make sense of one’s past, one’s history and identity. The notion of heritage is inseparable from the idea of collective memory and even more, from the famous concept of “lieux de m8moire”, coined by French historian Pierre Nora. According to Nora, an object becomes a “lieu de m8moire” when it escapes oblivion, as when a commemorative plaque is placed as an aid to memory or when the community reinvests its emotions and concerns for that object (Nora 1984). Lieux de m8moire which are considered to be sites of special value for a respective community or nation are known as heritage sites. Heritage, in this sense, encompasses both places and practices, which are inherited from past generations and considered worthy of being preserved as symbols of cultural continuity (Harrison 2010). Thus, cultural

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heritage, as a special form of collective memory charged with values and emotions of the contemporary communities, tends to permeate the border between past and present, abolishing spatial and temporal displacement by evoking a time that seems irretrievably lost, but nevertheless remains imbued with meaning for the future. As such heritage serves important purposes of fostering social cohesion and encouraging a sense of belonging. It can, however, be also highly problematic the more exclusive, selective and unassailable it is. In this sense, Stanley-Price (2005) argues that heritage is one of the pillars of post-conflict recovery. For it may contribute to restoring a sense of continuity in people’s daily lives. Indeed, heritage does not only enhance collective identities by creating a strong sense of belonging and pride, but also by creating powerful emotional bonds and providing space for shared experiences and alternative narratives: “Cultural heritage can also provide opportunities for communities to care for something fragile together and hence promote a sense of responsibility, persistence and respect for the knowledge and values of fellow residents or citizens. Social cohesion is thus advanced through the process of caring for the heritage, not through a celebration of any particular meaning it may have” (Holtorf 2011). Heritage – as well as memory – is a dynamic concept, potentially revealing how a certain group wants to be perceived by choosing what to conserve and what to discard, in which way and in which moment. In the process of constructing heritage, there must be an inherent intention to remember and to preserve, but one should not omit that collective narratives are as much about what is remembered as about what has been forgotten (Renan 1882). Thus, many scholars agreed that the process of social construction of heritage is very often a political tool for nation building and identity shaping. Certainly, governments are involved in the maintenance, funding and promotion of heritage. But in which ways and in what moment they choose to cherish (or not) a certain historical legacy can tell us much about the ideology and the (changing) aspirations of the decision makers. Heritage is the version of history whose narrative legitimizes the contemporary political agenda – it is an “inherently political discourse, which by ordering the past orders also the present” (Lanfant & et al. 1995). The process of assigning to places, practices and narratives the value of ‘heritage’ is thus a political competition over whose version of which past, through which objects and in which period, will be represented in the present and conserved for the future. These processes are often approached from the perspective of contemporary tourism, as heritage sites are increasingly accommodated to be visited and consumed by tourists. Finally, the notion of commodification (literally, the assignment of economic value to something not previously considered in economic terms) has been often used to describe the often controversial commercial exploitation of heritage and its expansion on the market as the tradeable commodity. It affirms the economic nature of

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heritage, which recently attracted considerable scholarly attention, as it is considered to be inseparably linked with its political function. For example, Harrison argues that “much of what motivates the involvement of the state and other organisations in heritage is related to the economic potential of heritage and its connections with tourism” (Harrison 2010).

Post-Socialism: Nostalgia, Heritage and Politics of Memory It appears unsurprising that the most ambivalent, most controversial and most contested heritage practices can be traced to countries which either experienced transition (political, economic or cultural) or have turbulent, ambiguous or contested past narratives (Domic & Goulding 2009). Thus, in the Western Balkans, which over the last 30 years faced the collapse of communism, civil war, inter-ethnic conflicts, multiple redrawing of borders, painful transition to a market economy and the constant fluctuation of its identity patterns, heritage is often as conflicted and as vague as are the themes of history and memory in the region. Due to its specific geo-political trajectory, in the former Yugoslav space, the role of history, memory and heritage is more often than not extremely ambiguous and controversial. Many conflicting historical narratives compete over “historical truthfulness” and most of the heritage sites are also sites of struggle over historical ownership, appropriated by different groups and interpreted in various ways. Thus, heritage is often dissonant and reflects all the complexity of the memory management process in the post-conflict transitional societies (Naef & Ploner, 2016). Especially in the post-war years, when the new countries were still struggling to recreate a national identity as a remedy to the war, economic despair and social instability, historical narratives were mostly constructed in opposition to socialism and Yugoslavia, as both were initially perceived as failed ideologies, associated with oppression, conflict and affliction. As Dubravka Ugresic pointed in her long interview with Svetlana Boym, “nationalism is also a struggle for the control of collective memory” and in post-war national identity construction there was no place for socialist Yugoslavia, since it appeared politically and morally disqualified (Boym 2002). Every positive connection with a former state or system was considered to be a subversive activity directed against new governments, a memory that challenged the dominant interpretation of the Yugoslav past (Ugresic 1998; Velikonja 2008; Lindstrom 2006; Volcic 2008; Todorova & Gille 2001). So, the main mnemonic strategies in the space which has been nowadays addressed as the Western Balkans (minus Slovenia, plus Albania), consisted in removing all positive references to Yugoslav socialism, and focusing solely on the narratives of victimhood, otherness and war atrocities. Most of the memorial sites

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related to communism were thus displaced, destroyed or abandoned, falling into oblivion and decay. In the resulting atmosphere of “collective amnesia” collecting pieces of memory and artefacts from the past turned to be extremely challenging, as “when society at large decides to reinterpret the past, demanding that one wipes out certain memories and declares the values and experiences of one’s generation (or several generations) to be rubbish” (Vervaet 2011). However, one’s quest for meaning, continuity and stable identity benchmarks is a strong argument for pleading for fluidity of remembrance patterns and thus the memory of socialist Yugoslavia, and even the longing for it, started reemerging in the region over the last two decades. In literature on postYugoslav politics and society, this widely discussed phenomenon is dubbed Yugonostalgia, referring to the longing for a socialist lifestyle, including artefacts and customs from the period. It is interpreted as a rebellion towards the “exorcism” of Yugoslavia, arguing there was more to it than disagreements, oppression and conflicts. According to Belgrade journalist Teofil Pancic, Yugonostalgia is proof that “everything from our past that we remember so well was not a dream or an imagination, a proof that we were and remained somewhere and someone” (Todorova & Gille 2001). In a certain way, nostalgia is a rebellious protector of the memories that threaten to be stolen, in terms of Milan Kundera’s famous maxim stating that “the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting” (Kundera 1980).

Reconciling Memories and Memories of Reconciliation As discussed in the afore-mentioned, memories of socialism act as a bottomup reminder of “brotherhood and unity”, during the times of peaceful and friendly coexistence. By changing the surrounding cultural landscape and evoking positive memories of cohabitation, the heritage of socialism might as well contribute to, or at least be a step towards, regional reconciliation. Even the basic idea of possible reconciliation acknowledges, according to Iva Pauker, “that at some point in time there was a positive experience of coexistence” (Pauker 2006). In her opinion “the very term RE-conciliation suggests that a conciliatory relationship existed which needs to be reestablished”. Indeed, it is not denying that the road to reconciliation in former Yugoslavia will be a long one, but the fact that former Yugoslavs share at least one common thing, albeit as unreliable as nostalgic memory, permits hope into the conflictual Balkans’ relations. It may be argued that the phenomenon owes much of its popularity to its depoliticized and restorative character. The “Yugonostalgic” story of socialist Yugoslavia is not an ideological or a political one, it appears much more as a synthesis of personal stories related to socialist daily life. It relates to holidays

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at the seaside, red scarves and the pioneer pledge of the 7-years-olds, Sarajevo Olympic Games, rock concerts of Bijelo Dugme. It is about passing the baton to Tito on the Youth Day, youth work and voluntary labour activities of rebuilding the country, it is about Tito’s Blue Train, Cockta and Vegeta, shopping in Trieste and much more. Thus, by focusing on the personal, yet shared stories, and by evoking common everyday memories of life in socialism, this particular process of collective retrieval may be a fertile ground for reconciling and restoring relations, on an individual, collective and even political level. “Rather than being an entry point for serious research into an understanding of Yugoslav socialism, to a real and enduring settling of accounts between the old and the new, or acting as a generator of productive memory—if not also, a better future— today‘s commercialized Yugonostalgia has been transformed into its opposite, into a highly-effective strategy for conciliation and forgetting. Buying a pair of souvenir Tito‘s socks, the post-Yugoslav symbolically lifts a twenty-year ban, removing the stigma from his or her socialist past” (Ugresic 1998).

Indeed, many scholars identify Yugoslavia with its consumerist culture arguing that the same phenomenon, consumerism with its legacy of merchandising fantasies, nowadays helps to reconstruct the reminiscences of the Yugoslav space and to economically, politically and culturally reconnect former compatriots (Patterson 2011). However, this commodified, marketable socialism is often criticized as a romantic, depoliticized, even trivial, misinterpreted and oversimplified phenomenon, according to some authors even potentially dangerous and stagnating, locking the society into a utopia instead of moving it towards democracy and the free market (Markovic 2007). It may seem like a distraction, a smoke-screen dismissing the war-related issues and endorsing the politics of forgetting in relation to the uncomfortable history of the region. As such, some may argue, it can create more harm than good, by omitting and “burying” what is truly relevant, which can thus sooner or later rise up to haunt, demanding acknowledgment, accountability and retribution. However, it is important to ask if one can legitimately pursue the process of dealing with the uncomfortable and contested past to a certain extent, while at the same time endorsing a politics of forgetting in order to move on. Phillip Tolliday (in this volume) sets reconciliation in the interplay of amnesia and anamnesis, both being anchored in the past “presencing” for the sake of the future. According to him, amnesia refers to dangerous attempts to dismiss the uncomfortable past too soon rather than to deal with it. Anamnesis, on the contrary, is related to the reconciliation attempts grounded in comprehensive remembrance and accountability. While in order to avoid prematurely dismissed unsettled histories coming back it is important to properly come to terms with the past, it is also indispensable not to have them monopolizing the space of the present and at some point get them “properly buried”. Put bluntly,

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there is a time, a place and a purpose to remember, as well as the time and intention to forget, as Tolliday framed it “there is a time, and more importantly there is a way, in which to place the past in the past”. Following these ideas, it is possible to argue that one can both preserve the positive memories of friendly cohabitation in socialism, while seeking to cope with and reconcile with the terror of the 90s. Shared memories and values from the socialist period may in that case even foster the process of coping, by relativizing (acknowledging that not all “Serbs/ Bosniaks/ Croats” are perpetrators and having personal stories and experiences from the period where ethnic divisions were much less pronounced that can testify to that), offering an alternative (positive) narrative and creating a sense of belonging and connectedness. Thus, the following examples help us interrogate whether the socialist, “nostalgic” heritage may act as a reconciliation tool, by fostering positive emotional response to memory, and negotiating oblivion.

Heritage of Socialism – Commodification, Disneyfication or Reconciliation? One of the aspects of the socialist life which was, even in the scholarly work, undeniably recognized as a catalyst to the process of reconciliation is popular culture. For instance, Pauker (2006), analysed the Lexicon of Yugoslav mythology, an online project turned viral resulting in a best-selling publication, which was initially a virtual exhibition catalogue of “all things Yugoslav”, displaying “memories, personal and collective, nostalgic and ironic, of everyday life in Yugoslav socialism” (Boskovic 2013). Pauker argues that the Lexicon, as a reminder of positive aspects of cohabitation, is not about nostalgia or satirical fun, but rather a step towards restoration of normality, towards healing and reconciling. “The Lexicon offered the first real opportunity for a democratic, honest, cross border and inter-ethnic discussion of their common social history ; history that took place under the umbrella of the Yugoslav state. As such, the Lexicon was, and still is, a valuable starting point for reconciliation” (Pauker 2006).

Studies on Yugoslav popular culture and reconciliation often cite concerts of Bijelo Dugme, a distinctively “Yugoslav” rock band attracting recently thousands of hundreds of visitors to their “last Yugoslav tour”, while performing in Sarajevo, Belgrade and Ljubljana. Concerts held in 2005 were often reported in the media “as contributing more to the regional reconciliation than all the international organizations’ interventions and political efforts”. There was the people for whom Bijelo Dugme is a symbol of their youth, a summer love in the 80s or the first gramophone record. There was the

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youngsters born too late to have any personal memory of the band performing (since with the collapse of the country, the group also ceased to exist in the early 90s), but still feel passionate about the band and what it represents. They came from all around the former country and collectively displayed bittersweet nostalgia, singing out “ravna ti je Jugoslavija” (Yugoslavia is big enough) and waving the Yugoslav “trobojka” (flag). Ever since, the group led by charismatic Goran Bregovic decided to capitalize on this experience, organizing a series of concerts in major cities in Serbia, Macedonia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, but also in London, Vienna and Paris fastening on the specific sub-category of Yugoslav expatriates. Some of the most popular commemorative practices scrutinized by scholars from the field include the commemoration of Youth Day in Kumrovec, Tito’s birth place, and visits to Tito’s Mausoleum House of Flowers. Most of the discourse reported in the scholarship strongly supports the hypothesis that socialist lieux de m8moire play an important role in bringing people from different nations, backgrounds and convictions not only together, but also closer through evoking memories and feelings related to the (real or imaginary) socialist community (Chushak 2013). However, one of the most interesting and intriguing examples I will address in the following pages refers to the exhibition of socialist everyday life in the Museum of Yugoslavia in Belgrade, which turned into a truly groundbreaking culture-connecting initiative that kept moving from city to city within the post-Yugoslav space. The exhibition “They Never Had it Better? Modernization of Everyday Life in Socialist Yugoslavia” builds on the legacy of one of the most successful exhibitions in Serbia: “Yugoslavia: from the Beginning to the End” (held from December 1st, 2012 to March 17th, 2013). It attracted over twelve thousand visitors and resulted in the mass mobilization of ordinary people who started donating their personal artefacts (and memories) from the socialist period to the Museum. “They Never Had it Better” (Nikad im bolje nije bilo) mobilized these feedbacks, objects and conversations and created an account of everyday life in socialism, highlighting the leap towards modernization after World War II and the changes in the quality of life occurring in the socialist society of Yugoslavia. As argued by the curator Ana Panic, their attempt was to individualize the general experience by guiding visitors through the events while allowing them to live their own experience, using explanations only to inform on “how macrostructures influenced everyday life and ‘common’, ‘little’ people introduced into the political framework”. “Being a curator at a museum whose name features the name of a country that no longer exists and that was torn apart in the bloodiest war to take place in Europe during the second half of the twentieth century means always having to bear the blame for one thing and always having to justify another. At best, one is greeted by hearty laughter at the other end of the line when one makes a phone call to acquire

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something for the museum or just to order a pizza. This is transformed into amazement at the fact that our institution still exists.”

Displaying objects illustrative and educative of the Yugoslav education system, pioneer organization, cult of work, self-management, migrant workers, housing, interior design, transportation, consumerism, holidays, fashion, television, tourism, popular culture, state celebrations and other, the exhibition aimed at providing space for encounters, exchange, enhancement and customization of the socialist heritage. In 2015 and 2016, the exhibition was shown in Sarajevo’s Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, throughout the 2017 it was displayed in the Museum of new history of Slovenia, in Ljubljana. Unsurprisingly, the visitors all around the region were genuinely pleased to navigate through the artefacts from their childhood and youth, such as the navy school uniforms, pioneer hats and scarfs, batons, Zastava or objects such as a 101 car, gramophone records, a Yugoslav passport, a 5000 dinar bill with Tito’s face, a black-and-white TV, or Copperton tanning cream. As the exhibition had constantly been updated not only by personal stories and memories, but also by the objects visitors were invited to bring, the important parts of the exhibition displayed in Ljubljana had the signature of not only the curators from Belgrade museum, but the hundreds of visitors from Sarajevo who, even more than the citizens of Belgrade, contributed by bringing their own personal objects to become part of the project. Another interesting example of socialist memory working to bring former Yugoslavs closer through consumption is the commercial exploitation of Tito’s Blue Train, the object that was undeniably recognized as a symbol of both Tito and the former country. The train constructed for the Yugoslav president in 1959, was considered to be one of the most luxurious trains in the world, the “Orient Express of the East”, famous around the country for its diplomatic role, as it was in the Blue Train that Tito used to welcome his most distinguished guests, such as Queen Elizabeth, Indira Gandhi, the Shah of Iran, Leonid Brezhnev, Yasser Arafat or Mouammar Kadhafi. After Tito’s death, in 1980, and the last journey he made in the train (when his coffin was transported from Ljubljana to Belgrade, which for most of the socialist generations is amongst their most vivid memories of the time), the train spent decades in a garage near Belgrade. Surprisingly, when it was reintroduced in early 2000s, it was obvious that the train’s original appearance had been magnificently preserved, with the luxury furniture from 60s and 70s. While the initial idea was to turn the train into the museum, Railway Serbia decided to implement more commercially attractive heritage strategy. Thus, for over 15 years now, the train which once transported the Yugoslav president has been used to host various tourist journeys and promotional activities around the region. In recent years, Playboy magazine organized its birthday party and Microsoft Serbia launched Windows 7 in the train, while beer producer Carlsberg organized a Tuborg musical wagon, in a way an

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EXIT festival pre-party, transporting festival visitors from Belgrade to Novi Sad. On the website of Railway Serbia, the train is advertised as “suitable for filming movies, TV shows, musical videos, commercials”, but also for “holding meetings, seminars, workshops, conferences, divers travelling events, exhibitions, selling actions, fashion shows, presentations, videoprojections, and gala events such as marriages, celebrations, etc”. To make it even more exclusive and in an effort to promise a nostalgic trip back to socialist times, they specify that “During the travel, the guests can enjoy special dishes made according to the recipes from the original – Tito’s cookbook”. When rented, the train can go anywhere around Serbia, but the most popular trips are still the journeys to the seaside, in which the guide, depending on the structure of his or her audience and the agreed schedule, mostly focuses on the history of the train and the railway itself, offering to the tourist an experience which combines dining, exceptional scenery and history course. Taking into consideration the complexity of the elaborated commodification processes, it is possible to argue that, paradoxically, socialist heritage in the region serves in a way as a vehicle both to retrieve and to depart from the past, since as shown in the previous examples of commercialisation of heritage sites, objects and practices, the socialist memorials are increasingly becoming marketable heritage resources rather than just testimonials of the past events. It might be argued that, giving Yugoslav lieux de memoire an entertaining rather than educational character transformed the memories of the country into the profit-oriented “prÞt-a-porter” legacy, characterized by historical detachment, absence of scientific approach and a reluctance to take the political responsibility for the past in contemporary Balkans. It is certainly legitimate to question in which ways the commodification processes have been re-defining, re-branding and displacing memories of prewar Yugoslavia. Most of the memorials and commemorations addressed in the paper have a distinctively entertaining, consumer-oriented character, blunted of historical and political, liberated of accountability, harbouring pleasant, emotional discourses of the good life under socialism. None of these objects and related practices engages with controversial debates on historical truth, authenticity, accountability, justice, not even on the less positive and less “nostalgically airbrushed” aspects and versions of socialist history and memories. Instead, they capitalize on their capacity to trigger selective memories and shed light on others, fostering an emotional response, a sense of closeness, belonging and nostalgia. However, even if potentially superficial, disneyfied and manipulative, the heritage of socialism might be, at the end, a tool for bringing people together. And this, one could conclude, is one pivotal step on the path towards reconciliation.

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Conclusion Competing narratives and dissonant memories shape the Balkans’ historical scene in a way that makes the consensus over common history impossible, and heritage management reflects the whole complexity of this process. This underlines the importance of coming to terms with the uncomfortable violent past by assuming collective and individual guilt, apologizing and forgiving. The paper however offers an additional idea regarding reconciliation through shared history – in this particular case, the history, memory and heritage of socialism. Coming back to the previous discussion on remembering and forgetting, the paper argues that it might be possible to balance the quest for truth and political accountability by distancing, on an individual level, from the political, and embracing the emotional, familiar and comfortable, the latter being a state defined by Ricoeur as an “active and freeing oblivion”, namely the possibility to bracket one’s own past and feel unhistorical for a while (Ferrari 2015). As suggested by MacDonald (2009), there is a need for positive narratives in the societies of former Yugoslavia, in order to move forward from dealing with the past which perpetuates negative stories of violence, betrayal and conflict. According to Bryan (2010), positive stories of shared life are often ignored and almost non-existent in public discourse. In Nicolas Moll’s analysis “A positive hero for everyone? The memorialization of Srd¯an Aleksic´ in post-Yugoslav countries”, the author argues that there is a general consensus regarding the memory of Aleksic, a Serb from Trebinje killed by the army of Republika Srpska while protecting his Bosniak (Muslim) neighbor, at the age of 26 (Moll 2016). The commemoration of his name and legacy has surprisingly been kept under the political radar, avoiding controversies and contestations. According to Moll, this is due to the universal-depoliticizing approach, where the hero is romanticized, individualized and de-contextualized, matching the variety of socio-political needs in the post-Yugoslav sphere. Indeed, the memorializations addressed in this paper have, at least on the surface, a strong non-political character, just like the story of Srdjan Aleksic. This is in line with the dominant discourse of ordinary citizens being simple pawns in a political conflict designed on the higher level, where corrupt and greedy politicians bear all the responsibility for the atrocities of war (Jansen, 2013). Jansen’s reflection on these issues, related to depoliticization of personal memories in former Yugoslavia and its relation to reconciliation is worth citing: “In response, many of the efforts to promote reconciliation—or at least some degree of rapprochement, coexistence, or reduction of tensions— rely on mutual recognition precisely through a shared aversion to politika and through an unspoken agreement to silence anything deemed political. While this represents a common

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distancing from the filthy machinations of politicians, it also entails a much more incisive and far-going process of depoliticization. Yet how can a situation that is widely seen to be caused by politics, be overcome or even improved without recourse to politics?” (Jansen 2013)

The memory and heritage of the socialist period have been discussed through the paper as a vehicle to depoliticize narratives of the past, liberating them from normative, controversial, disputed narratives that are dissonant and uncomfortable. While national narratives are exclusive and distinctively positive towards oneself, the socialist heritage leaves space for interpretation, allowing for the reconceptualization and recontextualization of objects through each and every personal story. Socialism and its artefacts seem to be an open-ended heritage, the one liberated from the imperative of achieving consensus and acknowledging universal truths, offering instead a space for dialogue, where each person’s individual story gives different context and meaning to socialist artefacts and legacy. As such, it acts as a “harmonizer”, fostering rapprochement by insisting on the positive aspects of the common past. Combining popular culture, everyday life, personality cults and— brotherhood and unity, through consumerism and entertainment, it acknowledges that peaceful coexistence was once possible. However, it is important to acknowledge the limitation of this approach. Although this paper argues for depoliticized, “personal” reconciliation, in order for the positive mnemonic narratives to further contribute to “national” and “regional” reconciliation, they would have to be ‘politicized’ again, integrated not only in popular culture and informal settings, but also in public discourse, political declarations and official reconciliatory and cooperation agendas. The question is whether the former Yugoslav space is ready to embrace reconciliation without questioning (divergent) historical accounts and ‘truths’, fearing that it may abolish war crimes and legitimize a sociopolitical reality of ethnic division, and if that type of reconciliation can be sustainable. Thus, the paper doesn’t address memory as an instrument of “forgetting” in order to reach reconciliation, but as a “catalyst”, which can foster reconciliation and offer new dynamics to indispensable tools such as accountability, forgiveness, peace education and restorative justice.

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Rowan, Y & Baram, U 2004, Marketing Heritage: Archaeology and the Consumption of the Past, Lanham, MD, AltaMira Press. Schouten, F 1995, ‘Heritage as Historical Reality’ in Heritage, Tourism and Society, ed D Herbert, London, Mansell, pp. 21–31. Silverman, H 2011, Contested Cultural Heritage: Religion, Nationalism, Erasure, and Exclusion in a Global World, New York, Springer. Simic, O; Volcic, Z & Philpot, CR 2012, Peace Psychology in the Balkans: Dealing with a Violent Past While Building Peace, United Kingdom, Springer. Smith, MK 2003, Issues in Cultural Tourism Studies, London, Routledge. Smith, MK & Puczkj, L 2010, ‘Out with the old, in with the New? 20 years of postsocialist marketing, in Budapest’ in Journal of City Marketing, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 288–299. Sorabji, C 2006, ‘Managing memories in post-war Sarajevo: individuals, bad memories, and new wars’ in Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, no. 12, pp. 1–18. Sørensen, MLS & Carman, J 2009, Heritage Studies: Methods and Approaches, London, Routledge. Staiff, R; Bushell, R & Watson, S 2013, Heritage and Tourism: Place, Encounter, Engagement, Routledge. Stanley-Price, N 2005, Cultural Heritage in Postwar Recovery, Papers from the ICCROM Forum held on October 4–6, 2005, ICCROM, Rome. Straub, J 2005, Narration, identity, and historical consciousness, Berghahn Books, New York. Todorova, M; Dimou, A & Troebst, S (eds.) 2014, Remembering Communism: Private and Public Recollections of Lived Experience in Southeast Europe, Central European University Press. Todorova, M & Gille, Z 2001, Post-Communist Nostalgia, Berghahn Books, New York. Tolliday, P 2015, Reconciliation: A Negotiation Between Anamnesis and Amnesia. Ugresic, D 1998, The Culture of Lies, Phoenix, London. Van der Haar, G & Schennink, B 2006, ‘Working for Peace in the Balkans: Pax Christi’s Experiences in Serbia & Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia’ in Working on Peace-building and Conflict Prevention: Experiences and Dilemmas of Dutch NGOs, eds B Schennink and G Van der Haar, Rozenberg Publishers. Velikonja, M 2008, Titostalgija: A Study of Nostalgia for Josip Broz, Ljubljana. Vervaet, S 2011, ‘Whose Museum? Whose History? Whose Memories? Remembering in the Work of Dubravka Ugresic’ in Comparative Critical Studies, vol. 8, no.2–3, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 295–306. Volcic, Z 2011, ‘Post-Socialist Recollections: Identity and Memory in Former Yugoslavia’ in Cultures of Globalization: Heritage, Memory and Identity, eds YR Isar and H Anheier, London, Sage, pp.156–167. Volcic, Z 2008, ‘Yugo-nostalgia: Cultural Memory and Media in the former Yugoslavia’ in Critical Studies in Media Communication, vol. 24, no. 1, March 2008, pp. 21–38.

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Volf, M 2006, The End of Memory : Remembering Rightly in a Violent World, Grand Rapid, MI, Eeermans. Vukosavljevic, N 2007, Training for Peacebuilding and Conflict Transformation. Experiences of the “Centre for Nonviolent Action” in the Western Balkans, Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management. Walsh, K 1992, The Representation of the Past: Museums and Heritage in the PostModern World, London, Routledge. Zagar, M 2007, ‘Diversity management—evolution of concepts’ in Razprave in gradivo / Treatises and Documents, (International, constitutional, legal and political regulation and management of ethnic pluralism and relations, including prevention, management and/or resolution of crises and conflicts as components of diversity management: Thematic issue), no. 52, pp. 6–37. Zagar, M 2010, ‘Rethinking Reconciliation: The Lessons from the Balkans and South Africa’ in Peace and Conflict Studies, vol. 17, no.1, Article 5.

Ekaterina V. Klimenko

Russia in the Aftermath of the Chechen Conflict: Fostering Tolerance as Reconciliation Strategy

The collapse of the Soviet Union – which was itself to a great extent instigated by the resurgence of (ethno) nationalism – gave rise to a number of violent conflicts in the post-Soviet space, including that between Russia and Chechnya1 (more precisely, within Russia – over Chechnya). By 2001 the Chechen wars were finally over, but was the Russian-Chechen conflict resolved? What were the effects of this conflict? What measures did the federal government undertake in order to mitigate these affects? Were these measures efficient, and if not, what was the reason for this inefficiency? In the current paper, I address these questions focusing on inter-ethnic relations in postSoviet Russia. I argue that the negative impact that the Russian-Chechen wars had on these relations, were fully recognized by Russian authorities on both federal and regional levels. Being acutely concerned with the state of interethnic relations in Russia, federal and regional governments developed a strategy aimed at alleviating this impact and reconciling2 the nation in the aftermath of Russian-Chechen wars; “fostering tolerance” became such a strategy. Fostering tolerance – turning into a policy in itself as the specific state programs were elaborated and implemented all over Russia – however, proved to be inefficient. I suggest that this is due to the fact that the specific interpretation of social reality that the policy of fostering tolerance (re)produced did not comply with (and to a certain extent contradicted) this policy’s very aim. I claim that it is this contradiction between explicit aim

1 The conflict attracted attention of political elites and general public from all over the world: numerous accounts of it appeared in general press during, and in the aftermath of, wars in Chechnya. Scholarly literature on Russian-Chechen conflict is affluent. Besides the works that focus on this conflict’s various aspects – political (Isaenko and Petschauer 2000; Lapidus 1998), military (Kramer 2004; Kramer 2005), religious (Reynolds 2005), and related to international relations (Forsberg and Herd 2005) and peacebuilding (Russell 2006) – there exist attempts at analyzing all of this conflict’s dimensions, the reasons behind it, its consequences and prospects for resolution (Malashenko, Trenin, and Lieven 2004; Sakwa 2005; Tishkov 2004). 2 Interestingly enough, the rhetoric of “national reconciliation” became characteristic for public debates on national history. The desire to reconcile the nation with its own past informed (and keeps informing) the policy of memory with regards to the Soviet past, and, more particularly, with repression of the Soviet period. I’ve presented my analysis of the memory of repression of the Soviet period in post-Soviet Russia, and “reconciliation” as a strategy of dealing with this memory, elsewhere (Klimenko 2018).

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and implicit meaning that explains the failure of the policy of fostering tolerance in post-Soviet Russia.

Theory, Data and Methods Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s (1981) analytical distinction between “real” and “symbolic” aspects of politics and policies, in the current paper I put emphasis upon the latter : Those related to production of specific ways of interpreting social reality. I regard political battles as battles over (and between) interpretations. I understand policies as based upon – and contributing to the (re)production of – specific interpretations of social reality. The adoption of a certain policy demonstrates the dominance of a corresponding interpretation of social reality, and, at the same time, secures this dominance. Being involved in imposing interpretations of social reality on individuals, groups, and society as a whole, politics and policies, thus, are means of symbolic production. The very field of symbolic production is to a great extent controlled by the state: the latter’s (greater than that of other social actors’) ability to impose meanings is related to the fact that it has the power of “official nomination” (Bourdieu 1984). The term “symbolic”, however, by no means implies “neglectable”: symbolic aspects of politics and policies are inextricably connected to “real” ones, and have tangible effects. The state policies, thus, not only reflect ideologies, norms and values shared by their authors and (re)produce the widely recognized (and legitimized) interpretations of social reality ; they (directly) predetermine actions of social actors and (explicitly) constitute social practices. Interpretation of social reality is considered as having a discursive nature: It is (re)produced – but at the same time represented – in a specific type of discourse (Van Dijk 2013). Discourse itself is seen as a set of forms of representation, codes, conventions and habits of language that produce specific fields of culturally and historically located meanings (Fiske 1987). Discourse is able to predetermine the way we perceive social reality and act in it: A use of language, influencing beliefs and interaction, contributes to reproducing (or resisting) certain social practices, including discriminatory ones (Van Dijk 1997). At the same time, the relationship between “particular discursive events and the situations, institutions and social structures in which they are embedded” is dialectical, which means, “discourse constitutes social practice and is at the same time constituted by it” (De Cillia, Reisigl & Wodak 1999). Insofar as the social reality is not only represented but also constituted by the use of language (Sapir 1963; Whorf 1972), the problem of discourse control evolves. The predominant discourse – providing legitimization of the present state of things as being natural, unavoidable and self-

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evident and thus framing the hegemonic cultural order (Hall 1973) – produces a certain social and political context. Analyzing the policy of fostering tolerance adopted in post-Soviet Russia (as it appears in the specific state programs), I am focusing on the interpretation of social reality that this policy contributes to the (re)production of it. I aim at, first, eliciting this interpretation, and, secondly, analyzing whether it may account for the (in)efficiency of the policy based on it. The interpretation of reality (re)produced by the policy of fostering tolerance is manifested in the discourse that the specific state programs are entrenched in (and at the same time disseminate). Hence, I consider the method of discourse analysis adequate for the task of eliciting the interpretation of social reality that is (re)produced by the policy of fostering tolerance adopted in post-Soviet Russia. Looking at the state programs for fostering tolerance that this policy is manifested in as a corpus of texts, I intend to identify topics and discursive strategies that are employed by their authors. I am focusing on five of such programs: • Federal’naja celevaja programma “Formirovanie ustanovok tolerantnogo soznanija i profilaktika jekstremizma v rossijskom obshhestve (2001–2005 gody)” [Federal Purposeful Program “Fostering Tolerant Attitudes and Preventing Extremism in Russian Society (Years 2001–2005)”]3, henceforth – the “Federal Program”; • Srednesrochnaja gorodskaja celevaja programma “Moskva na puti k kul’ture mira: formirovanie ustanovok tolerantnogo soznanija, profilaktika jekstremizma, vospitanie kul’tury mira (2002–2004 gody)” [MediumLength Purposeful Program of the City of Moscow “Moscow on the Way to the Culture of Peace: Fostering Tolerant Attitudes, Preventing Extremism, Bringing up the Culture of Peace (Years 2002–2004)”]4, henceforth – the “Moscow on the Way to the Culture of Peace”; • Srednesrochnaja gorodskaja celevaja programma “Moskva mnogonacional’naja: formirovanie grazhdanskoj solidarnosti, kul’tury mira i soglasija (2005–2007)” [Medium-Length Purposeful Program of the City of Moscow “Moscow Multinational: Promoting Civil Solidarity, the Culture of Peace and Cohesion (Years 2005–2007)”5, henceforth – the “Moscow Multinational”; • Programma garmonizacii mezhjetnicheskih i mezhkul’turnyh otnoshenij, profilaktiki projavlenij ksenofobii, ukreplenija tolerantnosti v SanktPeterburge na 2006–2010 gody (Programma “Tolerantnost” [Program of 3 Passed by the Regulation of the Government of the Russian Federation No 629 August 25 2001. Available from: . 4 Passed by the Regulation of the Government of Moscow No 955 November 19 2002. Available from: . 5 Passed by the Regulation of the Government of Moscow No 602-PP August 09 2005. Available from:.

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Harmonization of Interethnic and Intercultural Relations, Preventing Manifestations of Xenophobia, Fostering Tolerance in Saint Petersburg for the Years 2006–2010 (Program “Tolerance”)]6, henceforth – the “Tolerance 2006–2010”; • Programma garmonizacii mezhkul’turnyh, mezhjetnicheskih i mezhkonfessional’nyh otnoshenij, vospitanija kul’tury tolerantnosti v Sankt-Peterburge na 2011–2015 gody [Program of Harmonization of Intercultural, Interethnic and Interreligious Relations, Fostering the Culture of Tolerance in Saint Petersburg for the Years 2011–2015 (Program “Tolerance”)]7, henceforth – the “Tolerance 2011–2015”. The paper is organized as follows: First, I will discuss the (negative) impact that the Russian-Chechen wars had on inter-ethnic relations in post-Soviet Russia in general, and the (acute) concern with these relations that the Russian authorities demonstrated. Then, I will outline the key points in the short life of the policy of fostering tolerance in Russia: From the adoption of the “Federal Program” in 2001 to the renunciation of the very idea of tolerance made by Vladimir Putin in 2013. I will proceed with the analysis of the policy of fostering tolerance adopted in post-Soviet Russia: The content of the state programs it was manifested in, and the practice of their implementation. I will deploy the results of my analysis to account for the failure of the policy to foster tolerance in post-Soviet Russia. I will conclude with briefly outlining some of the prerequisites for the adoption of the policy of fostering tolerance as the strategy of reconciling the nation in the aftermath of Russian-Chechen wars; in doing so, I will put emphasis on the role of the Soviet legacy in contemporary Russia.

Russian-Chechen Wars, the “National Question” and the Policy of Fostering Tolerance Despite the fact that the Russian-Chechen wars brought about horrific pain and suffering for thousands of Chechens, and resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe in the region (Gilligan 2010), in scholarly literature concerning the consequences of these wars the emphasis is often put on the Russian side of the conflict. This is especially true in reference to the analysis of the effects that Russian-Chechen wars had on inter-ethnic relations in the Russian Federation: scholars concentrate on public perceptions of Chechens by Russians 6 Passed by the Regulation of the Government of Saint Petersburg No 848 July 11 2006. Available from: . 7 Passed by the Regulation of the Government of Saint Petersburg No 1256 September 23 2010. Available from: .

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(Gerber and Mendelson 2008), as well as on the image of Chechens and Chechnya in the Russian media (Snetkov 2007). I do not only find this bias remarkable, but also the very distinction between Russians and Chechens (characteristic for academic, political, media, and popular debates on the issue). This distinction is more than just-another-example of terminological mishmash related to the notion “Russian” which is used to designate both, ethnic Russians (Russkije), and citizens of the Russian Federation (Rossijane). When employed with reference to relations between Chechens on the one hand, and Russians on the other, the meaning of the latter term remains vague: It may imply ethnic Russians, residents of Russia’s central regions, or citizens of the Russian Federation. In discussions held in English language, the meaning of the much-used term “Russian” is rarely clarified; in debates in Russian language, the term “Rossijsko-Chechenskije vojny” (referring to Russian Federation) is deployed just as well as “Russko-Chechenskije vojny” (referring to ethnic Russians). This very terminological vagueness and lack of clarity is emblematic: It demonstrates only too well that Chechens, de jure being citizens of the Russian Federation, de facto are not fully recognized as such. The ambiguous position of Chechens in the Russian Federation is but a manifestation of the fact that the Russian-Chechen conflict is far from over, and that the Russian nation (or is it more accurate to say, the two nations, Russian and Chechen) is not reconciled. Another argument in favor of this conclusion is the level of inter-ethnic hostility between Chechens and Russians (to be more precise – of hostility that the latter demonstrate towards the former). To account for this hostility, a specific term appeared in the Russian language: Caucasus-phobia which may be understood as a form of xenophobia. Public opinion surveys – whose results are steady yet regrettable – are often cited as an illustration of this hostility : Russians’ attitudes towards Chechens, and people coming from North Caucasus in general, were, and still are, overwhelmingly negative. According to the well-known independent pollster Levada Center, the slogan “Enough to Feed Caucasus” (Khvatit kormit’ Kavkaz) was shared by a significant number of respondents in 1990s and in 2000s, and still enjoys wide public support (“Obshestvennoje Mnenije – 2016 [Public Opinion – 2016]” 2017). Whether the results of public opinion surveys are representative of the public opinion itself, especially in what concerns inter-ethnic relations and attitudes towards different ethnic groups, may be questioned (Kosmarskaya and Savin 2016). The reality that pollsters are trying to measure is, indeed, more complicated than the conclusions they formulate. Nevertheless, the troublesome picture of relations between Chechens and Russians that they demonstrate, seems adequate. At the same time, the Chechen-Russian “problem” may be considered but an example of the deterioration of ethnic relations in contemporary Russia (Foxall 2014). This deterioration is manifest in the numbers of respondents who support the slogan “Russia for the

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Russians” (Rossija dlya Russkikh)8, far-right parties (Shenfield 2001; Varga 2008; Verkhovsky 2016), and ethnically motivated criminal acts9 (Arnold and Romanova 2013). Emblematic in this respect is the fact that the Day of People’s Unity – the national holiday referring to the expulsion of the Polish troops from Moscow in 1612 which was introduced in 2005 and since then has been celebrated annually on November 4 – in Russia is known primarily as the day when the so-called “Russian Marches”, demonstrations of Russian nationalists, take place (Zuev 2013). Russian society, thus, is facing the rise of hostility towards Others; the latter are usually identified in ethnic, cultural and religious terms. Although xenophobia is sometimes deemed a weapon used by the Russian state in order to establish control over society (Shlapentokh 2007), it is fair to say that inter-ethnic tensions and conflicts have been long recognized as one of Russia’s most pressing issues by members of the country’s political elites as well as by government officials, and have become a subject matter of their acute concern.10 The latter is by no means ungrounded (and by all means it is understandable). Not only the collapse of the Soviet Union – in which event the ethnic factor played a highly important role (Beissinger 2002) – was a deeply traumatizing event.11 A decade after it, debates around the putative dissolution of the Russian Federation were still heated (Alexseev 2001; Hughes 2002; Lapidus 1999). For some scholars it seemed possible that Russia’s ethnic diversity would result in the country falling apart, just like the USSR did (Evangelista 2002; Herd 1999). Moreover, separatism in post-Soviet Russia was not limited to the Republic of Chechnya: it continued to be supported in various regions of the Russian Federation in 1990s (Treisman 1997), as well as in 2010s (Hagendoorn, Poppe, and Minescu 2008; Stepanov 2000). The possibility of disintegration of the Russian Federation was recognized by Russia’s ruling class: it had an important impact on the design of Russian federalism (Kahn 2000). In fact, its very changes – from Boris Yeltsin’s call on Russia’s regions to “take as much sovereignty as they can swallow” to Vladimir Putin’s attempts to build the “vertical of power”12 and re-centralize the state 8 The number reached its maximum (66 % of respondents) in October 2013; in August 2016, this number was 52 % of respondents (“Obshestvennoje Mnenije – 2016 [Public Opinion – 2016]” 2017, sec. 22.17). 9 In Russia, the official statistics on hate crimes is non-existent. Hate crimes, however, are constantly monitored by SOVA Information-Analytical Center. Official website: . 10 The most significant of expressions of this concern is, without doubt, Vladimir Putin’s article “Russia: the National Question” (2012). 11 The depth of this trauma was conveyed by president Putin who, addressing the Federal Assembly in 2005, stated that it was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the twentieth century (Putin 2005). 12 Building the “vertical of power” involved both strengthening and re-centralizing the state, and had a decisive impact on the fate of Russian federalism. For the overview of the process of building the “vertical of power”, see (Holmes 2002; Jeffrey Kahn 2002; Taylor 2011, chap. 4).

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(Busygina 2007; Goode 2011; Heinemann-Grüder 2002; Konitzer & Wegren 2006; Sharafutdinova 2013; Slider 2014) – may be considered as different strategies aimed at achieving the same goal: that of holding the country together (Chebankova 2010; Kahn 2002; Ross 2002). The fear of disintegration of the country along ethnic lines, as well as the desire to arrest it, informed the somewhat obsessive preoccupation with the “national question” that became characteristic for post-Soviet Russia’s elites; this preoccupation has not waned since 1990s. Various “answers” to this “question” – the imperial project of Russia, and the ethno-nationalist one of “Russia for the Russians”13, the idea of Eurasianism14, and Solzhenitsyn’s plan of rebuilding Russia (1990) – are still debated. Attempts to define what it means to be a Russian national (Rossijanin), and an ethnic Russian (Russkij), are still made.15 Efforts aimed at securing the state integrity are still undertaken.16 The desire to unify the nation keeps informing quite different political decisions: from 1996 Boris Yeltsin’s call on intelligentsia to find a new “national idea” for Russia17 to the 2014 annexation of Crimea which was not only an attempt to unify the divided nation of Russians18, but also to consolidate the fragmented Russian society19 around a new victory on the international arena. 13 For recent trends in Russian nationalism, including its imperialist and ethnonationalist versions, see the collection edited by Paul Kolsto and Helge Blakkisrud (2016). 14 For comprehensive analysis of Russian Eurasianism, see (Laruelle 2008). 15 Probably the latest of these attempts was made on November 11, 2014 in “The Declaration of Russian identity” (“Declaracija Russkoj Identichnosti [Declaration of Russian Identity]” 2014). I’ve presented my analysis of the Declaration itself, and the debates around it, elsewhere (Klimenko 2015). 16 Introduction of the amendment to the Penal Code of the Russian Federation that criminalizes “public calls for actions aimed at violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation” may be considered an example. The amendment was introduced by the Federal Law No 433-FZ on December 28, 2013 (Federal’nij Zakon No 433-FZ 2013). 17 However heated the debates that followed that call were, they turned out fruitless: an idea that the people of Russia would be united by was never found. For the analysis of the debates that followed President Yeltsin’s call see (Smith 2002, chap. 8). Literature on nation-building and national identity in post-Soviet Russia is affluent. The topic is examined in various perspectives: ethnicity and nationality (Evans 2008; Sakwa 2011; Semenenko 2015; Solovei 2008; V. Tishkov 2009), collective memory (Forest and Johnson 2002; Slater 1998), religion (Turunen 2007), gender (Rutland 2014), international relations (Curanovic´ 2012; Just 2016; Sakwa 2011; Semenenko 2013), nation-building (Shevel 2011; Tolz 1998). 18 On 18 March 2014, Vladimir Putin held a speech to the Russian Federal Assembly. Accounting the annexation of Crimea, he claimed that, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union “the Russian people have become one of the largest divided nations in the world, if not the largest” (Putin 2014). In that particular instance by “the Russian people” he was referring to ethnic Russians (Russkije), not Russian citizens (Rossijane). For the analysis of the ethno-nationalist tendencies in Russian nationalism in the aftermath of Ukrainian crisis, see (P,l Kolstø 2016). 19 Russia’s fragmentation, though oftentimes grasped in terms of ethnicity and culture, may be better accounted for by social polarization of Russian society. The many facets of inequality in post-Soviet Russia (Buccellato & Mickiewicz 2009; Bradshaw & Vartapetov 2003; Sobkin 2001; Wegren et al. 2015), as well as its various effects (Hauner, Kutan &Spivey 2012; Haynes 2013; Latova & Latov 2013), have been scrutinized. Inequality within Russian society influences its

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In the beginning of the 2000s, fostering inter-ethnic, intercultural, and interreligious tolerance became the strategy of “solving” the national “question” adopted by the Russian state: programs partly20 or entirely21 targeted at fostering tolerance were designed and put into practice on the federal level, as well as in many of the regions of the Russian Federation. Becoming an important part of the state nationalities policy, and a policy in itself, fostering inter-ethnic, intercultural, and interreligious tolerance, therefore, was supposed to contribute to reconciling Russia’s ethnic groups, and allow for uniting the Russian nation. Although some observers deem fostering tolerance a “positive practice” in the field of counteracting xenophobia, and anti-discrimination (Mukomel’ 2005), I suggest that it proved to be inefficient: it was unable to alleviate interethnic tension and conflicts in Russian society. Thus, the level of negative attitudes towards certain “nationalities” (including Chechens and people coming from North Caucasus in general) did not decline with the adoption of programs aimed at fostering tolerance: as was mentioned above, it remained disturbingly high all through the 1990’s, 2000s, and 2010s. Claiming tolerance to be “neutered and barren” during his address to the Federal Assembly, Vladimir Putin (2013) put an end to Russia’s fascination with tolerance. It does not seem an exaggeration, therefore, to say that the policy of fostering tolerance in post-Soviet Russia turned out to be a failure. In the following paragraph, I attempt at accounting for this failure by analyzing this policy itself: The content of the state programs it was manifested in, and the practice of their implementation.

members’ perception of their future (Mikhailova 2012), and contributes to spreading of the feeling of ressentiment among them (Danilova 2017). 20 Multifaceted state programs targeted at different aspects of the policy of nationalities, including that of fostering tolerance, were adopted in the Republic of Bashkiria, the Republic of Mari El, the Republic of Udmurtia, the Stavropol Territory, the Volgograd Region, the Kurgan Region, the Perm Territory, the Samara Region, the Saratov Region. In the Republic of Komi, the Republic of Chuvashia, the Orenburg Region programs of both types were adopted. In the Republic of Buryatia, the Republic of Yakutia, the Astrakhan Region fostering tolerance was considered a part of the policies of education, cultural policies, work aimed at fostering patriotism, work with youth. 21 State programs specifically targeted at fostering tolerance were adopted in the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, the Republic of Kalmykia, the Amur Region, the Belgorod Region, the Kaluga Region, Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

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State Programs for Fostering Tolerance: From Discourse to Interpretation of Social Reality What was it that predetermined the inefficiency of the programs aimed at fostering inter-ethnic, intercultural and interreligious tolerance adopted in Russia in 2000s? To answer this question, I turn to the analysis of, first, the very content of these programs, and, secondly, to the practice of their implementation. The content of the analyzed programs aimed at fostering inter-ethnic, intercultural and interreligious tolerance is organized around four topics. First, the very concept of tolerance is discussed: attempts are made to define it, and to substantiate its value. Thus, various notions that are deemed related (or even synonymous) to “tolerance” are outlined. Among these “nonviolence”, “respect”, “understanding and cooperation” play the crucial role. To substantiate the value of tolerance, the ideas of “peace”, “democracy”, “freedom”, and “human rights” are deployed. The programs for fostering tolerance themselves are included in the wider context of “humanitarian” (in other words – universal) values, and are, thus, internationalized. In these programs the international legal acts that coin the concept of tolerance – the UNESCO Declaration of Principles on Tolerance22 and the UN Declaration on a Culture of Peace23 – are explicitly invoked. Interestingly enough, these programs vary significantly in the extent to which they make such invocations when referring to substantiating the value of tolerance. As the time went by, these invocations became vaguer and less detailed. Thus, while 20 % of the text of the program that was the first one to be adopted, the “Federal Program”, was dedicated to discussing these international legal acts, in the program that was the latest to be adopted, the “Tolerance 2011–2015”, these acts were hardly mentioned. Secondly, reasons are outlined that make tolerance one of the values that Russian society needs to nurture. The necessity to neutralize threats related to inter-ethnic tension and conflicts (as opposed to the role that tolerance may play in creating space for individual and social development) is stressed. At the same time, the programs in question vary in the attention they pay to various aspects of the issue of (in)tolerance, or, to be more precise, to various types of threats that are to be neutralized with the help of recurring to the value of tolerance. Thus, the “Federal Program” is focused on extremism and its prevention; the “Moscow on the Way to the Culture of Peace” – on the socio22 Adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO at its twenty-eighth session in Paris, on November 16 1995. Available from:< http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0015/001518/151830eo. pdf>. 23 Adopted by the UN General Assembly at its fifty-third session, on October 6 1999. Available from: .

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economic problems as prerequisites for the growth of xenophobia, and, consequently, on the ways of tackling these problems; the “Moscow Multinational” and both “Tolerance” programs – on the influx of migrants as the cause of inter-ethnic tension and conflicts, and, therefore, on counteracting these tensions and conflicts by means of migrants’ “adaptation and integration”. Thirdly, the state programs for fostering tolerance discuss inter-ethnic, intercultural and interreligious relations in contemporary Russia, as well as Russia’s experience of inter-ethnic, intercultural, and interreligious coexistence. Interestingly enough, when referring to the current state of affairs, these programs differ significantly in the extent to which they recognize the very problem they are aiming at tackling. As the years went by, this recognition became more equivocal and less explicit. While the “Federal Program” discussed in detail “interethnic and interreligious tension and conflicts”, in both of the “Tolerance” programs these tensions and conflicts were hardly mentioned. If in the “Moscow on the Way to the Culture of Peace” xenophobia was attributed to the “transitional period” the country was going through, the “Moscow multinational” focused on migration as the reason for the growth of intolerance. Finally, the state programs for fostering tolerance outline the means, methods and techniques that are deemed necessary and efficient in achieving the goals that they set. When the afore-mentioned topics are discussed in the state programs for fostering tolerance, the following discursive strategies are employed. First, intolerance is represented as a deviation from a norm widely accepted in Russian society. Whatever are the problems in the sphere of inter-ethnic, intercultural, interreligious relations that are recognized in the state programs for fostering tolerance, they are discussed in terms of “outbursts of xenophobia” that result from a “complicated period” of transition that Russia is going through. The emphasis is put on the rising level of intolerance among youth; the growth of xenophobia is, thus, attributed to the deteriorating quality of education and mentorship. The problem that these programs are targeted at tackling is, hence, turned from a systemic one into a circumstantial and incidental phenomenon, a passing thing that by no means characterizes Russian society as a whole. Secondly, the past is idealized in these programs. With an emphasis put on the experience of peaceful coexistence of various ethnic, cultural, and religious groups within Russia (and the Soviet Union), state programs for fostering tolerance discuss Russia’s “humanitarian traditions”, the “ethic code” of Russian society that “evolved through history”, and “primordial moral principles” of the Russian nation. Thus, both of the “Tolerance” programs, coining the unique “polyphonic culture of Saint Petersburg”, claim tolerance to be this culture’s key characteristic. Inter-ethnic, intercultural, interreligious peace and cohesion are represented, thus, as the “natural state” of Russian

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society, tension and conflicts – as a sign of its (transient and transitional) degradation. Hence, the effect of the privation of history (Barthes 1991, p. 152) is produced: intolerance here is deemed a problem without history, and without past itself. Thirdly, the issue of tolerance is securitized: it is discussed primarily in the context of Russia’s security. The key concept that is coined here is “stability”: tolerance is represented as a means to secure the stability of society and state, and, at the same time, as a way to neutralize the instability that threatens them. The term most commonly employed in this context is “countermeasures”; the latter that are supposed to be undertaken to “resist extremism, xenophobia and ethno-phobia”, and “allay social tension”. The role of tolerance in protecting individual liberty and social development is, thus, ignored. Fourthly, in the state programs for fostering tolerance, ethnic, cultural and religious diversity of Russian society is denied. Norms and values of Russian society (as well as those of the communities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg) are represented as shared by all of its members. Russian culture (and the cultures of Moscow and Saint Petersburg respectively), hence, appear as homogenous, devoid of any internal contradictions. The present ethnic, cultural and religious diversity of Russian society is, paradoxically enough, disregarded. Whenever mentioned, it is represented as either a source of problems for the society and the state, or as the result of the influx of migrants. Diversity, hence, is not discussed as something that makes tolerance necessary for Russian society : neither because it protects individuals’ right to be different, nor because it creates conditions favorable for social development. Finally, the state programs for fostering tolerance “culturalize” the problem they are concerned with. They interpret ethnicity in terms of culture, discuss cultural aspects of inter-ethnic tension and conflicts, and focus on instruments for fostering tolerance related to the spheres of education, leisure, media. The state programs that the policy of fostering tolerance appears in, thus, are entrenched in, and also disseminate, the very specific type of discourse; in the latter, the understanding of the problem that these programs are aimed at tackling, hence the means that should be used to tackle it, are manifested. This understanding – being a part of the particular interpretation of social reality – influences the reality itself. At the same time, it is worth stressing that symbolic and practical aspects of polices are highly interrelated: whatever practical decisions are made, they always have symbolic consequences related to the (re)production of a certain interpretation of social reality. Thus, the specific understanding of the problem, and the means of tackling it, is manifested just as well in the way the programs for fostering tolerance are put into practice. The key characteristic of this way is the afore-mentioned “culturalization” of the very issue of (in)tolerance. Thus, designing a legal framework in the field of inter-ethnic, intercultural and interreligious relations was claimed to

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be one of the principal goals of each of the programs in question. Nevertheless, in practice the emphasis was put on holding various educational, scholarly and leisure events, as well as media campaigns. For instance, out of the total budget of the “Federal Program” (397,65 million rubles), 5,15 million rubles were allocated for “analyzing and developing legal framework for counteracting extremism”, whereas 76,75 million rubles – for creating Centers of Tolerance. Specifications concerning the way these centers are supposed to operate, and what the aims of these centers would be, were not made. In the same vein, out of the total budget of the “Moscow Multinational” (530,454 million rubles), 8,348 million rubles were allocated for elaborating legislation aimed at “preventing discrimination on the basis of nationality and religion”, and “fighting xenophobia and terrorism”, while 307,137 million rubles – for “promoting intercultural integrity and nurturing civil solidarity in the fields of culture, sport, and tourism”. Moreover, among the governmental, non-governmental, and private bodies, that were engaged in designing the state programs for fostering tolerance, and putting them into practice, those that operate in the fields of education, science, culture, leisure, and media, played the crucial part. Thus, the Federal Agency for Education of the Russian Federation was the key actor in the elaboration of the “Federal Program”. The latter’s implementation – as well as the implementation of the other four of the programs in question – was delegated to higher educational institutions, research centers and think tanks, organizations that work in the socio-cultural sphere. Important for giving effect to the state programs for fostering tolerance were national-cultural autonomies (NCAs)24 : a specific type of associations of citizens of the Russian Federation who consider themselves members of an ethnic community that constitutes a minority on a certain territory within the Russian Federation; there are local, regional and federal NCAs. Deemed a form of national-cultural self-determination, NCAs are entitled by law to take actions aimed at “maintaining national-cultural specificity”, “strengthening unity of the Russian nation”, “harmonizing interethnic relations”, “fostering interreligious dialogue”, “promoting social and cultural adaptation and integration of migrants”. The major part of the activity of NCAs’, thus, concentrates in the spheres of education and culture, and is targeted at maintaining the traditional culture, and language of the corresponding ethnic 24 The basic principles that govern the activities of the national-cultural autonomies are outlined in the Federal Law no 74-FZ O Nacional’no-Kul’turnoj Avtonomii [On National-Cultural Autonomy] introduced on May 22, 1996. National-cultural autonomy (NCA) is currently defined by this law as a specific type of public associations; its organizational form is public organization. Hence, NCAs’ activities are regulated by the Federal Law No 82-FZ Ob Obshhestvennyh Ob’edinenijah [On Public Associations] introduced on May 19, 1995, and the Federal Law No 7-FZ O Nekommercheskih Organizacijah [On Non-Profit Organizations] passed on January 12, 1996. For comprehensive analysis of Russian policy towards national-cultural autonomies, see (Boring 2002; Kartashkin & Abashidze 2004; Osipov 2015; Torode 2008).

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group, disseminating information on this group’s history and customs. For the purposes of coordinating the activity of NCAs, and providing them with state support, the houses of nationalities were founded in Moscow in 199825 and in Saint Petersburg in 200526. Both of these houses focus their activities on holding various cultural events: concerts of folk groups, exhibitions of ethnic costumes, forums and panel discussions, sport competitions, ethnic holidays and festivals. Taken as a whole, the implementation of Moscow and Saint Petersburg programs for fostering tolerance was centered around the same kind of cultural (concerts, exhibitions, festivals), and scholarly (conferences, panel discussions) events, as well as media campaigns. Being fully concentrated in the spheres of education, culture, and leisure, the state efforts for fostering tolerance, thus, (re)produce the specific understanding of the very issue they are concerned with, and the particular interpretation of social reality at large. Intolerance is considered here as resulting from cultural differences between various ethnic groups, and, even more importantly, from lack of knowledge that members of these groups have of each other’s “traditional cultures”. Hence, “enlightenment” is seen as the most efficient instrument for fostering tolerance. “Enlightenment” itself is understood as the process of educating members of different ethnic groups about each other’s cultures and traditions. Moreover, the programs for fostering tolerance are united in the specific understanding of the phenomena of nation, ethnicity, and culture: nation is represented in terms of ethnicity ; both nation and ethnicity are regarded as essentially bound to culture. Ethnic, cultural and religious groups are perceived as homogenous; gender, professional, educational differences between their members are, thus, disregarded. Members of ethnic groups are perceived as, firstly and foremost, representatives of a certain “culture”; the latter is deemed a never-altering and self-consistent “substance”. While social differences are conceived as “cultural differences”, the latter are understood as “distance” between cultures that may be observed and measured. Cultural differences, thus, are deemed obstacles to (efficient) social interaction. The approach to fostering tolerance that the corresponding state programs demonstrate, results not only in emphasizing and actualizing ethnic and cultural differences between members of Russian society, but also in disregarding some of the most important aspects – social, economic, political, and legal – of the issues that these programs are concerned with. The problems of structure that the issue of (in)tolerance is related to, including that of discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, culture, religion, are not being solved. Moreover, representing these problems – as well as social tension and conflicts – in terms of culture makes them “insoluble” in principle. The state programs for fostering tolerance are grounded in, and at the same time (re)produce, the 25 Official website: < http://mdn.ru/>. 26 Official website: < http://www.spbdn.ru/>.

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interpretation of reality that in its very nature contradicts the aims that are set for these programs. It is this contradiction that constitutes the key reason for these programs’ inefficiency. Not only the programs themselves, the very strategy of “fostering tolerance” – aimed at “solving” Russia’s “national question”, reconciling the country’s ethnic groups, and uniting the Russian nation in the aftermath of the conflict in (and over) Chechnya – was a failure not by default but by design. The latter mirrors the stereotyping and de-individualizing “logic” of xenophobia. Thus, paradoxically enough, the efforts aimed at fostering tolerance induce animosity, while the attempts to reconcile inter-ethnic, intercultural and interreligious conflicts engender them. The question, then, remains: why is it that this particular strategy was chosen by the state in order to alleviate the negative impact that the Russian-Chechen wars had on interethnic relations in post-Soviet Russia? I will attempt to answer this question in the concluding section of my paper.

Instead of a Conclusion: “Fostering Tolerance” as the Soviet Legacy To account for the (problematic) choice of fostering tolerance as the strategy of reconciling the nation in the aftermath of Russian-Chechen wars, it is necessary to consider the role that the Soviet legacy plays in today’s Russia. It is important to begin, however, with emphasizing the systemic ethnicization of the social that is characteristic for post-Soviet Russia. Not only the understanding of the term “nation” as ethnic (ethno-linguistic or ethnocultural) community is embedded in the Constitution of the Russian Federation: the latter opens with the words “We, the multinational people of the Russian Federation…”. The essentialist conception of the phenomena of nation and ethnicity is specific to Russian political, media, educational and academic discourses. Nations and ethnic groups are considered here as neveraltering and invariant ones; national and ethnic communities – as separated by boundaries that are drawn according to some objective criteria. Among such criteria common descent (primordialism) as well as language, culture and history (historicism) are usually named. There is nothing new about Russia’s “methodological essentialism”: The latter stems from the Soviet academic tradition27 and, even more importantly, the practices of diversity management that were employed in the Soviet Union. These practices were systemically and systematically institutionalizing ethnicity (Brubaker 1994), and included applying the “national” (to be 27 Interestingly enough, essentialism was the key feature of the writings of both: the main “official” ethnographer of the Soviet Union Jurij Bromley (1983) and the most important “dissident” in the field of ethnography Lev Gumilev (2002).

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more precise – the “ethnic”) principle of administrative-territorial division of the country and recording the citizens’ “nationality” (to be more precise – ethnicity) in their passports, supporting “national cultures” and repressing various ethnic groups, preserving ethno-cultural diversity and applying assimilationist policy of russification. The paradoxes of the Soviet “nationalities policy” resulted in constructing ethno-national boundaries within the society (despite the declared attempts to build a “supra-national community of the Soviet people”). It is not by accident, therefore, that it was along these very boundaries that this community – and the country itself – fell apart. Russia inherited from the Soviet Union not only its ethnicized and essentialized “theory” of nation, but also the practices of institutionalizing ethnicity. The “ethnic” principle of administrative-territorial division of the country (with its tacit hierarchy of republics, autonomous okrug’s and autonomous oblast’ that are understood as “belonging” to certain ethnic groups) is still in use. Although citizens’ ethnicity is no longer registered in their passports, there exist many other instruments which perform such a registration (census being the most important of them). A plethora of legal acts and governmental agencies that regulate inter-ethnic relations and nationalities policy, with their very existence contribute to institutionalizing ethnicity. Apart from the “national question” itself, and the way of “answering” it, Russia’s post-Soviet legacy consists in the very ethnic boundaries that disunite the civic nation of Rossijane and become fertile ground for political manipulation. The policy of fostering tolerance adopted in Russia in order to “solve” its “national question”, reconcile its ethnic groups, and unite the nation torn by the (in fact civil) Russian-Chechen war, embodies Russia’s Soviet legacy. Thus, and this is yet another paradox, the contemporary Russian state’s efforts aimed at solving the problems that were to a great extent engendered by the Soviet policy of nationalities, result in entrenching them. One of the consequences is that, since the process of transformation of the conflict between Russians and Chechens actualizes group categories and definitions constructed and employed during the conflict itself, the very possibility of reconciliation is put into question. The group categories that once became a basis for inter-group cleavage, when reproduced, create grounds for future collisions.

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Fernando Avakian

Discursive Construction of the Islamic Threat in the Russian Federation in the Early 2000s A Political Tool Hampering Reconciliation? Introduction In August 1999, Chechen warlord Shamil Bassaev1 and Saudi Arabian-born Ibn al-Khattab2 led a group of combatants across the border between Chechnya and Dagestan with the objective of taking three Wahhabi Dagestani villages. By the end of the same month, a sequence of intentional explosions in apartment buildings took place in the cities of Moscow, Volgodonsk (Rostov Oblast) and Buynaksk (Dagestan), bringing death to two hundred and ninety people. The Russian federal government was quick to relate both events, accusing Chechen Islamist organizations for the attacks in Russian cities3. The conjunction of both incidents allowed the Kremlin to resume military operations in the North Caucasus with a high level of popular support and to retake the de facto independent Republic of Chechnya, whose president Aslan Maskhadov4 did nonetheless condemn the terrorist attacks and the invasion of Dagestan. This deliberate amalgam of the Chechen independent government, Bassaev’s armed actions in the Caucasus and the terrorist attacks in Moscow speaks of the inception of a new representation of the threat to Russian national security in the 2000s: Chechen Islamist terrorism, supposedly under the sway of international jihadist networks. From late 1999 onwards, the approach of Russian federal authorities towards Chechnya was redefined in the light of the 1 Shamil Basayev (1965–2006) was a Chechen military leader. After having fought in Abkhazia and Nagorno Karabakh, he combatted within the ranks of the separatist forces during the first Chechen war. When the agreements of Khasavyurt were signed, he did not lay down arms and his discourse became increasingly charged with religious elements. After the second war, he organized and claimed several terrorist attacks, including the hostage taking in Beslan, North Ossetia (2004). When his truck exploded in Ingushetia in 2006, the FSB declared itself to be behind his assassination. 2 Ibn al-Khattab (1969–2002) was a Saudi jihadist who fought in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Nagorno Karabakh. He participated in the first Chechen war and became a high-profile warlord close to Basayev. With the latter, Khattab organized the attack in Dagestan in 1999. He died in 2002 in an FSB special operation. 3 Although these groups did not claim responsibility and almost no investigation was undertaken. 4 The nationalist Aslan Maskhadov (1951–2005) was elected president during the Chechen elections in 1997. He was killed during a clash with Russian troops in 2005.

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fight against terrorism. That is to say, the Kremlin established an antiterrorist discourse whereby any form of heteronomy or divergence from the federal political projects concerning Chechnya – be it the nationalists headed by Maskhadov, moderate autonomists or existing neo-Salafist armed organizations – was to be considered terrorism or labeled as ”Wahhabism”5. Through concrete discursive practices, the system of meanings related to the conflict was rearticulated around the nodal point of “Islamic terrorism”, with the Chechen population incarnating this threat against the Russian Federation. From a poststructuralist approach, the aim of this paper is to analyze the Russian antiterrorist discourse in the early 2000s as a wide set of practices and statements intended to rearticulate the system of meanings surrounding the Chechen question – mainly the very identity of the social group “Chechens”– and thus reshaping social perception of the conflict. Such discourse was crucial in the initial stages of the process of the recentralization of power in Russia for legitimizing Vladimir Putin’s nascent regime (Mendras, 2012). It will be argued that this discourse impedes effective justice regarding unprocessed past events, subsequently hampering reconciliation (as conceived by Staub, 2002). This appears to be the case for two reasons: firstly, concerning relations between Russians and Chechens, the official antiterrorist discourse helps maintain a stereotypical image of the latter and its consequent stigmatization, though this discourse has to some degree been softened in the last decade due to internal and international political changes. The creation of such a representation of the enemy of the State (the radicalized Chechen Islamist) is based on cultural clich8s stemming from a long narrative tradition in Russian culture depicting Caucasians and especially Chechens as the cultural other to be feared. Secondly, since the successive pro-Putin Chechen governments crushed all internal opposition on the grounds of the “war on terror”, the way in which the antiterrorist discourse is reinterpreted and implemented by local authorities after Putin’s policies of “Chechenization” impedes political change and real reconciliation within Chechen society. In a scenario where the limits of political and religious dissent are deliberately blurred by the authorities, the ideologically-led division between an accepted, controlled version of Islam and other “deviances” tends to alienate certain 5 Since 1999, federal and Caucasian local authorities use the term “Wahhabi” pejoratively to describe Salafi fighters – or those that the ruling power wants to portray as such. In fact, the term is widely used as a synonym for terrorism by the media and the government. However, all Wahhabis do not necessarily engage in violent extremism. This strict, conservative and puritanical school of Sunni Islam was born in Saudi Arabia in the eighteenth century and remains the official version of Islam in the kingdom. Wahhabism rejects any innovation in Islam and considers the Koran and the Hadith as the only sources of religion. Strictly speaking, this version is geographically anchored in the Arabian Peninsula. Salafism shares the rigid interpretation of Islam with Wahhabism, but it is not necessarily aligned with the Saudi monarchy, nor does it necessarily have ties with it. The violent version of Salafism promotes the “external” Jihad against non-Muslims or “heretic” Muslims, with the objective of recreating the great caliphate that supposedly existed at the time of the Prophet, encompassing all the Ummah.

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chunks of society, not necessarily aligned with the official version of Sufism6. At the same time, the regime seeks to label as “Wahhabism” any form of political opposition, whether it has religious characteristics or not. Moreover, and most importantly, delegitimizing all forms of civil dissent in the name of the fight against Islamic extremism only benefits the already feeble yet active jihadist organizations, which are seen as the only viable means of opposition.

Sources and Methodology The present paper is based on field research undertaken in 2015–2016 with the aim of shedding light on the relations between the formulation of the Islamic threat at the abstract level and its individual incarnation in the Russia of the 2000s, starting from the assumption that the notion of threat to national security is a social construction and not an objective, exterior reality. Such an inquiry, of how both levels of the stated menace interact and mutually reshape each other, was instrumental in identifying the elements or features considered deviant, dangerous or undesirable for the ruling power at the epoch of the second Chechen war. For this, as a case study, I delved into the affaire Zara Mourtazalieva7, a young Chechen woman sentenced to eight and a half years in prison in 2004 for terrorism after a fundamentally flawed trial. This affair is of particular interest because, according to Russian and international human rights organizations, it has been fabricated by agents of 6 The vast majority of Chechens profess Sufism, a version of Sunni Islam characterized by its mystical dimension and rituals. Sufism is organized around brotherhoods, which in the Caucasus held certain social and administrative functions before the tsarist rule. The most important brotherhoods in the region are the Qadiriya and the Naqshbandiya. Sufi structures are today regulated by a muftiyat or a council of muftis responding directly to the Chechen president. 7 Zara Hassanovna Mourtazalieva (1984 – ) was a Chechen student who moved to Moscow in search of work in the summer of 2003. According to numerous Russian and international human rights defenders (among others, FIDH, 2009), she was the victim of a fabricated affair. Working in an insurance company, she got acquainted with a Chechen named Said Akhmaev. The latter lent Mourtazalieva accommodation free of charge. The apartment in question belonged to the FSB; Akhmaev was an agent of the Directorate of the Fight against Organized Crime in Moscow, a branch of the Interior Ministry. Being constantly under surveillance, she was stopped in the Kitay-Gorod district on March 4th 2004 by police officers for a check of papers. In order to establish her identity, she was taken to a police department located in the Vernadskiy Avenue. Once there, bombs were planted by police agents in her backpack. She was charged under article 222 of the Russian Criminal Code (acquisition, possession and illegal transportation of explosive materials). After her trial, the state court of Moscow sentenced Mourtazalieva on January 17th 2005 to 9 years of imprisonment in a penal colony in the Republic of Mordovia, having found her guilty of “preparation and attempted crime” (article 30.1 of the Criminal Code), “preparation of a terrorist act” (article 205), “enlistment in terrorist activity” (article 205.1) and “possession of explosive substances” (article 222.2). The sentence was shortened to six months by decision of the Supreme Court of Russia. Having served her prison term in 2012, she obtained political asylum in France.

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the Interior Ministry, the FSB and police officers, with the active participation of the Municipal Court of Criminal Affairs of Moscow. The arrest and trial of Mourtazalieva took place at a moment when several terrorist attacks were being executed in Moscow by young Chechen women, baptized the ”black widows”8 by the media, and was perceived as the spearhead of Chechen terrorism in the 2000s. In fact, Mourtazalieva has been depicted during the trial and by mass media as one of them. Her case helps explore from the inside, and at a very concrete level, the fine points of the antiterrorist discourse, the diverse actors involved in its deployment and the features that brand someone a terrorist according to the dominant discourse. The research entailed fieldwork in Moscow and Grozny for conducting interviews and participant observation. Regarding the particular case of Mourtazalieva, two distinct corpora have been taken into account as primary sources. On the one hand, several interviews have been conducted with main actors having directly or indirectly intervened in the affaire: the detainee herself, her lawyer, human rights defenders and journalists from official and dissident media having covered the case. The latter category of actors was interviewed because of the media’s central role in the creation, diffusion and consolidation of the category of the black widows and their contestation of the official discourse respectively. Representatives of the governmental agencies involved in the affair could not be interviewed. Discourse analysis has been applied to their interpretations of the case, in order to identify the linguistic categories they use when referring to Mourtazalieva, to terrorism, to the Chechens or to other relevant units of meaning. Excerpts of the verdict have been analyzed as well. On the other hand, discourse analysis was applied to articles and press releases concerning this case issued by two newspapers from opposite political positions: Rossiyskaya Gazeta, mouthpiece of the State, and the critical Novye Izvestia. For analyzing the formulation of the Islamic threat on a general, abstract level, other corpora of textual data have also been analyzed: official releases, presidential speeches, the text of the Federal Law on Countering Extremist Activity (2002) and of the Federal Law on Counteraction of Terrorism (2006), as well as certain articles of the penal code widely used in the affairs of terrorism and extremism.

8 Name given by the media to Chechen women involved in the terrorist activities, carrying out suicide bombings. Allegedly, according to the typical profile portrayed by the media, they had lost a family member during the war, which led them to collude with Islamists and carry out suicide attacks. Researchers have shed some light on women engaged in terrorism and mainly on their real motivations. For a thorough study of this phenomenon, see the well-documented work of Akhmedova and Speckhardt (2006). According to their researches, most of the Chechen terrorist attacks between 2000 and 2010 were executed by women and the prevailing motivation was not ideological convictions, but trauma and the feeling of powerlessness.

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Brief Theoretical Considerations: Why Can We Speak of an Antiterrorist Discourse? For poststructuralism (Foucault, 1969; Laclau & Mouffe 1985), a discourse is a set of practices and statements (8nonc8s) that may belong to different fields but which obey common rules of operation, generating strategies of power. In other words, a discourse is a system of meanings, ideas, attitudes, beliefs and practices that form the identity of subjects and objects: every object is constructed by discourses focusing on it. To say that objects are the result of discursive practices entails that their meaning and identity are acquired within, and by, a particular discourse. Language, understood here in a broad sense, is not only a “mirror” that reflects the external social objects, but rather is constitutive or performative with respect to what it designates. Any “extradiscursive” approach to the world is therefore impossible: “[t]he fact that every object is constituted as an object of discourse has nothing to do with whether there is a world external to thought or with the realism/idealism opposition. (…) What is denied is not that such objects exist externally to thought but the rather different assertion that they could constitute themselves as objects outside any discursive conditions of emergence” (Laclau & Mouffe 1985, p. 108).

This applies to the political notion of threats to national security. Campbell (1998) argues that menaces are constructed by the performative action – carried out chiefly by the State – of designating a given phenomenon as a threat9. In doing so, the limits of what constitutes a menace are defined by the concerned state actors. It can thus be said that it is by virtue of the Russian antiterrorist discourse that the “Islamic menace” came to appear as such. Certainly, it does not mean that there were no organized individuals engaged into terrorist activities, but for this phenomenon to turn into a threat to national security, relevant decision-making levels of the State have to conceive it as such; in this case study, mainly the FSB, the Interior Ministry and the Executive Power of the Russian Federation. In the formulation of the “Islamist threat”, these actors managed through concrete institutional practices and symbolic operations, with participation of the media, to present a looming terrorist threat to the Russian State and society embodied collectively by the Chechen population (macro level) and to portray the image of the radicalized Chechen terrorist as its concrete incarnation (micro level). Thus, through the articulation of signifying elements available in the discursive field (for instance, “Chechens”, “war”, “terrorism”, “independence”, “separatism”, “Islam”, “Wahhabism”), the Kremlin was able to present the second Chechen 9 In regard to the construction of the threats to national security for the United States, Campbell (1998) gives the example of the HIV virus, considered as a national menace, although several other diseases such as obesity or tobacco addiction cause greater numbers of deaths.

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war of 1999 – officially in the name of “counterterrorist operations” – as a conflict where the hostile forces of international Islamic terrorism, collectively embodied by the Chechens, struck the Russian Federation from the inside. In terms of Laclau and Mouffe (1985), articulation has to be understood as the operation of linking signifying elements so that their identity and assigned meanings change, constituting a coherent discourse. Systems of meanings are highly contingent and, consequently, the social forms and identities are never fixed once and for all. This structuring of signifying elements is deployed around a nodal point, which is a privileged signifier or point of reference which stabilizes the discourse. It confers a certain identity to the subjects and objects. In our case study, the nodal point of the Russian antiterrorist discourse is that of Islamic terrorism, around which several signifying elements recreate the social identity of Chechens. This reinterpretation of signifying elements in light of the new nodal point is predicated on the basis of pre-existing negative representations, as we shall see. For the antiterrorist discourse, the Chechen, who in Russian culture has always been the “savage”, the “gangster” or the “rebel”, reassumes henceforth his status of agent of illegality by plunging into terrorist activities. A terrorist identity is collectively assigned to the group “Chechens”. In the interviews and texts that serve as a corpus for this paper, we will see how a certain use of concepts and ideas as well as institutional practices built the identity of Chechens – every Chechen, if one refers to the toughest implementation of the security discourse in the years 2000 – as radicalized terrorists. As can be inferred, analyzing general discourses means studying empirical material (both linguistic and non-linguistic) as discursive forms (Derrida, 1967): each layer of social reality can be “read” as a text in order to distil the system of meanings that it conveys. Thus, for example, judicial practice, the institutionalization of fabricated affairs or the creation of specialized political institutions for addressing the terrorist threat are elements of a discourse that models the object “Islamic terrorism”. These meaningful practices constitute different parts of a discourse that creates, in turn, its reality.

Cultural Basis for the New Image of the Enemy of State The portrayal of Chechens as terrorists was not built from a vacuum, but rather was based on preexisting clich8s and stereotypes. Since the conquest of the Caucasus by the Russian Empire between 1816 and 1856, a series of generally negative portrayals of Chechens progressively took root in Russian popular culture. The fact that the first representations of Caucasian cultures emerged at the time of the tsarist conquest, in a context of violent colonial expansion, is crucial for understanding the characteristics attributed to these groups.

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A dual representation of Caucasians in general and Chechens in particular prevailed during the nineteenth century. This representation is present in the work of authors such as Pushkin, Lermontov and Tolstoy, among others. These authors, who took part in the Caucasian campaigns, were instrumental in publicizing the details of a war perceived as too distant from the big Russian cities, where the press was strictly controlled by the tsarist rule. On the one hand, the Chechens embodied the ”noble savage”, personifying the values of freedom, attachment to the human natural condition, respect to the community and even of innocence, in the antipodes of a vicious life in the bureaucratic Tsarist State10. But on the other hand, the Chechen also appears as the barbarian who has to be civilized, posing a constant danger to the Cossacks because of their aggressive nature in the volatile southern Russian border. Chechens are often described as ruthless bandits assaulting Russian settlements.11 The essentially violent nature attributed to Chechens may be explained by the context in which these multicultural contacts took place. According to Ram (1999, p. 4), “[by] refusing assimilation into the territorial boundaries and rationalizing power of the Russian state, the Chechens were thus said to cling to a natural condition where liberty is indistinguishable from anarchy, and the freedom fighter from the criminal.”

The idea of a state of anarchy as the natural condition of the Chechens, in which all crimes are tolerated, was propagated by the media when reporting on the chaotic situation during the interwar period (1996–1999) in Chechnya. By the mid-twentieth century, another major event contributed to deepening the negative perception towards Chechens. Stalin ordered the deportation of the whole Chechen and Ingush population to Central Asia in 1944, accusing them of collaborating with Nazi Germany. Through this deadly measure12, Stalin nurtured the association between Chechens and fascists. Chechens were able to return to the Caucasus only once de-Stalinization began. Later on, between the 1960s and 1980s, the image of Chechens started to be associated with the mafia and the gray economy of the USSR, particularly through the media, popular literature and detective series shown on television. The links between Chechen taips (clan) and the Sicilian-type mafia were frequently made (Russell 2002, 2005). 10 The comparison between the savage but free Caucasus and the corrupted Russia appears with emphasis in the Lermontov’s poem “Farewell, unwashed Russia” (1841). 11 For example, Lermontov oscillates between these two representations when portraying the inhabitants of Chechnya in his poem Izmail Bey (1832): “Oh, wild are the tribes that haunt these gorges/Freedom is their god and war is their only law/Firm in friendship, firmer in revenge (…)/ For them, hatred is boundless, as is love”. 12 According to different estimates, the deportation resulted in the death of between a third and half of the entire Chechen and Ingush population.

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Hence, in popular culture, the word bandit accompanied the image of Chechens throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Of course, the meaning of this term varied depending on the period, and especially on the type of enemy needed: the barbarian to be conquered, the inner enemy who betrayed the Soviet Motherland during the Great Patriotic War, the criminal gangster in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and in the 1990s, the nationalists aiming to destroy the unity of Russia. Finally, after 1999, the portrayed image of the Chechen enemy became the radicalized terrorist that strikes Russian civilians in collusion with international jihadist networks. A certain “essentialization” or naturalization of the characteristics assigned to each ethnic group or nationality living in the Russian Empire first and then in the USSR facilitated the appearance of these clich8s, enabling the perpetuation of stereotypes (Filipova 2010). This naturalization of ethnic categories, which remained virtually unchanged over time, was sometimes at the origin of some political decisions. For instance, ethnicity was an inner administrative category within the USSR, formalizing such categorization of Soviet citizens in administrative procedures (Cadiot 2007; Goujon 2006). Based sometimes on representations issued in the nineteenth century, this ”petrification” of the so-called ethnic or national characteristics permits an explanation of Chechens’ supposed instinctive propensity to crime in all its forms.

Content and Elements of the Post–1999 Russian Antiterrorist Discourse If the first Chechen war (1994–1996) was widely perceived, both in Russia and abroad, as a classic conflict of national liberation and Yeltsin’s armed intervention was not popular among Russians (Le Hu8rou 2003), the second war that broke out in 1999 and officially ended in 2001 enjoyed plenty of public support. While in the first war the official argument was the maintenance of constitutional order vis-/-vis a violation of the territorial integrity of Russia, the main justification for undertaking the second was the defense of Russia from jihadist forces or from the ill-defined “Wahhabis”. For the federal government’s antiterrorist discourse, the North Caucasus turned into the regional platform for the spread of Jihad in Russia as well as an experimental laboratory for religious radicalism. Diverse practices and elements shaped such discourse in the 2000s, setting up a new perception of the whole conflict.13 In this work, the focus is mainly on 13 A thorough analysis of the underlying motives of the two wars is beyond the scope of this paper, since we are dealing here with the discursive practices shaping social perceptions of the conflict. However, no mono-causal or lineal interpretation can be made about this conflict, as several

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the federal legal arsenal, the action of law enforcement organs (police and judicial practices), military-led “counter-terrorist operations” and the language used by political leaders and the media.

Statements Made by Political and Military Leaders Since the explosions in Moscow in August 1999 and Bassaev’s attack on Dagestan, Russian authorities have virtually replaced in their language the words ”nationalists” or ”separatists” by ”terrorists” and ”bandits”14 to designate the Chechen leaders elected by suffrage in 1997 as well as the politically influential Islamist organizations formed during the first war. It is noteworthy that the second war was never officially called as such but referred to as ”antiterrorist operations” by the federal government. These semantic changes were intended to amalgamate all categories of opponents to Kremlin’s political projects in the Caucasus under the title of terrorists, extremists or jihadists. The speeches and statements of high-level political and military leaders testify to this. For example, in a press conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, on September 24th 1999, then Prime Minister Putin answered a journalist’s question regarding the ongoing air attacks over Grozny by uttering this well-known response: “Russian air forces strike terrorists bases in Chechnya and this will continue no matter where the terrorists are. We will chase the terrorists everywhere. If they are in an airport, then in the airport. So if we find them in the toilet, excuse me, we’ll rub them out in the outhouse. And that’s it, case closed.”15

By drawing an implicit correlation between striking Grozny and attacking the terrorists, the receiver of the message might understand that the government political, economic and ideological motivations and logics appear to be intermingled. The reductionist interpretation which depicts the first war as nationalist and the second one as religious has to be deconstructed. Undoubtedly, the discourse behind Chechnya’s declaration of independence in 1991 was mainly nationalistic, while religious elements prevail in the actors’ discourse during the second war, but a clear distinction between nationalism and religion is artificial and purely analytical. More to the point, a merely religious interpretation of the second war is the result of the Kremlin’s antiterrorist discourse. At most, it can be said that it is essentially a reinterpreted post-colonial conflict that adopts different forms according to different historical moments. 14 It is to be noted that the word “bandit” was intensively used by Yeltsin’s regime to refer to the separatist leaders. Yet, the term was not used as a synonym of “terrorist” as was the case in the early 2000s and at present. Yeltsin’s government tried to portray Chechnya as a lawless territory where mafia networks proliferated and where all crimes was permitted. 15 Putin o terroristakh: Mochit v sortire b 1999 gody. YouTube video, 02/06/2014. Available from: [03 October 2016].

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of Maskhadov is indeed formed by terrorists, and by extension it is implied that no negotiation with “terrorists” is conceivable. In the same vein, at the beginning of military operations, Putin refused the negotiation attempts of Maskhadov, and publicly stated in an interview with Russian TV channels: “The Russian government is ready for political dialogue and cooperation with representatives of the Chechen Republic who do not have blood on their hands. (…) We have an idea of with whom and how it would be possible to negotiate. Who could force, for example, our American partners to negotiate with Bin Laden, who blew up buildings and killed so many US citizens? They are trying to capture him, by bombing – justifiably – the territory of another country, because that’s the only way to talk with terrorists.”

Maskhadov is here placed in the same category as Al Qaeda leaders. When asked by the same journalist about the taking of the city of Grozny, Putin declared: ”We do not intend to do so, we do not foresee it. But we do not rule out that option. … Our goals and objectives remain the same: the neutralization of terrorists in their bases and the creation of conditions in which they will not be able to reappear” (Koulikov 1999, 07 December).

Islamist organizations and Maskhadov’s government are amalgamated due to the fact that, even if the justification of military operations was the neutralization of terrorists, the main military operation was aimed at taking Grozny. At the same time, the harsh situation in Chechnya during Mashkadov’s rule is presented as a lawless fertile ground for the spread of radical Islam. By extension, it is not clear whether the war is against terrorism or against Chechnya. The foreign nature of Chechen jihadism is often emphasized in public statements. For instance, in his address to the Federal Assembly in April 18, 2002, Putin (already President) states: ”After September 11th of last year, people around the world have understood that the Cold War was over. It is now widely understood that there are other threats. Another war is underway : the war against international terrorism. (…) I want to emphasize that it fully applies to Russia. (…) The development of extremism is a serious threat to stability and public order in the country. It is mainly the case of those who, behind fascist and nationalist symbols and slogans, organize pogroms, attack and kill people” (quoted in Dauc8 2010, pp. 49–50).

It is no small matter that, according to the official discourse, Chechen Islamism has foreign roots and follows the deeds of international jihadist forces, conveying the idea of Russia being subject to aggression from an external enemy. This enables the consequent creation of the dichotomy between a ”good”, ideologically-modelled and State-controlled Islam on the

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one hand, and the ”bad” or deviant brand on the other hand, which is a distinction that will be explained later on. As to the Chechen civilian population, there is a blur in the official discourse and in the media as to who is a terrorist and who is not. A marked confusion among the categories of civilians, combatants and terrorists mingles with the occasional statements depicting the Chechen civilian population as being a hostage of terrorists. The ultimatum of December 6th 1999 addressed to the inhabitants of Grozny made it clear that those who did not leave the city would be considered terrorists or combatants and as such they could be targeted and killed. Similarly, according to the statement of January 11th 2000 by General Viktor Kazantsev16, in the Chechen Republic “only children younger than ten, men over sixty-five and women will be treated as refugees”. Notwithstanding, the civilian population is also portrayed as being the captives of terrorists; that is both by Maskhadov’s government and by the Islamist organizations. For instance, in the aftermath of the war, Putin states in a meeting with Chechen entrepreneurs that ”the vast majority of the Chechen people have long been tired of fighting and of special operations. People want a normal life, normal living conditions, political stability and predictability. They want to be masters of their own land. The Constitution of the Russian Federation (…) fully provides that opportunity. Only those who take their own people hostage with ambitious plans resist this opportunity. If we look at the situation in Afghanistan, for example, we see that the extremist forces have in fact taken the country and the Afghan people are their hostages. But we know that in your case [the case of Chechnya], (…) the policy was largely determined by foreigners. And that’s what happened: … they took the people hostage” (Kremlin official site 2002).

The Legal Arsenal against Terrorism and Extremism A broad definition of terrorism coupled with the discretional use of antiterrorist legislation were essential elements of the antiterrorist discourse against targeted groups, mainly Caucasians, but also against organized civil groups contesting the exactions carried out during the second war. In the post–1999 scenario, two federal laws (the Federal Law on Countering Extremist Activity promulgated in 2002 and the 2006 Federal Law on Counteraction of Terrorism) and certain articles of the Russian Criminal Code – modified in 2006 – have been frequently used in the fight against terrorism. It is interesting to note that the legal cornerstone of the fight against terrorism, the Federal Law on Counteraction of Terrorism, appeared relatively 16 Presidential envoy for the Southern Federal District from 2000 to 2004 and military leader of the operations in the Caucasus.

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late. In reality, this law is complemented by an earlier presidential decree (from February 15th 2006) creating the National Antiterrorist Committee (Komitet Natsionalnyi Antiterroristicheskii or NAK), which is supposed to centralize the antiterrorist efforts. While the law does not explicitly stipulate under which agency responsibility of the NAKwould fall, the decree states that the FSB director chairs the committee, marking the end of the quarrel between the FSB and Interior Ministry for control of antiterrorist policies. The NAK being an inter-ministerial committee, its Director is allowed to ask for personnel support and material resources from other security, defense and law enforcement agencies. The law confers great prerogatives to the executive branch of power. Besides, the governors of the regions lost their operational functions concerning antiterrorist measures; some authors (Luchterhandt 2006) consider that this is due to coordination problems between the different levels of government during the hostage taking in Beslan in 2004. Apart from the redistribution of responsibilities among different agencies of the executive branch, this law is characterized by a highly repressive approach to the terrorist phenomenon, focusing only on the operational level. Basically, the law is based on the belief that such a threat can be controlled by the development and integration of all available instruments of repression. The definition of terrorism is deliberately broad and ambiguous. In article 3 of the Federal Law on Counteraction of Terrorism, it is defined not only as the “practices that aim to influence political decisions by terrorizing the population or by using other forms of illegal violent action”, but also as “any ideology advocating violence”. In the same vein, propaganda of terrorist ideas is considered “terrorist activity”, as is the diffusion of information calling to engage in terrorism, the support or justification to such activity and any form of assistance (such as communicating information that can help terrorists). These wide definitions permit the arrest of individuals on suspicion of the supposed willingness to commit a terrorist act with little evidence. What is more, according to Russian and international human rights observers (FIDH 2008, 2009), opposing positions with respect to the official policy of the Kremlin in the Caucasus are often interpreted as “violent ideologies”, thus confounding terrorism and dissent. Moreover, when NGOs or newspapers informed the wider public of the abuses of federal troops in Chechnya during the war, this was interpreted, on the grounds of the Federal Law on Counteraction of Terrorism, as diffusing information that could help terrorists; this was the case, for example, of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, banned for “incitement to ethnic or racial hatred” when denouncing human rights violations in the field. The possibility to establish “antiterrorist operations areas” (KTO) contemplated by this law is a key point for consolidating the antiterrorist discourse towards Chechnya. In a KTO, legal dispositions ensuring the rule of law may be derogated. As soon as the law was approved in 2006, a KTO was declared in Chechnya until 2009, although in actual fact the Caucasian republic

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was already under “counterterrorist operations” in a near state of exception, with no legal basis for its support. In other words, the Federal Law on Counteraction of Terrorism rendered legal the operations already being undertaken in the field. According to the law, a KTO has no limit, either in duration or in space. The director of the NAK may declare a counterterrorist operation area any “territory with a large number of residents”, where several rights are restricted and constitutional guarantees are not ensured. In fact, many provisions of the KTO are even more restrictive of individual liberties than those of the State of Emergency (i. e., total blocking of communications, direct damage to private property and requisition of private property). A KTO is not subject to parliamentary control. As for the Federal Law on Countering Extremist Activity (2002), it originally targeted anarchist, neo-Nazi and skinhead groups. However, it was amended in 2007 to extend the notion of extremism to include the “incitement to religious, racial or political hatred, as well as hatred or hostility towards any social group”. The law in turn reforms the definition of hate crime of article 63 of the Criminal Code (“Circumstances aggravating punishment”). Criticism towards abuses of power is often considered by Russian courts as a sign of extremism, and the activities of many organizations in the North Caucasus and Moscow were banned because of charges of extremism. It goes without saying that any declaration of public support to any and all political projects differing from the Kremlin’s projections on the Caucasus is considered extremism, let alone the denouncements of abuse of power. Here again, a broad interpretation of what constitutes extremism allows encompassing any form of dissent into it. Language of the Media The same linguistic shift observed in official declarations (the passage from the “Chechen nationalist” to “Islamist terrorist”) is also present in the national written press, television and radio broadcasts; on this point, examples abound. In addition, although also used by politicians, it is noteworthy that the category of “black widows” was created by mass media, and it became widespread especially after the episode of the Dubrovka Theater. According to the journalists from critical newspapers interviewed during the research, the adoption of the official discourse by the media obeys multiple logics. Direct government control and self-censorship converge, especially after the assassination of Politkovskaya. During the second war, Russian military forces strictly controlled the diffusion of information on current events in the field. The access of media to the operational theater (which later became a zone of KTO) took the form of press trips supervised by the army and coordinated by the “Rosinformtsenr”, an information center exclusively dedicated to the communication regarding the ongoing military operations. Thus, unlike the first war, the conflict took place “behind closed doors”. The

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control over the contents of media and the internet was subsequently tightened by the creation in 2008 of the “Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media” (“Roskomnadzor”). Among other criteria, information considered as “advocating violence” and “helping the terrorists” is censored and the transmitter can be banned from Russian territory (as was the case, for example, for the news site grani.ru or ingushetya.ru). Moreover, it should be noted that the gradual monopolization of the media contributed to the adoption of the official discourse concerning the second war and the “Caucasian terrorism.” The case of the NTV channel is illustrative in this respect: formerly critical of the government, it was bought in 2001 by the semi-public company Gazprom and thereafter the channel conspicuously softened its editorial line towards the ruling power. However, even when benefiting from a certain degree of independence, the media also tended to adopt the official language concerning Chechens without direct control, save for critical publications such as Novye Izvestia or Novaya Gazeta. According to one interview issued by a critical newspaper, for example, at the time several media outlets were not directly forced by the State to convey the official discourse on Chechen terrorism or to diffuse the official perspective on the “antiterrorist operations”. However, these outlets echoed the official version of certain episodes (such as suicide attacks or terrorists’ detentions) in the quest for scoops, for “always being the first to inform the public”. Gradually, the antiterrorist perspective became the dominant discourse and finally settled as the new “common sense” of the media. Returning to the presented image of Chechens, a recurring expression with regards to terrorist attacks in Russian cities from the early 2000s was the “Caucasian track” (kavkazkii sled) or “Chechen track” (chechenskii sled), without making any distinction between the categories of “Chechens” and “terrorists” and thus reinforcing their association. A direct link between the attacks and Caucasians – and not just Islamist groups – is established. As to the category of “black widows”; they were described by the media either as Chechen women seeking revenge for the loss of a loved one during the wars or as young girls abducted and tortured by the “Wahhabis”. Similarly, as in other contexts, representations of female terrorists in the media and the interpretation of their motivations for engaging in violent activities tend to be biased by a gender perspective (Nacos 2005). In general, female terrorists are presented as intruders in a realm of men. The sentimental dimension and references to social expectations regarding femininity are usually highlighted. Such an assumption, that of women carrying out attacks to avenge the death of a loved one, helps circumvent a thorough explanation of the profound motivations of terrorism. Many differences arise when comparing how male and female terrorists are portrayed by media coverage, especially since a special category was created to describe female Chechen terrorists. To name

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only one example, the military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda presents the black widows in an article entitled ”Has the terror a female face?” in these terms: “During the hostage crisis in the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow, we could see on our TV screens several women dressed in black among the bandits. These were suicide bombers [smertnitsy], or the so-called shahidki (soldiers of Islam killed in their fight against the infidels). What led these women – potential mothers – to join the ranks of the terrorists? (…) [After their recruitment by the Islamists] they are taken hostage and mistreated. (…) The girls dare to participate in the deadly attacks of bandits guided by a single goal: to put an end as soon as possible to the physical and moral humiliation they have to endure. (…) According to available information, these suicide bombers are kidnapped girls, formerly living in Chechnya or in neighboring countries to Russia, such as Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, where large Chechen diasporas exist” (Baranov 05/03/2003 2003, March).

Such a gender-biased description, which is a representative example of the way media depicted female terrorists in the early 2000s, fails to explain the social, psychological and political factors that lead someone to engage into violent extremism, let alone the accuracy of the facts presented.

The Case of Zara Mourtazalieva: the “Creation” of a Terrorist By virtue of the antiterrorist discourse, some groups – namely Caucasians – are especially targeted by the action of law enforcement organs, and fabricated affairs seem to have been a common practice during the 2000s for presenting results of the fight against terrorism (FIDH 2009). Having defined the practices carried out in order to shape the terrorist threat at the general level, it is useful to see how this abstract concept finds its incarnation in the concrete individual. The analysis of individual incrimination provides specific details about the formulation of the threat at the general level. The case of Zara Mourtazalieva is a perfect illustration of this process. Being a trumped-up affair, the accused acts as a “blank sheet” upon which features considered deviant, dangerous or undesirable according to the general antiterrorist discourse are inscribed. Through interviews with actors who were present at the trial (which started on December 22nd 2004), it has been possible to identify some characteristics that were repeatedly mentioned by the prosecutor and the judge, that later appeared in the verdict and that were finally reflected by the media. These features that “proved” that she was indeed a terrorist – elements that, according to the dominant discourse, brand someone a terrorist – are the following:

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• The belonging to the Chechen ethnic group: being Chechen or, by extension, belonging to any ethnic group from the Caucasus is the main characteristic of the targeted individual in the Russia of the 2000s, since the Islamist threat is personified by the Chechens as a social group. • A non-traditional way of life for Caucasian women: Given the phenomenon of the black widows and the naturalization or “essentialization” of the socalled ethno-national characteristics, the fact that a young Chechen woman might live “alone” (this is, without the surveillance of a man) is not perceived as traditional behavior for Chechens. This “deviation” was often interpreted as a sign of radicalization. • The perception of a high religiosity : the fact that she “often spoke of Islam”, often used to go to the mosque or read Muslim literature appears frequently in the accounts of interviewees as a perceived sign of radicalization. The perception of being a very ”pious” Muslim certainly drew suspicions at the time of the case. • The perception of religious proselytism: in connection with the previous point, the fear of the spread of Islam among the Russian population appeared regularly during the trial, although in a subtle way. The danger posed by terrorists who “converted” Russian youth to Wahhabism is central in the case Mourtazalieva. • The critique at the military operations in Chechnya: Talking about human rights violations in Chechnya and war was deemed to be tantamount to “inciting ethnic hatred” towards Russians. The defense of any alternative to the official policy regarding Chechnya entails the label of “active opponent to constitutional Russia”. This expression appears in the verdict. • Suspicions of international links to Islamism: the antiterrorist discourse considered violent radicalization a product of foreign Islam and global jihadist organizations. Real or supposed links with international Islamic networks entailed the suspicion of radicalization. In the case of Mourtazalieva, false records of travels within and outside of Russia were invoked to underline her international mobility in jihadist circles. • Suspicions of participation in the first Chechen war : the support of separatist efforts in the first half of the 1990s is reinterpreted in light of the Islamist threat. Those with real or imagined past involvement in the first war or with the separatist government are seen as potential terrorists. A retrospective labeling is carried out, not only on events, but also on actors: figures like that of the separatist Dudayev become terrorists. An invented past as a sniper during the first war is attributed to Mourtazalieva and presented as incontestable proof of her commitment to Jihad. Moreover, the possession of “revolutionary” music (Vladimir Vysotsky and Timur Mutsuraev) was invoked to demonstrate her supposed radicalization.

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The Antiterrorist Discourse at the Regional Level: Intermingling Political Dissent and Religion in Chechnya In Chechnya itself, the federal antiterrorist discourse assumed some specifics. The pro-Putin regimes implanted by the Kremlin in the war-torn Chechnya after the second war, especially the incumbent president Ramzan Kadyrov, legitimized their repressive governments on behalf of the fight against terrorism. Yet, beyond actual jihadist organizations still active mainly in mountainous areas in the southernmost part of Chechnya, the accusation to individuals of “Wahhabism” or “banditry” remains highly politically motivated in order to secure the prevailing system. Political dissent of any kind is deliberately assimilated to religious extremism. It is important to note that Wahhabism as a religious branch is forbidden in most of the republics of the North Caucasus. Ramzan Kadyrov, in office since the assassination of his father by Islamists in 2004, maintains firm control on the Chechen religious life by closely supervising the Chechen Sufi muftiyat (council of muftis), especially when it comes to religious education in madrasas. The stated purpose is to avoid “religious indoctrination” that may lead to radicalization or extremism. Nevertheless, while after the second war the religious debate was reductively presented as that between Sufism and Salafism, the religious landscape is not as distinct as Russian and Chechen authorities present it. On the one hand, the label of Wahhabism tends to be attributed to any opposition group regardless of their religious beliefs (Raubisko 2009). On the other hand, Sufism, the majority religious branch in Chechnya, is far from being monolithic. In reality, the government fosters what it considers the “right version of Islam”, which is to say a selected set of rituals and religious symbols of a particular wird (subgroup within a brotherhood) of the Qadiriya. This wird in question is named Kunta-Khadzhi Kishinev17. Although other wirds or brotherhoods are neither banned nor particularly stigmatized, religious leaders close to the government and officials of the regime present the Kunta-Khadzhi Kishinev wird as the model to follow and its rituals are performed in public acts18. Indeed, these are frequently televised and publicly executed by government authorities19. However, while Sufism – and especially the Kunta-Khadzhi Kishinev wird – is considered by the Chechen government as the paradigm of the moderate, traditional and peaceful Islam, what is often called the “deviant Islam” is 17 Named after a renown Sufi Sheikh from the nineteenth century. 18 It must be stressed that when it comes to the religious doctrine there is no difference between the Kunta-Khadzhi Kishinev wird and other subgroups within the Qadiriya or other Sufi brotherhoods. Rather, the practices and rituals performed vary slightly. 19 Field observation, March 2016.

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mainly embodied by Salafism, whose preachers first arrived in the Caucasus in the 70s and 80s. In the discourse of Chechen media as well as that of federal and local governments, this ”politicized”, “militant” version of Islam, imported from the Middle East or Afghanistan, is inaccurately called Wahhabism, a term that is in turn equated to that of “terrorist”. It is not unusual then that an Imam would state during the prayers at the mosque that “any version of Islam deviating from official mosques is not true Islam”20. Nonetheless, according to Raubisko (2009), it is not a matter of faith, but rather of behaviors and religious or ideological symbols which are considered attributes of the Wahhabis and, consequently, of the radicalized (i. e., long beard, the perception of a high religiosity). Individuals who are perceived as Wahhabis are subjected to persecution, regardless of their actual religious orientation. Due to the intentional blurring between political dissent against the regime and religious deviation, any sort of resistance to or criticism of the rule of Kadyrov automatically brands someone a Wahhabi. In addition, certain chunks of society consider themselves Salafists from a doctrinal point of view without actually being politically engaged or supporting existing terrorist organizations. To summarize, we can distinguish on one side practices and structures of Islam controlled by, or at least loyal to, the Chechen government and the Russian State while also compatible with the federal system: what for lack of a better term could be called the “good” Islam, embodied by official Sufism, especially by the Kishinev Kunta-Khadzhi wird. This is an ideologically modelled Islam presented as the “traditional” one. On the other side, all that falls outside of the direct control of the government tends to be labeled as a deviation, entangling very heterogeneous religious trends: the non-militant Salafism, violent Salafism, other Sufi wirds and any form of practice of Islamic faith beyond the rituals of official Islam. Needless to say, the categories of “good” and “bad” change according to different political realities: Sufism was at the heart of the resistance against the Czar in the nineteenth century, as well as being the mobilizing force behind separatism during the independence movement in the 90s. Likewise, Sufi structures and Salafi preachers formed a united front in the 80s opposing Soviet authorities in the North Caucasus, especially in Dagestan, demanding the right to profess Islamic faith (Yemelianova 2001). The definition of “true” or “good” Islam is undoubtedly the result of competing narratives and power relations that are constantly shifting.

20 Field observation, March 2016. The Imam was expressing his view on Chechens leaving to fight in Syria.

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Conclusion In this paper the content and the deployment of the Russian antiterrorist discourse was explored from a poststructuralist approach. The relations between the formulation of the threat to national security posed by Chechen Islamism – which was created by virtue of the same discourse focusing on it – at the abstract level and the individual level (through the case study of Mourtazalieva) were analyzed as well. The micro level lets us delve into the details of what was considered deviant or dangerous for the hegemonic discourse in the early 2000s. The creation of the ideologically modelled distinction between the ”bad” and the ”good” Islam in Chechnya, based on the antiterrorist approach in the field, was examined as well. If we agree with the definition of reconciliation not as mere conflict resolution but as “a changed psychological orientation toward the other” deconstructing rooted negative images (Staub 2002, p. 867), it is legitimate to affirm that the Kremlin’s antiterrorist discourse in the 2000s undoubtedly constituted a stumbling block for reprocessing past events in the history of relations between Russians and Chechens – namely both recent wars – by perpetuating a negative representation based on cultural clich8s of the latter. From the Caucasian barbarian in the nineteenth century to the radicalized terrorist, Chechens were uninterruptedly seen as the cultural other who is to be feared and fought. Political changes in Russia (Chechnya being part of the Federation, a pro-Kremlin government in Grozny and increased centralization of power by the federal State) and abroad (conflictive scenarios in Ukraine and Syria) permitted the softening of such an image of Chechens portrayed by political leaders and in the media. Nevertheless, paths to effective justice concerning the exactions of both sides in the first and second war seem to be closed insofar as the new violent “peace” established in the Caucasus is based on the tacit acceptance of a retrospective labeling of events in the 90s in light of the fight against international terrorism. Since there is no room for political contestation in Chechnya, even less for political change, only Salafist organizations re-adopt into their discourse, for their own profit, the question of injustices committed in the early 2000s, both in the Caucasus and towards Chechens living in the rest of Russia. The repressiveness of Kadyrov’s regime impedes intragroup reprocessing of the second war and of forced disappearances carried out by Chechen authorities, hampering societal reconciliation within the Caucasian republic.

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Discursive Construction of the Islamic Threat in the Russian Federation 201 Conflict & Terrorism, vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 435–451. Available from: [accessed 16/08/2016]. Laclau, E & Mouffe, C 1985, Hegemony and socialist strategy : towards a radical democratic politics, London, Verso. LarzilliHre, P 2003, ‘Tch8tch8nie : le jihad reterritorialis8’ in Critique internationale, no. 20, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, pp. 151–164. Le Hu8rou, A 2003, ‘L’opinion russe face / la guerre en Tch8tch8nie, in Guerre et soci8t8 : Ptat et violence aprHs la guerre froide’ in eds P Hassner & R Marchal, Paris, Karthala, pp. 165–191. Le Hu8rou, A & R8gamey, A 2008, ‘La guerre russe en Tch8tch8nie, discours antiterroriste et l8gitimation de la violence’ in Critique internationale, vol. 4 , no. 41, pp. 99–118. Lemieux, C 2007, ‘A quoi sert l’analyse des controverses ?’ in Mil neuf cent, vol. 1, no. 25, pp. 191–212. Available from: [accessed 30/06/2016]. Ram, H 1999, Prisoners of the Caucasus: Literary Myths and Media Representations of the Chechen Conflict, Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies, Working Paper Series, Institute of Slavic East-European and Eurasian Studies. Available from: [accessed 10/08/2016]. R8gamey, A & Serrano, S 2004, ‘Entre sauvagerie et barbarie : le corps de l’autre dans les repr8sentations crois8es russes et tch8tchHnes’ in Textuel: Corps politiques, cosmopolitismes, 18Hme–21Hme siHcles, no. 48, Paris, pp. 191–212. Russell, J 2002, ‘Mujahedeeen, mafia, madmen: Russian perception of Chechens during the wars in Chechnya, 1994–96 and 1999–2001’ in Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 73–96. – (2005), ‘Terrorists, bandits, spooks and thieves: Russian demonisation of the Chechens before and since 9/11’ in Third World Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 1, London, Routledge, pp. 101–116. Staub, E, 2006, ‘Reconciliation after Genocide, Mass Killing, or Intractable Conflict: Understanding the Roots of Violence, Psychological Recovery, and Steps Toward a General Theory’ in Political Psychology, vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 867–894. Speckhard, A 2008, The emergence of female suicide terrorists. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 31, London, Routledge, pp. 1023–1051. Tolstoy, L 1938 [1863], Les cosaques. Paris, Gallimard. – (1960) [1912], Hadji-Mourat, Paris, Gallimard. Yemelianova, GM 2001, ‘Sufism and politics in the North Caucasus’ in The Nationalities Papers, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 663–688.

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Michael Humphrey/Michelle Veljanovska

Between the ICTY and Dayton: Obstacles to Justice, Reconciliation and Peace in Postwar Serbia

This chapter explores the impact of the double mission of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to administer justice, promote reconciliation and consolidate peace within the region. Its focus is Serbia’s experience with the ICTY justice and peace processes. The ICTY was established by UN Security Council Resolution 827 on 23 May 1993 under the Chapter VII provision to help restore “international peace and security” during the conflict and was the first international war crimes tribunal since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials.1 Its creation marked a turning point in transitional justice approaches to conflict by establishing the priority of accountability of perpetrators over victim recognition and national healing that had characterized the victim-centred approach of the truth commissions (Teitel 2003). The ICTY justice mission was underpinned by “judicial romanticism”, belief in the transformative capacity of the liberal values of human rights, justice and democratization to achieve peace (Kostovicova 2017). ICTY trials were supposed to end impunity, produce an official consensus about the past, strengthen the rule of law and help democratize political power in the new republics that had emerged from the former Yugoslavia (McMahon and Forsythe 2008). In other words the ICTY justice mission would consolidate the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA). But trials and peace agreements are based on different logics. In the former outcomes are determined by evidence and legal reasoning while in the latter outcomes are the product of a military contest to determine who is the winner and loser. This chapter argues that the failure to recognize the different logics of trials and peace agreements has obscured the reasons for the difficulties the ICTY faced in getting cooperation in the post Yugoslavia republics. In the case of Serbia its ambivalence towards the ICTY must be juxtaposed with the social and political impact of the DPA in regional or national reconciliation. The ICTY narrative of Serbian majority blame for the war and war crimes could not provide a unifying (majority) account of the war for the majority of Serbs. In Serbia, reconciliation required multilayered “repair and restoration of relationships and the rebuilding of trust” regionally and nationally (Clark 2012, p. 399). The regional response took the form of official state apologies and the national 1 See The Tribunal – Establishment. Available from: .

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response involved getting the supporters of the nationalist war project to acknowledge the war crimes and to reject their political and military leaders as responsible for them – i. e. former nationalist war heroes now had to be seen as war criminals. However political loss left many Serb victims alienated in post Milosevic Serbia because they were not recognized by the ICTY justice process or by the post-Milosevic governments that sought to distance themselves from the war by blaming the previous regime. The post-war Balkan context represented a problematic case for transitional justice because internal conflict ended in the breakup of the Yugoslav state and formation of new states. Prior to the Balkans crisis transitional justice had been applied in post-conflict societies in democratic transition in which perpetrator and victim communities continued to co-exist. Transitional justice was developed as an instrument to consolidate democratic transition, the rule of law and bring about national renewal. Reconciliation was achieved by forging a new consensus about the past by firstly distinguishing perpetrators from supporters/ beneficiaries of the authoritarian/repressive regime, secondly holding perpetrators accountable and thirdly getting the supporters to change sides through their recognition that the victims had suffered injustice and that the previous regime had committed serious crimes (Meister 2002). By contrast in the Former Yugoslavia (FY) accountability and reconciliation have taken place between new ethno-national states and entities in which the perpetrators and victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity have been largely separated. The ICTY has been the key authoritative international institution to produce facts about past crimes and to shrink “the space of denial” (Orentlicher 2008). However, the spatial separation of perpetrators and victims across new states and entities and the ethno-national logic of identity has generated a defensive nationalism that has politicized ICTY proceedings and turned them into a new arena for its opponents to continue to contest the meaning of the conflict. The wars grew out of the tensions between the centralizing and decentralizing forces in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) that emerged first with the death of Tito in 1980 and later with the collapse of the communist regimes at the end of the Cold War in 1990. With Tito’s death the boundaries of the Yugoslav political community shifted to emphasize internal ethno-national boundaries. Nationalist leaders revived the repressed WWII ethno-national memories of atrocities ritually enacted through the exhumation of mass graves and established ethno-nationalist political parties. Milosevic tried to preserve the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) but because for him “recentralization became associated with Serbian nationalism and Serbian interests” the other republics increasingly rejected it (Ramet 2006, p. 337). Western states also reinforced the centripetal forces by giving support to Yugoslav republics wanting to secede. At the end of the Cold War Europeanization became a geo-political strategy to transform former Communist states (Chandler 2006, Mann 2005). When the 1990 elections in FY

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republics of Slovenia and Croatia brought non-communist parties into power they revealed just how far democracy as the “will of the people” had come to mean the “ethno-national” majority (Bowman 1994).2 The trigger for military conflict with the SFRY occurred with the controversial unilateral declarations of independence by Slovenia (1991) and Croatia (1991), and later Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) (1992). The ethno-national logic of these declarations of independence saw the Serb minorities in Croatia and BiH respond by declaring their own mini republics – Republika Srpska: Krajina (Republic of Serb Krajina) 1991–1995 and Republika Srpska (Serb Republic of Bosnia Herzegovina) 1992–1995 – which secessionist parties Belgrade recognized even though they were seen as politically unviable (Mann 2005, p. 390). From 1991 to 1995 the course of the war was shaped by a struggle over borders, territory and populations to exercise complete dominion by resort to “ethnic cleansing”. BiH, the most multi-ethnic state, suffered the greatest impact from ethnic cleansing approximately 215,000 deaths, over 2.7 million were displaced, 60 % of whom were found to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Horelt 2016, p. 167). In order for the ICTY to successfully carry out its mandate all states were required to cooperate with it: “all states shall cooperate fully with the International Tribunal… including the obligation of states to comply with the requests for assistance or orders issued by a Trial Chamber under Article 29 of the statute’. Under Article XI of the Dayton Agreement (14 December 1995) also explicitly required the cooperation of the signatories’”.3

Initial concern over the lack of cooperation in the Tribunal even led to the provision for in absentia trials under Rule 61 (Thieroff & Amely 1998). In addition failure to cooperate was backed up by sanctions. Progress towards EU membership was made conditional on full cooperation with the ICTY through 2 Except for BiH all the republics had a substantial ethnic majority that became the national basis for the claims for ethno-national independence. The 1991 census in FY showed that Slovenia was 88 % Slovene, Croatia was 78 % Croat, Serbia was 66 % Serb, Macedonia was 65 % Macedonian, and Montenegro was 62 % Montenegrin and Kosovo approximately 85 % Albanian (Albanians boycotted the census), while the ethnic diversity of BiH was 44 % Muslim, 32 % Serb and 17 % Croat and 5 % Yugoslav (Mann 2005: 366); Dayton Peace Agreement, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, 14 December 1995. Available from: [23 june 2016]. 3 Dayton Peace Agreement, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, 14 December 1995. Available from: [23 june 2016]; From the very beginning the authority and credibility of the ICTY depended on the cooperation of the states involved. The political context of post Yugoslavia was much more complex and challenging than transition in post-dictatorship states like Chile and Argentina or post-apartheid South Africa where perpetrator and victim communities continued to co-exist in the same political community. In post Yugoslavia war and secession had separated ethno-national populations into new republics, political winners and losers, as well as perpetrator and victim communities.

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the handover of indictees and transfer of evidence to the tribunal (Epstein & Sedelmeier, 2008). Nevertheless between 1993 and 2002 only 6 indictees were transferred to the ICTY (Barria & Roper 2005, p. 359). In the case of postwar Serbia the issue of ICTY cooperation has produced a major political cleavage between pro- and anti ICTY. Many Serbs have viewed the ICTY as an international instrument for firstly blaming Serbia and Serbs for the war and the worst crimes and secondly shaming all Serbs by using the prosecution of individuals for collective crimes to confer collective guilt on all Serbs. Rather than the ICTY emerging as an instrument to help promote reconciliation the ICTY prosecutions have tended to polarize postwar politics and produce a culture of denial about the war. But cooperation is not shaped merely by the logic of justice but by the logic of war. The ICTY justice mission is also directed towards a peace mission. Elaine Scarry (1985) makes two important points about the role war as a method of determining who is the winner and who is the loser. The first point is that while war is a contest using violence to injure the enemy its aim is the de-realization of the other’s reality (beliefs, ideologies, national consciousness). As Elaine Scarry points out the structure of war has “three arenas of damage, three arenas of alteration – first embodied persons, second material culture or self-extension of embodied persons and immaterial culture aspects of national consciousness, political belief, and self-definition” (Scarry 1985, p. 114). War is directed at altering immaterial culture through the damage inflicted on embodied persons and material culture in order to determine who is the “winner” or “loser” of the contest. War rarely carries “the power of its own enforcement” as in a contest of mortal combat where the winner, by killing his opponent, extinguishes in death the hopes and desires of the loser (Scarry 1985, p. 101). Instead the outcome is determined by the balance between the cost (injured bodies and destroyed material culture) and commitment to the war aims (beliefs, nationalist ambitions, war aims). The second point is that war in the project of de-realization of the other’s reality assembles a new reality. Wartime political subjectivities are remade as postwar political subjectivities are altered by the outcome of war. The outcome of war in the former Yugoslavia was determined by two different contests. First, the military contest on the ground between the different military and paramilitary/volunteer forces and second a long drawn out process of international diplomatic and finally international military intervention that forced the parties (or their representatives) to the negotiating table at Dayton. International intervention included the establishment of the ICTY during the conflict as a peacekeeping measure and a deterrence to further ethnic cleansing by using indictments to signal who would be allowed to sit at the peace negotiating table (Teitel 2014, p. 118).4 The DPA determined 4 UN Security Resolution 808 (1993) 22 February 1993 states that in the face of ethnic cleansing in the territory of the former Yugoslavia “the establishment of an international tribunal would

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the new borders, the new political communities, the rights of victims, and the required acts of restitution and reparation in the Balkans. The Agreement determined who were the winners and losers that involved compromises which contravened the international political norms that “borders cannot be changed by force or war crimes rewarded” (Woodward 1996). This meant that the DPA largely confirmed the military outcome of ethnic cleansing – e. g. the displacement of Serbs from the Krajina and the displacement of Bosniaks from Eastern BiH5 – but rather contradictorily the ICTY indicted the generals responsible for war crimes arising from the military operations on both the winning and losing sides (Peskin 2005, p. 218). The post-conflict challenge was to implement the DPA by establishing international monitoring organizations to drive ICTY accountability and EU conditionality policy. The Serb nationalists experienced the outcome of the war determined by the DPA as being the political losers. Milosˇevic´’s original plan to preserve the SFRY under Serbian leadership had failed. The attempt to integrate the Serb statelets of RSK and RS in a rump Yugoslavia had failed and the project of a territorially expanded Greater Serbia supported by some nationalist parties had also failed. The catalysts for NATO military intervention in BiH in September 1995 were both military and political disasters for the Milosˇevic´ regime and the Serbs in RS. The first was the Bosnian Serb army’s seizure of the UN safe haven at Srebrenica and subsequent genocide of 8000 men and boys (July 1995). The second was the Croatian army Operation Storm that defeated the RSK statelet (August 1995) and expelled 150,000 Serbs who arrived in Serbia as refugees. The subsequent expulsion of Serb IDPs from Kosovo in 1999 and the NATO bombing of Serbia only further underlined the military defeat of the Serb nationalist war project. The Kumanovo Treaty (1999) in which Yugoslav and Serb forces agreed to withdraw from Kosovo finally ended the conflict. The position of Serbia, and its citizens, as the losing side made them the focus of legal and moral culpability. Early in the war, the international community had blamed the nationalist agenda of Milosevic for the war, highlighting their responsibility for most war crimes (Herman & Peterson 2007). But as Bowman (1994) points out ethno-national identity emerged as the underpinning logic of the moves towards secession in the FY reinforced by democracy as the sovereignty of “the people” as the ethnic nation. Ethnic homogenization informed the national politics of the 1980s with the idea that the “ethnic other” was the obstacle to achieving independence and national enable this aim to be achieved and would contribute to the restoration and maintenance of peace” (S/RES/808 1993,2). 5 The Croatian military’s Operation Storm was celebrated as the decisive victory of the Homeland War yet the Serbs evicted from the Krajina did not secure the right of return. The ICTY judged the Bosnian Serb operation in Srebrenica to be genocide yet the Dayton Agreement confirmed Republika Srpska as an entity controlling 49 % of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Perry 2009, p. 210).

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progress. Nationalism was driven by “perceived wrongs to the nation” across all communities (Ramet 2006, p. 323). In the war volunteer popular militias were represented by the Milosevic campaign as an expression of “the will of the people”. They were constructed as representative of the new ethnic democratic orders in whose name they were asked to sacrifice themselves. As Bowman (1994, p. 446) observes, “when a person is induced to imagine his or her self primarily as a representative of an ethnic collectivity, a threat to that collectivity – like a threat to its power or to the life or property of any of its members who are presented as such – is simultaneously a threat to that person”.

In the lead up to the war the Yugoslav republics divided between those that wanted to preserve the SFRY and those that wanted to secede, expressed in ethno-national terms. The ICTY mission identifies such division as the origin of the conflict: “By 1991, the break-up of the country loomed with Slovenia and Croatia blaming Serbia of unjustly dominating Yugoslavia’s government, military and finances. Serbia in turn accused the two republics of separatism.”6 The greatest blame was placed on Serbia for the ethnic cleansing in eastern Bosnia from 1991 where the largest number of casualties occurred. The genocide of Bosniaks at Srebrenica in July 1995 internationally came to symbolize Serb collective guilt. Serbia’s blame for the war and most of the war crimes was only reinforced by the Kosovo crisis and the 1999 NATO bombings of Serbia to bring the war to an end and force Milosˇevic´ from power. For the Serb nationalists the ICTY has been “the most official and internationally wide-spread means of projecting guilt, blame and shame” on them (Steflja 2010, 236). The fact that Serbs represented the overwhelming majority of indictees as well as the most senior political and military leaders prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity was proof for the antiICTY Serb nationalists that the ICTY was biased against them.7 The ICTY’s indictment and prosecution of President Milosˇevic´ for his role in a Joint Criminal Enterprise (JCE) in Croatia and BiH symbolized Serbia’s primary responsibility.8 Its opponents criticized the ICTY as administering “victor’s 6 ICTY, The conflicts. Available from: [13 July 2017]. 7 The number of Serbs indicted as a percentage of all ICTY indictees was 68.8 % and of all indictees 63.7 %. Bosnian Serbs were the largest percentage of all indictees 54.3 % (Bachmann & Fatic´ 2015, p. 86). 8 The concept Joint Criminal Enterprise was first developed at the ICTY in preparation for the prosecution of Milosevic. The original 3 indictments against Milosevic were combined in one indictment on the basis that they all amounted to a Joint Criminal Enterprise. The Appeals Court decided that: A joint criminal enterprise to remove forcibly the majority of the non-Serb population from areas which the Serb authorities wished to establish or to maintain as Serbian controlled areas by the commission of the crimes charged remains the same transaction notwithstanding the fact that it is put into effect from time to time and over a long period of time as required. Despite the misleading allegation in the Kosovo indictment, therefore, the Appeals

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justice” by which they meant bias against Serbs.9 Ironically Teitel (2014, p. 131) points out that precisely because the ICTY did not have the authority of “victor’s justice” (it was established as a peace keeping strategy during the war) it has “lacked full control over the judicial process, whether over the relevant evidence or over the accused, frequently turning to the international community for assistance”. ICTY prosecutions were based on the principle of individual criminal responsibility established at Nuremberg that allowed individuals to be prosecuted for violations of international humanitarian law. Transitional justice emphasizes the importance of assigning individual responsibility and punishment as a mechanism to distance the group from moral responsibility. “Trials are supposed to free the group from collective guilt and allow for intergroup reconciliation” (Steflja 2010, p. 237). However, at the ICTY the legal principles of “no exemption under superior orders” did not absolve culpability and nor were superiors, under “command responsibility”, freed from responsibility of subordinates under their authority meant a very wide range of individuals could be prosecuted (Steflja 2010, p. 237). In addition, because crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing were committed against ethno-national groups and in the name of an ethno-national group their collective character connected individual acts to the intentions of collectivities. As a consequence, when the ICTY prosecuted individual acts as collective crimes it had the effect of assigning moral responsibility and collective guilt. The ICTY pursued an ethno-conscious prosecutorial policy with the aim of fostering reconciliation in the region. “It was hoped that the condemnation of ethnic persecution, together with individual accountability, would transcend identity politics and advance a shift toward a more liberal order” (Teitel 2014, p. 131). But rather than transcend ethno-national identities the trials exacerbated divisions still bound to communal narratives of justification for their military actions based on survival and self-defense against the ethnic other. The focus of trials on individual legal responsibility has not been able to address “societal breakdowns of morality” and the blurring of the line between who is culpable and inculpable (Sundar 2004, p. 149). The ICTY’s judicial romanticism positioned accountability and EU conditionality as the mechanisms for bringing about political transformation and peace. Its prosecutorial policy sought to inform the public about war Chamber is satisfied that the events alleged in all three indictments do form part of the same transaction. See “Reasons for decision on prosecution interlocutory appeal from refusal to order joinder”, Slobodan Milosevic : ICTY Appeal Chamber Decision on case numbers IT–99–37-AR73, IT–01–50-AR73 and IT–01–51-AR73, 2002–04–18 see footnote 41 and paragraphs 8 and 21. Available from: [6 May 2017]. 9 “Justice on trial”, The Economist, 26 February, 2004. Available from: .

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crimes based on legal evidence presented at trials, identify and punish those responsible and individualize responsibility to avoid blaming collectivities. However, the ICTY trials ended up conferring collective responsibility on groups because the crimes were done by ethno-national groups against other ethno-national groups, and in the name of ethno-national groups. In Serbia the ICTY trials became a political arena in which to continue postwar the struggle between the supporters of the old authoritarian nationalist politics and the new democratic pro-EU politics. In our exploration of the role of justice and peace agreements in shaping reconciliation in Serbia we explore the following questions: What alteration occurred in Serbian national consciousness or political beliefs as a consequence of losing the Balkan wars? Did losing result in the de-realization of the nationalist war agenda in the majority of the population? Did the experience of losing result in the supporters of the wartime nationalist politicians turning against them and changing sides? Did the legal evidence presented in the ICTYtrials result in the population condemning the crimes done in their name? Did ICTY accountability and EU accountability result in either regional or internal reconciliation? How did the political subjectivities of the war change with the transition to democracy and international accountability?

Post Milosˇevic´ Serbia: ICTY Accountability and EU Conditionality In Serbia the defeat of a nationalist war project was drawn in the transition between Dayton and Kumanovo when Serbia signed the peace agreement over Kosovo. It is only with the political overthrow of Milosevic that his nationalist supporters were finally confronted with defeat after the second military intervention by NATO against Serbia. The key issue dividing the political establishment and population in post Dayton Serbia was cooperation with the ICTY, which only improved after the Bulldozer revolution in October 2000, and the installation of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS). The creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2001) by President Vojslav Kustunica, was widely viewed as an attempt to set up a parallel process of investigation to counter the ICTY judicial process and produce an alternate version of history. It eventually collapsed in the face of international and national criticism without holding hearings, conducting interviews or publishing a report (Hayner 2011, p. 252). The assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic´ in March 2003 by members of the state security apparatus highlighted the intensity and ongoing opposition to ICTY cooperation, and that democratic transition was incomplete with the persistence of a shadow state In Serbia reconciliation was multilayered, one regional the other national. The ICTY trials were seen as the key to producing an official account of the war

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through verdicts. Reconciliation required the trials act as a catalyst to change the wartime political subjectivities of nationalist supporters (and if possible leaders). Reconciliation can be understood as a process of changing political subjectivity and identity on the basis of truth and morality to forge a new consensus. The primary division in Serbian politics during the war was between pro-nationalist Milosˇevic´ supporters and the anti-nationalist opposition. Dimitrijevic´ (2011) characterizes the Milosˇevic´ regime as a “criminal populist regime” responsible for “collective crimes”, acts “committed by a significant number of members of a group, in the name of all members of that group, with the support of the majority of group members, and against individuals targeted on the basis of their belonging to a different group” (Dimitrijevic´ 2011). Majority support for the regime, he argues, was achieved through “populist integration” relying on an ideological consensus about the regime’s aims and methods by “subjects who belong to the group in whose name the regime rules” (Dimitrijevic´ 2011). An essential feature of Milosevic’s “criminal populist regime” was a culture of denial based on the normalization of crime engendered by a moral indifference towards collective crime in the name of an historical national victimhood. Moreover, the political subjectivity of Milosevic’s supporters was expressed in a culture of silence which took the form of a “noisy silence” of public acts of conspicuous support on the one hand and “not knowing” and acting as if no crime had happened on the other (Dimitrijevic´ 2009, p. 133). Silence about “collective crime” was also enforced against opponents of the “criminal populist regime” by repression. Political transition engenders new “crime-specific” identities and subjectivities as a result of the moral inequality between perpetrator and victim communities differentiated by “what they had to endure, what they did, or what they did not do” (Dimitrijevic 2011). In the case of Serbia the victims of collective crimes post Dayton and post Kumanovo lived in separate political communities. In the perpetrator community, the group in whose name the crimes were committed, there are those who have direct and indirect responsibility under criminal law. Amongst those who have indirect responsibility there are the bystanders (supporters of the regime), those morally blameworthy, and those who did nothing wrong (active or passive opponents), those “neither criminally or morally responsible” (Dimitrijevic´ 2011). In the Serbian case transition required that the bystanders, those not criminally responsible but morally responsible, change sides and accept the legitimacy and truth produced in the trials, acknowledge that the crimes were committed in their name and that their leaders acted criminally, and they should now reject them. The ICTY strategy was to create the legal and political environment to get bystanders to change their minds by “shrinking the space of denial” through prosecutions and get them to change sides through democratic transition and Europeanization by providing a path to EU membership. Democratic consolidation after communism also “redefined the political role of civil society, from opposition to the state to engagement with

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the state” (Kostovicova 2006, p. 23). The international community supported the rapid growth of a local NGO scene in which anti-nationalist civic actors promoted democratization and promoted reconciliation through their reengagement with civil society. The removal of Milosˇevic´ marked the formal transition to democratic government but this did not bring about a change in political culture. Gordy (2004, p. 10) writes, “the Serbs had succeeded in bringing about ‘October 5’ (the actual date on which Milosˇevic´ was compelled to leave power in 2000, but …October 6 (the imaginary date that symbolised the definitive break of Serbian political culture from the legacy of the Milosˇevic´ period) never occurred.”

Post Dayton Serbia resisted cooperation with the ICTY and had to be continually pressured to handover the most wanted indictees because of the continued influence of nationalist parties on public opinion. The long delay in the detention and transfer of the two most senior and most wanted Bosnian Serb political and military leaders, Radovan Karadzic (July 2008) and Mladic (May 2011) found hiding in Serbia are cases in point. What emerged in the post Milosˇevic´ period was a culture of denial rejecting legal and moral responsibility for collective crimes. Amongst the nationalist leaders and their supporters this took the form of a defensive nationalism denying the legitimacy and legal authority of the ICTY. Even though the new democratic governments cooperated with the ICTY, at the same time they distanced themselves from legal and moral responsibility for the collective crimes of the predecessor authoritarian state by constructing democratic transition as a new beginning. Both responses sought to reduce the relevance of the criminal past for the future but for quite different reasons. The result was the continuity of a culture of silence justified by the need to consolidate democracy. Dimitrijevic´ (2009, p. 137) describes the continuity of silence in Serbia as “the opportunistic pacification of the past or the strategy of continuity with nationalism”. The political subjectivity of defensive nationalism either minimizes or denies crimes through insisting on the balance of “our possible responsibility for war” and the “responsibility of the other side” (ibid. 2009, p. 137). Post Milosˇevic´ politics polarized over ICTY cooperation and EU integration. Even the DOS coalition government that took power after Milosˇevic´ shared the same aims of removing Milosˇevic´, implementing democratic and economic reforms and reintegration within the international community they were divided over ICTY cooperation (Ostojic 2016, p. 38). The assassination of Prime Minister Djindjic´ in March 2003 by members of a state security agency and a criminal group revealed the entrenched nature of the shadow state left over from an authoritarian government which included links with paramilitary and criminal organizations cultivated during the war (Gordy 2004). PM Djindjic´ had strongly supported the extradition of ICTY indictees – he had

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extradited Milosˇevic´ in 2001 – and had pushed for a radical break with the past regime including lustration. However during the political transition, he had been forced to compromise with representatives of the old regime and security actors who were able to preserve their influence and as a consequence constrain the democratic agenda. The tense political environment created by the conflict over ICTY cooperation and EU conditionality policies is regarded as the primary cause of his assassination (Ostojic 2016, p. 78). Post Djindjic´ the link between war crimes and ongoing criminal activity and their influence on the state became a major political issue (Mladenovic´ 2012, Gordy 2013). The impact of the DPA determination of Serbia as the political instigator of the war did not persuade most supporters of Milosevic to accept the ICTY narrative of responsibility or to reject their leaders. In fact many of the supporters of Milosevic witnessed his televised ICTY trial as another arena of combat to contest the truth about the war. Despite the role of the ICTY cooperation in forcing compliance and EU conditionality in bringing about state reform politics remained divided between the pro and anti ICTY sides. Until today independent criticism of state policies by members of international institutes or independent media are attacked as “traitors” and “foreign mercenaries” by pro-government media (Zaba 2016). Transition produced crime-specific identities and subjectivities that reinforced a culture of denial and silence about the past. Nevertheless, the impact of losing the war has also left many Serbs feeling unacknowledged victims and marginalized by a lack of official recognition by the ICTYor by the state. While winners can be positive about the value of their sacrifice and suffering losers are left with mixed emotions of loss, trauma and resentment and the sense that their suffering is without purpose. We now turn to explore the unresolved feelings of victimhood amongst Serb refugees, IDPs and veterans.

Victims and Reconciliation From the ICTY’s perspective successful reconciliation would involve the wartime bystander/supporters of the Milosevic regime accepting the endorsed legal truth produced through trials and acknowledging responsibility through official apologies by leaders. In practice reconciliation can be characterized as having two dimensions, one external and the other internal. External reconciliation has been driven by official apologies given by heads of state usually in response to high profile the ICTY trial verdicts. National reconciliation has been shaped by internal divisions over the responsibility for the nationalist war project and collective crimes and the uneven impact of war on individuals, families and communities. Serbia’s approach to external reconciliation has influenced national reconciliation especially who is recognized as a war victim in the context of defeat and democratic transition.

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Regional Reconciliation The success of the ICTY justice and reconciliation mission rested upon the acceptance of its legitimacy and authority to establish who were the perpetrators and who were the victims. Moreover, because the individual criminal acts were prosecuted as the product of deliberate systematic criminal policies – genocide, ethnic cleansing, war rape, torture – trial verdicts had the effect of condemning the ethno-nationalist war projects of which these crimes were expressions. In practice the ICTY trial verdicts were largely viewed from the perspective of the new ethno-national sovereignties whose respective justificatory war narratives determined how verdicts were received. For the ICTY the first step to establish the legitimacy of its jurisdiction was to get cooperation with the court to hand over indictees. In order to achieve cooperation in Serbia the anti-ICTY ultra nationalist politicians had to be marginalized. The extent to which cooperation advanced reconciliation can be seen in the reactions to ICTY verdicts and the formal apologies made by political leaders in acknowledging responsibility for the past. Because the international community had all along blamed Serbia for the war and most war crimes many Serbs were defensive, if not hostile, towards the ICTY from the beginning (La Rosa 2006; Subotic 2011). Public perception surveys of the ICTY consistently found that most participants resident in Serbia and those who considered themselves Serbian felt that the ICTY was prejudiced against Serbs as evidenced by what they saw as a disproportionate number of Serb indictees and neglect of Serb war victims (Mertus 2007). The EU policy of conditionality requiring states to cooperate with the ICTY only added to their perception of Serb victimization. However, it was only when the wartime leaders in both Serbia and Croatia – Silo Presidents Milosˇevic´ and Franjo Tudjman – left power in 2000 and 1999 respectively that these states really began cooperating with the ICTY. The symbolic importance of the high profile ICTY trials and the legal connection between individual guilt and collective responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity almost inevitably politicized trial verdicts. It was hoped that ICTYverdicts based on legal production of evidence would help to disrupt and challenge the dominant nationalist war narratives, especially in Serbia and Croatia. However, in the separated political communities of the post Yugoslavia republics ICTY verdicts became a focus for competition over their relative blameworthiness and claim to victimhood. The Tribunal itself became a new arena to contest the truth of the war played out through appeals of verdicts. Successful appeals served to intensify the politicization of judgments resulting in attacks on the very legitimacy of the Tribunal because an outcome was claimed to demonstrate bias, conspiracy or confirmation of one’s victimhood. Some high-profile cases overturned on appeal have highlighted the unpredictability of verdicts in forging an official

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history as a shared justice narrative that might help advance reconciliation. The acquittal on appeal in 2006 of the Croatian Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac (2006) convicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity and found to be part of a JCE led by President Tudjman to expel Serbs from the Krajina during Operation Storm and welcomed home as “homeland war” heroes (Menon 2012). The acquittal in 2012 of Vojislav Seselj, an ultranationalist and former President of the Serb Radical Party, prosecuted for his role in motivating and recruiting Serb volunteers (known as “Seselj’s Men”) to fight in Croatia and Bosnia – an appeal by the prosecution is now pending (Pavlovic 2016). The 2012 acquittal and subsequent 2017 retrial on appeal of the Serbian intelligence chiefs Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic addressed alleged crimes committed by Serb paramilitary units. These units were part of the Serbian State Security Service and run by Stanisic and Simatovic. It was believed that the units implemented the policy of ethnic cleansing, targeting Bosniaks and Croats in Bosnia and Croatia (Milutinovic 2017). The verdict against Karadzic (2016) addressed his involvement in the joint criminal enterprise in Bosnia, which at the same time exonerated ex-President Milosˇevic´. However, Milosevic’s trial was not finalized due to his death during the trial.10 The acquittals drew sharp criticism or strong support of the ICTY, depending on whether you saw those acquitted as “nationalist heroes” or “war criminals”, and revealed the limitations of relying on ICTY verdicts to produce a consensus about the war and a basis for reconciliation between the post Yugoslavia republics. The judicialisation of politics is also apparent in the use of ICTY verdicts to initiate legal proceedings in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the hope of getting a judgment of genocide from the highest international court and thereby securing the maximum legal and moral condemnation of their wartime enemies. Thus in 1999 the Croatian government filed an application against Serbia before the ICJ claiming that Serbia committed genocide against the Croatian population in 1991. In a counterclaim in 2010 Serbia argued that Croatian forces had committed genocide against Serbs in Krajina during Operation Storm in 1995. Drawing on evidence established and judgements made by the ICTY the ICJ found, on 3 February 2015, that neither Serbia nor Croatia had committed genocide (Zˇedik 2015). In fact, the only ICTY judgements for genocide have been in relation to cases concerned with Srebrencia in Bosnia Herzegovina (Milic 2015). But neither party accepted the judgement as an independent assessment on which to reach a consensus about the past and to pursue reconciliation and instead interpreted the outcome as in part vindicating their own claims. On the one hand Croatian politicians asserted that the ICJ clearly established that “Croatia was victim of aggression” 10 ICTY, Radovan Karadzˇic´ Judgment, Public Redacted Version Of Judgement Issued, Case No.: IT–95–5/18-T, 24 March 2016, para 3460; Available from: .

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(President Grabar Kitarovic´), that “the war was led on Croatian territory” (Foreign Minister Pusic´) and that the judgment showed that “the Operation Storm was a legitimate military operation” (Minister of Justice Miljenic´), on the other hand the Serbian President Nikolic´ stated that the ICJ finding “confirmed that the Croatian army committed atrocious crimes against Serbs” (Zˇedik 2015). Subotic´ (2009) refers to the practice of politicizing international court judgments for domestic political ends as “hijacked justice”. The ICJ judgement did not miss the opportunity to encourage both parties to recognize their respective responsibilities to “continue their co-operation with a view to offering appropriate reparation to the victims of such violations, thus consolidating peace and stability in the region” (Zˇedik 2015). The key symbolic act in external reconciliation has been the formal apology given by heads of state representing the communities in whose name the crimes were committed. Orentlicher (2008) argues that the ICTY trials have played an important role in “shrinking the space of denial” by establishing the facts about the perpetrators and victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Since the of end of the war many Balkan leaders have made formal apologies, however, in general they have been received with skepticism, mistrust and even hostility from recipients as well as those in whose name the apology was being given (Dimitrijevic´ 2011). As Dusan Bogdanovic a member of the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights (YUCOM) commented: “These are just ‘simulations of apologies’ whose purpose is to chase the other side to do the same” (Ahmetasevic 2010). In other words, they are strategic and symbolic acts of self-interest. Apologies by Serb heads of government have been equivocal and have failed to acknowledge unconditionally collective responsibility for the crimes. In 2004 President Boris Tadic´ apologized on behalf of Serbia to Croatia but diluted it by saying that not all Serbs should be blamed for the actions of individuals and that “We owed each other apologies” (Ahmetasevic 2010). At the time Croatians were unconvinced in part because of the Serbian government’s record of cooperation with the ICTY. President Tadic´ again apologized for Serb crimes in Croatia in an interview on Croatian radio on the eve of the 16th anniversary of Croatian independence (24 June 2007) and also mentioned that he had assumed part of the responsibility on behalf of the Serb people for the crimes against the Bosniaks on the 10th anniversary of Srebrenica genocide, but also noted Serbs had also been victims in the war (Horelt 2016, p. 171). Horelt (2016, p. 164) argues that Serb apologies have been characterized by the tendency to level “accounts by universalizing the victim status of all warring groups during the war, as well as individualizing the guilt by attributing the crimes to few unnamed culprits”. Official Serbian government apologies have been used instrumentally to advance the EU accession process. In 2010 the Serbian parliament passed the Srebrenica Declaration apologizing to the families of the victims that “everything possible had not been done to prevent the tragedy” (Horelt 2016, p. 183). The

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declaration took place in the context of Serbia’s application for EU accession and followed up a 2009 EU resolution that member countries condemn the genocide in Srebrenica. The declaration was generally received as a positive step forward in the international community. However most Bosnian Muslims were very disappointed that the declaration omitted the term “genocide” and included a levelling statement about their own victimhood. Horelt (2016) argues that Serb apologies to BiH have not had any reconciling effects. Official apologies, as representative actions, are frequently experienced as lacking authenticity by victims who expect “an honest attitude of regret, exemplified both by words and a genuine feeling of remorse” (Dimitrijevic´ 2011). The Srebrenica Declaration revealed the strong divisions that remained in Serbia over the past in which denial and moral indifference towards past crimes persists. Hostility towards the official apology is not merely a problem of the lack of public knowledge about the crimes but the support for a defensive nationalism. As the ICJ pointed out in its judgment about Srebrenica the parties had a responsibility to educate the public about the crimes. Political leaders have been criticized for not following up official apologies with public campaigns to raise public awareness of the legal facts and sensitize the population at large’ (Post-war Justice in the former Yugoslavia, 2012, 12). The wider regional projects for truth telling and establishing facts about the war have been the initiative of civil society organizations rather than states. The major initiative has been the RECOM Process launched in 2006 by the Humanitarian Law Center (Serbia), the Research and Documentation Center (BH) and Documenta (Croatia) supported by the international donor community (RECOM http://recom.link). The RECOM Process has been victim centered with the aim to allow “victims and their families space to reclaim their individual stories of pain and suffering” (Kostovicova, 2015, p. 258; Kostovicova 2017). This bottom up initiative led to extensive community consultation between 2006–2011, which recommended the creation of an inter-state commission. However, critics have argued that the RECOM initiative has been part of the international “NGO-ization” of civil society making it too closely linked to international donors and too distant from grass roots to be effective in promoting justice and reconciliation (Kostovicova 2017). National Reconciliation In postwar Serbia national reconciliation required creating a consensus about the war, in particular who were the perpetrators and who were the victims. The main obstacle to reaching a consensus about responsibility has been the persistence of the wartime political subjectivities divided between supporters and opponents of Milosˇevic´’s nationalist war project. In the postwar environment this division been transposed as pro-ICTY and anti-ICTY and pro-EU and anti-EU positions (Fridman 2011). Another problem has been the

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culture of denial which has sought to either diminish responsibility by leveling – the others did it too! – or quarantining responsibility as belonging to the old authoritarian regime. The identification of the victims is particularly vexed in the postwar environment of defeat, widespread feeling of loss and disorientation. Many citizens feel victims of the war and have struggled with the dissonance between personal experiences, sacrifices and political outcomes. Those sections of society most closely associated with the war – the veterans, refugees and IDPs – came to see themselves as war victims and also as subjects of legal and moral neglect. A culture of denial has emerged among supporters of the war, who as a minority voice, seek to remove the question of responsibility for war crimes, by claiming the war is justified by a defensive nationalism. There has been a failure to recognize the legal and moral importance of acknowledging the past and the question of “collective crime” as if the past doesn’t matter (Dimitrivejic 2011). However, the ambiguity of addressing the war crimes has left a moral asymmetry by creating new crime-specific identity groups – members of the perpetrators’ group and victims’ group – in postwar Serbia. Reconciliation requires moral equivalence between perpetrators and victims before it can proceed. To recover moral equivalence “victims and their community have a special entitlement: they have the right to demand a proper reaction from those associated with the criminal agency. On the other hand, the perpetrators and members of their group do not have any entitlement, or right to demand or expect anything from victims” (Dimitrijevic 2011).

Their respective moral positions – whether one did wrong or not – impose different obligations. The impact of the moral asymmetry between victim and perpetrator groups makes reconciliation problematic. In order to acknowledge the past and come to share a common non-conflictual future they need to be able to treat each other as equals. In order to re-establish moral equivalence there needs to be an acknowledgement that “the crime was wrong; it should not have happened; no argument can be advanced to justify it; it must not be denied; we have to find an appropriate response to it; the principal addressees of this response should be victims and their community” (Dimitrijevic´ 2011).

The question of national reconciliation also confronts the problem of defeat, where denial is itself an expression of exclusion from the narrative. Ironically the responses of the defensive nationalism and anti-ICTY camp and the prodemocratization and pro-ICTY camp have converged in seeking to quarantine the past but for different reasons. While the culture of denial of the former seeks to reject truth, in the case of the latter it is based on the displacement of responsibility by the democratic regime onto the authoritarian regime. This has had the effect of silencing the past and excluding the experience of the war

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and the question of moral asymmetry from public discourse. As a consequence, the individual experience of war, outside the ICTY accountability and collective crime discourses, has no way to anchor itself in the new political community. “(…) I am a Serb by chance, but the crime was consciously and systematically carried out in my name. The outcome of this is the fact of my being a Serb by chance is thus cancelled by the conscious intention and actions of those who declared my nationality as being the reason for the murder of people who bear another name. The chance nature of my national existence comes to an end at this point since the crime committed in my name is in a specific sense the final act: the ideological foundation, character and proportion of the crime is such that it penetrates my individual identity. This is the most painful point we have to confront: regardless of whether I am innocent or guilty, regardless of whether I voted for or against Milosˇevic´, regardless of whether I was at home among friends expressing understanding for this brutal nationalism or expressing burning liberal arguments against it, regardless of whether I had withdrawn into ‘internal immigration’ or was actively opposed to such acts at the risk of my own life – those crimes which were committed form part of my individual identity (…)” (Dimitrijevic 2000, p. 58).

Dimitrijevic provides a characterization of individual entrapment in the culture of defeat, which highlights the problem of what Ferr#ndiz (2010) calls the “intimacy of defeat” in which individuals find themselves isolated with their war experience without a socially legitimating discourse to express them. The only channel available to address the “intimacy of defeat” has been local NGOs focused on therapeutic interventions for individuals. The international stigmatization of Serbia through the focus on the conduct of Serbian forces as primarily responsible for the war crimes and crimes against humanity in BiH, Croatia and Kosovo has also put Serb victims of the war in an ambiguous position. As we noted above the impact of defeat involves the de-realization of immaterial culture (national consciousness, political beliefs and identities) by inflicting injuries on the body and material culture. The injuries/loss experienced by the losing side become de-legitimated in the logic of the contest. The dilemma faced by the marginalized war victims in Serbia is that their feelings of injustice, being aggrieved and emotionally wounded are exacerbated by the dominant political subjectivities forged by a defensive nationalism. In order for the victim’s feelings of loss to be redeemed their negative feelings of past suffering must be “valorized and made meaningful” (Meister 2011, p. 216). The victims on the losing side are also often less visible because their suffering does not fit the dominant narrative of political and moral culpability. As a consequence, they are seen as less deserving, reinforced by their shared collective guilt as members of the losing side. Put another way, in defeat the meaning of suffering is problematic as the cause for which people/their side was fighting has been de-legitimized. In post Milosˇevic´ Serbia the victims

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associated with the war – Serb refugees from the Krajina, IDPs from Kosovo, and veterans whose war service was obscured by the official version of Serbia’s military involvement in the war only between 1991–2. They have struggled to gain recognition. Their suffering is inconvenient and problematic because it has not been recognized and legitimated by the ICTY prosecutions. The Croatian army and police Generals Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac were acquitted on appeal for war crimes during Operation Storm – yet the event persists as a traumatic memory without reparations or reconciliation narrative (Obradovic-Wochnik 2013a, 2013b; Subotic 2013; Gödl 2007). Moreover war victims have been further marginalized by the new democracy government position that argued that they had nothing to do with the wars and crimes associated with the authoritarian past. The construction of postwar situations as generating psycho-social needs has seen NGOs make individual well-being a necessary element in what they refer to as “reconciliation” projects (Veljanovska 2015). They have focused on personal experience and unresolved feelings of loss and a lack of social mourning. These NGOs approach reconciliation projects as strategies to address the relationship of Serbs to their lost worlds – coming to terms with the simultaneous experience of political defeat and individual loss as the privatizing of loss isolated by the government’s inability to resolve the legacy of defeat. NGOs, with a specified reconciliation mandate, focus on individuals that have become marginalized victims to the larger political defeat discourse. As marginalized victims, their experience is incorporated into promoting reconciliation as the personal coming to terms with loss, grief, trauma, and the occurrence of the war (Veljanovska 2015). They are encouraged to articulate their experience and to become reconciled with what has happened to them – adjust their self-identity to accept their present. Veterans The narrative of national reconciliation is problematised by the perception of war veterans and their own view of themselves. Several war veteran focused groups highlight the conflated view of war veteran positions in post-war situation. The president of the Association of War Veterans of Serbia, Mile Milosˇevic´, noted that 700,000 people fought in the Yugoslav People’s Army. The management of their role in the war is contested by the official government denial that Serbia was involved in the war beyond 1991–1992. The outcome for war veterans is that the government relinquishes legal liability to afford entitlements such as pensions or other forms of support required due to losses incurred through serving the former state.11 Many allege that the human 11 Cited in Mirko Rudic 2013, ‘Soldiers of Misfortune’, BIRN. Available from: [accessed 20 September 2013].

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narrative to the collective stigmatization of Serbs as “aggressors”. Reintegration is seen as a way to help with the reconciliation of individual veterans in the post-war society by changing their perspective on the war and getting them to reflect on their own and others moral culpability for the outcome. At the local level NGOs sought to promote veterans, especially the most nationalist ones, as vehicles for driving local community debates about their individual postwar predicament and experiences of defeat. One example is the “Cetiri Pogleda” (Four Views) programme that organized public forums in local communities throughout Serbia, between 2002–2004. Ex-combatants from opposing sides or the same army were brought together to attend forums in which they could discuss their war experience. Veteran participation allowed them to share their common experiences and their challenges of stigmatization. These forums were also used to explore feelings of community resentment towards veterans as being partly responsible for the nationalist war project, and war crimes committed in the community’s name. It sought to get participants to reflect on the different degrees of responsibility including “bystanders”. The inter-community forums also provided a way to rupture the homogeneous local community perspectives that the war had produced by being forced to listen to others’ experiences. Other NGOs such as VDS addressed the legacies of war violence indirectly through victims of domestic violence who frequently turned out to be the partners of veterans with unresolved war trauma. As a result of their work on domestic violence VDS expanded its programme to address veterans groups and their experience of stigmatization and alienation in the new democratic Serbia. Their work identified the significance of the phenomenon of veteran auto-identification as victims arising from the lack of any legitimating postwar discourse for those closely associated with the defeat of the nationalist war project. While the ICTY prosecutions turned them into a stigmatized category to blame for the war crime, the postwar democratic governments distanced themselves from the veterans to avoid engaging in the more difficult questions around moral culpability. The therapeutic focus of NGO programs on individual and social discourse attempted to normalize war veterans as ordinary citizens with rights to entitlements such as pensions. However, many veteran groups wanted to be recognized as war “victims” not of state criminality but state politics and policies which they felt had betrayed them. However, the veterans’ claims to war victim status remains controversial. Some NGOs argue that the status of war victim should be reserved for the many unacknowledged war victims such as war rape survivors; they are considered more deserving of empathy and support. National reconciliation became focused on victims whose feelings of isolation, personal grievance with their post-war situations, and losses were an expression of the postwar culture of defeat. The intimacy of defeat left them with no affirmative discourses only stigmatizing ones. NGOs understood that the culture of defeat had to be challenged through self-reflection, survivor

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empowerment and community engagement, to move beyond merely legal culpability in order to address the broader question of moral culpability. Thus, the question of reconciliation went beyond developing a program for addressing psychological healing and demobilization of veterans arising from the ICTY justice and DPA peace projects. It became a process for incorporating veteran experiences into larger societal and policy discussions of postwar futures. Emerging from their attempts to contextualize moral culpability for the war and its victims were broader initiatives about victimization. The Victimology Society of Serbia (VDS) developed inclusive programs that addressed victims of political violence, human rights war violations, and all other crimes regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion or political affiliation. VDS called this the third way approach: “(…) [VDS] strives to deconstruct the victimization rhetoric, used in war propaganda, and define the victims and crime perpetrators in such a way to include all those who were victims i. e. all those who committed crimes with the respect towards differences and specifics. Besides the victims and perpetrators, the definition encompasses victims and perpetrators of crimes committed in circumstances of the violation of human rights and political feuds within Serbia itself (…)” (Nikolic´Ristanovic´ 2008, p. 375).

IDPs and Refugees Displaced Serb populations from BiH, Croatia and Kosovo have also become the focus of reconciliation projects at the community level. In 2000 the UNCHR estimated there were 508,000 refugees from BiH and Croatia and more than 180,000 from Kosovo.12 Serb refugees and IDPs represent traces of defeat and represent problematic categories framed by the right of return. The Serb refugees and IDPs continue to symbolise Serb grievances over the inequity of human rights recognition – the Krajina Serbs feel they have never received the same recognition for the right of return as Bosniaks did to Republika Srpksa in Eastern Bosnia while the Kosovo Serbs claim victim status as a product of ethnic cleansing. However, despite being symbols of war grievance the reception in Serbia of Krajina Serbs evicted in 1995 was largely ambivalent because they signified the failure of the nationalist war project. Instead of arriving in Belgrade some of the Krajina Serbs found themselves relocated to Bosnia to support ongoing military operations while others were resettled in Kosovo to boost the local Serb population (Helm 2005, Wilkinson 1995). At the time Milosˇevic´ saw Kosovo as a solution for this refugee problem (Mann 2005, p. 393). Still today the IDPs from Kosovo represent an unresolved politicized category around the right of return because Serbia continues its opposition to Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence in 2008. NGOs 12 Available from: .

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like Grupa 484 began relief work with these refugees and IDPs during the big refugee flows from Croatia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999. In 1997, under the motto “Your life in Your Own Hands”, they targeted school children, parents of children with special needs, and their families to identify specific needs, and postwar living conditions of refugees. They also documented patterns of displacement and victims of expulsions. But as these groups confronted the likelihood that their exile was going to be permanent Grupa 484 shifted their focus to settlement, integration and reconciliation activities. To highlight the shared experience of displacement and resettlement uncertainty Grupa 484 reframed the refugees and IDPs in Serbia as “victims of forced migration”. For these groups reconciliation refers to their grievances over loss, displacement and the restitution of rights. Grupa 484 focused on psycho-social programs; programs aimed at helping them to come to terms with their lost lives and adjust to their new social and political environment. They also focused on immediate practical needs such as social housing and tenancy rights, however these cannot be disentangled from the complex political and legal questions that remain unresolved with respect to compensation and right of return. The Serbian government continued to problematize the existence of refugees and IDPs as a regional issue. They put it on the agenda of meetings with international donors which have included the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, European Commissioner for Enlargement, US Population, Refugees, and Migration Agency, Office of the Secretary General of the OSCE, Coordinating Body for Migration and Asylum of the Council of Europe, and the Council of Europe Development Bank. The Serbian government has sought shift responsibility for needs to the EU and other international stakeholders. However, refugees and IDP have come to embody the unresolved regional questions regarding lost citizenship and the denial of pension entitlement from their prewar homes (Djuric 2010). Refugees and IDPs have been marginalized because they remain a politicized category and an inconvenient social reminder of the consequences of defeat. There several local NGOs dealing with the impact of the war on diverse victims, adopting an inclusive and non-discriminatory approach. For example, during the war and postwar periods, VDS understood that healing in postwar society would have to address the full diversity of war victims in order to achieve national reconciliation. One initiative involved establishing a telephone support service for rape and domestic violence victims. They also supported victims in criminal cases, as well as lobbied for greater legal protection by proposing amendments to domestic violence laws, in order to capture the increase in post-war related abuse. They documented the changing pattern of sexual violence and identified the links between wartime political and criminal sexual violence. However, their approach to reconciliation emphasized individuals and their experiences.

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“(…) In a post conflict society, such as ours, much of the population, if not all, are in some way victims of war …. But besides that, dealing with the past involves opening of serious topic, starting conversations about the crimes and their victims, and efforts toward reconciliation between parties in conflict. Working most directly on the latter aspect of dealing with the past, I have found that the following factors have a negative impact on talks about the past and the possibility of reconciliation: unfinished recovery process of a large number of people who are different affected by war, lack of attention to our own psychophysical health and spirituality, and perhaps even considering dealing with oneself as a luxury or selfishness (…)” (Nikolic´-Ristanovic´ 2011, p. 160).

The intimacy of defeat marginalized society at large from its own experiences which were managed by post Milosˇevic´ governments adopting strategies of rupture with the past to help political normalization of state legitimacy to hasten accession and Europeanization. If restoration of moral equality is the basis on which reconciliation can occur, as Dimitirijevic´ (2011) argues, then NGO focus on individual acknowledgement of political and moral responsibility may be the only effective way to proceed. He argues personal apology is the duty of all Serbs because the collective crimes were committed in the name of their community. The substance of the apology depends on the level of political and moral culpability “Take for instance a decent member of the Serbian society, somebody who did nothing legally punishable nor morally wrong. She may have never agreed with the crime, She may have publicly distanced herself from it, or even actively resisted it. Still the addressees of her apology – the victims and their loved ones – do not know, nor do they have a duty to know about her decency.”

Conclusion ICTY accountability and EU conditionality aimed to bring peace and reconciliation in Serbia by linking international criminal trials with Europeanization. While they expected compliance and internationalization they too often got compliance and defiance (Bachmann & Fatic´ 2015, p. 157). The Europeanizing project was a civilizing project going beyond legal culpability and the rule of law to the cultural essentialization of Serbs as the European Other (Bachmann & Fatic´ 2015, p. 157). The other dimension omitted from the transitional justice narrative is the political consequences of winning and losing for peace and reconciliation. While Serbia was identified as a losing side in Dayton this did not lead to the de-realization of the nationalist war project only its marginalization. The defensive nationalism that emerged in the post Milosevic period amongst the supporters of the wartime nationalists made

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ICTY compliance a source of political tension and is widely believed to be the reason for the assassination of PM Djindjic´ in 2003. The challenge of reconciliation is to re-establish a moral equality after collective crimes that differentiated citizens along a spectrum of moral and political culpability into perpetrators, supporters, bystanders and victims. In Serbia the separation of perpetrator and victim communities into new political communities and the defeat of the nationalist war project created two dimensions to reconciliation, one regional the other internal. The ICTY trials aimed to get supporters to change their minds and change sides. Only then could one forge at least a majority conviction of official apologies and a political community with a shared view of the past.

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Teitel, RG 2003, ‘Transitional Justice Genealogy’ in Harvard Human Rights Journal, vol. 16, pp. 69–94. Teitel, RG 2014, Globalizing Transitional Justice: Contemporary Essays, Oxford University Press. Thieroff, M & Amley Jr, EA 1998, ‘Proceeding to Justice and Accountability in the Balkans: the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and Rule 61’ in Yale Journal of International Law, vol. 23, no.1, pp. 231–274. Veljanovska, M 2015, Reconciliation as a Politics of Transition in Post-War Societies: Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Croatia, Doctoral Dissertation awarded by University of Sydney, The School of Sociology and Social Policy, Australia. Vukosavljevic, N 2012, ‘Dealing with the Past in Former Yugoslavia’ in Reconciliation?! Training Handbook for Dealing with the Past, eds I Franovic, N Vukosavljevic & T Smidling, Centre for Nonviolent Action: Belgrade-Sarajevo 2014. Wilkinson, T, 1995, ‘Stage Being Set for More Ethnic Fury in Balkans: Serbia: Krajina refugees arrive in Kosovo region. Oppressed Albanian majority there shuns them’ in LA Times August 15, 1995. Available from: . Wilson, RA, 2005, ‘Judging History : The Historical record of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia’ in Human Rights Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 908–942. Woodward, SL 1996, ‘America’s Bosnia Policy : The Work Ahead’ in Brookings, 10 July. Available from: [accessed 10 June 2017]. Zaba, N 2016, ‘Critical Voices Defy Fear in New Serbia’ in Balkan Insight, 20 October. Available from: [accessed 16 July 2017]. Zˇidek, N 2015, ‘Peace and reconciliation in the Balkans: Croatia v. Serbia’ in EInternational Relations, 25 February. Available from: [accessed 15 June 2017].

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Deferring Human Rights: Humanitarian Exhumations as an Alternative Approach to Resolve the Issue of the Missing Introduction There are various reasons why people disappear and why information about their fate is held back for years. Revealing such information often means uncovering painful truths about the way disappeared persons have been treated or the criminal nature of the acts that led to their disappearances or deaths. In many cases the disappeared persons have been killed, but lack of information ensures that relatives often continue to live for many years in a situation of extreme insecurity, anguish and stress, torn between hope and despair (Nowak, 2002). This silence, the darkness the families are kept in, has devastating consequences not only for them, but for the community as a whole. Families of disappeared persons live in limbo, suspecting their loved ones are dead, yet unable to mourn without proof. Constantly tormented by the possibility of uncovering the truth about the disappearances of their loved-one they spend years in desperate search (ICRC 2007, p. 1). According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) “such festering wounds can rot the fabric of society and undermine relations between persons, groups and nations for decades after the actual events” (ICRC 2003, p. 9). The ICRC warns that if left unresolved, disappearances will have an impact on the capacity of the affected community to cope with its violent past and ensure sustainable peace (Cretol & La Rosa 2006, p. 356). The continuous nature of the crime of enforced disappearance causes anguish and sorrow to the families which reaches the threshold of torture (UNWGEID 2010, § 4). Most importantly, the practice violates a fundamental right to know the truth; the truth regarding the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared person, this right cannot be restricted by the states since any such restriction “only adds to, and prolongs, the continuous torture inflicted upon the relatives” (ibid). Recognizing the heinous nature of this crime and united to eradicate its practice, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration on Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances, by the Resolution 47/133 in 1992. The Preamble to the Declaration provides for the most commonly accepted

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definition of enforced disappearances. It reads that in many countries enforced disappearances occur : “in the sense that Persons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of Government, or by organized groups or private individuals acting on behalf of, or with the support, direct or indirect, consent or acquiescence of the Government, followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law.”1

In 2006, this definition has been cemented in article 2 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances. In 2013, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a Resolution entitled “Missing Persons from Europe’s conflicts: the long road to finding humanitarian answers.” The first paragraph of it reads that “solving the problem of missing persons following armed conflicts in Europe is vital for establishing reconciliation between war-torn societies and former warring parties and ensuring peace on the European continent” (PACE 2013). The European Court has developed a case-law on disappearances by applying the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to cases from countries dealing with legacies of armed conflicts such as Cyprus, Turkey, Russia, and the Balkans. However, the successful litigation of disappearance cases at the level of the Council of Europe (CoE) has not resonated at the domestic level, as the full implementation of these judgements is dependent on the political will of the States involved. This also means that in many of those disappearance cases the relatives of the missing are still left in darkness about the fate and whereabouts of their loved-ones, this also impedes reconciliation. Looking into the issue of missing persons and reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina some authors have argued that reconciliation might be impeded due to the unresolved issue of the missing persons in three ways: first, by the inability of the families to have closure and move forward; second, by prolonging their trauma, and third, by feeding inter-ethnic mistrust (Clark 2010, p. 429). By taking Chechnya as a case-study, this paper will look into the work done at the CoE level to alleviate the suffering of the victims, guided by the questions of how the victims’ interests and needs intersect with the interests of those of international institutions and human rights NGOs. Thereby, I follow the hypothesis that the victim’s priorities are not necessarily met by a traditional focus on retributive justice measures. This hypothesis is supported by the empirical data which shows the low priority the relatives of the disappeared give to prosecution and punishment. This empirical data is in contrast with the emphasis on retribution in transitional justice in general and 1 Available from: http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/47/a47r133.htm>.

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the legalistic approach advocated by CoE and NGOs in relation to Chechnya. The data obtained from surveys and interviews with Chechnya’s victims of disappearances show that their priorities and needs differ from what the ECtHR judgments are capable of delivering. Although the CoE recognizes that “as long as a person is missing, this issue will remain an open wound for all concerned, a sore which never heals. It stops everyone from moving on after conflicts” (PACE 2013, §2), the retributive justice it focuses on is not conducive to finding out the fate and whereabouts of the missing in the states with the weak rule of law and absence of political will. Thus, the paper aims at drawing attention to this negative relationship between the issue of missing persons and the prospects for reconciliation in societies dealing with a violent past such as Chechnya. It underscores the importance of engaging in a victim-centered approach “defined by the prioritizing of the needs of the victims as defined on victims’ terms” (Robins 2014, p. 63) in reconciliation efforts and peace building. The author proposes to deal with the issue of the missing in Chechnya on humanitarian grounds until the conditions are ripe to employ other transitional justice mechanisms. The empirical data of this paper stem from 20 surveys which were collected in 2012 from the relatives of the disappeared all of whom currently reside in Europe, none of whom went to the European Court. In addition, 8 semistructured interviews were conducted in 2016 in Chechnya with the relatives of 9 disappeared men. In recent years, these families have won cases at the European Court. While the goals of the 2012 surveys and 2016 interviews differed in nature and were gathered from different contexts, a number of identical questions were asked which permitted the making of preliminary observations on the needs and priorities of the families of the missing. More in-depth interviews and focus group discussions are planned in the future and will be presented as part of the author’s PhD thesis in 2019.

Transitional Justice Transitional justice is the concept used to describe the process of transition from conflict to peace or from authoritarian regimes to democracy.2 The word “transition” implies a change and it is therefore difficult to apply the term to situations which can be described as “simmering” conflicts or a situation of negative peace such is the case in Chechnya. Can there be a transition without a peaceful resolution of the conflict first? Some aspects of the violent past can be dealt with before a political transition takes place and hence, a political 2 For a more detailed paper on transitional justice and reconciliation, read the chapter by Carolina Rehrmann in this volume.

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transition need not to be a precondition for all measures (Shaw & Waldorf 2010, p. 166). In transitional justice, revisiting the past is seen as the way to move forward. This is indeed true when it comes to dealing with the disappeared. Finding out about the fate and whereabouts of the thousands of missing persons, can be one of the aspects of the violent past which can be dealt with before the proper transition takes place and other transitional mechanisms are established to address issues such as accountability. Dealing with this on the basis of humanitarian needs, unlinking it from the wider human rights issues and the political solution of the conflict can be a first step towards transition. According to the UN, the transitional justice field encompasses “the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with societies attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation. These may include both judicial and nonjudicial mechanisms, with differing levels of international involvement (or none at all) and individual prosecutions, reparations, truth-seeking, institutional reform, vetting and dismissals, or a combination thereof” (UNSC 2004, para 8). Insisting on purely judicial measures in post-conflict situations according to the UN may have the opposite effect to what is desired and may prevent the realization of peace and stability (ibid). Despite the fact that the UN mentions both judicial and nonjudicial mechanisms, the main focus of transitional justice to date has been on establishment of judicial mechanisms such as setting up the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and the International Criminal Court. And notwithstanding the fact of reconciliation being identified as one of the aims of transitional justice, the predominant focus in transitional justice has been on retributive justice (McEvoy 2008, p. 25). Legalistic dominance in transitional justice leads to the disconnection of “individuals, and communities from any sense of sovereignty over transitional justice” (ibid, p. 29) and contributes directly to two distinctive processes of “distant justice” and justice “embedded” in communities that have been directly affected by violence and conflict (Gready 2005, p. 2).

Disappearances in Chechnya Looking at the high sky glass buildings, the largest mosque in Europe and the many renovations while driving through the streets of Grozny, one could easily forget that in the past 22 years this tiny republic in the North Caucasus, with a population of less than a million people, went through two brutal wars which have resulted in the disappearance of thousands of people. Despite the ruins of war quickly changing into new buildings, the issue of the missing persons remains unresolved. Characterized by the absence of physical bodies and the denial and silence from the state authorities, this particularly heinous crime

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keeps the families of the disappeared in the past, making it difficult for them to move forward. There is no official list which would provide information on the numbers of people who have disappeared during the two wars in Chechnya. This appears to be so, because creating such a list would mean acknowledging the existence of the problem. “In practical political terms if something is not measured it does not exist, if it is not counted it does not count. If there is no data, an issue or problem will not be recognized, defined, prioritized, put on the agenda, and debated. Therefore, to measure something – or at least to claim to do so – is to announce its existence and signal its importance and policy relevance” (Andreas & Greenhill 2010, p. 1).

This is yet to happen in Chechnya. Accordingly, one has to rely on numbers provided by various NGOs. These figures vary from 3,000 to more than 7,000 (Amnesty International, 2007; Peace Mission General Lebed). The Human Rights Ombudsman in Chechnya himself admitted the figure is well over 5,000, noting that these people disappeared after being detained at Russian military checkpoints; during house to house identity checks, or during sweep/ mop up operations (Channel Pik, n.d.).3 The ICRC has registered over 2,200 people as missing (ICRC interview). Nearly 160 families on the ICRC’s list have between 2–4 people missing (ICRC 2009 A). The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture called the refusal to disclose the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared, one of the constitutive elements of the definition of enforced disappearances “an intentional act directly affecting close family members. Being fully aware they are hurling family members into turmoil of uncertainty, fear and anguish regarding the fate of their loved one(s), public officials are said to maliciously lie to the family, with a view to punishing or intimidating them and others.”4

The effect of such intimidation and punishment on the Chechen society has been eloquently described by Chechen journalist Mainat Abdulaeva, according to whom “all these years of war and mass terror, this conscious policy of intimidation have gradually been superseded by an atmosphere of mutual distrust” (cited in Gilligan 2010, p. 154). Rebuilding trust, however, is an important element for reconciliation to occur (Robins 2014).

3 Available from: . 4 UN SR on torture: §12. Available from : .

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Impact on the Society “Even if I ask to find perpetrators, no one will search for them, and no one will find them, we know that too well. But if I culd find my son and bury him, then I would stop suffering. Every night, I dream as if he is calling for me, the suffering does not go away. Once you know that a person is dead, you bury him and continue your life, the suffering stops. What causes me pain today is not knowing whether my son is alive or dead. In my heart, I always feel that he needs my help. Crying does not help. But I doubt that I will ever find out the truth about my son. There are many other families whose relatives have disappeared. No one in this country is looking for my son or for them. No one came to me to tell me that that they know about my pain, to tell me that they will do everything to find my son. Even if they pretended they have found him, then my suffering would stop, and I would stop hearing my son’s call for help every night. Once you bury a person, your suffering eventually stops, but it never stops if the person is disappeared” (Interview 4, 2016).

This quote from a father whose son has disappeared in 2000 provides a good illustration of the current situation in Chechnya and the impact the disappearances have on the family members. In August 2009 the ICRC issued its last publicly available report on the North Caucasus 5 “Families of Missing Persons: Responding to their Needs”. The report notes that “thousands of families are still waiting to know the fate of their loved ones and are unable to move on with their lives; they have been left in a state of a frozen life. And, in a culture where the identity of the ‘family unit’ is so important, it is a clearly a problem which if left unresolved will continue to burden the whole of society, especially the future generation” (ICRC 2009 A, p. 1).

The ICRC found it striking that the majority of those interviewed believed their relatives to be alive (73%) and some of them even thought these people might be held in secret detention places. This situation has not changed seven years after the ICRC’s assessment. My 2016 interviews revealed that the majority still believed their disappeared relatives to be alive and many genuinely expressed the hope that they are kept in secret prisons somewhere in Russia. However, it is interesting to see the contrast with the surveys collected in 2012 within the Chechen community in Europe: only 4 out of 20 respondents replied that the disappeared are alive according to them; 8 stated they think he or she is probably alive, but 8 respondents believed the disappeared are dead. This discrepancy may be the result of the fact that the respondents to the survey were all located outside of Chechnya, are not constantly receiving various rumors, or misleading information about their 5 The North Caucasus consists of seven republics, while the Report focused exclusively on Chechnya.

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disappeared, and are away from the place where the traumatic events took place. Of those who believe the disappeared are alive, or those who responded “probably alive”, many stated that the disappeared might have lost his memory, or might be kept in a secret prison. Since Russia does have a history of holding people in secret detention places, especially in Chechnya, rumors of disappeared persons being alive and kept in secret prisons are regularly circulated in the region.6 In this regard, Mantas Kvedaravicius, who has spent several years in Chechnya working on his PhD in social anthropology and making a documentary about Chechnya’s disappeared, accuses the authorities of promoting a cruel “politics of hope,” the hope reinforced by the absence of official confirmation of death, and by the existence of numerous secret detention places inside and outside of Chechnya (Newman 2011). The results of the 2012 survey also show that the victims are willing to resort to any available options, including using the dubious services of diviners, in order to find out the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared person, to know whether the person is alive or dead and when he or she will return home. People have paid informants for information about their disappeared loved ones, and trading in information on the disappeared ranked among the highest modes of economic profit in Chechnya (Gilligan 2010, p. 81). Many respondents were not aware of the existing international instruments dealing with forced disappearances. While everyone has heard of the European Court, and many have thought of lodging their cases, no one has ever heard about the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID). The humanitarian nature of WGEID’s working methods allows it to focus on establishing the whereabouts and fate of the disappeared without delving into the question of criminal responsibility. As such, this approach might encourage some countries to provide information on humanitarian grounds. This is especially relevant for the victims who have won cases at the European Court of Human Rights, but are no closer to finding out what happened to their relatives. The NGOs, however, have been focusing on the ECtHR and ignoring the WGEID (WGEID interview 2012) while the victims are not even aware that such an option even exists.7

6 European Committee on the Prevention of torture has made three public statements concerning Chechnya all of which mentioned illegal detention places in Chechnya. Available from: . 7 For more detailed information about the WGEID and its potential role for Chechnya’s disappeared see .

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Not Dead, Not Alive, Alive but Not Living8 These families of the missing are said to be experiencing ‘ambiguous loss’, a term coined by therapist Pauline Boss in the 1970s, who defines it as ‘a situation of unclear loss resulting from not knowing whether a loved one is dead or alive, absent or present” (Boss 2004, p. 554). It is a situation when a family member is kept psychologically present because of the uncertainty as to whether the person is alive or dead, but is physically absent (physical ambiguous loss), as it is the case for families of the disappeared. Boss argues that being confused, unable to grieve, feeling ambivalent, defying the idea of ‘closure’ are all-natural reactions to ambiguous loss. Ambiguous loss is inherently open-ended and is the most difficult type of loss as there is no closure (Boss & Carnes 2012). It differs from death, as the latter, although painful as well, has a clarity that allows the families to move forward with grieving process and find a new life. Death is a clear loss (Boss & Yeats 2014). Boss has several hypotheses on why having a body back is so important for a healing process to begin (Boss 2002). Depending on the culture, ‘seeing the remains provides a cognitive certainty of death, and wears down defences’ (Boss 2002, p. 15). In addition, having a body makes it easier to let it go and hence easier to achieve closure, the mourning process can begin as a response to death, and death rituals can be performed. However, as Boss writes, ‘if the environment remains ambiguous, uncertain and incomprehensive, cognition is blocked, emotions are frozen, and continued individual and family functioning are severely hampered (Boss 2001). The research results regarding Chechnya’s disappeared reveal that for many people the confirmation of death is better than an ambiguous loss: “Once you bury a person, your suffering eventually stops, but it never stops if the person has just disappeared” (Interview 4, 2016). The personal need to have the bodies of their loved ones found and committed to the earth is very strong among Chechens. Many believe that if a funeral has not taken place according to religious rites, the soul of the deceased will not rest in peace. For most families in Chechnya the acceptance of a loved one’s death is inconceivable without the return of the body. Indeed, only 3 % of those interviewed reported that they would accept the non-return of the body (ICRC 2009 A). According to the 2012 surveys, 9 respondents stated they would not accept a confirmation of death without the body being returned. The thought that their disappeared children/relatives have not been buried according to Muslim tradition is too unbearable for the families: “it is as if this ‘anonymous’ burial would mean the

8 Taken from PhD by Mantas Kvedaravicus 2012, ‘Knots of absence: death, dreams, and disappearances at the limits of law in the Counter-Terrorism Zone of Chechnya’, University of Cambridge, Unpublished.

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definitive loss of the relative and also that the family had failed in their duty to respect the principles of the community” (ICRC 2009 A, p. 5). Investigating the ongoing exhumation and identification work in Srebrenica, Stover concludes that for the survivors of Srebrenica genocide “the absence of bodies has robbed them not only of funerary ritual but of the visual cues that would help them to acknowledge the death of loved ones and to pass through the states of mourning and grief” (Stover & Shigekane 2002, p. 860).

In most cases, the only avenue by which to access the remains of loved ones is through the process of exhumation and identification (Blaauw & Lahteenmaki 2002). Exhumations, identification of bodies buried in mass, single or unmarked graves can provide families with the much-needed information about the fate of their loved ones, making it possible to honour the dead in a culturally appropriate way, thereby playing an important role in achieving closure and allowing families to move forward (Blaauw & Lahteenmaki 2002). This will also fulfill their right to truth, the right to know about the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared as recognized in international law.

The Right to Truth As mentioned above, the right to truth is widely recognized both in international humanitarian (IHL) as well as international human rights law. The WGEID, which is the first UN special procedure mechanism to be set up to deal with enforced disappearances, has stated that this right means the prerogative to know about the fate and whereabouts of disappeared persons, the circumstances of the disappearances, to know about the progress and results of an investigation and the identity of the perpetrator(s) (UNWGEID 2010, §1). This right includes, in cases when the disappeared is found to be dead, the right of the family to have the remains returned to them and to dispose of the remains according to their religion or tradition (UNWGEID 2010, §6). However, the WGEID differentiates between the right to know the truth about the fate and the whereabouts of the disappeared and the right to know the truth about the circumstances of the disappearances. While emphasizing that the former right is absolute, the WGEID admits that this is not the case for the latter (UNWGEID 2010). The WGEID recognizes that “in States, where systematic or massive violations of human rights have occurred as a result of internal conflict or political repression, legislative measures that could lead to finding the truth and reconciliation through pardon might be the only option to terminate or prevent disappearances” (UNWGEID n.d., §5). The WGEID admits that the realization of the right to the truth “may in exceptional circumstances result in limiting the right to justice” (UNWGEID 2010, §8).

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Article 4.2 of the UN Declaration on Enforced Disappearances reads that “mitigating circumstances may be established in national legislation for persons who, having participated in enforced disappearances, are instrumental in bringing the victims forward alive or in providing voluntarily information which would contribute to clarifying cases of enforced disappearance.” The reconciliation cannot happen without the clarification of each individual case of enforced disappearances (UNWGEID 2010). Human remains play an important role in the materialization of the right to truth. As will be discussed below, the families of the missing in Chechnya were compelled to seek the truth outside of Chechnya, namely at the European Court of Human Rights. While having provided moral and legal satisfaction to the families, the Court’s judgments have not changed the non-cooperative attitude of the domestic authorities in Russia. This means that the right to truth of the families is yet to be fulfilled.

Russia within the Council of Europe Before delving into the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights on Chechnya’s disappeared, a few words are due on the history of Russia’s accession and its relationship with the Council of Europe (CoE). The CoE is an intergovernmental organization with a mandate to promote parliamentary democracy, rule of law, and human rights with the main bodies: the Committee of Ministers (CoM), the Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) (Shaw 2008:345). The CoM plays a very important role in the Council as the major decision-making organ, which is also responsible for monitoring the implementation of the judgments of the ECtHR (Cameroon 2006). PACE is an indirectly elected body of Parliamentarians’. Its role is to pass resolutions and recommendations on various issues. PACE also elects the judges of the ECtHR. On 28 February 1996, while the first Russian-Chechen war was still raging, Russia became the 39th Member State of the Council of Europe (PACE 1996 A). Although the legal order in Russia did not meet the CoE’s standards to become its member9 the Council decided that “integration is better than isolation; cooperation is better than confrontation” (PACE 1996B). 9 The report read that “the legal order in the Russian Federation does not, at the present moment, meet the Council of Europe’s standards as enshrined in the statute of the Council and developed by the organs of the European Convention on Human Rights.” see Council of Europe, Parliamentary Assembly, Bureau of the Assembly, Report on the Conformity of the Legal order of the Russian Federation with Council of Europe Standards, 7 October 1994, AS/Bur/Russia (1994) 7. In Addition, on February 2, 1995 the Council had suspended admission negotiations with Russia due to armed conflict in Chechnya. PACE adopted Resolution 1055 condemning Russia for the use of force in violation with Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol II, PACE, Resolution 1055

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After the start of the second Russian-Chechen war, in January 2000, the Secretary-General of Council of Europe made a request under article 5210 of the European Convention for Human Rights, asking Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov, to provide information about possible violations of the ECHR committed by Russian forces in Chechnya (PACE 2000). Mr. Lavrov’s reply read that the “principal aim of the “antiterrorist operation”11 carried out by the federal authorities in the Chechen Republic is “to bring it back from the darkness of bandit lawlessness into the legal framework of the Russian Federation and the European legal space including the one guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights” (ibid). The PACE Resolution on Chechnya from 2010 reads that “the suffering of the close relatives of thousands of missing persons in the region and their inability to grieve properly constitute a major obstacle to true reconciliation and lasting peace” (PACE 2010, p. 5). The last PACE report on the North Caucasus dates back to 2016 and states that the situation in the North Caucasus “still remains one of the most serious with regard to safeguarding human rights and upholding the rule of law in the entire geographical area covered by the Council of Europe” (PACE 2016, para 4). On the issue of missing persons it said that a ‘single and high-level body’ mandated with the search for missing persons as recommended by the Court, the ICRC, the PACE and CoM has still not been set up ‘nor has the Chechen republic been equipped with a forensic laboratory capable of carrying out DNA testing’. In addition, the authorities in the republic are increasingly using limitation periods for criminal prosecution and amnesties to avoid prosecuting perpetrators (ibid: para 3.4). .The authorities argue that ‘the limitation periods will not serve to terminate the on-going investigations, but merely to release identified perpetrators from criminal responsibility (PACE 2016, para 67) (emphasis added).

(1995) on Russia’s request for membership in the light of the situation in Chechnya, Doc. 7230, 2 February 1995, §11. Available from: . However, the negotiations were resumed in September, on the grounds that Russia was henceforth committed to finding a political solution and that alleged and documented human rights violations were being investigated, see Resolution 1065 (1995) on procedure for an opinion on Russia’s request for membership of the Council of Europe, Doc. 7372, 26 September 1995, §11. Available from: . 10 Article 52 reads that “on receipt of a request from the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe any High Contracting Party shall furnish an explanation of the manner in which its internal law ensures the effective implementation of any of the provisions of this Convention.” 11 Note that a full-scale war is called an anti-terrorist operation, the term which will be permanently engraved in ECtHR judgments concerning Chechnya.

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ECtHR as Transitional Justice Tool for Chechnya’s Disappeared In 1998 the State Duma of the Russian Federation ratified the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as a result of which the ECtHR gained jurisdiction to review violations of the ECHR in Chechnya (Solvang 2008, p. 14). To date, over 200 Chechen cases have been decided by the European Court of Human Rights.12 The first judgments were delivered in 2005.13 Most of the judgments concern violations committed during 1999–2006 period. As of September 2016, more than 60 % of these judgements concern enforced disappearances (ECtHR 2016).

Bazorkina v Russian Federation The first ECtHR judgment on Chechen disappearance case, Bazorkina v Russia is one of the few cases in which the Court decided to hold an oral hearing.14 A 25-year-old Chechen freedom-fighter Khadzi-Murat Yandiev, was detained in Grozny in early February 2000. He was searched and questioned by the Russian military General Alexander Baranov, who then gave an order to execute Yandiev. Nobody has since seen or heard from Yandiev. The whole scene was caught on camera by a CNN reporter (Chilcote.n.d.). Fatima Bazorkina learned about her son’s detention from the same reporter. The judgment provides a detailed description of steps undertaken by Bazorkina in search of her son. Her case was referred from the military prosecutor to the civilian prosecutor and then back again. Russia sent the full file of the investigation to the ECtHR only on 15 September 2005, after the ECtHR had declared the case admissible and decided to conduct an oral hearing. It was evident from the file that between July 2001 and February 2006 the investigation was adjourned and reopened six times. The majority of the documents in the case file were dated from after December 2003; in other 12 Information comes from the website of Russian Justice Initiative, an organization of lawyers and researchers established in 2003 to help victims to bring their cases before the European Court. Available from: . 13 Isayeva, Yusupova and Bazaeva v Russia, App. No.57947/00, 57948/00 and 57949/00, 2005; Isayeva v Russia, App.NO.57950/00, 24 February 2005; Khashiev and Akayeva v Russia, App. No.57942/00 and 57945/00, 2005. The Court found following violations in these cases: – the state’s responsibility for the killing of Khashiev’s and Akayeva’s relatives-violation of article 2 – the failure to prepare and execute military operations with the required care for the lives of civilians who were killed during air strikes conducted by the Russian air forces – failure to carry out an effective investigation into the circumstances 14 ECtHR Bazorkina v. Russia, App. No. 69481/01, 27 July 2006. Oral hearing held on 8 December 2005.

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words, after the ECtHR has requested a copy of investigation file from the Russian Government (Bazorkina 2006, §50). Colonel-General Alexander Baranov, who was seen on the tape questioning Yandiev and then ordering his execution was questioned as a “witness” for the first time in June 2004. Representatives of the Russian Government argued that the words “Take him away, damn it, finish him off there, shit, – that’s the whole order. Get him out of here, damn it. Come on, come on, come on, do it, take him away, finish him off, shoot him, damn it” (Bazorkina 2006, §16). did not constitute sufficient evidence to conclude that the General had given an order to execute Yandiev. Remarkably, in 2004 the military prosecutor’s office opened a criminal investigation into Yandiev’s involvement in an illegal armed group and subsequently his name was included on the federal search list. The Court ruled that when all facts were taken into account Yandiev must be presumed dead following an unacknowledged detention and that the liability for his death is attributable to the respondent Government (Bazorkina 2006, §112). The reasoning of the Court is based on its previous case-law concerning disappearances in Turkey. The court had also ruled that the Government had failed to conduct an effective criminal investigation into Yandiev’s case. In addition to the violation of Article 2 (right to life), the Court also found a violation of Article 3 (inhuman and degrading treatment) in respect of Bazorkina herself by stating that “the applicant suffered, and continues to suffer, distress and anguish as a result of the disappearance of her son and of her inability to find out what happened to him. The way her complaints have been dealt with by the authorities must be considered to constitute inhuman treatment contrary to Article 3” (Bazorkina 2006, §141). The Court clarified that the essence of the violation of Article 3 does not lie in the fact of the disappearance of the family member “but rather concerns the authorities’ reactions and attitudes to the situation when it is brought to their attention” (ibid). Aslakhanova and Other v Russian Federation15 After having ruled on more than 150 individual cases from Chechnya, in 2012 the Court decided to combine similar individual applications and issue joint judgments. Aslakhanova is one of such joint judgments of five applications concerning the disappearances of eight men in Chechnya between 2002–2004.16 Despite falling short of becoming a pilot judgment,17 Aslakha15 ECtHR Aslakhanova and others v. Russia. 16 Other joint judgments are Petimat Ismailova and Others v. Russia (18 September 2014) concerning disappearance of 17 people; Sultygov and Others v. Russia (9 October 2014) concerning disappearance’s of 18 people; Pitsayeva and Others v. Russia of 9 January 2014 concerning disappearance of 36 men. 17 This is where the Court selects a test case with a view to achieving a solution that extends beyond the selected case to cover all similar cases raising the same issue, see ECtHR (2009) ‘The Pilot-

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nova is the first and so far the last judgment in which the Court had explicitly recommended several measures to counter the ‘systematic dysfunction of Russia’s investigations into the disappearances in Chechnya’ (Aslakhanova 2012, §217). The Court stated that “such steps should be taken with the aim of putting an end to the continued suffering of the relatives of the disappeared persons, conducting effective investigations into the cases of abduction, unlawful detention and disappearance allegedly committed by servicemen, and ensuring that the families of the victims are awarded adequate redress” (Aslakhanova 2012, §221). The guidance provided by the Court falls into two groups of measures: the alleviation of the suffering of the families; and the improvement of the effectiveness of the investigations. Regarding the former, the Court recognized that the “most pressing group of measures to be considered concerns the suffering of the relatives of the victims of disappearances, who continue to remain in agonising uncertainty as to the fate and the circumstances of the presumed deaths of their family members” (ibid, §223). The Court mentioned the recurrent recommendation of the creation of a single, high-level body in charge of solving disappearances, empowered with access to all relevant information and in direct contact with relatives of the missing as well as underlining the pressing need to allocate adequate resources to carry out forensic work on the ground “including the location and exhumation of presumed burial sites; the collection, storage and identification of remains and, where necessary, systematic matching through up-to-date genetic databank” (Aslakhanova 2012, §226). The second group of measures is to conduct Convention-compliant effective investigations in the situations of known or presumed deaths of individuals, “independently of whether humanitarian aspects of the problem have been addressed” (Kogan 2013, p. 3). Citing its Varnava v. Turkey judgment, the Court stated that “besides being independent, accessible to the victim’s family, carried out with reasonable promptness and expedition and affording a sufficient element of public scrutiny of the investigation or its results, the investigation must also be effective in the sense that it is capable of leading to a determination of whether the death was caused unlawfully and if so, to the identification and punishment of those responsible’ (Aslakhanova 2012, §228). Several conclusions can be drawn from the Chechen case-law before the ECtHR. The Court usually finds that there has been a violation of the provisions of the Convention and that the violation can be attributed to the State, because the Russian government refuses to provide evidence to refute applicants’ claims. Russia’s refusal to provide investigation files to the Court not only gives rise to the drawing of inferences as to the well-foundedness of judgment Procedure’. Available from: .

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the applicant’s allegations, but also reflects negatively on the level of compliance by Russia with its obligations under Article 38§1 of the Convention18 which requires it to furnish “all necessary facilities” should the Court declare application admissible and pursue the examination of the case. If Russia prevents the Court from reaching factual conclusions by failing to submit requested documents, the burden falls on the government to argue conclusively why the documents in question would not corroborate the applicant’s allegations (Solvang 2009, p. 16). The Court usually devotes a special section of the judgment to make its own assessment of facts due to the absence of factual findings on the domestic level (since the denial that the imputed acts even occurred is a constitutive element of enforced disappearances). The non-cooperation of Russia, however, means that the Court cannot reach the exact factual conclusions, and must therefore draw inferences19 and rely on circumstantial evidence. Whereas in early cases from Turkey, the Court would rectify this “wall of silence” (Keller & Heri 2014) created by the national authorities, by sending in its own fact-finding missions to the region, this strategy has not been employed in relation to Chechnya. Also specific to the Chechen situation is that the authorities failed to conduct an effective criminal investigation into the allegations of human rights violations at the domestic level. Investigations are often closed and reopened numerous times in short periods of time,20 sent back and forth from civil prosecutor to military prosecutor ; and the victims are often not informed on the progress made in the investigation. The cases are often left open for long periods of time without any progress in the investigation, and when the case reaches ECtHR, Russia argues that the applicant has not exhausted domestic remedies since the investigation at domestic level is still pending. It should be noted that the obligations of effective investigation are obligations of means not of results (Keller & Heri 2014, p. 13). Russia never admits that military servicemen have been responsible for the violations, even if the events happened on the territory then under full control

18 In Khashiyev and Akayeva v. Russia case the Court held that,: “It is inherent in proceedings related to cases of this nature, where an individual applicant accuses State agents of violating his rights under the Convention, that in certain instances solely the respondent Government have access to information capable of corroborating or refuting these allegations. A failure on the Government’s part to submit such information which is in their hands without a satisfactory explanation may give rise to the drawing of inferences as to the well-foundedness of the applicants’ allegations. It may also reflect negatively on the level of compliance by a respondent State with its obligations under Article 38 § 1 (a) of the Convention.” App. No. 57942/00, 24 February 2005. 19 Rule 44 of the EctHR’s Rules of Procedure of 1 July 2013. 20 In case Alikhadziyeva v. Russia, App. No. 68007/01, 5 July 2007, the investigation into disappearance of Chechen speaker was adjourned and reopened 11 times in 4 years’ time §43.

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of the Russian military.21 The Court states that “the fact that a large group of armed men in uniform, equipped with military vehicles and helicopters, proceed in broad daylight to apprehend persons at their homes in a town area strongly supports the applicant’s allegations that these were state servicemen.”22 In the majority of the cases, the Court held that the lack of an effective investigation and the refusal to give a substantial response to requests from family members constitutes inhuman treatment of the family members themselves, in violation of Article 3 of the Convention. The close relatives of people who have disappeared may themselves be victims of inhuman treatment because of the distress and anguish that they suffer as a consequence (Leach 2008, p. 755). But as noted above, it is not the fact of the disappearance itself that leads to the violation of Article 3, but the conduct of the authorities towards the relatives. Perhaps, most strikingly, in order to successfully litigate the violation of Article 2 ECHR (the right to life), the relatives have to argue that the disappeared can be regarded as presumed dead following an unacknowledged detention, while Russia states otherwise or often claims that the disappeared have joined armed groups. This, despite the fact that 73% of families assessed by the ICRC back in 2007–2009 believed their disappeared were alive and same thoughts were voiced during my interviews with the relatives who have won the ECtHR cases. As I was told by the relatives, the cases were lodged in the hope the judgments would lead to finding out the truth of the fate of the disappeared. Having the ECtHR judgments is, nonetheless, an important milestone for the relatives of the disappeared despite the limited impact the judgements have had on their quest to find their loved ones. “Going to the ECtHR and winning the case was very important to me, as I thereby achieved something I could not achieve at the domestic level. The judgment means the recognition that Russia is guilty of illegally detaining and abducting my son, and of not conducting an effective investigation” (Interview 1, 2016).

21 This blunt denial only fosters virtual impunity in military rings, sending a message that military have immunity from prosecution. 22 Alikhadziyeva v. Russia, App. No. 68007/01, 5 July 2007,§59; Nasukhanova and others v. Russia, App. No 5285/04, 18 December 2008, §95; Ruslan Umarov v. Russia, App. No 1272/02,3 July 2008, §91; Asadulayeva and others v Russia, §85.

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Implementation of the ECtHR Judgments: Payment of “Just Satisfaction” Under Article 46 of the ECHR, Russia - as a state party to the convention - has an obligation to abide by the final judgment of the ECtHR. Under Article 41 of the ECHR, the Court can award just satisfaction to the injured party should the Court find there has been a violation of the ECHR. So far, the Court has always afforded monetary compensation to the applicants from Chechnya, which Russia pays in a timely fashion; there have been no complaints about this aspect of the execution of Court’s judgments (Kornya 2008). In fact, many have stated that the Russian government has not taken meaningful steps in the Chechen cases, apart from the prompt payment of the Court’s designated monetary awards (Committee of Ministers 2011, §5). During the interviews, applicants admitted that the award of compensation was important for them as a proof that their rights had been violated. Moreover, the fact that Russia paid compensation was regarded by the applicants as an admission of guilt. “The award of compensation was not important to me, but it does mean that I have won the case, that my rights and the rights of my son have been vindicated. Despite being quite educated, I’m ashamed to admit that I did not know about the existence of such Court, and I found out that it awards compensation only after I have won the case” (Interview 1, 2016). Unfortunately, compensation is also used by the authorities as an excuse in order to discontinue investigations into the disappearance cases. “You have received your compensation, why do you continue to write your requests to us, do we have time to deal with them?” the interviewees often told when they approached the authorities requesting to know if there was any progress in the investigation. When asked whether they saw the payment of compensation as an admission of guilt, one interviewee replied that the authorities regard payment of compensation as an absolution from further investigation, ‘they think that their job is done once the money has been paid’ (Interview 3, 2016). The interviewees reported feelings of shame and humiliation to hear such remarks. None of the applicants went to the ECtHR with the aim of getting monetary reparations; it was the recovery of their sons remains for which they were seeking.

Individual Measures Situations where the payment of monetary compensation is not enough to remedy the consequences of the violations of the ECHR may require additional measures. In cases of enforced disappearances, this means that the state must also determine the fate of the victims, the places of their burial and

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their return to relatives. It means reopening criminal investigations (Avetisiyan 2012). The Special Investigative Unit has been set up within the Investigating Committee in Chechnya, with the task of carrying out investigations into cases in which the ECtHR found the Russian Federation to have violated the Convention (Committee of Ministers 2010). However, the Committee has not been effective in its work (Kalyapin 2012; NGO Shadow Report 2012). Indeed, according to the data provided by Russia to CoM in 2015, investigations into almost all cases has been suspended (Committee of Ministers 2015). With more than 57 discovered and unopened mass graves, and probably many more undiscovered ones, Chechnya still does not have a forensic laboratory for the exhumation and identification of human remains. Since the Council of Europe has pledged its financial support for the laboratory and the ICRC would provide the technical expertise, the reluctance to set it up indicates that the authorities are afraid of being confronted with additional international pressure in case the identification of the corpses will also establish violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. Regarding the recurrent recommendation to set up a single high-level body authorized with searching for the missing, Russian authorities always reply that “the single centralized body responsible for searching for missing persons has already been established in the Russian Federation, and it successfully operates. It is the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Federation (“the MVD of Russia”) with its specialized subdivisions composing the unified centralized system of criminal investigation” (Committee of Ministers 2016 A, para 4).

It appears that the judgments of the ECtHR have little effect on the investigations, since the reason to suspend most of the criminal investigations remains the same: the ‘inability’ to identify any military unit present or to obtain other information concerning the military operations carried out at the material time when a person has been abducted/detained. In its latest Decision, the CoM expressed its “deep regret that, since the first cases in this group came before the Committee of Ministers in 2005, the Russian authorities have only been able to establish the fate of two persons still missing after the European Court’s judgment, out of about 380 falling within this group” (Committee of Minsters 2016B, para 4).

The lack of implementation of the ECtHR judgments will not improve now that statutes of limitations are becoming applicable in relation to many of those Chechen cases. The ECtHR is also losing further authority with the negative developments in Russia, in particular Russia’s Supreme Court ruling that the

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ECtHR judgments may not be implemented if they contravene the Constitution of Russia.23

Humanitarian Exhumations as a Way Forward Vanessa Kogan24 reminds us that the kind of individualized justice that the applicants from Chechnya and other transitional justice contexts, such as Cyprus and Turkey, seek through the Court is “in practice quite rarely realized at home after the judgment” (Kogan 2015, p. 179). Cases from Cyprus and Turkey have been under CoM supervision for over 20 years without final resolutions (ibid). The European Court “has already fulfilled a crucial role in any potential transitional justice processes, as its judgments have served to document in details over 1,000 unique violations of the Convention” (Kogan 2015, p. 181). While the role of the ECtHR judgments has indeed been also very limited in terms of finding the truth about the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared in other transitional justice contexts such as Cyprus and Turkey, the CoE does recognize the negative link between the issue of missing persons and prospects of reconciliation and the importance of the latter for security in the European continent (PACE 2013a). The Resolution adopted by PACE in 2013 on the issue of missing persons in Europe stressed that the first priority is to place families of the missing at the center of all actions concerned with the issue of missing persons, to focus on their needs, their right to know the truth about the fate and whereabouts about their relatives (PACE 2013 A, §7.5). The Resolution noted that while considerable progress has been achieved in establishing the fate of the missing in countries like Cyprus, Russia is one of the states where “truth recovery remains pressing issue which hinders reconciliation” (ibid: §6).

Cyprus as a Model? An alternative way to seek truth for the families of the missing in Chechnya would be the establishment of a mechanism that separates criminal prosecutions from the reconciliation processes to encourage the engagement of perpetrators to disclose information about the disappeared on purely humanitarian grounds without fear of prosecution. The ICRC has been 23 See RAPSI news from January 2017. Available from: . 24 Executive Director of Russian Justice Initiative, an NGO initially set up to bring cases of human rights violations to the European Court of Human Rights.

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recommending the establishment of such a mechanism for Chechnya since 2009. Cyprus is one of the CoE member states which has such a mechanism in place –the Committee on Missing Persons (CMP). CMP’s terms of reference indicate that its task is “to draw up comprehensive lists of missing persons of both communities, specifying as appropriate whether they are alive or dead, and in the latter case approximate time of the deaths.” Attribution of responsibility for the deaths of any missing persons or making findings as to the cause of such deaths are not within the mandate of the CMP. The success of the CMP lies in the design of the exhumation process which guarantees immunity from prosecutions, anonymity and confidentiality to those who provide information. The cause of death is not revealed, as the pure humanitarian nature of the exhumations is aimed simply at identifying the disappeared. As the 2013 report on the missing persons in Europe states, the issue of the missing cannot be resolved if it is seen as a political rather than a humanitarian concern (PACE 2013B, para 14). The ICRC too, believes if the issue is politicized the families of the missing will never receive an answer (ICRC 2009, p.10). These might be the reasons while, despite its limited mandate, the CMP was not effective in its work until 2004, for almost 25 years after its establishment in 1981. It was in 2004 when the two communities in Cyprus decided to resume the process of exhumations by unlinking the issue of the missing from the political resolution of the conflict in Cyprus (Kovras 2012). As a result of the de-politicisation of the issue, the remains of 1201 people from a total of 2000 people missing have been exhumed and 743 people have been identified to-date.25 This process of course raises legal, moral and political issues, but at the same time humanitarian exhumations do fulfil the desire of relatives to know the truth concerning the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared. According to Kovras, the Cyprus case illustrates an application of the consequentialist approach in transitional justice, which leads to the avoidance of actions that might endanger the process of exhumations (Kovras 2016). As Kovras argues, despite knowing their rights, families whose disappeared have been identified by the CMP have not taken the next logical step – lodging an application with the ECtHR. This can be explained as an expression of their solidarity with the families of those whose remains are yet to be identified. Families prefer to prioritise the right of others to receive the remains of their loved ones over their own right to demand effective investigation and prosecution of those responsible (Kovras conference presentation 2016). This does not preclude the possibility, however, that they might demand prosecution in the future. Their priority for the present is simply to find 25 For detailed statistics see the website of the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus. Available from: http://www.cmp-cyprus.org/>.

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and identify the disappeared and the CMP has been quite successful in achieving that outcome. Preliminary field research results in Chechnya have also revealed that the priority of the families of the missing is to find the truth about the fate and whereabouts of the disappeared, the prosecution and punishment was not identified as the main aim. The ECtHR, however, is of the view that while CMP’s procedures are useful for humanitarian purpose “they are not of themselves sufficient to meet the standard of an effective investigation required by Article 2 of the Convention” (Cyprus v Turkey, § 136). In Varnava v. Turkey, the Court went further by saying that “it may be that they (parties to the conflict) prefer a “politically-sensitive” approach to the missing person’s problem and that the CMP with its limited remit was the only solution which could be agreed under the brokerage of the UN that can have no bearing on the application of the provisions of the Convention” (§ 193). Humanitarian exhumations, however, do not preclude prosecution and punishment of perpetrators in the future once the political situation is ripe, but as long as the former perpetrators are still in power this will be difficult to achieve. It is easier to bring solace to the thousands of families of the missing through the return of the remains of their missing relatives.

Conclusion This paper aimed to highlight the negative link between the issue of the missing and prospects of reconciliation. It contended that the search for the disappeared on purely humanitarian grounds can be seen as a form of restorative justice which can promote reconciliation, reconciliation within the society, and with oneself. The legalistic and consequentialist approaches in transitional justice differ considerably and lead to different results depending on the context. The legalistic approach in transitional justice focuses not only on pushing for clarification of whereabouts of the disappeared, but more so on the establishment of responsibility and prosecution as the ECtHR case-law clearly demonstrates. The latter two however, may prevent the former from happening. The fact that over a decade of successful litigation work at the European Court has not resonated at domestic level in Chechnya means that there should be a change in tactics when it comes to addressing the pressing need to alleviate the ongoing suffering of the families of the missing. Based on the data obtained from the preliminary field research with the relatives of Chechnya’s disappeared, and taking as a success story the ongoing work of the Cypriot Committee on Missing Persons, this paper proposed humanitarian exhumations as a way of dealing with the issue of the missing in Chechnya. Acknowledgment of the past in the form of humanitarian exhumations can serve as an alternative transitional justice mechanism, which will not only

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bring solace to thousands of families of the missing but also serve as a stepping stone towards prospects of reconciliation.

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