The radicalization of the Serbian political scene since Kosovo’s declaration of independence on Sunday has put the country’s few, though dedicated, human rights defenders and liberally-oriented politicians at risk. Not since 1999, when Serbian forces under Slobodan Milosevic’s direction were ethnically cleansing Kosovo of its Albanian inhabitants, have Serbian human rights defenders been so vulnerable.
Amnesty International is calling on the Serbian authorities and specifically Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica and President Boris Tadić to urgently condemn attacks on human rights activists and on ethnic minorities in the country.
I am aware that I do not have support in Serbia for what I do and that there are a lot of people within the state insititutions who are attacking me in order to draw public attention away from the misdeeds they committed in the past. Vojislav Šešelj and his ultra-nationalist party, Serb Radical Party [SRS] are among these people. The trial of Vojislav Šešelj for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the armed conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, began in The Hague in December 2007. During the main hearing, held in January 2008, defendant Šešelj started revealing information concerning my privacy and confidential contacts with witnesses of war crimes.
Members of the Advisory Committee on the Archives of the UN Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (ACA) visited Belgrade at the end of December 2007 to discuss the future of the Hague Tribunal archive with representatives of the authorities and NGOs.
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A Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) attorney filed three compensation lawsuits against the Republic of Serbia on behalf of Mušan Džebo, Enes Bogilović, Ahmet Kamenica, Mujo Vatreša, Selim Nuhanović, Halil Durmišević, Senad Jusufbegović, Fehim Dudević, and Fadil Čardaković [all from Žepa], because of the state’s responsibility for their detention in Šljivovica and Mitrovo Polje camps during the summer of 1995 and torture committed against them by members of the Serbian Ministry of Interior. The compensation lawsuits were filed on 23 November and 20 December as part of the support programme to victims of past human rights violation in exercising their right to reparation.
In view of the news published on the B92 web page on 12 December 2007, which stated that Jovan Mirilo “provided the Humanitarian Law Center non-governmental organization with the video tape” showing the execution of six Bosniaks from Srebrenica committed in July 1995, the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) reiterates that it obtained the tape from Dušan Kosanović, a member of the Scorpions unit, in November 2004. Dušan Kosanović testified about this before the Belgrade District Court War Crimes Chamber on 11 April 2006.
Between 12 and 15 December 2007, Francisco Soberon was a guest of HLC in Belgrade and participated in the Seminar: Reparations – legal and moral obligations of the state, which HLC organized on 14 December in cooperation with the International Center for Transitional Justice with the financial support of the Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights.
On 20 November 2007, it will be sixteen years since the war crime at the Ovčara farm near Vukovar was committed. Not a single person has been convicted for the commission of this crime and Serbian state institutions have not yet revealed the entire truth about the former Yugoslav Peoples Army’s (YNA) role in this crime.
HLC: In light of your recent visit to Belgrade, 25-26 October 2007, how would you assess the authorities’ level of cooperation with your Office?