by Velimir CURGUZ KAZIMIR
Goran Jelisic was charged with genocide and crimes against humanity. The first hearing in the Hague took place four days after his arrest. At that hearing the defendant pleaded not guilty to all charges. “I refuse to plead anything, because the indictment is full of lies and nonsense,” Jelisic stated.
However, later that year, on October 29, Jelisic admitted that in 1992 in Brcko, in the Luka camp, he murdered 12 prisoners. He admitted that he had done horrible things. The tribunal rejected the genocide charges, took into account the youth of the defendant, his admission and repentance and sentenced him to 40 years in prison. Jelisic is still being held in Scheveningen.
Interestingly, the state TV and media under state control failed to inform the public about Jelisic’s admission. Our public still hasn’t been properly informed about the acts committed by “Hitler from our street” in Brcko in 1992. These acts are cold blooded murders, torture and looting.
By chance, a few years before Jelisic’s arrest, I met a family that had spent the whole war in Bijeljina. From a respected Serb family, natives, and very educated and cultured people, they talked about Goran Jelisic as a very dangerous man who is feared by all normal people, regardless of their ethnicity. Thus, I had a chance to hear about “our Adolf” and his dark nature significantly before he became a public personality with the assistance from the Hague. Every time I visited Bijeljina, after learning about Jelisic, I always felt freaked out. The realization that you are passing through the city where someone resembling a character from a horror movie lives freely is, actually, highly surreal.
This is, perhaps, the right moment to start dealing with our “surrealism”. Through the fate of Goran Jelisic, as well as fates of thousands of ordinary citizens of Bijeljina, we can today see a reflection of our own fate. Namely, how can one have normal relations, or live next to neighbors who are murderers and criminals? Can such life be normal after all?
What sort of indifference, alienation or despair has been poured into people who refuse to face such things? What is the threshold of moral blindness after which there is no return to normal, decent life? Does the refusal to accept facts stem from ordinary conformism or the loss of ability to defend our own life and life of our children? To live next to criminals can never be a normal and civilized life. Such life implies ever present danger that those who once committed horrible crimes will at one point feel an urge to repeat them. There is no national, religious or social insurance policy against such things. Therefore, isolation of criminals is never only an ethical and just move but also a defensive act by the society. The loss of that defense mechanism, and that defensive ability, are always a sign of serious social sickness. Self-delusion and hiding of facts are its most serious symptoms.
It is strange that today, when there is so much discussion about the Hague Tribunal and the conditions under which the cooperation with the tribunal is to happen, almost no one has raised these problems. I assume that medical institutions, especially the Military Medical Academy (VMA) have over the last ten years had encounters with people suffering from horrendous trauma. Most of them were probably victims, but it is certain that some of them were victims of the crimes they had committed. Some, very likely, were turned into victims by the very presence or witnessing of the crimes. Does someone really thinks that we are such a resilient nation that we are immune to the so-called “Vietnam syndrome”?(…) The report of the Dutch physicians about Jelisic states that he is a “borderline psychotic personality, asocial, narcissistic, and immature”, full of “need to prove himself”. The indictment against Jelisic was issued on July 21, 1995. on the same day the tribunal issued indictments against another 22 Serbs from Bosnia. Among them were Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. It is difficult to imagine that “Serb Adolf” could do what he did without some knowledge of the then leadership of the Republic of Srpska.
When Goran Jelisic confessed his acts, despite contrary advice from his lawyers, he simply, like an ordinary human being, said: “what a relief!”. Naturally, it does not depend only on individuals and politics whether the “relief” coming from a confession and facing of the past will affect anyone else from this region. It depends much more on the general social atmosphere. The society that discards self-infatuation and blindness faster will, no doubt, have a much better chance to leave behind painful traumas from the past. In that sense we should not be dismissive regarding the events outside our borders. Sooner or later, everyone will be forced to swallow and “digest” his or her own past. If that does not happen, life will be not only surreal, but also dangerous.