Croatia, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and General Gotovina as a Political Symbol

Who chooses to remember? Diaspora participation in memorialization initiatives

“…In BiH, convicted war criminals run and gain political office, most prominently evidenced by the case of Fikret Abdić (Valenta and Ramet 2011). Memorials and commemorations organized to promote the dominant political memory narratives in each of the three ethnonational communities glorify or establish victimhood of one group while discounting the other, polarizing already fragile societies further (Jelin 2003;Pavlaković 2010). Even though parallel and alternative memory narratives continue to exist, it is difficult for them to gain prominence (González Enriquez, Barahona de Brito, and Aguilar Fernández 2001;Moll 2013).…”

“…Today, Bosnian Serb political leadership remains dominant in Prijedor, furthering corresponding political memory narratives which negate the abovementioned crimes. There are a multitude of memorials dedicated to Bosnian Serbs who are celebrated as national heroes, including convicted war criminals (Pavlaković 2010;Dowling 2014) in Prijedor today. There is no acknowledgement to non-Serb victims of the war, and minimal evidence of the existence of concentration camps in the area, well established by international and national courts.…”

“…This makes research on bottom-up initiatives particularly worthwhile to examine. The politics of memory plays heavily into the bottom-up transitional justice initiatives throughout the region (Subotic 2009;Pavlaković 2010;Moll 2013;Barkan and Bećirbašić 2015) as memorialization and remembrance activities seek to establish particular narratives about what happened, and thus, help to determine how to move forward. Jelin (2003) calls such actors "memory entrepreneurs.…”

Diasporas and transitional justice: transnational activism from local to global levels of engagement

“…Projects to acknowledge atrocities and victims are rarely made for minorities or other actors external to the political leadership. Memorials glorifying one group while discounting another further polarize fragile post-conflict societies (Pavlaković 2010). In the former Yugoslav space, there is still a need for a clear message to acknowledge the atrocities of the 1990s by the political elites.…”

Remembrance, Public Narratives, and Obstacles to Justice in the Western Balkans

“…The August 5 celebration is especially significant in this context because since 2004, the Croatian government made it a practice for the entire Croatian political leadership (the President, Prime Minister and Speaker of the Parliament) to attend the memorial in Knin. The site of Knin is additionally symbolic since it was historically the seat of the former Croatian kingdom, and during the 1990s war the headquarters of the Croatian Serb rebellion (Pavlaković, 2010). It is during one of these commemorations, in 2006, that Prime Minister Sanader proclaimed that "'Storm' was not a crime; 'Storm' defeated the crime" (Jutarnji list, August 6, 2006).…”