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Bosnia Herzegovina vs. Serbia and Montenegro

"Many in Serbia already Deny Srebrenica"

A new trial in The Hague marks the first time a country has sued another for genocide. Bosnia Herzegovina is suing Serbia and Montenegro over atrocities, including the massacre at Srebrenica, that occurred during the Balkans war. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, Phon van den Biesen, a Dutch lawyer representing Bosnia, discusses the case and the chances for a civil settlement.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. van den Biesen, you are representing Bosnia Herzegovina in its case against Serbia and Montenegro at the International Court of Justice. But Slobodan Milosevic and other former representatives of the Serbian regime are already being tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). What do you hope to achieve with your case that isn't already being addressed by the tribunal?

Van den Biesen: All the individual cases that the ICTY deals with are only part of the ethnic cleansing campaign and genocide. We are putting everything into one case. We are first asking the court to declare that this was genocide and not ethnic cleansing. Secondly, we want the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which is now Serbia and Montenegro, to be held responsible (for the crime) and not only individuals. We hope that a ruling will be issued by the end of the year. If the court agrees with us on that, we will go to the next part of our case, which involves damages. This is not a criminal case, it is a civil case where one neighbor sues the other.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The ICTY has already ruled that the massacre of 7,800 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995 was an act of genocide. What more are you seeking?

Van den Biesen: Srebrenica was a horrific offense, but it was only part of the ethnic cleansing campaign that occurred from March 1992 until the end of 1995. So we are obviously including Srebrenica in our list of genocidal acts, but we are not restricting ourselves to it. We are trying to cover the entire period and all the atrocities that occurred in Bosnia Herzegovina.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What kind of damages do you anticipate seeking if the court rules in your favor?

Van den Biesen: That is not part of our present pleadings at all. It only becomes relevant if the court delivers a judgement in our favor and only at that point would we ask the court to establish a mechanism to establish the amount of damages. We haven't spent one second thinking about that yet.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Bosnian representatives first filed the lawsuit in 1993. The Serbians sought to stop the suit by filing a counter suit. Did you get a reaction from Belgrade this time around?

Van den Biesen: No, none whatsoever. They will take to the floor of the court this week. I am looking forward to seeing what they have to say.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Will your lawsuit put more pressure on the Serbian government to finally arrest the alleged war criminals Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic?

Van den Biesen: I don't know. It is very hard to tell what could actually put enough pressure on the government. It has been more than 10 years now since Ratko Mladic was indicted, and so far, no measures have been enough to secure their extradition. Nor would it make any difference for our lawsuit, since we will rely on testimony from various independent experts. We are not calling witnesses because, if we did, we would have to call hundreds. We do not think it proper to make a selection, which would suggest that one victim is more important than the next. However, we are sure that the voice of all the victims comes across extremely strongly through the materials we are presenting to the court. The facts that need to be established will be proven on the basis of the many documents that we have.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: So you are not going to call Slobodan Milosevic as a witness?

Van den Biesen: No, no. He is in another court, he is in jail and we don't want him. Apparently the other side has not seen fit to call him, either.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: In your suit, you are mainly relying on evidence from the ICTY. What new arguments will you present?

Van den Biesen: We are basically already at the end of the proceedings. This case started in March 1993 and it has taken far too long. Since then we have submitted many documents: UN reports, country reports and reports from human rights organizations. We are relying on independent sources for 95 percent of the case. At the time (when we filed the suit), the tribunal was only just getting started. Since then, an enormous amount of judgments has been delivered by the Yugoslav tribunal. Tens of thousands of pages have been made public that are all related to the various individual cases. All of that material confirms our positions and helps us enormously. We will only present the International Court of Justice with evidence from the most important ICTY cases.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How would a verdict in your favor change the situation in the former Yugoslavia?

Van den Biesen: For the Bosnian government, that is the most important reason to have continued this case. It is convinced that if the court agrees with us, the case could be very helpful in clearing the path for true reconciliation. The problem is that the people in Serbia were told so many untruths by their leaders in the 1990s, and they have gotten such a strange version of their own history, that they always keep falling back -- at least their leadership -- on the idea that Serbia is the victim. They are already trying to do that now with the entire period in which the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia took place. So Bosnia finds it very necessary that the record is set straight by the court so that we can start a new era. On television yesterday, we saw this huge demonstration in Belgrade -- people were shouting and ordering their government not to hand over Mladic. It shows that there is really a need for an authoritative, independent opinion on who was really responsible for what.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you think your case might change public opinion about such responsibility among Serbs?

Van den Biesen: They are not accepting the truth today, that is for sure. Many people in Serbia have already begun to deny what happened at Srebrenica. It would take all kinds of ways to explain, to convince and to make them think otherwise. A ruling of the International Court of Justice could really help.

Interview conducted by Eva Lodde.