Giving Peace a Chance: Croatia's Branitelji and the Imperative of Reintegration
2013; Routledge; Volume: 65; Issue: 10 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/09668136.2013.848643
ISSN1465-3427
Autores Tópico(s)Migration, Health and Trauma
ResumoAbstractThis article focuses on ex-combatants (branitelji) in the town of Vukovar. It argues that while veterans currently present an obstacle to inter-ethnic reconciliation, this need not be the case; they can potentially play an important role as peace builders. As a first step, however, they need to be reintegrated into society, and to a large extent this has not yet happened. The purpose of this article is thus to reflect on possible ways of advancing the reintegration process, focusing on the core themes of identity and trauma. Notes 1 Many of the Serb combatants who fought in Vukovar now live in Serbia. Although there are still some Serb war veterans living in the town, they do not have their own veterans' associations and hence they are far more difficult to identify and approach than Croat veterans. 2 On the project, see, for example, Clark (Citation2009, Citation2011, Citation2012). 3 Reconciliation is defined in this article as the repair and restoration of relations and the rebuilding of trust (Staub Citation2000, p. 376). 4 Stedman (Citation2008, p. 151) uses the term ‘spoilers’ to refer to destroyers of peace agreements. According to Waldorf (Citation2009, p. 16), ‘… ex-combatants are potential “spoilers” of a peace process in the short term in a way that civilian victims rarely are’. 5 The War Trauma Centre (WTC), www.wartrauma.org, which is based in the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad, was founded in 1999 as the Association for the Protection of the Mental Health of War Veterans and Victims of the Wars 1991–1999. The Centre focuses heavily, but not exclusively, on war veterans and it includes the latter in peace work. According to one of its publications, ‘Led by the idea “War Participants as Peace Builders”, the WTC recognizes that people with war experience hold an irreplaceable potential in the process of building sustainable peace. By experiencing war and peace, veterans are highly competent for participating in the discussion about the consequences of war and the value of peace’ (Centre for War Trauma Citation2009, p. 3). 6Branitelj (defender) is the singular form of the plural noun branitelji (defenders). 7 At this time, Vukovar had a population of 44,639, of which Croats made up 47.20%, Serbs comprised 32.88% and Germans, Hungarians and other minorities constituted the remainder (see http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/vukovar-still-imprisoned-by-its-bloody-past, accessed 24 May 2013). According to the most recent census in 2011, Vukovar has a population of 28,016 (see http://www.dzs.hr/default_e.htm, accessed 25 July 2013). 8 Within the total interview sample, only ten interviewees spoke English. The remainder were interviewed in Croatian or Serbian. 9 Author's interview with an ex-combatant who is now living and working in Germany, 17 November 2011, Vukovar.10 On one occasion, for example, the author telephoned the heads of seven ex-combatant organisations in Vukovar. Only one agreed to be interviewed.11 Author's interview with an ex-combatant who volunteers at a local camp survivors' association, 12 August 2011, Vukovar.12 In August 1995, Gotovina commanded ‘Storm’, a military operation during which Croat forces regained control of territory lost to the Serbs in 1991 when the war in Croatia began. On 15 April 2011, the ICTY Trial Chamber sentenced Gotovina to 24 years' imprisonment for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war. A second defendant, Mladen Markač—the commander of the Special Police of the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia—was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war. The third defendant, Ivan Čermak, was acquitted (Prosecutor v. Ante Gotovina, Mladen Markač and Ivan Čermak (2011) Case no. IT-06-90, ICTY Trial Chamber Judgment, 15 April, vols I and II, 15 April, available at: http://www.icty.org/x/cases/gotovina/tjug/en/110415_judgement_vol1.pdf and http://www.icty.org/x/cases/gotovina/tjug/en/110415_judgement_vol2.pdf, accessed 30 April 2011). On 16 November 2012, however, the ICTY Appeals Chamber, by a majority of three to two, acquitted both Gotovina and Markač and ordered their immediate release (Prosecutor v. Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markač (2012) Case no.IT-06-90-A, ICTY Appeals Chamber Judgement, 16 November, available at: http://www.icty.org/x/cases/gotovina/acjug/en/121116_judgement.pdf, accessed 18 November 2012; for a critique of the Appeals judgement, see Clark (Citation2013a)). In October 2011, a group of veterans celebrated Gotovina's birthday. According to the head of the Zavet veterans' association in Zadar, in the Dalmatia area of Croatia, ‘This is a joint greeting of the Croat defenders and all our friends, especially fan groups from all parts of Croatia. We wish to wish a happy birthday to our hero, General Ante Gotovina, from a place where the Croatian flag was raised as a symbol of victory’ (Balkan Insight Citation2011).13 Author interview with a member of HVIDR, 18 July 2011, Vukovar.14 Author interview with a member of HVIDR, 19 July 2011, Vukovar.15 ‘10,000 “Fake” Homeland War Veterans’, Croatian Times, 14 April 2010, available at: http://www.croatiantimes.com/?id = 10319http://www.croatiantimes.com/?id = 10319, accessed 3 November 2011.16 Prosecutor v. Mile Mrksić, Miroslav Radić and Veselin Šljivančanin (2007) Case no. IT-95-13/1, ICTY Trial Chamber Judgment, 27 December, available at: http://www.icty.org/x/cases/mrksic/tjug/en/070927.pdf, accessed 30 June 2011.17 There is frequent cooperation between these different veterans' organisations—some of which are far more active than others—and several of them are housed in the same building in the Square of the Croatian Defenders.18 The HDZ was in power from 2007 to 2011 and previously from 1990 until 2000. Mired in allegations of corruption and financial misconduct, the HDZ was defeated in Croatia's December 2011 elections by a centre-left coalition, known as Kukuriku (Cock-a-Doodle-Do), headed by the Socijaldemokratska partija Hrvatske (the Social Democratic Party of Croatia) and its leader Zoran Milanović.19 Croatia's national currency is the kuna. At the current exchange rate, there are approximately 8.7 kuna to £1.20 The 1991–1995 war in Croatia is officially referred to as the Domovinski rat (Homeland War). This terminology is used to convey the notion that it was a purely defensive war, wherein Croats were merely protecting what was theirs.21 As many as 80% of war veterans are in receipt of disability pensions (Bađun Citation2009, p. 5). According to the vice-president of the Union of Muscular Dystrophy Societies of Croatia, ‘In the group of users who receive a pension through the Croatian Pension Insurance Institute, there are the most people with 70% physical impairment, while in the veterans’ population the share is only 2.6%. In the veterans' population the dominant group is the one with 20% disability …' (Gol Citation2011, p. 5). He further underlines that ‘… the average veteran's disability pension has reached 4,931 HRK and almost half of veterans’ pensions are above 5,000 HRK. Simultaneously, most users of other disability pensions (57% of them) receive a pension of 1,500–3,000 HRK' (Gol Citation2011, p. 5).22 Croatia, for example ‘has a 60-billion dollar foreign debt, higher than its national gross domestic product in 2010’ (Raseta Citation2010).23 As a result, some changes to the pensions system have been introduced. The World Bank (Citation2011, p. 15), for example, notes that ‘… the government has narrowed HWV [Homeland War Veterans] eligibility to those who served in combat units for more than 100 days’.24 Schäuble (Citation2006, p. 10) underlines that ‘Due to their indeterminate status between publicly acknowledged heroism and social oblivion, the branitelji are particularly susceptible to political manipulation’.25 See footnote 12.26 Author's interviews with two members of HVIDR, 12 April 2012, Knin.27 According to the Croatian Bureau of Statistics, for example, the average number of unemployed persons in Croatia increased from 236,741 in 2008, to 263,174 in 2009, to 302,435 in 2010, available at: http://www.dzs.hr/Hrv_Eng/StatInfo/pdf/StatInfo2011.pdf, accessed 22 May 2012.28 According to a report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), for example, ‘In the 2006 state budget, the Ministry of the Family, Veterans’ Affairs and Intergenerational Solidarity allocated 11 million HRK for youth policy and programmes, which is viewed by youth organisations as a huge success. However, compared to the total ministerial budget of 6.6 billion HRK, of which 4 billion is allocated to veterans, the amount allocated to youth pales in comparison' (Citation2006, pp. 87–88).29 The author attended this event as a participant observer.30 Peskin (Citation2008, p. 104) notes that ‘From an early date, Croatian officials … dismissed international criticism of the [Croatian] army's conduct as unjust attempts to discredit Croatia's newly won sovereignty’.31 Another reason why the veterans cluster together is that ‘Often there is a conviction that non-veterans and home-town communities cannot possibly understand what the war was all about. Consequently, there is a discomfort, if not unwillingness, to share deeply about one's war experiences with non-veterans and the community’ (Scurfield Citation2006, p. 182). Interviewees frequently insisted, for example, that only fellow branitelji can fully empathise with them and understand what they experienced before and after the fall of Vukovar.32 Dzinesa (Citation2008, p. 7) discusses this process of identity entrenchment in relation to war veterans in Zimbabwe.33 According to Danijel Rehak (Citation2008, p. 197), the co-president of the Croatian Society of Camp Inmates of Serbian Concentration Camps, 3,000–4,000 prisoners passed through the Ovčara camp alone.34 The importance of preserving one's masculine self can also partly explain why, in Vukovar, many veterans (according to interviewees) remain armed. As Dudouet et al. (2012, p. 33) point out, ‘… studies on masculinity have found that weapons are strongly linked to power, social status and virility …’.35 Serb houses were regularly shot at, for example, as a way of pressuring their inhabitants to leave; and ‘Between 3 May and 14 September 1991, members of Croatian armed forces, as well as Tomislav Merčep's bodyguards [Merčep was the secretary of the Municipal Defense Secretariat], arrested in Vukovar more than one hundred Serbs whom they subsequently locked up and tortured in the cellar … of the municipal National Defense Secretariat …’ (Dabić & Lukić Citation1997, pp. 22, 27). Furthermore, the Association of Families of Missing and Violently Abducted Persons (Citation1999, pp. 1–43) lists the names and details of 83 missing Serbs from Vukovar and the adjacent village of Borovo Selo, as well as five missing JNA soldiers.36 In January 2011, Purda was arrested in Bosnia and Hercegovina on a Serbian arrest warrant for alleged war crimes committed against Serbs in Vukovar. He spent 57 days in custody before Serbia dropped the charges against him, due to a lack of evidence.37 ‘Borković: Serbia's Decision Comes Too Late’, Radio.net, 3 March 2011, available at: http://www.tportal.hr/114837/Borkovic-Serbia-s-decision-comes-too-late.html, accessed 8 November 2011.38 Today, 306 Croats are still missing from the Vukovar area (Garmaz Citation2011, p. 4).39 Schäuble (2006, p. 9), for example, notes that ‘… most young men who went to war before completing their education have had hardly any opportunity to train and qualify for other work today’.40 ‘HDZ to Ask Court Whether Publication of Veterans Register is Constitutional’, Radio.net, 30 January 2013, available at: http://daily.tportal.hr/240360/HDZ-to-ask-court-whether-publication-of-Veterans-Register-is-constitutional.html, accessed 13 May 2013.41 According to Dragutin Glasnović, an ex-combatant and the head of the association working for the return of Croats to Vukovar, the closure or near closure of factories such as Borovo, Vupik and Vuteks has meant that 27,000 jobs have been lost in Vukovar (Paun Citation2011, p. 2).42 Bojan Glavašević is the son of the late Siniša Glavašević, a prominent Radio Vukovar journalist who was killed at Ovčara in November 1991.43 Bourke (Citation1999, p. 240), for example, notes that during the First and Second World Wars, ‘Many medical officers believed that psychological breakdown was a form of cowardice’.44 Author's interview with the head of a local veterans' association, 29 July 2011, Vukovar.45 During the twentieth anniversary commemorations in Vukovar, for example, Slavko Jurić—the head of the Association of Croatian Veterans and Invalids of the Homeland War (previously called the Association of Croatian Military Invalids of the Homeland War) (HVIDR)—expressed his view that ‘20 years later the memories are still fresh, as if everything happened just yesterday’. Interestingly, the article in which Jurić was cited was entitled ‘Don't Forget Vukovar’ (Lovrić et al.Citation2011, p. 3).46 Pointing out, for example, that ‘… up to 20,000 persons have been reported killed or missing, and more than 30,000 people have been disabled as a result of the war’, Braš et al. (Citation2011, p. 6) go on to note that: ‘The societal impact of this is enormous, despite the fact that the real number of people suffering from PTSD and other disorders is very difficult to estimate, due to difficulties in diagnosing mild cases and the fact that a person can develop PTSD years after the exposure to [the] traumatic event’.47 According to Kirkwood (Citation2010, p. xvi), ‘PTSD is a complex and multidimensional latticework of symptoms, memories, events, responses, and beliefs …’.48 The authors define secondary traumatic stress as a ‘natural emotional reaction to the traumatic experience of a significant other. Secondary traumatisation is the stress caused by providing help, or wishing to help, and offering emotional support to a traumatized person’ (Frančisković et al.Citation2007, p. 178).49 The author took part in one of these workshops, as a participant observer, on 20 July 2011.50 Prior to the start of the very first workshop in May 2000, for example, only one of the 20 participants described their psychological state (mood) as excellent, two defined it as very good, 11 said it was good and three opined it was bad. After three weeks of workshops, however, six participants described their psychological state as excellent, eight maintained that it was very good and three reported it as good. By the end of the workshops, moreover, the participants' use of medication had decreased by 57%. All of the participants to date have been female. Author's interview with the director of the European House, 14 July 2011, Vukovar.51 2008/119/EC: Council Decision of 12 February 2008 on the Principles, Priorities and Conditions Contained in the Accession Partnership with Croatia and Repealing Decision 2006/145/EC, 12 February 2008, available at: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri = OJ:L:2008:042:0051:0062:EN:PDF, accessed 25 July 2013.
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