Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06SARAJEVO738
2006-04-07 14:28:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Embassy Sarajevo
Cable title:  

BOSNIA: TRUTH COMMISSION PROPOSALS CONTROVERSIAL

Tags:  PHUM PREL PGOV SOCI BK 
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PP RUEHAG RUEHDA RUEHDF RUEHFL RUEHIK RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHLN RUEHLZ
RUEHROV RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHVJ #0738/01 0971428
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 071428Z APR 06
FM AMEMBASSY SARAJEVO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3187
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 SARAJEVO 000738 

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPT FOR D (SMITH),P (BAME),EUR (DICARLO),EUR/SCE
(ENGLISH, FOOKS, MITCHELL, SAINZ),DRL/PHD (CLAYTON),L,
NSC FOR BRAUN, OSD FOR FLORY

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PHUM PREL PGOV SOCI BK
SUBJECT: BOSNIA: TRUTH COMMISSION PROPOSALS CONTROVERSIAL

REF: BRUSSELS 1165

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 SARAJEVO 000738

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

DEPT FOR D (SMITH),P (BAME),EUR (DICARLO),EUR/SCE
(ENGLISH, FOOKS, MITCHELL, SAINZ),DRL/PHD (CLAYTON),L,
NSC FOR BRAUN, OSD FOR FLORY

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PHUM PREL PGOV SOCI BK
SUBJECT: BOSNIA: TRUTH COMMISSION PROPOSALS CONTROVERSIAL

REF: BRUSSELS 1165


1. (U) This is an action request. Please see para 12.


2. (SBU) Summary: A number of local and international
organizations have put forward concepts for the formation of
a "truth and reconciliation commission" for Bosnia and
Herzegovina (BiH). However, some of the key players suffer
from competing visions about how to move forward and are
unclear who will tackle the task of actually raising funding
for and implementing a truth commission. Recent efforts by
the Washington-based non-governmental organization (NGO)
United States Institute for Peace (USIP) to draft legislation
establishing a truth commission to explore the events of the
1992-1995 war have ruffled feathers among international
organizations and local NGOs in BiH. In addition, some
question the investment in a parallel process when funding
for judicial war crimes trials is uncertain (see reftel).
Donor support for a truth and reconciliation process, likely
to be a multi-million dollar project, will almost certainly
compete with the USG priority of ensuring adequate
international assistance for the BIH War Crimes Chamber and
State Court. End summary.


3. (SBU) The idea of a truth and reconciliation commission
for Bosnia is not new; a number of local organizations and
individuals have supported the idea in the past. One local
NGO headed by Jakob Finci, the leader of BiH's Jewish
community, actually drafted a law to establish one, but never
presented the law to Parliament. Since the United States
Institute for Peace (USIP) initiative was launched in October
2005, a number of local and international players have
reacted both positively and negatively to its framework for a
potential commission. Adding to the controversy, the Sarajevo
office of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) is presenting a
parallel initiative on the same subject, trying to position
itself as coordinator of the entire process. This has caused
friction with other international organizations (IOs) who
have accused UNDP of trying to expand their current portfolio

in BiH at a time when other IOs are downsizing.

THE USIP PROCESS


4. (SBU) USIP has formed a working group consisting of
representatives of eight major political parties to draft a
state law establishing a truth commission and laying out the
parameters of its mandate. (Note: USIP appears to have
dropped the reconciliation portion of the overall concept, at
least for the time being. End note.) Since October, the
working group has met six times; the last meeting was held in
March. The first few meetings did not include any
representatives from civil society; after strong and
vociferous objections from both local organizations and IOs
(who argued that civil society must be involved in drafting
the legislation),USIP invited a select group of local NGOs
to the January, February and March meetings. The deadline has
passed for the Parliament to consider new legislation before
the October 2006 elections, so USIP has now extended its
timeline and hopes to submit a draft law to Parliament after
the elections (realistically, in early 2007).

WHAT WILL THE COMMISSION DO?


5. (SBU) According to USIP representative Neil Kritz, the
truth commission would work for two to two and a half years
1) to define the causes and consequences of the atrocities
committed between 1990 and 1996; 2) determine the role played
by specific sectors of society (i.e. the media, religious
communities) in the conflict, and 3) establish a detailed
accounting of what happened during the war. (Note: Including
the administrative phases of the commission, the total
lifetime of the commission would be four to five years. End
note.) USIP sees this detailed accounting as becoming the
definitive history of the war, and a basis for the education
of future generations. The commission would not name names,
make any determinations of criminal responsibility or grant
amnesty.


6. (SBU) The commission would not only focus on the negative.
USIP argues that it should also focus on telling the positive
stories from the war (i.e. people who risked their lives to
help their neighbors) and on developing a blueprint for
future policy designed to prevent any future reoccurrence of
ethnic conflict in BiH. The seven commissioners (likely to be
all Bosnian citizens) would be chosen by a selection panel of
12-15 members representing the state-level Parliament, the
international community and civil society.


SARAJEVO 00000738 002 OF 003


NEXT STEPS UNCLEAR


7. (SBU) Poloff recently met with Gordon Bacon, UNDP's
observer in the USIP-led working group, to discuss possible
next steps as Bosnia heads into the campaign period before
the October 2006 national elections. According to Bacon, the
political party representatives working on the draft
legislation repeatedly promised their civil society contacts
that as soon as a draft was complete, they would share it
with NGOs for commentary and feedback. The key issue now
causing some differences of opinion is how this process of
public feedback and commentary should be run. UNDP favors a
Bosnia-wide, two-year outreach campaign which would use local
NGOs as implementers. USIP (and its local partner, the
"Dayton Project" NGO) are planning a series of roundtables
with the participation of working group members in 15
municipalities throughout BiH. It is not clear how the UNDP
campaign (if it gets funding) and the USIP/Dayton Project
roundtables would interface. Meanwhile, the draft legislation
was leaked to a reporter who published a well-balanced
article on the truth commission on March 31. The leak puts
additional pressure on USIP to share the draft legislation
with local NGOs, and soon.

WILL THE TRUTH HURT?


8. (SBU) No cost estimates are available for the truth
commission envisioned by USIP, but it is likely to be a
multi-million dollar project. The Bosnian government could
not (and does not want to) fund the commission, fearing that
anyone who did not like its conclusions could reject them on
the grounds that the commission was manipulated by the
government. Indeed, the risk of political interference in the
truth commission is signficant regardless of the source of
its funding. Although the truth commission is envisioned as a
parallel and not competing process with ongoing war crimes
trials, it appears that the State Court's War Crimes Chamber
and the truth commission would likely be competing for
funding from the same shrinking donor pool. (See reftel.)
Critics have also raised concerns about timing, and how (or
whether) to address regional issues (such as the
responsibility of the wartime regimes in Belgrade and
Zagreb).


9. (SBU) It is worth noting that in the absence of a truth
commission, many victims have told their stories already over
the past ten years, some many times. One local NGO, the
Center for Research and Documentation, has meticulously
documented over 90,000 incidents of war crimes through a
combination of victim/witness statements, archival media
coverage and government documents. Many victims have also
given statements to investigators from the International
Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and local
courts.

COMMENT: GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT


10. (SBU) Although proponents of the truth commission argue
that it will provide a catharsis that will help Bosnians move
forward, it is not clear that a commission is what people
really want. Civilian war victims, family members of missing
persons and other victims of the genocidal policies carried
out during the 1992-1995 conflict are well aware that the
number of war crimes cases that will ultimately be tried will
result in punishment for only a small percentage of the total
number of perpetrators, and that very few victims will ever
testify in court. Nevertheless, war victims continue to press
hard for justice via the judicial process; seeing even a few
high-profile perpetrators punished (particularly via local
war crimes trials) will bring some sense of closure to many
in Bosnia. The public's desire to move ahead with war crimes
trials is even stronger since Milosevic's death forestalled a
verdict in his case.


11. (SBU) Our contacts have emphasized action over
investigation. People would like to see perpetrators fired
from their government jobs (especially in the police,
military and municipal governments) and replaced with
minority returnees. They also want to start receiving the
monetary benefits for families of the missing and civilian
war victims to which they are theoretically entitled.
Finally, they want to see an end to payments by the RS
government to families of war criminals (and in some cases,
to war criminals themselves). Most returnees, especially
minority returnees, struggle to survive in very difficult
economic situations. Knowing that relatives of war criminals
are getting benefits that are far bigger than the average
pension or disability benefit is a slap in the face to the

SARAJEVO 00000738 003 OF 003


survivors of genocide and ethnic cleansing. End comment.


12. (SBU) Action request: We bring this to the attention of
the Department because this issue will not go away. Indeed,
it has already taken on a life of its own through local NGOs
as well as the OSCE and UNDP. We are aware that "truth and
reconciliation" is not a new concept in the world of
post-conflict societies. South Africa is the clearest
example. Our concerns about this idea, however, rest on how
this sort of process could progress in parallel with the
ongoing criminal process at the ICTY--and what kind of role
the USG would be willing to take in the future. It will not
be a surprise if, when the issue hits the shoals of the
Bosnian Parliament, US assistance is requested to do the
heavy lifting. Post requests Department's guidance on the USG
position.
MCELHANEY