Europe, Headlines

SOCIETY-BALKANS: Past Stands In the Way of Moving Ahead

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jul 13 2004 (IPS) - Democracy and the European Union are the two goals most talked about in the Balkans but the path to them has been made difficult by failures to deal with the past, analysts say.

"Weak efforts to deal with the past coincide with problems of democratisation," university professor and human rights activist Zarko Puhovski from Croatia told IPS. "In some parts of the Balkans, we are seriously lagging behind, compared to other areas of Europe."

Puhovski was among a group of 40 experts from Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro and Romania who participated in a conference last week on ‘Past and Present: Consequences for Democratisation’. The meeting was organised by the Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe (CDRSEE) based in Thessaloniki in Greece.

The seven countries remain outside the EU after its enlargement May 1. One precondition for them to join is a clean bill of health in dealing with the past.

Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania could all join by 2007, but the remaining four are still far from the EU.

All the countries have a communist past. Albania lived in near isolation for almost 50 years. Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia were involved in wars of disintegration of former Yugoslavia that took about 250,000 lives in the 1990s.

Both Bulgaria and Romania bear the scars of repressive communism and dictatorship. Macedonia was the only state to leave former Yugoslavia without bloodshed.

"Maybe the best recipe for Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia could be the de-Nazification and lustration in Germany after World War II," Puhovski told the conference. "It proved to be most successful."

The participation of adults in post-war Germany in public life had been ranked On nine levels, Puhovski said. Strict measures were set accordingly for disqualification from public life. This was the process referred to as lustration.

The measure deals with people not directly involved in crimes or repression, but who are seen to bear responsibility for participation in a regime and for doing nothing to stop prevailing ways.

Germany again went through a similar process before unification in 1990, Puhovski said. Dismantling of the secret service Stasi and publishing its dossiers played a crucial role in democratisation of that part of the country, he said.

"Nothing similar has been done here," professor of law at Belgrade University Jovica Trkulja told the meeting. "Remnants of regimes who led their people to wars in the 1990s in Serbia, Croatia or Bosnia remain in all the structures and nothing essential was achieved in breaking with the past."

This was despite the death of two war time leaders, Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia. Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic fell from power four years ago and was extradited to the United Nations tribunal in The Hague.

Despite such changes politicians close to the former leaders still play a prominent part in public life. The judiciary, the police and other parts of the administration never effectively cleaned out active participants in the wars.

"The former communist countries of Eastern Europe, now members of the EU (Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic) finished the process of lustration by the end of the 1990s and were able to take a big step (of joining the EU)," Prof Vojin Dimitrijevic from Belgrade University said.

"The area of former Yugoslavia will need a clear starting point for dealing with its specific environment," he added. "Lustration has to be adapted to the individual experience of each country, and one model for all of them cannot work."

Elsa Ballauri from the Human Rights Group based in Tirana in Albania said nations need to pick a specific point in time to deal with lustration moves.

"Due to the fact that only the (communist) party leaders wrote parts of our history in the post World War II period in order to suit their specific needs, Albania is a country without modern history at all," Ballauri said. "It is hard to say what part of it the lustration should deal with, if it is possible at all in Albania."

Jakob Finci from the Bosnian Association for Truth and Reconciliation said the legal, political and social preconditions for a necessary break with the past have not been created in the Balkans.

"Nations here are turning their eyes towards the EU, but want to push under the carpet what really happened," he said. "We have the absurd situation that the war in Bosnia ended without a clear winner, and all three ethnic groups blame each other for its outbreak and consequences. Such a situation does not bring catharsis. It is fertile ground for another war in 20 years."