Memories of the 1999 NATO Bombing in Belgrade, Serbia

Südosteuropa ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Orli Fridman
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
International Intervention ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Yugoslav Wars ◽  
Nato Bombing ◽  
Transformation Processes

AbstractThis paper analyses the memories of Belgrade residents of the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia (then part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). By focusing on the memories of this event, yet placing them in a broader context of the conflicts of the 1990s—the breakup of Yugoslavia and the post-Yugoslav wars—this essay explores what international intervention has meant to respondents in Belgrade by documenting memories of international intervention among older and younger generations, as well as among active members of antiwar NGOs in Serbia and citizens who were not engaged in activism during the 1990s. The paper aims to expand the scope of the discussions on dealing with the past and on transitional justice in the Western Balkans and to place them in the context of social memory studies and the study of post-conflict transformation processes. Furthermore, by presenting the case study of Serbia, this text contributes to the analysis of local mnemonic batt les as part of the creation of collective memories of the 1990s in post-Milošević Serbia, and it sheds light on the memories of the bombing as related to the war in Kosovo and the subsequent effects on shaping postwar Serbia–Kosovo relations.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Beiner
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
The Political ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

An understanding of the historical dynamics of social forgetting can be learned from the detailed case study of the vernacular historiography of the 1798 Rebellion in Ulster. It has far-reaching implications for a more meaningful appreciation of the relationship between history and memory. The political impasse in post-conflict Northern Ireland, which has stumbled over disagreements on ‘dealing with the past’ in the context of finding acceptable arrangements for transitional justice, could benefit from showing more sensitivity, not only to the role of oral history storytelling, but also to ingrained traditions of ‘vernacular silence’ that perpetuate social forgetting. A brief inspection of some prominent twentieth-century examples demonstrates the wider relevance of studying social forgetting. In today’s digital age, explorations of social forgetting suggest new possibilities for reconciling conflicts between an inner duty to remember and the right to be outwardly forgotten.

scholarly journals Mirroring transitional justice. Construction and impact of European Union ICTY-conditionality

Südosteuropa ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Niké Wentholt
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
War Experiences ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThe European Union (EU) developed a state-building strategy for the aspiring member states in the Western Balkans. Demanding full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the EU made transitional justice part of the accession demands. Scholars have recently criticized the EU’s limited focus on retributive justice as opposed to restorative justice. This paper goes beyond such impact-orientated analyses by asking why the EU engaged with retributive transitional justice in the first place. The EU constructed ICTY-conditionality by mirroring its own post-Second World War experiences to the envisioned post-conflict trajectory of the Western Balkans. The EU therefore expected the court to contribute to reconciliation, democratization and the rule of law. Using Serbia as a case study, this article examines the conditionality’s context, specificities and discursive claims. Finally, it relates these findings to the agenda of a promising regional initiative prioritizing restorative justice (RECOM) and sheds new light on the impact of ICTY-conditionality on transitional justice in the Western Balkans.

‘We have long memories in this area’: Ulster Defence Regiment place-memory along the Irish border

2020 ◽  
pp. 175069802092145
Author(s):  
Joseph S Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Political Space ◽  
The Past ◽  
Place Memory ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Time Away

A large body of literature assumes post-conflict societies can and should mediate public memory towards frames conducive to a reconciled future. However, this article argues that such a drive marginalises survivors of political violence who narrate the past as still-present wounds. The linear temporality of transitional justice presumes an idealised trajectory through time, away from violence and towards reconciliation. However, this idealised temporality renders anachronistic survivors who depend on the prolongation of traumatic pasts for the possibility of political change. Using the case of former Ulster Defence Regiment in Northern Ireland, this article examines this prolongation through the lens of Ulster Defence Regiment survivors’ resistant place-memory along the Southwest run of the Irish border. Through the performative retemporalisation of everyday places and landscapes, survivors demand that their resistant memories and narrative frames of past violence still belong and still have active political resonance in transitional political space.

Rwanda

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doris Buss ◽  
Jerusa Ali
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Social Outcomes ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
Female Politicians

Since the end of the genocide and civil war in Rwanda, various measures have been implemented to facilitate women’s political participation. This chapter looks to post-conflict Rwanda as a case study in the successes and limitations in efforts to increase women’s participation in public life. The chapter details the desired outcomes of increased political participation by women before turning to the Rwandan example. It argues that while the increased presence of women in public life has resulted in some positive economic, political, and social outcomes, the power of female politicians is largely limited and has not resulted in sustainable or equitable long-term policies. The chapter concludes that while Rwanda has formally adopted many of the international best practices of transitional justice, its overall gains in women’s participation are more uneven, contradictory, and nonlinear than is often recognized.

scholarly journals Medijska konstrukcija kolektivnih sjećanja: Tretman prošlosti u polju novinarstva, s osvrtom na postdejtonsku Bosnu i Hercegovinu

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (2 2013) ◽  
pp. 39-65
Author(s):  
Mirza Mahmutović
Keyword(s):  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The Media

In this work we critically consider the practice of treating history in the area of journalism respectively media as an distinctive institutional arena of contemporary communities for establishment, maintenance and transformation of common frameworks of understanding and commemorating of certain episodes from the past. We intent to offer plausible explanations regarding the relations between ''culture of remembrances'' and ''culture of reporting''. Article suggests how to approach the often misunderstood history in informative activitiy, which in its field of action and by definition does not have the dimension of history but the dimension of social situation of contemporariness. We also form the key operations and strategies used in shaping the repertoire of journalistic reports on the past. Described practices we study on the example of post-Dayton BiH, analysing media treatment of conflict areas during the recent war history. Legitimisation of ethnic-national visions of the past through the discourse of reporting has been recognised as the dominant way of working in the ''media memory filed''. Two key paradoxes of these practices are highlighted: coexistence of opposite discourses of commemoration and codification of abjection experiences by the same group of significations which have initially inducted the war traumas. We point out at least two conditions which facilitate these paradoxes: ambiguity of the past, concpetion of time which is assumed by post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina as an inherently uncompleted/imperfect country and technologies of culturised steering of trauma, which is being used by regimes of therapeutic/transitional justice'' to cope with disturbing history in post-conflict communities.

scholarly journals Transitional Justice and Reconciliation in the Western Balkans: Approaches, Impacts and Challenges

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huma Haider
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Meaningful Change ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Safe Spaces ◽  
The Past ◽  
Art And Culture ◽  
Alternative Sites ◽  
Modes Of Engagement

Countries in the Western Balkans have engaged in various transitional justice and reconciliation initiatives to address the legacy of the wars of the 1990s and the deep political and societal divisions that persist. There is growing consensus among scholars and practitioners that in order to foster meaningful change, transitional justice must extend beyond trials (the dominant international mechanism in the region) and be more firmly anchored in affected communities with alternative sites, safe spaces, and modes of engagement. This rapid literature review presents a sample of initiatives, spanning a range of sectors and fields – truth-telling, art and culture, memorialisation, dialogue and education – that have achieved a level of success in contributing to processes of reconciliation, most frequently at the community level. It draws primarily from recent studies, published in the past five years. Much of the literature available centres on Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), with some examples also drawn from Serbia, Kosovo and North Macedonia.

Victims of Environmental Harm During Conflict

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Merryl Lawry-White
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Conflict Setting ◽  
Post Conflict

This chapter considers the interaction of some of the applicable norms related to liability and reparation for environmental damage in a post-conflict setting, including human rights and humanitarian law norms (including precedents) and their interaction with each other, with a focus on the potential consequences for victims. Using displacement as a specific case study, the discussion regarding potential consequences is supported by the learning that may be drawn from precedent reparations schemes, including those implemented in a ‘transitional justice’ framework as part of an attempt to afford ‘justice’ for breaches of human rights and humanitarian law (whether related to the environment or otherwise). The chapter considers some of the potential challenges of this interaction, particularly for justice initiatives, and particularly reparations schemes, experienced in the aftermath of conflict, such as constructing a coherent post-conflict narrative, restitution (or ‘truth’), awarding reparation (including ‘restitution’), and reconciliation as part of ‘peacebuilding’.

Rule of Law, Security, and Transitional Justice in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Societies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Mihr ◽  
Chandra Sriram Lekha
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
Security Sector ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
The Many

States are expected to provide both security and justice for their citizens; one needs the other in order to work well. Yet when both are damaged or destroyed by war, state actors and outsiders alike tend to treat them as competing post-conflict priorities. Over the past twenty years, numerous processes have emerged to promote one or both, including “transitional justice”—from courts and truth commissions to community reconciliation—and programs to restore rule of law, reform the “security sector” (SSR) and disarm, demobilize, and reintegrate fighters into society (DDR). The many actors involved have just as many, sometimes competing, operational priorities, knowing that change is urgent, but necessarily long-term. This chapter examines the interaction of transitional justice, rule of law, SSR, and DDR, identifying key concepts, actors, processes, and challenges in pursuing change in each of these areas simultaneously.

Why Political Appointments to Truth Commissions Cause Difficulties for these Institutions: Using the Crisis in the Transitional Justice Process in Nepal to Understand How Matters of Legitimacy and Credibility Undermine Such Commissions

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 444-470
Author(s):  
Jeremy Sarkin ◽  
Ram Kumar Bhandari
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Moral Integrity ◽  
Divided Societies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
The World ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Political Appointments

Abstract Over five decades and with dozens of examples of truth commissions to look back on, an undeniable aspect of their legacy is that the world has become far more focused on dealing with the past and uncovering the truth about past atrocities. While there is typically a focus in the literature on the more widely publicized and famous truth commissions, scores of other processes have taken place, especially since the 1990s. Post-conflict or divided societies have designed institutions in ways that achieve specific objectives but at the same time conform to international standards, creating a reputation of being both democratic and accountable. Using the prism of Nepal, this article examines why the process to establish transitional justice mechanisms, and specifically truth commissions, needs to be legitimate and credible for them to be effective and be impactful. It specifically examines issues relating to appointments to such institutions and why such appointments need to be done independently and not overtly politically. It scrutinizes why appointment mechanisms and processes are so important to enhancing the legitimacy and independence of such bodies. The case of Nepal is used as an example to extrapolate conclusions about the problems that affected its processes, and the various crises that have emerged in those processes. The article argues that commissioners ought to be chosen on the basis of their impartiality, moral integrity, and known commitment to human rights and disclosure of the truth. This is essential to ensure that the process is seen to be independent and credible.

scholarly journals Scalability of Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Interventions: Moving Toward Wider Socio-political Change

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huma Haider
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Evidence Synthesis ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Ethnic Politics ◽  
Rapid Review ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Ripple Effects ◽  
Post Conflict

Literature focusing on the aftermath of conflict in the Western Balkans, notes that many people remain focused on stereotypes and prejudices between different ethnic groups stoking fear of a return to conflict. This rapid review examines evidence focussing on various interventions that seek to promote inter-group relations that are greatly elusive in the political realm in the Western Balkan. Socio-political change requires a growing critical mass that sees the merit in progressive and conciliatory ethnic politics and is capable of side-lining divisive ethno-nationalist forces. This review provides an evidence synthesis of pathways through which micro-level, civil-society-based interventions can produce ‘ripple effects’ in society and scale up to affect larger geographic areas and macro-level socio-political outcomes. These interventions help in the provision of alternative platforms for dealing with divisive nationalism in post-conflict societies. There is need to ensure that the different players participating in reconciliation activities are able to scale up and attain broader reach to ensure efficacy and hence enabling them to become ‘multiplier of peace.’ One such way is by providing tools for activism. The involvement of key people and institutions, who are respected and play an important role in the everyday life of communities and participants is an important factor in the design and success of reconciliation initiatives. These include the youth, objective media, and journalists. The transformation of conflict identities through reconciliation-related activities is theorised as leading to the creation of peace constituencies that support non-violent approaches to conflict resolution and sustainable peace The success of reconciliation interventions largely depends on whether it contributes to redefining otherwise antagonistic identities and hostile relationships within a community or society.

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