Amnesty International Report 2002 - Bosnia-Herzegovina

Covering events from January-December 2001

Bosnia and Herzegovina
Head of state: three-member rotating presidency – Beriz Belkic, Zivko Radisic and Jozo Krizanovic
President of the Muslim/Croat Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina: Karlo Filipovic
President of Republika Srpska: Mirko Sarovic
Head of national government: Zlatko Lagumdûija (replaced Bozidar Matic in June)
Capital: Sarajevo
Population: 4.1 million
Official languages: Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian
Death penalty: abolitionist for ordinary crimes
2001 treaty ratifications/signatures: Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.

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Refugees and internally displaced persons increasingly returned to their pre-war municipalities, including over 80,000 "minority returnees" whose ethnic group since the war formed a minority in their place of return. Tens of thousands of potential returnees were unable to gain access to their pre-war homes. In practice many returns were not sustainable as returnees lacked physical security and suffered discrimination in access to employment, education and social welfare. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (the Tribunal) issued precedent-setting judgments and new indictments for serious violations of international humanitarian law. However, investigations and prosecutions of war crimes and other human rights violations in domestic courts were few and problematic. The suspected perpetrators overwhelmingly remained at large and often in positions of power. There were continued reports of police ill-treatment, for which few police officers were apparently brought to justice.

Background

Under the 1995 Constitution, enshrined in the Dayton Peace Agreement, the country is made up of two largely autonomous entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Federation) and the Republika Srpska (RS), as well as the autonomous district of Brcko. The High Representative, appointed by the UN Security Council to oversee implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement, exercises wide legislative and executive powers.

The results of the November 2000 general and RS presidential elections were implemented in the first half of 2001. The Federation government was inaugurated in March. A national government was formed in February under the leadership of Bozidar Matic, who resigned in June and was replaced by Zlatko Lagumdzija.

In March, the Hrvatski narodni sabor (HNS), Croatian National Congress, representing Bosnian Croat political parties, led by the Bosnian Hrvatska demokratska zajednica (HDZ), Croatian Democratic Union, proclaimed "interim autonomy" for the Federation cantons and municipalities which had a significant Bosnian Croat population. The HNS justified its initiative by arguing that Bosnian Croat interests were threatened by amendments to the Federation Constitution and new electoral rules. In response, the High Representative dismissed a number of Bosnian Croat Federation and state officials, who had withdrawn from Federation and state governments. In April and May several thousand Croatian police officers and Federation armed forces officers and soldiers defected to the interim administration, many allegedly after intimidation. In May and June, agreement was reached between the Federation authorities and officers loyal to the HNS, and Bosnian Croat soldiers returned to their barracks. In July Ante Jelavic, the former Bosnian Croat member of the state presidency, and six other Bosnian Croat politicians were charged with endangering the constitutional integrity of the Federation. Their trial was continuing at the end of 2001.

The Constitutional Commissions of both Federation and RS parliaments continued to draft amendments to their respective Constitutions to bring them into line with decisions by the Constitutional Court in 2000. Neither entity had fully implemented the decisions, which granted equal rights and status to the Bosniac, Croat and Serb peoples throughout the country, by the end of 2001.

Return of refugees and displaced persons

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of refugees and displaced people registered as having returned to their pre-war homes increased substantially. They included over 80,000 minority returns. Progress was partly due to the improved implementation of property legislation by local authorities, although the overall implementation rate was still just 40 per cent. Thousands of potential returnees to the RS – where only 20 per cent of claims had been settled – were unable to return to their pre-war housing.

Returnees faced physical violence and damage to their property, in particular in the RS, as well as discrimination in access to employment, education and social welfare. The failure to protect returnees and to investigate and prosecute attacks against them – despite the available evidence and the extensive support provided to the local police by the International Police Task Force (IPTF) – created a climate of impunity which deterred others from returning.

• In May an estimated 2,000 Bosnian Serb protesters violently disrupted a rebuilding ceremony for the 16th century Ferhad pasa mosque in Banja Luka, which had been destroyed in the war. They assaulted and injured scores of Bosniacs attending the ceremony – many of them pre-war inhabitants of the city – while Bosnian Serb police failed to take adequate measures to protect people from violence. An injured 60-year-old Bosniac man later died as a result. Police reportedly filed criminal reports against 19 people for their involvement in the attacks, but no one had been charged or tried for organizing the violence by the end of 2001.

The return process was also frustrated by a widening gap in funding by donor governments for reconstruction; at the end of 2001, over 20,000 destroyed housing units remained in need of funding. At the end of the year UNHCR urged donor governments to provide humanitarian aid to enable some 5,000 returnee families to remain over the winter season.

In many municipalities, unauthorized building on socially owned land continued, often with the aim of ensuring that displaced persons remained in the municipality to provide electoral support for authorities hostile to minority returns.

• In Bratunac in eastern RS, such building continued despite pressure by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the High Representative. In June the High Representative removed from post the mayor and another local official for contravening his April 2000 decision on the allocation of socially owned land.
• Stabilization Forces (SFOR) obstructed the return of several hundred Bosnian Serbs by using public and private land and property on a firing range near Glamoc in the Federation. The legal basis on which SFOR occupied and used the land remained unclear and AI questioned SFOR's insistence that they were under no legal obligation to compensate landowners. In June some pre-war inhabitants were allowed to return to part of the site, but in October SFOR Headquarters said they could provide no guarantees that anyone could return to villages inside the range.

Impunity

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

Nine trials of men suspected of grave violations of international humanitarian law during the war were conducted before the Tribunal. Verdicts were reached in five cases.

• In February, three Bosnian Serb men were convicted in a precedent-setting verdict that rape and sexual enslavement were crimes against humanity. Two of the accused were convicted of keeping scores of Bosniac women and girls in captivity, and raping and otherwise abusing them
• In August, in the Tribunal's first verdict of genocide, General Radislav Krstic was convicted of participation in the planning and execution of mass killings after the fall of the UN protected area of Srebrenica in July 1995.

The Tribunal Prosecutor issued several new indictments for crimes committed by all three sides during the war.

• In August and September, four high-ranking commanders of the former Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina were charged with war crimes against Croatian and Serb civilians in central and southern Bosnia. They voluntarily surrendered to the Tribunal's custody upon learning of the charges against them.
• Three Bosnian Serb army officers were indicted for their participation in crimes against Bosniacs after the fall of Srebrenica.
• In October charges were publicized against a Bosnian Croat army commander for his involvement in the mass killings of Bosniac civilians in Ahmici in central Bosnia. He subsequently surrendered to the Tribunal's custody.
• In November Slobodan Milosevic, former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, who had been surrendered to the Tribunal in April, was additionally indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
• In December the Prosecutor unsealed the indictments of two Bosnian Serbs who had been charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in Foca prison against Bosniac detainees; they had been charged jointly with Milorad Krnojelac who was standing trial at the end of the year.

The Tribunal took custody of 13 people suspected of war crimes. SFOR units arrested two, Dragan Obrenovic and Vidoje Blagojevic, but failed to apprehend any other suspects.

Domestic prosecutions

The police and judiciary in the Federation and RS remained largely incapable of conducting proceedings for war crimes and human rights violations committed during and after the war. The entities also failed to cooperate in order to proceed with such prosecutions. In the few trials that were conducted, there were consistent indications that courts were not impartial and independent, that investigations were not thorough and that victims and witnesses were not protected.

• In April the Mostar Cantonal Court acquitted four Bosnian Croat former military police officers charged with war crimes against Bosniac prisoners of war in 1993. Two of them were tried in absentia. During the trial, which started in November 2000, the court appeared biased in favour of the accused. It ruled in one instance that no credible evidence had been submitted that one defendant had been in a command position despite a large amount of documentation, including from the Office of the Prosecutor at the Tribunal. It held that a commander was not criminally responsible for his failure to prevent war crimes by his subordinates or for not punishing subordinates for such crimes. The court ruled that, although one of the accused was present in his capacity of commander during the torture of some victims, and refused one victim's request for help, this conduct did not constitute a war crime. This ruling directly contradicted the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions (Protocol I), as well as jurisprudence of the Tribunal. Prosecution witnesses were reported to have changed their testimony out of fear of reprisals by the accused, who remained in positions of influence.
• In October and November the IPTF Commissioner removed nine high-ranking officers from the Prijedor and Omarska police forces after receiving information that they had served as interrogators and had held command functions in local detention camps where war crimes had been committed. The IPTF recommended that the RS authorities launch criminal investigations; by the end of 2001 no action had been taken.
• The Sarajevo judicial authorities reportedly failed to conduct prompt, impartial and thorough investigations into crimes against Serb civilians and prisoners of war in Sarajevo during the war, despite extensive evidence presented to them. This included evidence presented to the Supreme Court in 2000 in an appeal by Edin Garaplija, a former intelligence officer, against his conviction in connection with the detention of a former member of a paramilitary unit suspected of such crimes.

Outstanding cases of 'disappearances'

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, tens of thousands of people were still missing after the war. Many of those who "disappeared" were presumed killed by members of armed forces or paramilitary groups, including over 7,000 Bosniac men and boys detained and killed in mass executions by the Bosnian Serb army in Srebrenica in July 1995. Entity and regional authorities continued to withhold information from relatives which could lead to establishing the fate of missing persons. A new forensic laboratory in Tuzla, run by the International Commission for Missing Persons, started work in May and another in Sarajevo in December, with the aim of accelerating the identification process by DNA analysis.

• There was progess in the case of Father Tomislav Matanovic and his parents, who "disappeared" after being detained by Bosnian Serb police in September 1995. The RS government had made no attempt to ascertain their fate despite a binding decision by the Human Rights Chamber in 1997 to do so. In November 2000, under pressure from the UN Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, it opened an investigation. In April investigators reported that Father Matanovic's car had been in the possession of the Prijedor police since his "disappearance". In September the investigative team acknowledged for the first time that Father Matanovic and his parents had been illegally detained, and their bodies were found in a well near Prijedor. In May and December the IPTF Commissioner removed several suspected police officers from post.

Arbitrary detentions

• In the Federation, at least a dozen people suspected of acts of "terrorism" were detained, incommunicado and without charge, by SFOR for up to two weeks, after which some were handed over to local police; most of these detentions took place in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks in the USA. They were denied access to legal counsel or to a court to challenge the legality of their detention. Nobody was known subsequently to have been charged.
• In October, Federation police forces reportedly deported two dual Bosnian-Egyptian nationals to Egypt at the request of the Egyptian authorities and without formal extradition proceedings. The two men had criminal proceedings pending against them before local courts and AI expressed concern that Federation authorities had not obtained guarantees from Egypt that they would not be subjected to torture.

AI country reports/visits

Report

• Concerns in Europe, January-June 2001: Bosnia-Herzegovina (AI Index: EUR 01/003/2001)

Visits

In April and October AI delegates visited the country to carry out research into minority returns, unresolved "disappearances", unfair trials and arbitrary detentions and deportations.