Towards Healing the Hidden Wounds Using Truth and Reconcliation Strategies in the Balkans

Timothy Hagen 18 March 2013 ENG 102 and 106 Research Proposal

Honor Statement: I have neither given or received, nor have I tolerated others use of unauthorized aid. Timothy Hagen

1 Towards Healing the Hidden Wounds: Using Truth and Reconcliation Strategies in the Balkans

Introduction The Balkans has been a battlefield for thousands of years. From the conquests of Alexanders father, Philip, to the Romans, Ottomans, and independence and nationalist movements of the last centuries, many armies have marched back and forth across the peninsula. The conquests, rebellions, retributions, and atrocitiesincluding genocidehave created long-lasting resentments. While political and military solutions have been imposed and brought periods of peace, these have periodically disintegrated to expose raw feelings of hatred and desire to take revenge for recent or ancient wrongs. In order to prevent further outbreaks of violence in the Balkans, a solution must be found. What might that solution be? The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of South Africa offers some hope in bringing reconciliation to a society with a violent history. A modified truth and reconciliation movement that includes punishment for war criminals and apologies for current and past wrongs, coupled with EU-style integration, offers the best hope for peace in the Balkans as it entails recognizing the evils perpetrated in the past, punishing the modern perpetrators of genocide, apologizing for historic wrongs, working towards forgiveness and healing, and seeking to establish political frameworks that encourage cooperation rather than conflict.

2 Outline I. Introduction: briefly outline the problem of Balkan conflicts, the theories for peace and the thesis. II. III. Background: History of Balkans and seeds of conflict Close analysis of proposed solutions A. European integration: a good political solution, but does it only paper over the underlying causes? Will it bring lasting peace? B. Truth and Reconciliation: acknowledge the wrongs and work towards forgiveness and lasting peace. Try to avoid repeating the evils of history. 1. Problems: does not punish wrongdoers IV. Proposed solution: Balance: punishment for those wrongdoers yet alive; apologies by the descendents of those whose ancestors perpetrated evil V. Conclusion: review arguments and thesis

3 Research Plan Given that I have identified the sources to use in this paper, what remains to be done is to gather the supporting data and include it in the draft of my paper.

4 Annotated Bibliography Avruch, Keith and Beatriz Vejarano. 2002. Truth and reconciliation commissions: A review essay and annotated bibliography. OJPCR: Online Journal of Peace and Conflict Resolution, 4.2. This article gives an excellent, although overwhelming look at the vast number of texts dealing with Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (TRC) and the conflicting theories given by the many authors of such texts. Obviously, there is no consensus on TRCs. Bastiat, Frederic. The Law. 1850. Tr. Dean Russel. New York: The Foundation for Economic Education. Bastiats pamphlet gives an insightful perspective on natural law and the role of government in protecting the rights of all. De Largentaye, Bertrand, Tamara Buschek, and Fabien Dupuis. 2009. Forgiveness and a promise: Advocating a more regional approach to the Balkans by the EU. Notre Europe: Policy Papers Nr. 21. This paper gives a history of the Balkan problems in the 1990s and recommendations for the EUs approach. It suggests that the EUs model of integration is perhaps the best hope for the Balkans. Demi, Leonard. 2009. European Enlargement and the Integration of the Western Balkans. Tirana: Botimet Dudaj. This text offers historical background to Balkan conflicts and suggests European integration as a means of bringing peace to the Balkans. Gibson, James L. and Amanda Gouws. 1999. Truth and reconciliation in South Africa: Attributions of blame and the struggle over apartheid. The American Political Science Review. 93.3: 501-517.

5 Gibson and Gouws research public perceptions of blame in fictional stories about killings in South Africa. They conclude that most people hold government forces responsible and want punishment, and that only those receiving amnesty are happy with it. Gerolymatos, Andre. 2002. Balkan Wars. Simon Frasier. Gerolymatos gives an interesting history of the Balkans, trying to separate myth from fact and show how the epic poem of the Battle of Kosovo influenced history. Kymlicka, Will. 1992. Two models of pluralism and tolerance. Analyze and Kritik. 13. http://analyse-undkritik.net/en/1992-1/AK_Kymlicka_1992.pdf Kymlickas paper compares individual- and community- based systems of religious tolerance, that is, the western model of individual religious freedom versus the millet system of religious communities. Ilic, Dejan. 2004. The Yugoslav Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Overcoming cognitive blocks. Eurozine. 23 April. This article tries to explain the failure of the Yugoslav Truth and Reconciliation Commission in light of two reasons: the narrow-minded nationalist view and the modeling of the Commission after the South African TRC, which resulted in an impasse. Mojzes, Paul. 2011. Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic Cleansing in the Twentieth Century. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Paul Mojzes, a native of Croatia, provides a surprisingly evenhanded analysis of the genocides in the Balkans over the last 100 years, arguing that twentieth-century genocides really began during the Balkan wars and have continued for much of the century.

6 OBrien, Jim. 2009. USIPeace Briefing: A New Agenda for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace. This proposal by Jim OBrien advocates stripping political parties of their ethnic, religious, or nationalist identity and accelerating Bosnia-Herzegovinas entry into the EU as methods by which to defuse the escalating political tensions in the country. Petrovic, Nebojsa. 2007. Discussion paper 44: Strengthening peace in the Balkans: quest for transformative energy and prospects for change. The Centre for the Study of Global Governance. London School of Economics and Political Science. This discussion paper offers a strategy of educating leaders to increase awareness of the evils of genocide and develop methods for avoiding future atrocities. Yet the reader may ask how one would get national leaders to attend peace training sessions. Sadovic, Merdijana, Michael Farquhar, Caroline Tosh, and Janet Anderson. 2006. The Hague Tribunal and Balkan reconciliation. Institute for War and Peace Reporting. 21 July. Global Policy Forum.<http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/163/29368.html This web page gives an overview of perspectives from the Balkans on the effectiveness of the International Court of Justice tribunals on putting Balkan war criminals on trial and the possible effectiveness of such trials in bringing reconciliation. It notes that many residents of the Balkans question the value of the short prison sentences given to war criminals and the fact that many perpetrators of genocide have not been tried. Tutu, Desmond. 1999. No Future without Forgiveness. Image. I have not yet read this book, but it is a classic text in the area of truth and reconciliation and a must-read.

7 United States Institute of Peace. 2009. Truth Commission: Serbia and Montenegro. Truth Commissions Digital Collection. This report on Serbia and Montenegros Truth Commission shows that the effort lasted only twelve months and was a general failure. The web page has useful bibliographic entries for further research. Wilson, Richard. The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the Post-Apartheid State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Wilson provides a research-based approach to understanding public attitudes towards the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, finding that many individuals are dissatisfied with the lack of punishment. The hearings in the TRC followed a religious confession-redemption motif. Yenign, Cneyt. 2009. Balkan multiculturalism: An example to itself & to the EU. Second International Conference on European Studies. Epoka University. 6 Nov. Dr. Yenign suggests that the Balkan society under the Ottoman Empire can be a model of tolerance that can be followed by the European Union and the Balkans in overcoming problems of multiethnic and multi-religious integration.