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War of Words Over Missing Bosnian Serbs
Serbs claim Bosnian state agency searching for missing persons has focused energ
ies on Bosniaks.
By Maja Bjelajac - International Justice - ICTY
TRI Issue 679,
16 Feb 11
War victims associations in Republika Srpska, RS, have accused the Bosnian state’s
Institute for Missing Persons, IMP, of not doing enough to find missing Serbs.
The IMP has rejected these accusations, arguing that the reason more Bosniak peo
ple have been identified is simply because they made up the majority of victims
of the 1992-95 war.
The remains of some 21,000 missing persons have been identified so far in Bosnia
– around 9,000 are still missing, of which more than 1,700 are believed to be Ser
bs.
The Organisation of Imprisoned and Killed Soldiers and Missing Civilians in the
RS, OZPBNC, claim that the IMP has ignored Serbs and focused on Bosniak victims.
“Only 32 victims from the RS were identified in 2010,” its president, Nedjeljko Mitr
ovic, said. “That number is way too low, since 1,742 Serbs are still considered mi
ssing. This is intolerable.”
According to the latest data, 104,732 people died in the Bosnian war – 68,101 Bosn
iaks, 22,779 Serbs, 8,858 Croats and 4,995 members of other nationalities.
Last year, 964 remains were exhumed, and 702 people identified, 32 of them Serbs
. Since 2008, when the IMP was established as a state institution, replacing ent
ity-level commissions on missing persons, only 97 missing persons of Serb nation
ality have been identified.
Representatives of the OZPBNC claim such a small number is proof that the IMP is
neglecting Serb victims, and have demanded that the IMP be replaced once again
by entity-level commissions, claiming they would be more efficient.
The RS authorities have showed little trust in the IMP’s abilities to carry out it
s task. Six month after the IMP was founded, the Banja Luka government formed it
s own body, the Operational Team of RS for Finding Missing Persons, which was al
so tasked with gathering information about grave sites.
The RS is also weighing up passing its own laws on missing persons, even though
there is already a state law which deals with issues such as regulating the sear
ch for victims and the rights of the families of missing persons.
The IMP refutes claims that it is neglecting Serb victims, saying its work is dr
iven by humanitarian concern, not the nationality of the victims.
“There is absolutely no discrimination,” Amor Masovic, chairman of the IMP’s board of
directors, said. “We are not looking for missing Serbs, Bosniaks or Croats - we ar
e looking for missing sons, daughters, mothers and fathers.”
The head of the IMP’s Banja Luka office, Milijana Bojic, said, “I am looking for the
remains of my brothers, who are Serbs, as well as my students and all my compat
riots who disappeared.
“But as a humanitarian and a professional, I am looking for all the missing person
s, regardless of their nationality, because we cannot know who is in a grave unt
il we exhume remains and send them for analysis.”
Tanja Topic, a political analyst with the German Freidrich-Ebert foundation in B
anja Luka, claimed that the RS government was using the concerns of the families
of missing persons to further their political goals.
“These [missing persons] associations, which in RS are seen as non-governmental or
ganisations, actually depend heavily on the government’s budget and, in a way, ser
ve as spokespersons of governing structures,” Topic said.
“The problem we have with missing persons stems from the lack of common interpreta
tion of the events from the recent war. Victims’ associations in Republika Srpska
acknowledge only their own victims and condemn only the crimes committed by the
other side.
“Although it is a fact that majority of victims were Bosniaks, the associations in
RS refuse to accept that because this is not in line with what the RS officials
have been saying.”
According to Topic, the criticism of the IMP’s work and calls for it to transfer i
ts authority to entity commissions were part of an RS policy to weaken all state
-level institutions.
“Emphasising the strength of Republika Srpska institutions and pointing out allege
d weaknesses and malfunctioning in Bosnia’s state institutions is not an improvisa
tion, but a well-planned strategy carried out by authorities in Banja Luka,” Topic
said.
Topic s claims have been dismissed by Stasa Kosarac, head of the Operational Tea
m of RS for Finding Missing Persons, and a member of the RS ruling party, the Un
ion of Independent Social Democrats, SNSD.
“Those NGOs [dealing with the missing persons] deserve to be [paid from] the budge
t of RS and the RS has the right to financially support these organisations, in
a transparent manner,” he said.
“The RS government supports non-governmental organisations whose work is of public
interest, but it does not influence their work in any way. These NGOs and victi
ms’ associations, regardless of the source of their funding, have the right to mai
ntain their own views on all relevant matters.
“Accusations that the NGOs funded by the RS government act as spokespersons for th
e government are completely unfounded and come from some Bosniak political circl
es in Sarajevo, as well as from NGOs from the RS who do not have the status of o
rganisations whose work is of public interest.”
Maja Bjelajac is an IWPR-trained reporter from Banka Luka.