International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals

In June the students of the master programma ‘Peace, Trauma and Religion’ visited the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (ICTY), as part of the preparation to the study trip to Sarajevo in July. Here we met with the coordinator and the researcher of the Programme for Affected Communities.

At the beginning of the session, the mission of the programme was described as ‘protecting the legacy of the ICTY’ in the communities of former Yugoslavia. The programme places high importance on the creation of narratives. As the coordinator said: ‘Do not let the narrative be made by others’. If the wrong narratives take precedence, the conflict will never stop. Saying that something is wrong and injust is of great importance in a context with so much propaganda, disinformation, and polarization. The mechanism does so by informing history teachers, providing courses for students, and identifying lack in information resources to fill the necessary gaps. Although it seems that the conflict is over, now is a crucial time to establish the right narratives. As they said, a generation that has not experienced war, is more ready to go to war. If there is no acknowledgement of the atrocities that have taken place, people will more easily take up arms again. As one example, there is still a debate if the genocide of Srebrenica really happened in such severe form. Investigation teams are still digging up the scattered corps to collect evidence for the genocide. I was rightly reminded that for peace and reconciliation, truth-telling is of such high importance. Not just to locate guilt and punish the right perpetrators, but also to create the right narratives.

Written by: Eline van der Kaaden – PTR Student