Truth and Revisionism in Bosnia and Herzegovina
As scholars whose research involves public understandings of recent history, conflicts over public memory, and efforts to achieve justice in relation to massive crimes committed in the wars of succession in the former Yugoslavia, we feel obligated to provide some context for understanding the two commissions recently appointed by the government of the Republika Srpska (RS) entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The first is charged with revisiting the conclusions of the 2004 Srebrenica commission, and the other with investigating abuses committed against members of the ethnic Serb population in Sarajevo.
While regional media continue to trade in predictable nationalist recriminations, we begin with a simple point: There are already existing frameworks for reaching truth and reconciliation, both globally and in the Yugoslav region, and the newly announced RS commissions fit into a pattern of deliberate revision of established truths. Here we want to lay out the issues at stake.
