18 September 2003
Exchanging Apologies
(Andrea Saula)
President Svetozar
Marovic: I want
to apologize for all evils that any citizen of Monte Negro and Serbia inflicted
upon or committed to anybody in Croatia. I want to apologize because I don’t
think that nations can be guilty and that should apologize. I think that we
should make an agreement and work together, like we are doing now, to make
everyone who is personally responsible to face the law. In that sense
cooperation with the ICTY is our biggest obligation.
President Stipe Mesic: I’m using this
opportunity to accept this symbolic apology. I, for my part, apologize to all
those to whom any citizen of Croatia caused pain or damage. This stands for any
crime committed at any time.
Hello and welcome
to UNMIK on AIR with Sputnik Kilambi and Martin Redi
A historic
occasion, a historic apology by Presidents
Marovic and Mesic
– unthinkable even a year ago. The killing years in the Balkans took a heavy
toll on both countries, but with the mutual apologies, there is a real hope
today that a new chapter has begun.
It began with an
apology by Serbian and Montenegro President Svetozar Marovic, a gesture that
apparently took his Croatian counterpart Stipe Mesic by surprise and with no
other alternative but to accept and reply in kind. An unexpected but positive
development marking the first official visit by a Croatian
president to Belgrade since the breakup of socialist Yugoslavia in 1991.
The fall of the
Berlin Wall was the beginning of a democratic age for all the other communist
countries. But for ex-Yugoslavia, it was the dawn of the negation of humanity
and dignity. The war in Croatia began in 1991 when ethnic Serbs in Croatia took
up arms to contest the republic’s secession.
The ensuing Serbo-Croatian war, which left 20,000 dead, ended in 1995, with
Croatian forces taking over territories of the Republika Srpska Krajina, a
self-proclaimed entity of the Croatian Serbs who were opposed to Croatia’s
independence from Yugoslavia. Over 200.000 Serbs fled in
a brutal reverse ethnic cleansing.
Their return and
the other consequences of the war, which saw living standards plummeting in
both countries, was the subject of discussions between Mesic and Markovic.
This comment from
prominent Croatian journalist Drago Hedl.
Drago
Hedl: I think that this is a very positive step. It is an
important move towards the improvement of the relationship between the two
states and interpersonal relationships between the Croats and the Serbs. It is
very important because without an apology like that and without good will and
without an act that shows understanding of what happened in the war, it’s hard
to improve anything between two countries.
Natasa
Kandic, Belgrade activist for human rights agrees but emphasizes that important
questions still need to be addressed.
Natasa Kandic: To begin
with, I think this is a very good political message. It is good that neither president elaborated
on what that message meant. This apology means that the presidents of both
countries are ready for a normalization of relations. This is a first step that
should open some important questions from the past that makes us prisoners of
us all. The thing that is missing in both messages is mentioning the victims.
Both
presidents stressed the importance of The Hague War Crimes Tribunal. That too
is significant, says Mirko Klarin, editor in chief of SENSE news agency in Den
Haag and a regular monitor of tribunal proceedings.
Mirko Klarin: Establishing the
facts, what happened and pointing out the ones responsible for things that
occurred in the war is a precondition for any apology. That’s what the ICTY has
been working on for ten years. It is not enough for reconciliation but it is
the precondition. On the one hand in numerous facts have been established in
tribunal verdicts. On the other hand in recent months, the accused have begun
admitting their guilt. That also contributes to establishing the facts about
all those events
Cooperation with
the tribunal was minimal during the regimes of Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo
Tudjman. The change of regime in both countries as well the need to be a part
of Euro - Atlantic integration pushed them to reconsider their approach towards
questions such as war crimes.
But it took ten
years for all this to happen, points out Drago Hedl.
Mirko Klarin: This happened thanks to
the existence of good will on both sides. After the fall of the Slobodan
Milosevic regime in S&M and the very similar regime in Croatia under
President Franjo Tudjman, the two countries felt that it was possible to
improve ties. Of course, politics is the key to all the other aspects. It has
been understood that these two countries lived for a long time in one country,
that their relationship lasted for very long with economic and other ties and
that it is logical that things that had been broken by the war need to be
reestablished.
Of
course there are dissonant views in both Serbia and Montenegro and Croaita.
Whose idea was it to apologize in the first place, for example, was it
necessary to apologize at all or that the apology was much too late in
coming. Not necessarily the most
constructive subject of debate, but it perhaps underlines the importance of the
issue. Natasa Kandic again.
Natasa Kandic: Some said
that this thing was supposed to be done earlier. Some said that we should wait
them to apologize to us. But it seems that the majority greeted this as
something positive. I have a feeling that to some people this thing meant a lot
because they think it is important.
Serbian &
Montenegro and Croatia are at a crucial crossroads. The mutual abolition
of visa requirements was already a good start; the apology takes that process
one step further. But the tough work has only just begun – issues like the
return of refugees, property rights, rights of succession and minor border
problems still exist. But in Balkan politics good will is not something that
you can see every day, and that in itself is a big milestone.