Why are illiberal monuments legally possible? Some insights from Bosnia and Herzegovina
After unveiling a monument to the genocide denier Peter Handke a few years ago, local authorities in Banja Luka – the largest city of Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity – are now building a massive monument to the soldiers of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) who died in the war of 1992–95. The monument is located right in the city center. Avideo presentation shows that it will consist of 62 pillars symbolizing the VRS soldiers and brigades. A yew tree will be positioned in the middle of the pillars to symbolize the homeland. The image is consequently one in which the soldiers (pillars) are gathered around Republika Srpska (homeland) to defend it with their bodies. Banja Luka’s mayor, Draško Stanivuković, said that the city had waited three decades for such a monument and underlined that it would become one of its symbols.
The memorial site in Banja Luka is not the first dedicated to the VRS. On the contrary, it follows the example of other towns and municipalities in the Serb-dominated areas. Together, they form an illiberal politics of remembrance developed by Bosnia, and especially Republika Srpska, since the end of the war in the 1990s. Notably, this memory politics is marked by the denial of war atrocities and the glorification of war criminals. The monument in Banja Luka commemorates military forces who committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide but completely disregards the victims of those crimes. Its ongoing construction shows that, almost thirty years after the conflict, there is a need to establish a new and comprehensive legal framework for memorialization in Bosnia. In essence, memorialization should be aligned with human rights and enable the development of a democratic culture. To achieve this twofold goal, constitutional and legislative reforms are needed.
A constitutionally precluded reconciliation
The Bosnian Constitution is an important, albeit indirect, source that legitimizes the controversial memorialization initiatives. Adopted as Annex 4 of the U.S.-brokered Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the war in 1995, it distinguishes between three “constituent peoples” – Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs. The members of ethnic minorities and persons who do not declare affiliation with any particular group are called “others.”
This way, the Bosnian Constitution justifies and perpetuates regimes of divisions and precludes reconciliation. This is because reconciliation is only possible if a “we” figures as the basis of a new political order and if this “we” is as inclusive as possible. Yet, Bosnia’s exceptional constitutional arrangement as a state of two autonomous entities – the abovementioned Serb-majority Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat Federation (itself composed of 10 cantons), the borders of which are drawn along ethnic lines – precludes the possibility of being non-ethnic. It basically condemns the members of society to live within their segregated identities. Worryingly, divided societies produce divided memories along ethnic lines.
Monuments play a central role in reinforcing these constitutionally prescribed divisions. They set in stone three conflicting “constituent memories” about the war and its causes based on ethno-nationalist interpretations of the past. Each ethnic group sees itself as a victim of historical injustices and perceives the conflict of the 1990s as a defensive liberation war. Overall and across the country, three types of illiberal monuments exist.
Monuments paying tribute to soldiers
Estimates say that more than 2,100 war memorials have been built in Bosnia since the end of the conflict in the 1990s and that more than 2 million euros have been spent on them from 2016 to 2020. The main issue with these memorial sites is that they pay tribute to the military forces of the dominant ethnic group present in the local area in which the monument is built.
In Republika Srpska, memorials dedicated to the VRS are often positioned near sites of atrocities. For instance, this is the case with the Serb nationalist three-finger salute monument near Zvornik, which was unveiled in 2017 proximate to a site of mass executions of Bosniaks. Frequently, these monuments honor convicted war criminals. Examples include a plaque to the wartime Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadžić placed on the entrance of the student dormitory in Pale in 2016 (but later removed), two memorial sites for the former Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladić, the first a 3.5-meter-high monument in his hometown Kalinovik, the second a plaque in his honor near Sarajevo.
Yet, not just the Serb-dominated entity pays tribute to military formations. In the Federation, most monuments are dedicated to the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) or the Croatian Defense Council (HVO), depending on whether Bosniaks or Croats are the ethnic majority in the respective region. In 2012, a lily monument dedicated to the ARBiH was built in the ethnically divided city of Mostar. It was placed next to the monument commemorating the HVO soldiers. Yet, in 2013, the lily monument was bombed to erase the Bosniaks’ war narrative.
Non-existent monuments
By contrast, numerous atrocities completely go without mentioning, and the victims are not commemorated in any sense. Examples of this silence include the former concentration camps in Republika Srpska (such as Omarska and Trnopolje) where thousands of non-Serbs were subject to abusive and inhumane conditions; the Višegrad massacres, including the daily mass executions of local Bosniaks on the Drina bridge; the burning of women, children and the elderly in the Pionirska Street and Bikavac houses while they were still alive; the murder and rape of women in hotel Vilina Vlas. Shockingly, Vilina Vlas has even been turned into a hotel yet again, and in Trnoplje, a memorial honoring the VRS was erected near the camp buildings.
Recently, media have reported that the site of the former Heliodrom detention camp in Mostar will soon become a military museum honoring the HVO soldiers who detained and tortured 10,000 non-Croat civilians during the war. The victims of torture and violence go completely unmentioned.
Painfully, the aim pursued with these unmarked sites of atrocities seems to be the erasure of all memory of the victims. Forgetting is as significant as remembering, and celebrating the perpetrators and their crimes becomes a virtue on its own.
Monuments without memory
On September 21, 2020 – a date that coincided with the International Day of Peace – a new monument was unveiled in Srebrenica. It features two hands raising a globe with four children standing hand in hand on the top. Srebrenica’s mayor, Mladen Grujičić, said that this is a neutral monument with no direct link to the victims of the past war. It does not commemorate anything but wants to send a message of peace. This is particularly cynical since Grujičić is a note genocide denier, and the monument has been placed exactly where the convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić ordered genocide in July 1995. To recall: More than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys were killed in and around Srebrenica by the VRS towards the end of the war. This massacre has been adjudicated as a crime of genocide by two international courts. Still, the “Peace” monument, which is located only 7 km away from the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial and Cemetery complex – the resting place for the genocide victims – excludes the memory of those who suffered and commemorates those who ordered violence.
How is this possible? The issue of fragmented legislation
At the state level, there is a lack of comprehensive legislation regulating memorialization more generally and the construction of monuments in particular. Against this backdrop and in view of the regimes of division created by the Constitution, the construction of illiberal monuments has flourished. Here are some examples of the patchy legal framework: The 2004 Law on Missing Persons only states that families of missing persons or their associations may request the authorities to mark locations of burials and exhumation (individual or joint), regardless of the number of victims. Further, it establishes that memorial plaques should be financed from a fund supporting the families of missing persons (yet the fund has never been established). In addition, Annex VIII of the Dayton Peace Accords sets up a Commission to Preserve National Monuments. This Commission has the power to issue decisions on the designation of movable and immovable properties as national monuments if the respective properties are of great importance to a group of people with common cultural, historical, religious, or ethnic heritage. The Commission may consider Bosnian history until 1960. By contrast, monuments created after that year can only be taken into consideration if they are of special artistic value. The 2002 Criteria for School Names and Symbols further establishes that the eligible school symbols may be war memorial plaques, but, in this case, they must not contain interpretations and qualifications of the war or offensive and unacceptable messages. Despite this, numerous schools have ethnically exclusionary names and symbols.
At the level of the entities, the cantons of the Federation, and the Brčko District (since 2000, the Brčko District has been a separate district where the three constituent peoples share power), the issue of memorialization and monument construction has been regulated in more detail. In Republika Srpska, the 2011 Law on Monuments and Memorials to Liberation Wars contains ethno-nationalist elements. According to this Law, acceptable memorials are only those dedicated to the Serb and Montenegrin armies up to 1918, the WWII anti-fascist struggle, and the homeland war for Republika Srpska. These three wars are equated under the term “liberation war.” This way, any Bosnian Serb involvement in or responsibility for the crimes committed in the 1990s is denied.
While the Federation, by contrast, does not have any laws regulating monuments, some cantons have adopted heritage laws addressing the issue of memorialization. However, in cantons without any proper heritage laws on their own, the 1985 Law on the Protection and Preservation of the Cultural, Historical, and Natural Heritage (amended in 1987, 1993, and 1994) continues to apply. Yet, in view of the date of its passing and amendments, said Law does not regulate the construction of monuments related to the 1992–1995 war.
Overall, in most cases, the existing legislation at the level of entities and cantons establishes that the local authorities are responsible for issuing the necessary permits to erect monuments. This way, only the majority ethnic group in the local area is in a position to initiate the construction of war memorials. Consequently, there is systemic discrimination against monuments dedicated to minority ethnic groups. This is mainly because the construction permits requested by ethnic minorities are often rejected with reference to the lack of state-level legislation regulating these cases. A slight exception to this rule is the 2003 Law on Monuments and Symbols in the Brčko District, which establishes that only those monuments “based on the equality of all constituent peoples” may be erected in public spaces. However, as a – rather problematic – result, three large monuments dedicated to all three former warring armies have been established in the city center in relative proximity. These monuments profess mutually irreconcilable views about the 1990s war.
What is to be done?
In a democratic society, different narratives about past violence coexist. Yet, this situation should never lead to the denial of war atrocities and the celebration of those who perpetrated them. Still, in Bosnia, memorialization processes glorify war criminals and exclude ethnic minorities. Further, since sites of atrocities are not acknowledged intentionally, victims get humiliated, and perverse interpretations of the past arise. In these interpretations, the perpetrators of atrocities take the center stage, and those who suffered violence are neglected. This very fact is not only inconsistent with liberal democracy, it also violates the state’s international obligations. In addition, the current legal state in Bosnia harbors the risk of triggering a new wave of cultural violence.
It is beyond any doubt: Monuments should be a warning sign not to repeat the crimes of the past. They should serve to remember the victims, not the perpetrators. Therefore, Bosnia should – without any further delay – adopt state-level legislation on memorialization that clearly defines standards and criteria for monument construction. Further, the debate on constitutional reforms should be reopened. The latter would make it possible to lead the country from a divisive past to a common future. Implementing memorialization that supports the culture of democracy and human rights is an obligationthat flows from both primary and secondary sources of international human rights law, such as the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the Durban Declaration of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, the Set of Principles for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights through Actions to Combat Impunity, and the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law. According to the UN regulatory framework, memorialization should respect the right to truth and reparation and the guarantees of non-recurrence. Further, victims of violence should play a central role. Following the above guidance and complying with existing obligations is crucial in societies that have suffered serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.
This publication is part of the project We-R (Illusions of eternity: the Constitution as a lieu de mémoire and the problem of collective remembrance in the Western Balkans) that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 898966.
