Serbia and Croatia Move Closer to Genocide Deal

If Serbia and Croatia reach an agreement on missing persons, property restitution and war crimes defendants, both countries could withdraw their mutual genocide claims and settle out of court, Vesna Pusic, Croatia’s Foreign Minister, said on Tuesday’s first visit to Belgrade.

“Our new government believes negotiations will bring both countries better results than those expected from adjudication in front of the International Court of Justice,” she added.

The initiative for a comprehensive settlement out of court came from Croatia’s new Social Democrat-led government in the first week of January and was welcomed by Serbia.

Slobodan Homen, State Secretary in Serbia’s Ministry of Justice, agrees that withdrawal of genocide claims is the best solution, adding that the best way forward would be for both countries to withdraw charges at the same time.

Serbian President Boris Tadic and Croatian Minister for Foreign Affairs Vesna Pusic   Photo (Beta)

Croatia filed its original suit against the rump Yugoslav state on July 2, 1999, citing Article IX of the UNConvention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Following the transformation of Yugoslavia into the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and the dissolution of that union in 2006, Serbia is considered its legal successor.

Answering Croatia’s charges, Serbia submitted a counter-claim on January 4, 2010, maintaining that Croatia was guilty of genocide against Serbs during the 1995 military offensive codenamed Operation Storm (“Oluja”), which was launched to recover territory seized by Serbian forces.

Its claim also covers missing and killed persons, refugees, expellees and other military actions dating back to the persecution of Serbs in Croatia in World War Two, when Croatia was a nominally independent state run by pro-Axis forces.

Stakeholders from both Croatia and Serbia say a bilateral agreement would solve key practical issues such as victims’ reparation and property restitution while speeding up war crimes proceedings and the European integration of the whole region.

Lack of trust between both states and people remains the biggest issue.

Milan Antonijevic, director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in Belgrade, says both lawsuits before the International Court of Justice, ICJ, are not legally grounded; emotions have led the proceedings.

“The ICJ brings verdicts based on previous judgments of other courts, and since there are no court adjunctions for genocide for the crimes committed in this area, the result for both sides would be negative,” Antonijevic predicts.

“The withdrawal of charges would enable us to finish with old problems, leave the legal issues behind us and finally deal with the real problems of the people who suffered from the war,” he adds.

Before withdrawing charges, Croatia seeks solutions to three issues: return of stolen cultural heritage, war crimes and property restitution. The Serbian side insists on the return of property and refuges as well as war crimes prosecutions.

Departement for War Crimes, Special Court in Belgrade   Photo(Beta)

According to Serbian Justice Ministry data, almost 50,000 tenancy rights cases concerning Croatian Serbs remain in dispute while only 8,000 cases have been solved.

Vesna Terselic, head of the Croatian Centre for Facing the Past, Documenta, says having the political will to solve past issues will be crucial and negotiations between the two sides are a big step forward.

“Almost 20 years since the war, it is high time to solve these issues,” she told BIRN.

“The current processing of war crimes is too slow, but hopefully it will speed up with this agreement, which envisages better cooperation between the two countries’ courts,” Terselic added.

So far, the two countries’ War Crimes Prosecutors offices have exchanged only 54 cases, while Croatia’s courts have filed more than a thousand charges against Serbian citizens for war crimes.

Agreement on the prosecution on war crimes between Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia will be the subject of a multilateral meeting on Friday of Serbian President Boris Tadic, Ivo Josipovic of Croatia and representatives of Bosnia’s State Presidency on Mt Jahorina in Bosnia. According to announcements, the delegations of the three countries will discuss possible joint action when it comes to war crimes indictments.

Zoran Pusic, president of the Croatian Civic Committee for Human Rights, says a positive turn in terms of solving problems from the past occurred when the left-of-centre Kukuriku coalition took power recently in Zagreb, replacing the government led by the more nationalistic Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ.

“I am glad we no longer have irresponsible statements of politicians whose aim was to win votes with the politics of conflict,” he told BIRN.

“It is good that the new government is communicating with all stakeholders and that almost all the arguments of civil rights defenders in favour of withdrawing charges were heard,” Pusic added.

“But we should stay awake and be careful when it comes to prosecutions of war crimes in local courts,” he continued.

“It is not unusual for these courts to come under pressure from the local community that directly participated in the conflicts of the 1990s,” Pusic explained.

Not everyone in Croatia is behind the new initiative. Croatia’s former prime minister and leader of the now opposition HDZ, Jadranka Kosor, opposes an out-of-court settlement.

Kosor says the government has no right to decide on its own whether to withdraw charges against Serbia. She says such a crucial issue needs to be decided in a referendum. 

Terselic of Documenta, however, believes that there is a little chance of organizing referendum on this issue as Croatia’s restrictive law on referenda demands almost 450,000 signatures in support before a vote can be staged.

Negative comments about the possible withdrawal of genocide claims can also be heard in Serbia.

Savo Strbac, member of Serbia’s legal team before the ICJ, believes the genocide claims are too serious to be solved out of court.

“The political elites in Croatia and Serbia don’t have the right to decide about such important issues that have so long plagued relationships between the two nations,” Strbac said.

“In the short term, this solution would benefit [both sides’] EU integration but on a long-term basis this only means putting aside the problems,” Strbac added.

However, Antonijevic, from the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, in Belgrade, notes that resolving this issue would certainly expedite Serbia’s EU membership.

“Regional cooperation is one of the main conditions for Serbia’s EU candidacy bid,” he said.

“Croatia, which will soon be a full member of the EU family, has sent an optimistic message when it comes to an out-of-court settlement,” he added.

“From this, we can all interpret that things in this region are going in the right direction,” Antonijevic concluded.