RIGHTS-YUGOSLAVIA: Human Rights Record May Hinder EU Integration

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jul 30 2002 (IPS) - The integration of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) into European institutions is still a long way away despite some progress made since the fall of the Slobodan Milosevic regime two years ago, human rights groups say.

FRY wants access to the Council of Europe, European Union Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP) and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Partnership for Peace Programme.

Local human rights experts say that while the situation has improved as harassment of political opponents and civic activists, restrictions on free expression, politically motivated trials, impunity for war crimes and persecution of ethnic minorities have decreased in frequency or disappeared altogether. However, the new authorities lack the will to solve the major problems.

They say after the decade of rule by Milosevic, Serbian society is still deeply divided over what led to the bloody wars of the 90s. Many favour the views imposed by Milosevic’s propaganda that spoke of the defence of minority Serbs in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. The wars left 200,000 dead and more than two million displaced, most of them non-Serbs. The former Yugoslavia had a population of 24 million.

The latest Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on FRY has named four areas where the new authorities failed to meet necessary international standards. It says faced with a deeply divided public the authorities are reluctant to tackle the first two, co-operation with the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague and prosecution of war crimes before national courts.

“Relevant laws have been made but they are applied slowly and reluctantly. The excuses given (for the delays) include maintaining state dignity or sovereignty while justice is being forgotten,” says Biljana Kovacevic Vuco of the Yugoslav Committee of Lawyers for Human Rights. He says the other two areas, reduction of police violence and ending discriminatory treatment of the Romani population, also remain problematical as there is not enough political will to tackle these issues.

The reaction of the FRY authorities to the report has generally been mild. “We are aware of the fields where the improvements must be made. We will do everything in our power to meet the deadlines set by the Council of Europe and other international bodies,” the Speaker of the FRY parliament, Dragoljub Micunovic, told journalists in Belgrade.

According to political analysts FRY expects to become a member of Council of Europe by the end of this year. In order to even be considered it had to adjust over 12,000 laws, bills and regulations to meet international standards.

“We have been at war with all our neighbours. We left their countries devastated. We have to face that. There can be no justice and reconciliation without that,” Natasa Kandic, head of the prominent Humanitarian Law Centre told IPS.

“When it comes to the war crimes trials here, it is like pushing the dirt under the carpet,” says political analysts Bojan Toncic commenting on the first national war trial in years.

Three weeks ago, a former army reservist was sentenced to eight years in prison. He killed two ethnic Albanian civilians in Kosovo in 1999. Protests by war veterans were held during the trial in the southern town of Prokuplje. The prosecutor and the judge received anonymous death threats.

Political analysts say following the fall of Milosovic the new administration was reconciliatory towards the structures of the former regime fearing the possibility of civil war so there were no major divisions in the judiciary, army or police system.

Human rights groups say police brutality is still present in the province. From the political opponents of Milosevic’s regime, it has shifted to young people and the Romani minority. Romani make 11 percent of Serbia’s 7,4 million population.

“Since Milosevic fell from power, our prosecutors have never reacted to the police brutality or everyday dissemination of ethnic and religious hatred,” Biljana Kovacevic Vuco told IPS.

“The layers of intolerance and hatred are so deep that not even those who should do their jobs can take them off from their shoulders. This country needs more than laws to bring things to normal. It needs total re-arrangement,” he says.