Reparations of a recent ethnic conflict: The case of Former Yugoslavia
- Anica
- Jan 6, 2021
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 11, 2021
This entry is about reparations for the Yugoslav wars, which happened in the 1990-ies. I will reflect on what reparations are, how they are (not) being done and connect it with the current situation in these countries. I am writing from a point of view of an anthropology student and a young person who grew up in the Balkans.
When I was a child, I used to write short poems. One day I wrote this patriotic poem, which talked about beautiful cities of Serbia (cities that I, at the age of 6 or 7, had not really visited). One of the cities I included in my poem was, believe it or not – The Hague, which came as a surprise to my family members. The reason why I believed that the Hague was in Serbia was because I kept hearing “Hag, Hag, Hag” on the TV every single day in the context of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in Hague, so I naturally concluded it must be in our country since we keep hearing about it so much. It is also interesting that myself writing such a patriotic poem at such an early age was certainly not the influence from my multi-ethnic family, but rather of the nationalist propaganda I was exposed to every time the TV was turned on.
While the last decade of the 20th century was a difficult time of transition for most of the former socialist countries in Europe, for the people of former Yugoslavia the nineties were some especially dark years. This is because of an ethnic and religious conflict, a bloody war that took place. What used to be one country, is today seven* countries, most of which are plagued by similar problems. The war ruined families, houses, villages, economies, and lives. Although the war is over, the youth in the Balkans grows up influenced and overwhelmed by its consequences, economical as well as societal. So having prejudice against the people of neighbouring countries is considered normal. Political conversations are to be avoided in ethnically heterogeneous events. The opinion about someone is based on what their surname sounds like. And all this among people who used to live in the same country for decades and are interconnected by relationships and marriage, so that a lot of us have relatives in (today) other countries. Bentley explains how ethnic groups are all complex in themselves (Bentley 1987) – well, in the Balkans they might be even more complex, since there are so many mixed marriages and relations all over our countries.
After this very brief introduction of the state of the Balkans, let us finally turn to our main topic, reparations. As already discussed in our introduction, reparations are making amends for the wrongs, often including payments from the perpetrator towards the victim. But conflicts are often not black-and-white, and to know who the victim and who the perpetrator is in an ethnic conflict or war, it takes years of research. More importantly, it takes a couple of generations for the perpetrator side to be able to admit guilt, both on the government/institutional representatives and on the personal level. Reparations in the Balkans have not really happened for the most recent war (Kurze 2016; Zyberi and Černič 2015). There are, though, many non-governmental initiatives which promote and fight for reparations, admittance of guilt and reconciliation. Although some reports concerning the number of victims on each side are made, the institutional mechanisms dealing with all this are very slow, and it takes decades to actually decide who is to pay to whom and how much.
Apart from institutions, there are the people. The reparations need to happen not only on the state-level, but also inside the minds and hearts of the people who were a part of the war. Philosopher Mc Gary writes distinguishes the concepts of forgiveness, reparations and reconciliation and is of the opinion that, although they are often conjoined, reparations can happen without reconciliation (2010). Reconciliation focuses more on the future and in it, the past wrongs are not considered a key to forgiveness, while in reparations “the wrongdoer must acknowledge, apologize for, and make a conscientious effort to rectify her transgressions (assuming that this is possible) before forgiveness can occur” (p.548, ibid.).
When talking about ethnicity, power and oppression, we cannot avoid talking about gender, too. Another especially painful part of the question of reparations for the Yugoslav wars is sexual violence. Very few women, out of thousands of rape survivors, have received justice for the pain they had experienced in the war. Many still experience it today in their community, due to the stigma and the fact that the perpetrators still live in the very same community as the victims (Šoštarić 2012) . In war, men and women suffer in different ways, and thus have different needs when it comes to reparation. There is a clear need for a nuanced and intersectional approach to studying violence and applying reparations.
When I reflect on the overall state of affair in Serbia and the other ex-Yugoslav countries, what bothers me is that we still live in the past, all of us – not only those who have directly experienced war, but the generation born after the war as well. What young people want is a future, normal, peaceful and full of possibilities - something we do not have in our countries at the moment. So yes, I think the matter of reconciliation is urgent for us, in order to be able to live peacefully not only next to, but with each others. However, I have to agree with Mc Gary that before reconciliation, reparations need to take place, because only when all the victims receive reparations, can we talk about a peaceful future for all. We will see how our governments and civil society will continue to deal with these issues. Anthropologists, with their nuanced view, should play an active role and offer their contribution in the lengthy process of deciding who is to pay reparations and what those will consist of for different victims.
*Kosovo is still considered a part of Serbia by the Serbian government.
If you feel like you want to know more about Yugoslavia, here are some videos that briefly explain its history:
References:
Bentley, G. Carter. 1987. “Ethnicity and Practice.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 29 (1): 24–55. https://doi.org/10.1017/S001041750001433X.
Howard McGary. 2010. “Reconciliation and Reparations.” Metaphilosophy 41 (4): 546–62. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9973.2010.01659.x.
Kurze, Arnaud. 2016. “#WarCrimes #PostConflictJustice #Balkans: Youth, Performance Activism and the Politics of Memory.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 10 (3): 451–70. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijw014.
Šoštarić, Maja. 2012. “War Victims and Gender-Sensitive Truth, Justice, Reparations and Non-Recurrence in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” 94.
Zyberi, Gentian, and Jernej Letnar Černič. 2015. “Transitional Justice Processes and Reconciliation in the Former Yugoslavia: Challenges and Prospects.” Nordic Journal of Human Rights 33 (2): 132–57. https://doi.org/10.1080/18918131.2015.1047615.
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