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MEMORY POLITICS AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE
The Struggle for Redress

Victim Capital in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Jessie Barton-Hronešová
Memory Politics and Transitional Justice
Series Editors
Jasna Dragovic-Soso
Goldsmiths University of London
London, UK
Jelena Subotic
Georgia State University
Atlanta, GA, USA
Tsveta Petrova
Columbia University
New York, NY, USA
The interdisciplinary fields of Memory Studies and Transitional Justice have
largely developed in parallel to one another despite both focusing on efforts
of societies to confront and (re-)appropriate their past. While scholars working
on memory have come mostly from historical, literary, sociological, or anthro-
pological traditions, transitional justice has attracted primarily scholarship from
political science and the law. This series bridges this divide: it promotes work that
combines a deep understanding of the contexts that have allowed for injustice to
occur with an analysis of how legacies of such injustice in political and historical
memory influence contemporary projects of redress, acknowledgment, or new
cycles of denial. The titles in the series are of interest not only to academics and
students but also practitioners in the related fields.
The Memory Politics and Transitional Justice series promotes critical dialogue
among different theoretical and methodological approaches and among scholar-
ship on different regions. The editors welcome submissions from a variety of disci-
plines – including political science, history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural
studies – that confront critical questions at the intersection of memory politics
and transitional justice in national, comparative, and global perspective.
Memory Politics and Transitional Justice Book Series (Palgrave)
Co-editors: Jasna Dragovic-Soso (Goldsmiths, University of London), Jelena
Subotic (Georgia State University), Tsveta Petrova (Columbia University)
Editorial Board
Paige Arthur, New York University Center on International Cooperation
Alejandro Baer, University of Minnesota
Orli Fridman, Singidunum University Belgrade
Carol Gluck, Columbia University
Katherine Hite, Vassar College
Alexander Karn, Colgate University
Jan Kubik, Rutgers University and School of Slavonic and East European Studies,
University College London
Bronwyn Leebaw, University of California, Riverside
Jan-Werner Mueller, Princeton University
Jeffrey Olick, University of Virginia
Kathy Powers, University of New Mexico
Joanna R. Quinn, Western University
Jeremy Sarkin, University of South Africa
Leslie Vinjamuri, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Sarah Wagner, George Washington University
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14807
The Struggle
for Redress
Victim Capital in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Oxford Department of International Development
University of Oxford
Oxford, UK
Memory Politics and Transitional Justice

ISBN 978-3-030-51621-5 ISBN 978-3-030-51622-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51622-2
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.
Photo by Jessie Barton-Hronešová
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For the relentless Bosnians who keep fighting for their rights and the rights
of others.
In memory of Goran Bubalo.

Acknowledgments
The main debt for this book goes to dozens of individuals that patiently
replied to my questions and enquiries during my fieldwork research
in Bosnia. Many survivors of wartime suffering, relentless human-
rights defenders, civil-society workers and courageous frontline journalists
continuously amazed me with their commitment and resilience. I am very
grateful for their time, dedication and knowledge. I would like to partic-
ularly extend my gratitude to the Peacebuilding Network run by Goran
Bubalo, who introduced me to the vast networks of the civil sector and
victim associations in Bosnia and without whose contacts and references
would access to so many inspiring individuals have been impossible. Goran
sadly passed away during the production of this book, without ever seeing
it published. I hope his efforts will be remembered. I am also deeply
indebted to my friends and colleagues in Bosnia: Elvira Jukić, Semir Jukić,
Dijana Dedić, Besim Dizdarić, Jasmin Hasić and my former colleagues
from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network made my fieldwork both
enjoyable and rewarding.
Hardly would I have finished writing this book without the unfal-
tering support of dozens brilliant scholars who have continued to provide
encouragement and ideas. First and foremost, I owe a debt of gratitude to
Timothy Power for his patience and consistent support and Othon Anas-
tasakis for his long-time encouragement and insights into Balkan poli-
tics. My gratitude further belongs to Jack Snyder, my one-time mentor
at Columbia University, who advised me to approach transitional justice
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
through a political lens. I am much obliged to Adis Merdžanović for

offering invaluable feedback on Bosnian post-war politics. Milada Anna
Vachudova has become a great source of academic wisdom; her views and
scholarship on the role of international organizations substantially shaped
my work. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to many scholars
who have further influenced this research journey, including Richard
Caplan, Eric Gordy, Gwen Sasse, Jasna Dragović-Soso, Jack Blumeneau,
Susan Woodward, Nicholas Barker, Kurt Bassuener, Kate Roll, Iavor
Rangelov, Jelena Obradović-Wochnik, Vesna Bojičić-Dželilović, Kalypso
Nicolaidis, Leigh Payne, John Gledhill, Adam Fagan, Florian Bieber and
Vincent Druilolle, among others. I would also like to thank Margaret
MacMillan for offering her advice when it was most needed. I am much
obliged to the Economic and Social Research Council for their financial
support that allowed me to conduct the fieldwork and finish this book.
Special thanks go to the London School of Economics’ Research on
South Eastern Europe (LSE-E) who hosted me as a visiting fellow in
2019 and my LSE-E colleague James Ker-Lindsay who has since become
an invaluable mentor and friend. I would also like to extend my grati-
tude to wonderful colleagues at the Oxford Department of International
Development, especially Diego Sanchez-Ancochea who has been the most
supportive Head of Department anyone could wish for.
My gratitude further goes to Ashley Hill, Jesse Bia, Vanya Bhargava,
Claudia Stoiescu, Rupert Burridge and Bětka & Josh Fellenbaum for their
comments on previous drafts and their encouragement. David Hope has
never ceased to amaze me with his scholarly precision and generosity. Alex
Martins has been a sharp-witted editor, as well as an encouraging friend.
Zuzana Vacková has been a great source of life-long moral support and
meticulous copy editor. I also owe much to my parents and grandmother
Helena who have taught me the value of hard work and grit. Most impor-
tantly, this book would have never seen the light of day without Peter
Alexander Barton, my husband, cheerleader and source of inspiration.
From Iraq to Kenya—from the battlefield to savannahs—he managed to
stand by me, even at the most difficult times. Thank you!
Contents
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Varieties of Post-Conflict Recognition and Redress
in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1
1.2 Victims, Recognition and Redress 4
1.3 Assessing Status as the Outcome 8
1.4 Victim Capital: Towards an Understanding of Victims’
Power 11
1.5 What Do We Know About Paths to Post-War Redress? 15
1.6 Bosnian Victims and Survivors 19
1.7 Researching Bosnian Victims 21
1.8 Structure of the Book 28
References 31
2 Victim Capital for Recognition and Redress 39

2.1 Understanding Recognition and Redress 39
2.2 Post-conflict Divided Societies 41
2.3 Who Decides on Recognition and Redress? 42
2.4 Victim Capital for Recognition and Redress 48
2.4.1 International Salience 49
2.4.2 Domestic Moral Authority 53
2.4.3 Mobilization Resources 58
2.5 Scenarios of Success and Incentives 61
2.6 Timing, Institutions and Democracy 64
ix
x CONTENTS
2.7 Conclusion 67
References 70
3 The Bosnian Conflict, Its Aftermath and Victims’

Demands 79
3.1 Introduction 79
3.2 The Bosnian War and Peace 80
3.2.1 The War as a ‘Problem from Hell’ 80
3.2.2 The Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995 87
3.3 Post-War Politics: Between Guardianship
and Polarization 91
3.3.1 Emergency Post-War Stabilization (1995–1999) 92
3.3.2 Centralization and External State-Building
(2000–2005) 96
3.3.3 Flawed Europeanization
and Re-nationalization of Politics
(2007–Present) 100
3.4 Victims’ Justice and the Status 105
3.4.1 Victimization and the Limits of Legal Justice 107
3.4.2 Non-legal Forms of Justice: Truth
and Recognition 112
3.5 Conclusion 116
References 121
4 ‘Why Is My Leg Worth Less?’ Disability and the Loss

of Life of Military and Civilian War Victims 131
4.1 Introduction 131
4.2 Characterizing Civilian and Military War Victims 132
4.3 Goals and Outcomes: Status and Reforms 136
4.4 Explaining Redress for Civilian and Military War
Victims 141
4.4.1 International Salience: The Spectacle of War
and the Economy 142
4.4.2 Moral Authority: Cults of Victims and Fighters 150
4.4.3 Mobilization Resources: Protests and Networks 159
4.5 Context and Combinations for Success and Failure 166
4.6 Conclusion 171
References 175
CONTENTS xi
5 Graves and Redress: Families of the Missing Persons

and the ‘Srebrenica Effect’ 183
5.2 Characterizing Families of Missing Persons
in Post-War Bosnia 184
5.3 Goals and Outcomes: Bones, Return and Recognition 188
5.4 Optimal Victim Capital of the Missing 191
5.4.1 International Salience: Srebrenica and Its
Aftermath 191
5.4.2 Moral Authority: The Epitomes of Suffering 200
5.4.3 Mobilization Resources: Remembrance
and Allies 207
5.4.4 Context for the Optimal Route Scenario 214
5.5 Access After the Adoption of the 2004 Law 216
5.6 Conclusion 223
References 227
6 Between Recognition and Oblivion: Victims of Sexual

Violence and Torture 235
6.2 Victims of Sexual Violence and Torture and Their
Associations 236
6.3 On the Path to Redress: Justice and Care 239
6.4 Explaining Recognition of Victims of Sexual Violence
and Torture 242
6.4.1 International Salience: Fighting Violence
Against Women 242
6.4.2 Moral Authority: Womanhood
and Politicization 251
6.4.3 Mobilization Resources: Partisanship,
Litigation and Campaigns 259
6.4.4 Understanding the Context: Between
Cooperation and Polarization 267
6.5 Struggles for Access and Distribution 273
6.6 Conclusion 276
References 283
xii CONTENTS
7 Victimhood, Recognition and Redress

from a Comparative Perspective 295
7.2 Revisiting Redress: ‘Status’ and the Varieties of Success 296
7.3 Bosnian Victims’ Salience, Authority and Resources 302
7.3.1 Salience: Shame and External Priorities 303
7.3.2 Authority: ‘Deservingness’ and Identities 306
7.3.3 Resources: Unity, Networks, and Leadership 309
7.3.4 Combinations for a Formal Change 312
7.4 Assessing Alternative Explanations 315
7.5 Wider Applications Outside of Bosnia 318
7.6 Concluding Remarks 322
References 327
Annex: List of Key Legislation 335

About the Author
Jessie Barton-Hronešová is ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Oxford

Department of International Development, University of Oxford. In her
research projects she has mostly focused on ethno-nationalism, post-war
reparations, community-building and transitional justice in the former
Yugoslavia and the wider Eastern Europe. She authored several studies on
identity politics (including Post-War Ethno-National Identities of Young
People in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2012), retributive transitional justice
and radicalization. She previously worked at the International Criminal
Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Balkan Inves-
tigative Reporting Network in Sarajevo and Belgrade. She also worked in
the international development sector and collaborated with a range of
research institutions, including the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague,
the London School of Economics. She holds a D.Phil. from the University
of Oxford in politics (2018).
xiii
Abbreviations
ABiH Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina

AI Amnesty International
BiH Bosnia and Herzegovina
BORS Organization of Fighters of RS
CEN Central Records of Missing Persons
CRSV Conflict-Related Sexual Violence
CWV Civilian War Victims
DDR Demobilization, Disarmament, and Reintegration
EBRD European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
EU European Union
EUFOR European Union Force
EUPM European Union Police Mission
FARG Le Fonds d’assistance aux rescapés du genocide (Assistance Funds
for Survivors of the Genocide)
FBiH Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina
FRY Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
HDZ BiH Croat Democratic Union in Bosnia and Herzegovina
HR High Representative
HRW Human Rights Watch
HULDR Croatian Association of ex-Detainees of the Homeland War in
BiH
HVIDRA Association of Croatian Defenders and War Invalids
HVO Croatian Defence Council
ICC International Criminal Court
ICG International Crisis Group
ICJ International Court of Justice
xv
xvi ABBREVIATIONS
ICMP International Commission for Missing Persons

ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross
ICTJ International Center for Transitional Justice
ICTR International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
IFOR Implementation Force (of NATO)
IMF International Monetary Fund
IMP Institute for Missing Persons
IOM International Organization for Migration
IPA Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance
IPTF International Police Task Force
JNA Yugoslav National Army
JOB Unified Organization of Fighters
KM Convertible Mark
MHRR Ministry for Human Rights and Refugees
MWV Military War Victims
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Association
NGOs Non-Governmental Organizations
OHCHR Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human
Rights
OHR Office of the High Representative
OSCE Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe
PDP Party of Democratic Progress
PIC Peace Implementation Council
PM Prime Minister
PTSD Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
REKOM Regional Commission Tasked with Establishing the Facts about
All Victims of War Crimes and Other Serious Human Rights
Violations Committed on the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia
in the period from 1991–2001
RS Republika Srpska
SAA Stabilization and Association Agreement
SBiH Party for BiH
SDA The Party of Democratic Action
SDP Social Democratic Party
SDS Serb Democratic Party
SFOR Stabilization Force (of NATO)
SFRY Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
SLBH Union of Camp Inmates of Bosnia and Herzegovina
SLRS Union of Camp Inmates in Republika Srpska
SNSD Alliance of Independent Social Democrats
SPONA Serb Movement of National Associations
TRIAL Track Impunity Always
ABBREVIATIONS xvii
UK United Kingdom
UN United Nations
UNDP United Nations Development Program
UNFPA United Nations Population Fund
UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
UNICEF United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund
UNPROFOR United Nations Protection Forces
US United States
USD United States Dollar
VRS Army of Republika Srpska
WB World Bank
WHO World Health Organization
List of Figures
Fig. 1.1 Fieldwork in Bosnia and Herzegovina (adapted from www.

VectorStock.com/20422894) 24
Fig. 2.1 An analytical framework for redress (Source Author) 67
Fig. 3.1 Fatalities of the Bosnian war by ethnic identity (Source
Figure created from data included in the Bosnian Book of
Dead [Tokača, 2012, pp. 125–127]) 86
Fig. 3.2 Fatalities of the Bosnian war by gender (Source Figure
created from data included in the Bosnian Book of Dead
[Tokača, 2012, pp. 119–124]) 87
Fig. 3.3 Timeline of key post-war political developments (Source
Author) 106
Fig. 4.1 Casualties of the Bosnian War by military/civilian deaths
(Source Tables created from data included in the Bosnian
Book of Dead [Tokača, 2012, 112–113]) 134
Fig. 4.2 The Red Line Commemoration Project in Sarajevo in
2012 (Source Photo by the author) 154
Fig. 4.3 Flag of the Army of BiH at the Jajce Fortress (Source
Photo by the author) 157
Fig. 4.4 Milestones in redress for civilian and military victims
(Source Author) 170
Fig. 5.1 Missing persons by regions/events as of 2017 (ICMP data,
2017) 186
Fig. 5.2 Sign on the entrance to the Srebrenica-Potočari museum
(Source Author) 196
xix
xx LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 5.3 Sculpture in front of Potočari Dutch battalion building

(Source Photo by the author) 203
Fig. 5.4 Milestones in the adoption of the law on missing persons
(Source Author) 217
Fig. 6.1 Milestones in redress for victims of torture and sexual
violence (Source Author) 272
List of Tables
Table 1.1 The analytical scope of the book 10

Table 1.2 Victim groups, recognition and redress outcome 22
Table 1.3 Interviews by topics 25
Table 2.1 Theoretical combinations of victim capital 64
Table 3.1 Periodization of Victims’ Demands 115
Table 4.1 Registered civilian and military victims as of 2013–2015
(rounded) 135
Table 4.2 Recognition of civilian and military victims 141
Table 5.1 Outcomes for families of missing persons 191
Table 6.1 Redress for victims of torture and rape 242
Table 7.1 Status by groups and regions in BiH 299
Table 7.2 Redress outcomes and scenarios for success 314
xxi
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
1.1 Varieties of Post-Conflict Recognition

and Redress in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Amir is one of the estimated 200,000 survivors of torture that occurred
during the 1992–1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.1 As a leader of a
victim association in Sarajevo, he has been at the forefront of the struggle
for formal recognition of victims of torture who suffered in brutal deten-
tion camps as prisoners of war. In the Bosnian system of war-related victim
redress the vast majority of these survivors remain without any formal
rights enacted in law. While the smaller Bosnian entity, Republika Srpska
(RS), recently recognized some victims of torture, the larger entity where
Amir lives, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), has never
done so. Pressing the state into legally recognizing them as victims has
been the declared objective of Amir’s association, as well as hundreds
similar other associations across the country. Formal legal recognition,
encapsulated in the so-called ‘victim status’, would provide victims of
torture (also called ex-detainees) with free social and medical services,
preferential job opportunities and monthly payments, among other bene-
fits. More importantly, it would also give them the moral satisfaction of
having their suffering acknowledged. ‘We need a systemic change’, Amir
sighs. ‘We need a law. Even if you now gave us one million marks,2 this
would not help us. When I try to get free medical care, my certificate
© The Author(s) 2020 1

J. Barton-Hronešová, The Struggle for Redress,
Memory Politics and Transitional Justice,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51622-2_1
2 J. BARTON-HRONEŠOVÁ
of camp imprisonment is just a meaningless piece of paper. It is humili-

ating,’ he adds. To Amir, ex-detainees not only suffered during the war,
but especially after the war’s end, from discriminatory policies that have
left them ‘on the margins of society’.3
Elma was brutally raped and repeatedly sexually abused in a prison
camp between 1992 and 1993. Not only a rape survivor but also an
internally displaced person from her hometown in northeastern Bosnia,
she moved to the capital Sarajevo. Uprooted and underprivileged, Elma
joined the Women-Victims of War association that was formed in 2003 as
the first of its kind in Bosnia. It started to fight for the redress of women
as war victims, for marking places of their suffering and persecuting the
perpetrators. After years of activism and awareness-raising, she and other
survivors of sexual violence were at last successful in June 2006 when a
legal amendment was passed in FBiH that granted rape survivors a victim
status without the need to provide medical certificates or testifying at a
court. Survivors of sexual violence became entitled to a monthly benefit in
the equivalent of 250 Euro and free healthcare.4 ‘It was a great achieve-
ment that brought many benefits to women who were struggling’, Sabiha
Husić from a humanitarian NGO Medica Zenica explained.5 ‘I witnessed
how women were losing jobs when employers found out that they were
raped. I witnessed their poverty and constant suffering’, she added. The
law was to her only the beginning of the tortuous struggle for victims’
redress. Fewer than a thousand women and men became beneficiaries of
the new legal arrangement by 2019, leaving many without formal recog-
nition and redress. How can we explain the differences in which victim
groups are recognized and redressed in a post-war state such as Bosnia?
The complex varieties of recognition, redress, justice and victimhood
that these two cases illustrate are at the heart of this book. Recognition
of suffering and redress are interwoven through the stories of Bosnian
survivors-victims who have challenged our understandings of passivity
in victimhood and transitional justice.6 Rather than submissive sufferers
without any agency, many Bosnian survivors have stood at the forefront
of the fight for what they see as their rights. Their struggle has lasted for
over two decades. While to some degree empowering women and disad-
vantaged groups, this struggle has also had its polarizing effects on the
divided political landscape of Bosnia, a phenomenon well-known from
other contexts such as Northern Ireland and Lebanon where victimhood
inevitably assumed a political character (Jankowitz, 2018; Lynch & Joyce,
2018). It has created hierarchies and competition that at times further
1 INTRODUCTION 3
marginalized peripheral communities and individuals. As a consequence,

while some victims have achieved a special treatment granted through the
revered ‘victim status’, others have remained legally invisible. Survivors of
sexual violence, camp prisoners, families of the missing and killed persons,
paraplegics and sufferers from other injuries—all discussed in this book—
have been appreciated and recognized differently in law. Consequently,
they were granted varied types of redress benefits across the country.
The ‘piecemeal nature’ of the existing system of various victim-centric
payments and support packages in Bosnia ‘targeting some but not all
victims’ (Van der Auweraert, 2013) offers benefits to a small set of select
groups rather than representing true redress for all victims. This approach
to redress and recognition seems haphazard and inconsistent with victims’
needs and rights. However, as this book argues, this at first glance inexpli-
cable complexity of the victim-centric redress in Bosnia can be traced to
the intricate developments in post-war Bosnia and the differing patterns
in what I call ‘victim capital’7 of each of the studied groups.
Victim capital as used here represents the social, political and economic
power for leverage and influence of the studied victim groups. As this
book shows, the different components of victim capital and how it is used
and presented provide answers to the present puzzle. Unlike most of the
literature studying post-conflict ways of dealing with the past that has
focused on war-crimes prosecution, truth-seeking and memorialization
efforts, this book studies the dynamics of redress among and between
victim groups within a post-conflict state. Such a bottom-up enquiry
invites questions that are central to transitional justice, such as ques-
tions about how post-conflict societies deal with their violent past and
how groups and individuals victimized by conflicts pursue justice. As I
demonstrate throughout this book on the example of redress, victims’
organizations and their leaders are able to utilize both thought-through
and serendipitous strategies to achieve their goals at the domestic and
international level. However, although they are able to choose different
strategies and tactics, their pursuits are restricted by the limits and
problems posed by the dysfunctional Bosnian state, characterized by its
convoluted and fragmented administration. Relying on interviews and
other sources collected during fieldwork in Bosnia, media sources and
secondary literature, but also practical professional experience in the civil
sector, this book presents a new analytical framework to explain the
different pathways to recognition and redress outcomes using the case
of Bosnia.
Recognition and redress are at the heart of the study here. Recogni-
tion in the form of collective victim status after conflict belongs among
the arsenal of transitional justice. It can serve as a starting point for
socio-economic redistribution and social justice (Fraser, 2003). Naturally,
recognition as the formal action of acknowledging the belonging of indi-
viduals to a victim group is only the first step towards satisfying victims’
rights and needs. Related policies—that range from public apologies, judi-
cial justice, truth culture, acknowledgment of harm in ceremonies and
material benefits—underpin recognition’s importance. However, recog-
nition is a critical step that leads to empowerment and giving voice to
those who are otherwise treated as court witnesses only and ‘subjects’ of
justice measures such as war crimes prosecution. Recognition provides a
sense of societal ‘solidarity’ (De Greiff, 2006b). Redress as understood
in its narrow sense in this book generally follows recognition through a
set of material benefits (e.g. payments, services, preferential treatment)
that are able to transform lives of victims living in deprived countries.
For example, the controversial ‘Report of the Consultative Group on the
Past in Northern Ireland’ suggested ‘recognition payments’ (amounting
to 12,000 GBP) for the nearest relative of those killed during the Trou-
bles (Jankowitz, 2018, p. 13) as a valid ‘redress’ mechanism. The report
stressed the symbolic and moral aspect of the payments, rather than the
material benefits only. Recognition and redress serve as a key aspect of
domestic reckoning outside the courtroom. They are political acts where
power interests of political authorities clash with victims’ ideas of justice
and international human rights regimes. Such clashes are traced and
explained in the following chapters.
1.2 Victims, Recognition and Redress

As Michael Rothberg recently noted (2019), we lack a precise vocabulary
to describe the multifaceted roles and identities that individuals emerging
from violence and wars assume. Among others, there are perpetrators,
victims, bystanders, beneficiaries but also ‘implicated subjects’ as those
who might not have willingly participated and benefitted from injustice
but whose ‘actions and inactions help produce and reproduce the posi-
tions of victims and perpetrators’ (Rothberg, 2019, p. 1). His insights
speak to the ‘messy’ war situations when individuals assume different
roles—some victims might have been directly involved in the conflict as
soldiers while others had simply found themselves in the wrong place at
1 INTRODUCTION 5
the wrong time. In some cases the line between a victim and a perpe-
trator may be blurred as multiple roles are possible (Drumbl, 2012;
Moffett, 2016). Victims may also prefer to use different terminology for
different audiences—they may privately resist the term victim but under-
stand the need for its outward projection in order to be acknowledged (cf.
Fernandes, 2017; Močnik, 2019). This also results in the frequent debates
among victims about who is a ‘true’ victim and what the different victim
roles are.
In law, victim definitions are seemingly clearer, though just as prob-
lematic. Victims of conflict and war are defined as people who have
suffered from gross violations of international human rights and human-
itarian law. According to the standard United Nations (UN) definition
from 1985, victims are ‘persons who, individually or collectively, suffered
harm, including physical or mental injury, emotional suffering, economic
loss or substantial impairment of their fundamental rights’ through acts
breaching international human rights (UN General Assembly, 1985,
Art. 12). In a narrow sense, such a definition can be linked to legally
established war crimes and atrocities that have been anchored in forensic
investigations. From this perspective, a victim of the Rwandan genocide
is an individual who was directly targeted by the Hutu slaughter, or
whose family members perished in events that have been investigated
by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). In a wider
sense, it could be argued that all individuals who survived a brutal war
are victims for the suffering they have gone through and economic
losses resulting from the conflict. Defining the universe of victims is thus
extremely difficult. However, it is important when considering eligibility
to reparation awards and direct court-administered compensation.
From a critical point of view, such definitions are challenging as they
inevitable exclude survivors who may want to identify as victims but
whose victimization has not been defined in law (Mani, 2005; Vinck &
Pham, 2014). Conversely, legal definitions of victimhood may at times be
imposed on those who feel disempowered by being labelled as ‘victims’
when their identities lie outside of the victim framework. Feminist schol-
arship has put forward the term ‘survivors’ as it implies agency and will
rather than passivity (Buckley-Zistel, 2013; Butler, 2006; Gámez Fuentes,
Núñez Puente, & Gómez Nicolau, 2020). Yet the victim-survivor identity
becomes difficult for individuals to align with when transitional justice is
involved. Victim is the universal term that carries the weight of suffering,
damage and injury; all important components of formal international
recognition. As Towle (2018) in his historical analysis of victimhood

noted, empathy and emotions are contained in the term victim rather
than any other term. While victims might individually prefer the term
survivor as it implies a sense of struggle and resistance, when demanding
their rights, there is a need to leverage suffering and innocence that the
term victim implies (Bouris, 2007). Victim identities can also bear more
than one label due to multiple victimizations (being a victim of multiple
types of suffering) and re-victimization as the repetition of the same harm
(Bloomfield, Barnes, & Huyse, 2003, p. 61). The victim-survivor iden-
tity is thus multifaceted and multidirectional. It is also context dependent
as some societies may prefer notions of survival while others might opt
for suffering.8 While legal definitions can be too restrictive or imposing,
individual labelling may become muddled.
The victim-survivor groups studied here are social actors who have
survived the war and who have shown a great level of mobilization and
resistance. Bearing in mind the discussion above, this book generally uses
the term victim rather than survivor unless specifically used by interlocu-
tors or in the used sources. There are several reasons for this. First and
foremost, the focus of this book is on the legal act of recognition of a
preceding harm or suffering (and the socio-economic redress that follows)
that ‘allows’ the sufferer to use the victim status as eluded to in law.
Second, this interpretation reflects the Bosnian usage of the term ‘war
victims’ (žrtve rata), which denotes all killed individuals in the 1992–
1995 war and those who survived war atrocities and harm such as rape,
torture, physical injuries or the loss of loved ones. Third, the clustering
of groups seeking recognition and redress in Bosnia has evolved through
the sources of suffering and damages. In other words, it is the indelible
victimization of individuals—such as physical injuries, permanent mental
or physical harm and other irrevocable losses (e.g. lives of loved ones) that
denote the different groups studied here. This approach allows us to link
victimhood to individual and collective types of victimization that are not
necessarily connected to crimes or personal identities but to the source of
suffering. Therefore, war victims as a term used in this book denotes war-
generated populations that have been disproportionately and permanently
affected by wartime suffering through inflicted wounds, injuries, losses
and harm. The term is not used to devalue agency of those studied here
but as a practical and applicable term that is widely used in Bosnia. The
term ‘victim groups’ is then used to denote collective classes of victims
1 INTRODUCTION 7
that have a shared source of victimization (e.g. torture, rape, injury, loss
of a loved one).
Victim status as the collective recognition in law of a group is the
key studied phenomenon. The status is a powerful and loaded term in
Bosnia that implies domestic recognition of responsibility and redress
offered by state (or subnational) authorities. There is not only a victim
status but also a veteran status. Both imply a societal standing of the
individual in the moral pecking order of the Bosnian society, but they
also come with important practical consequences that include different
types of redress measures. The status is the direct synonym to recognition
in the Bosnian parlance. And so, although courts can order defendants
to pay out damages to victims, if such victims are not recognized in
law as a collective group of victims, they do not have a status. While
compensation may result from court-administered payments to individ-
uals or groups of people who have been found as the damaged party
in court, redress linked to status that is discussed here consists of a wide
range of additional social benefits and/or payments that only state author-
ities can provide. They bear some similarities to what the UN 2005
‘Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Repa-
ration’ (henceforth ‘UN Reparations Principles’) call compensation and
rehabilitation—though only to a limited degree.
The UN Reparations Principles anchored what is here denoted as
redress as part of responsibilities of states towards their citizens and iden-
tified the need for a ‘victim-oriented perspective’ in post-conflict justice.9
They also highlighted that unlike trials that focus on the perpetrators
and fight against impunity, or truth commissions that seek to establish
factual narratives of the past to facilitate societal reckoning, the key aim
of reparations is to address broader social, economic and emotional needs
of victims (De Greiff, 2006a; van der Merwe, 2014). They specifically
define ‘compensation’ as material remedy for irreparable harms; ‘resti-
tution’ as a remedy for material damages (such as destroyed houses);
‘rehabilitation’ as the restoration of one’s social position (such as employ-
ment); ‘satisfaction’ as an array of truth-seeking efforts, memorialization
and apologies; and ‘guarantees of non-recurrence’ as state-level insti-
tutional changes (such as human rights guarantees). While victims of
socio-economic harm and displacement such as refugees have benefited
from restitution, compensation and rehabilitation has been applied as a
substitute for losses and harm that cannot be undone. It is often provided
in the form of socio-economic redress specifically targeting victims.
Unlike court-administered compensation that has primarily encom-

passed monetary payments only, policies linked to the status have
combined state-provided material (monetary) but also in-kind benefits
(services and privileges). Either lump sums or monthly payments have
been in practice combined with free medical care, psychosocial support,
employment privileges and other services. Therefore, the practical appli-
cation of recognition has materialized in payments and wider social care
for victims in rehabilitation. Such redress policies have been used as a tool
to help victims regain their livelihoods, provide them with acknowledg-
ment of their suffering and signal society’s acceptance of responsibility
(De Greiff, 2006a; van der Merwe, 2014, p. 208). In the Bosnian case,
legal recognition in the form of a status has thus not only represented
a moral positioning of the victim but it has also implied a set of state-
provided material and in-kind benefits. The implied assistance (redress) is
what makes recognition meaningful.10
Recognition and redress differ from other transitional justice tools
in their symbolic and material implications but also in the threat they
pose to incumbents. While trials can be perceived as threatening post-war
elites and even remove them from power, truth commissions may open
old wounds and exacerbate previous divisions (Bass, 2000; Mendeloff,
2004; Minow, 2000). Recognition and redress seem to be more ominous
for post-war budgets, bureaucracies and understandings of victimhood.
Rather than threatening domestic political elites, they can be used as an
opportunity to redefine identities through symbolic means, redistribute
resources and extract some domestic or external reputational and political
benefits. Therefore, they may become acts over which various political and
social actors clash because of their material and symbolic content. There-
fore, while recognition and redress offer an opportunity for post-conflict
societies to reintegrate their victimized populations, they also include risks
of selectivity that may further undermine political stability (cf. De Greiff,
2006a; Satz, 2012).
1.3 Assessing Status as the Outcome

The inherent problem with recognition is that it requires attaching values
to suffering because of its redress implications. Both compensation and
rehabilitation are based on a key principle that defines its content and
scope: proportionality to the gravity of the victimization and appropriate-
ness of measures (UN General Assembly, 2005, Art. 20). These principles
1 INTRODUCTION 9
represent the idea of establishing redress on the basis of victims’ needs

as well as rights, i.e. what each harmed individual requires for a decent
life and what their rights are depending on the crimes committed. While
rights are often framed in vague terms such as ‘justice’ and ‘satisfaction’,
most debates about defining the scope and content of reparations focus
on the various forms of services and amounts of payments (De Greiff,
2006b). Some scholars believe that this is futile and harmful. Slyomovics
argues that any form of material redress has the greatest distance from
justice because it puts a price on suffering without linking it to the perpe-
trator (2009, p. 14). Others assert that in cases when ‘the national process
of “reconciliation” does not coincide with the individual psychological
process’, survivors see reparations as blood money as was the case in
Chile, Brazil, Argentina and in some cases in Northern Ireland (Hamber
& Wilson, 2002, p. 46). While such criticism is valid (and documented
in this book), governments need to be able to practically assess the cost
of their policies and thus a certain level of proportionality and appro-
priateness needs to be introduced. It is also seldomly possible to link a
victim to a perpetrator of mass human rights violations directly without
any doubt. Even when that is the case, few perpetrators may be respon-
sible for the suffering of thousands. Slyomovics’ criticism is thus applicable
to single criminal cases, rather than cases of mass human rights viola-
tions when there may be thousands of victims of an individual perpetrator.
Nonetheless, proportionality, appropriate measures and ‘assigning values’
to suffering are key features of the Bosnian ‘status’.
Analytically, the normative debates about what can truly be labelled as
proportional and appropriate for redress offer only limited opportunity
to assess ‘status’ as a policy outcome. While most studies focus on the
distribution of benefits, the interest of this book is in the act of recogni-
tion, its history and the consequences for redress. Therefore, I focus on
the adopted legal regulations that target Bosnian victim groups. In some
cases, redress provisions for victims may be reminiscent of peacetime social
services.11 However, they are conditioned through its relationship to the
war. In other words, claimants of victim-centric benefits are only eligible
if their victimization resulted from war. Therefore, victim status can be
assessed as a war-related redress policy in the form of new legal regula-
tions or amendments that address individual victim groups. The official
provision of status is then a formal recognition of a victim group, which
accordingly gives its bearers a set of rights enacted in state laws, subna-
tional laws, law amendments, executive orders and the like. Rather than
a single and equal status, we can observe varieties of the types of policies
the status implies.
As the focus here is on differences between the achievements of
Bosnian victim groups vis-à-vis their status, the assessment approach
adopted here is to compare demands and various ‘statuses’. I study the
purported ‘success’ or ‘failure’ not as a normative ideal of what should
be achieved, but what has been demanded and enacted. It is a two-step
process consisting of redress demands (agenda) that are later turned into
a redress change (cf. Gamson, 1975). It is important to stress that a policy
change does not imply its implementation, i.e. the access to the provisions
of the policy. A law adopted—a status granted—does not automatically
mean full success if its beneficiaries have no access to its provisions such
as payments and preferential services. While I cannot explore implemen-
tation theoretically due to the scope of this book, the empirical chapters
each reflect on the level of access differently. These analyses are far from
exhaustive and only offer an overview of the key problems. For example,
Chapter 4 integrates poor access as part of the continuous demands for
changing redress levels while Chapters 5 and 6 include a separate section
on this issue. The theoretical arguments presented in the next chapter as
well as the majority of the empirical analysis are thus predominantly valid
for a legal change. Table 1.1 depicts the two dimensions (legal change
and access).
This book relies on a political and policy conceptualization of recog-
nition and redress. While court-administered recognition of victimhood
belongs among legal measures for individuals, state-provided status is
more suitably positioned among reparative approaches to transitional
justice. These approaches are related to redistribution of resources and
acknowledgment of collective victimhood (Brophy, 2008). I study status
Table 1.1 The analytical scope of the book
Status Demands Legal change Access

(implementation)
Assessment Victims’ agenda Amendment/new Actual access to legal

law provisions by the
beneficiaries
Studied in this book Empirically Theoretically and Only partial
empirically empirical exploration
Source Author
1 INTRODUCTION 11
as a legal act and a policy that encapsulates a variety of political, economic

and social tensions in a post-conflict state. Rather than discussing the
benefits of status, this book analyses the mechanisms behind its conferral.
Casting a political lens on socio-economic justice in the field of transi-
tional justice that has been dominated by normative and moral arguments
of what is just and fair remains a minority approach (Balasco, 2013;
Thoms, Ron, & Paris, 2008). However, this approach is much needed
given the growing evidence of how transitional justice efforts can be
misused by political elites and how their side-effects can further polarize
societies (Grodsky, 2011; Payne, 2007; Subotić, 2009).
1.4 Victim Capital: Towards

an Understanding of Victims’ Power
Previously, limited research in transitional justice has explored the cross-
country varieties of state-provided reparations and socio-economic justice
for victims. A growing amount of literature looks at structural conditions
such as legacies of repression, democratic and economic development,
and the regional clustering of justice in order to explain why some
countries are more likely to provide reparations than others (Powers &
Proctor, 2017; Wolfe, 2013). Other authors see regional differences in
the numbers of victims and budgetary constraints of poor post-conflict
countries as the main causes for different reparation policies (Correa,
Guillerot, & Magarrell, 2009; Cunneen, 2006; Segovia, 2006). The
highly influential normative approach emphasizes the role of ‘transna-
tional advocacy networks’ as key motors of policy adoption and reform in
the form of wider networks of advocates and organizations that influence
public opinion globally (Keck & Sikkink, 1998). Finally, identity poli-
tics studies see the main difference in identifications with in-group and
opposition to out-group when distributing policies (Arthur, 2011). Each
of these bodies of work provides invaluable insights into post-conflict
justice regimes. However, they cannot explain the puzzle of this book,
which is not about cross-country or cross-ethnic differences but variations
between victim groups. Unless there are other factors at play, when state
budgets are depleted and societies divided, why recognize victims at all?
We need to look for other explanations of the varied patterns observed in
the Bosnian case. As our understanding of macro-determinants of transi-
tional justice improves, it is equally important to further our analyses of
the complex relationships between domestic authorities, external policy-

makers and victims while probing how they are constrained by institutions
and norms.
With its intricate ethno-national identities, extensive international
interventions, peacebuilding and a large victim population, Bosnia makes
for a particularly suitable setting for the study of inter-category varia-
tion in recognition and redress.12 The analytical framework developed
here uses Bosnia to explain why recognition and redress vary among
victim groups within a divided and post-conflict state. It blends struc-
tural constraints that all victims face with the various strategies that are at
their disposal. It shows how victims can effectively pursue their aims by
leveraging their international salience, amplifying their domestic authority
and mobilizing their existing resources. While each group is endowed
with a certain set of these qualities and tools, groups that leverage,
increase or amplify them more effectively are usually more successful with
their agendas. Domestic authorities, as the main proximal policymakers,
subsequently respond when they consider these demands to be benefi-
cial for harnessing public political support and reaping economic benefits.
However, they also respond positively out of reputational, ideational and
moral reasons. Such reasons go beyond ethno-national arguments and
rational choice that generally seem to define post-conflict societies divided
by identity cleavages and dichotomies of ‘us’ and ‘them’.
The three key components of ‘victim capital’ for recognition and
redress have been developed using scholarship in transitional justice, iden-
tity and social mobilization. ‘International salience’ means the amount
and quality of external attention to a victim group or its demands. It
generally captures how prioritized a victim group is on the agendas of
external actors and donors. It is encapsulated in advances of human rights,
such as UN conventions and resolutions, international court decisions
and the key topics of the day on the humanitarian and human rights
agendas of some primary international and regional organizations such as
the UN, Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE)
and the European Union (EU). It also encompasses global media atten-
tion. As it is time-variant and shifts from issue to issue, it allows victims
to align their demands with some broader trends and press domestic
authorities to comply with them. It is shaped by the context, but its reso-
nance reflects the ability of victims to boost their visibility through their
advocacy, campaigns and appeals. When domestic authorities are sensi-
tive to reputational (e.g. membership in international organizations) and
1 INTRODUCTION 13
economic pressures (e.g. foreign aid), it can be costly to neglect groups of

high international salience (Cortell & Davis, 2000, p. 69). Such dynamics
is well known from studies on Euro-Atlantic integration, among others
(Grabbe, 2006; Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier, 2005; Vachudova, 2005).
The second concept is ‘moral authority’ that is domestically attributed
to a victim group. It is defined as the public recognition of a group’s
perceived worthiness. Each victim group is endowed with a different
moral authority among its co-nationals and the general public (Bouris,
2007). As Michael Humphrey argues, ‘only those victims considered to
be morally deserving have their human rights protected’ (2012, p. 67).
Depending on the strength of such moral worthiness and deservingness,
victims are empathized with and perceived by the public and domestic
authorities as legitimate recognition claimants, and not as scroungers.
Moral authority includes a range of attributes, some of which are constant
and some of which vary over time and can be influenced by victims. Public
and political authorities may be more sympathetic to those whose ethno-
national, gender, or social identities correspond to their understanding of
who is deserving, partially mirroring identity arguments (Arthur, 2011).
Other sources of moral authority—such as new revelations about victims’
suffering—are time dependent and can be amplified by the victims them-
selves. Like international salience, moral authority can be moulded by the
actions of victims and their framing strategies. When domestic authorities
are responsive to domestic pressures, have a war-related political agenda
or simply empathize with a particular group, status-adoption may become
a reasonable course of action.
Finally, the third victim capital that will make recognition more likely
are resources that facilitate activism, here referred to as ‘mobilization
resources’. Each victim group will have varied capacities and leader-
ship. While some of these resources are due to the wider structure of
the specific system (e.g. economic situation), others can also be shaped
by victims (e.g. numbers of protests). As the social movements litera-
ture argues, structural factors constrain the type of resources available to
actors that are then able to voice their demands (McAdam, McCarthy,
& Zald, 1996; McAdam, Tarrow, & Tilly, 2001; Tarrow, 1994). The
more actor-centric literature on resource mobilization further shows that
differences in endowments between organizations such goods and skills in
their possession explain why some are more successful with their demands
than others (McCarthy & Zald, 1977; Melucci, 1980). The broader the
membership and networks of a victim group, the greater its financial and
informational resources are. The deeper its skills and organizational capac-
ities, the more successful it will be. Those with wide networks and support
can act as more effective pressure groups not only because they can be
perceived as a potential threat but also because they may acquire influen-
tial allies. Mobilization resources can vary over time, partially dependent
on structural factors but also on a progressive build-up of such resources.
Combining these three components of capital can be highly effective
when seeking recognition and redress. In the empirical material, I find
that those groups with the highest levels on the different dimensions of
victim capital have been most successful with their demands. The logic
of change is similar to Charles Ragin’s ideas about combining different
‘ingredients’ that produce results. He argued that a ‘change emerges from
the intersection of appropriate preconditions—the right ingredients for
change’ (Ragin, 1987, p. 25). While I make no claims to causality, I adopt
a similar approach because none of these capitals on its own could plau-
sibly explain the change. Neither could contextual factors on their own
explain the varieties observed between groups. It is only the combina-
tions under certain conditions that allows us to explain the varieties in
statuses. Indeed, I find that political authorities have been more respon-
sive to victims that have either challenged or advanced their domestic
political power or moral standing, or those that have facilitated reputa-
tional and economic benefits from external actors. Such incentives are
highly unlikely to be occasioned by one factor only.
This book thus argues that recognition in the form of a legal status is
primarily influenced by a combination of victims’ salience, authority and
resources that shape their ability to influence domestic authorities who
seek political, economic and reputational rewards. It is a change driven by
political calculations of domestic authorities and by the agency of victims
who are bounded by the nature of the political and economic context
at a specific time. To illustrate, a victim group would be more likely to
succeed with its demands when it is generally framed as deserving of
recognition (i.e. high moral authority). It would also be able to mobi-
lize its members and have a wide network of allies (i.e. high mobilization
resources). Finally, it would be placed highly on international agendas that
influence domestic policymaking or determine rewards (i.e. high interna-
tional salience). Such a group would be more successful at times when its
demands deliver electoral support or when governments are more sensi-
tive to external pressures (i.e. when they seek to join an international
organization). Therefore, general context and time (especially vis-à-vis the
end of the conflict) are important factors to consider. While the most
1 INTRODUCTION 15
potent recipe for success is the combination of all three capitals, there can
be other constellations, as discussed later.
1.5 What Do We Know About

Paths to Post-War Redress?
Although no study has so far focussed specifically on the causes of victims’
recognition and subsequent redress in the form of compensation and
rehabilitation, several other arguments could be made using the existing
literature. It is reasonable to argue that depleted post-conflict states simply
do not have funding for war victims as other peacebuilding priorities take
precedence (Letschert & Van Boven, 2011). As some claim, reparations
are ‘post-transitional’ measures that become important only once secu-
rity and other urgent priorities have been dealt with (Powers & Proctor,
2017). This is a valid and proven claim that we have seen play out in
numerous post-war contexts, including Bosnia. However, it is important
to highlight that the aim of this work is not to explain the level of recog-
nition and redress but the variations within it. Even if meagre, various
types of what is here referred to as status have been awarded in what
may initially seem as a haphazard manner. The question to answer here
is—why? A cynical approach might consider recognition in the form of a
status for its symbolism rather than its budgetary consequences. Nonethe-
less, financial constraints certainly play an important role in recognition
and redress.
Other structural factors matter too. Scholars looking at cross-national
determinants of transitional justice stress legacies of repression, levels of
pluralism and the regional clustering of justice tools. In their seminal
work, Olsen, Payne, and Reiter in 2010 showed that the strength of civil
society, availability of international advocacy networks, the course of tran-
sitions, and previous regime types influence transitional justice choices.
Their analysis and dataset provided a starting point for other scholars
such as Hun Joon Kim (2008) and Powers and Proctor (2017) who
later argued that the higher the level of pluralism, economic develop-
ment and the number of other transitional justice tools in a country, the
more likely different subtypes of reparations become. However insightful
these studies are to compare countries, they do not account for difference
within countries. In other words, structural factors should generally have
the same effects on everyone seeking redress.
Similarly, works on theories of democratization suggest that the

balance of power between new and old elites determines policies (Arthur,
2009; Balasco, 2013; Linz & Stepan, 1996; O’Donnell, Schmitter, &
Whitehead, 1986). Depending on the course of the transition—whether
it is negotiated or the previous regime collapses—transitional justice could
be applied either as a tool of reckoning by the negotiating parties or
as retribution imposed by the victor, respectively (see especially Elster,
1998). This is related to distributive politics that proposes that the aim
of governments is to allocate a fixed budget to competing social cate-
gories (Golden & Min, 2013; Stokes, Dunning, Nazareno, & Brusco,
2013). It suggests that there are two main explanations why some citi-
zens receive redress and others do not. In the first one, governments
offer resources towards their ‘core’ political constituencies (aligned with
‘winners’), while other constituencies are less privileged (‘losers’). In the
second one, governments target benefits toward those ‘swing’ voters who
decide elections. The distributive politics literature would propose that
it is the political alignment of voters relative to the party that holds
power that determines redress. In divided societies, distributive politics is
structed along identity cleavage lines. Paige Arthur argues that ‘collective
victimization and collective guilt are common outcomes of conflict and
systematic domination, making recognition of victimhood on the other
‘side’ difficult, if not impossible’ (2011, p. 8). Using the same set of argu-
ments, status would be only granted if it benefitted the victors or one side.
The difficulty with contemporary conflicts is that there are no longer clear
and stable winners and losers, and recognition becomes a balancing act
influenced by domestic but also international actors. Moreover, the iden-
tity divisions do not explain recognitions across ethnic lines such as in the
case of Bosnian missing people.
This is where normative scholarship on transnational advocacy
networks in human rights come to aid. Norms of accountability for past
human rights abuses emerged in the 1980s in Latin American and later
in South Africa with a shift towards new norms and practices of account-
ability, truth-seeking, and global justice (Hayner, 2001; Risse, Ropp, &
Sikkink, 1999). These norms gradually spread across the world through
networks of activists, advocates, and scholars that influenced govern-
ments’ policies, in what Lutz and Sikkink called the ‘justice cascade’
(2001), i.e. the chain-effect of adopting new legal measures. This cascade
resulted in external normative pressures on domestic actors that eventu-
ally complied with the human rights regime in order to be considered
1 INTRODUCTION 17
respectable and/or full members of the international community. Such

actors operate across the world through networks and alliances to pres-
sure governments on behalf of repressed or weak domestic groups, and
persuade them to change their policy preferences. Keck and Sikkink in
their seminal 1998 book ‘Activists without Borders’ demonstrated that
aligning with ‘transnational advocacy networks’ is a useful strategy to
empower domestic victims by gaining financial and technical capacities,
raising awareness and helping push for domestic change through the
so-called ‘boomerang effect’. They suggest that transnational advocacy
networks strengthen domestic groups and push the targeted governments
to change their behaviour. They show that where local organizations have
difficulty influencing their own governments, they ‘bypass their state and
directly search out international allies to try to bring pressure on their
states from outside’ (Keck & Sikkink, 1998, p. 2). The inter-category
variation would, according to these propositions, be driven by the work
of the diffusive activities of such networks. This is a powerful explanation
for many ‘victories’ of war victims. While networks are incorporated as
part of each group’s resources, it is hard to see how each of the distinct
compensation outcomes is the result of such external factors and advocacy
only. For example, despite the growing involvement of such networks in
the issue of torture, ex-detainees in Bosnia have only been recognized in
2018 in Republika Srpska that has had a much lower exposure of such
networks.
Scholarship on adaptational strategies of domestic actors to many
norm-driven external pressures has provided more insights that can be
included here. Most notably, Jelena Subotić (2009) showed on Croatia
and Serbia how the European Union’s pressure vis-à-vis criminal prose-
cution and other justice reforms has been ‘hijacked’ by domestic elites
in order to legitimize their rule and delegitimize the opposition and/or
external actors. She argued that the EU’s insistence on compliance with
international norms of justice and trials encouraged domestic elites to
‘go through the motions of fulfilling international demands while in
fact rejecting the profound social transformation these norms require’
(Subotić, 2009, p. 167). As a result, domestic authorities adopt half-
hearted measures to extract international rewards (political progress
towards the EU and economic aid) without any intent of implementa-
tion.13 Similarly, using other post-socialist cases, Brian Grodsky proposed
that national leaders pursue their preferred justice policies when these
‘pose minimal political or economic risk’ and when they are advantageous
for their political ambitions (Grodsky, 2011, p. 32). He concluded that

direct external pressures have ambiguous domestic effects because too
much external coercion weakens domestic liberal opposition. This instru-
mentalist logic has great explanatory power on the case studied here. Yet
both Subotić and Grodsky focused on trials and truth commissions and
thus work with different assumptions. While recognition and redress can
be expensive, it does not pose much direct threat to political survival per
se. Instead, it can impact the legitimacy of ruling elites.
This is where the last set of arguments—that this book aligns with—
offers additional contributions. In the critical scholarship of victimhood
(Druliolle & Brett, 2018; Schmid, 2016), victims are no longer viewed
through the prism of their traumas and passivity but as ‘protagonists
of transitional justice’ with a large remit for mobilization and action
(Dixon, 2016). Works on Rwanda (Rombouts, 2004), Northern Ireland
(Jankowitz, 2018) and East Germany (Clarke, 2019), among others, have
shown how victims adopt strategies and seek out allies to become active
policy pursuers. In Bosnia, the contribution by Elissa Helms on female
victim activism demonstrated victims’ usage of moral frames of inno-
cence and motherhood to justify justice claims (Helms, 2013). Similarly,
Cécile Jouhanneau in her research (in French) on the politics of Bosnian
victims of torture alerts to their framing of the ‘guardians of memory’ as a
strategy to increase public empathy (Jouhanneau, 2013). Isabelle Delpla’s
work (also in French) on victim associations in general shows how victim
leaders have been co-opted by Bosnian political parties (Delpla, 2014).
Janine N. Clark’s work on and with survivors of sexual violence also offers
many insights about the dissonance within a highly heterogenous group
that is often perceived as monolithic (Clark, 2017). These are important
and courageous works as critical engagement with politicization of victims
remains a somewhat taboo topic in transitional justice.
This book builds on these works but adds an analytical and compar-
ative aspect to these discussion by presenting an analytical framework
(Chapter 2) and subsequently comparing the achievements of Bosnian
victim groups in relation to each other (Chapters 4, 5 and 6). It relies
on transitional justice, social movements and anthropological approaches
to victimhood to offer insights into how and why post-conflict regimes
adopt redress. Given the lack of solid theoretical foundations in tran-
sitional justice this book fills critical theoretical gaps. As the following
chapters document, post-conflict transitional justice, normative argu-
ments, and victimhood studies are used to conceptualize moral authority
1 INTRODUCTION 19
and international salience. The literature in social movements is used to

conceptualize mobilization resources and the role of contextual factors.
1.6 Bosnian Victims and Survivors

Bosnia is a suitable context in which to study variation in recognition
and redress. The Bosnian conflict transformed our understandings of
civil wars, peacebuilding and post-conflict justice. The 1992–1995 war
between Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims14 ), Croats, and Serbs came as a
tangible proof that ethnicity and nationalism were to be lasting and
potent political tools in domestic politics and international affairs at a
time when many believed the victory of liberal peace was imminent. To
settle the animosities through an external arbiter, the International Crim-
inal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was set up in 1993 as a
new tool to deal with the human rights violations in the country and to
serve as a deterrent for further crimes (Orentlicher, 2010). As a benefi-
ciary of the first ad hoc international tribunals for war crimes, Bosnia has
since then turned into a ‘laboratory of transitional justice’ (Dragović-Soso
& Gordy, 2010, p. 193) and a trailblazer for war-crime trials. The end of
the war was an unprecedented peace experiment of external intervention.
The so-called ‘Dayton Peace Agreement’ stopped the fighting and created
a formally unified state through the enactment of complex power-sharing
structures in two so-called ‘entities’, the smaller Bosnian Serb Republika
Srpska (RS) and the larger Bosniak-Croat Federation of BiH (FBiH).15
It also introduced a new type of international guardianship through the
Office of the High Representative (OHR), which directly linked domestic
policymaking to international politics (Caplan, 2004). Finally, the extent
of war suffering, targeting of the civilian population in some of the most
atrocious ways since World War II and the sweeping levels of war destruc-
tion have left a large and complex legacy of hundreds of thousands war
victims.
The Bosnian conflict produced ‘direct victims’ (also called primary)—
i.e. those killed, disappeared, abused, detained or persecuted—and ‘indi-
rect victims’ (also called secondary) as ‘family members of a direct victim’
(Bloomfield et al., 2003, p. 54). As noted above, victim identities can
be determined by specific events or regional crimes; however, the key
criterion for categorization of victims is generally their victimization,
which not only shapes their demands but also the general ways in which
they mobilize. Therefore, this book does not only study injured civil-
ians and those who lost their loved ones but also maimed war veterans,
veterans who were tortured, and families of fallen or missing soldiers,
i.e. all victims-survivors with irreversible losses and harms. Together with
refugees and displaced persons, identities of war victims and veterans
are the direct result of wars and form the universe of war-generated
populations. While refugees and displaced persons pertain to various
restitution and restorative policies, they are not included in this study.
The reasons are of conceptual and practical nature. Conceptually, many
displaced people and refugees pertain to other categories of victims (and
are thus included). Practically, many members of this category reside
abroad, limiting the validity of a study of internal Bosnian politics. There-
fore, the victim groups studied here are military war victims, civilian war
victims, families of missing people, victims of torture (ex-detainees) and
victims of sexual violence (rape16 ). These five groups cannot return to
the situation ex ante and thus can be recognized and redressed through
compensation and rehabilitation (redress).
Before proceeding further, it is important to justify the inclu-
sion of military victims. Ex-soldiers are generally treated in studies of
peacebuilding as part of Demobilization, Disarmament, and Reinte-
gration (DDR). In addition, the existing legal definitions of victim-
hood exclude servicemen unless their injuries were the result of grave
breaches of the international human and humanitarian law (especially
the Geneva Conventions).17 Moreover, transitional justice often sees
ex-soldiers as (potential) ‘thugs or perpetrators of violence’ rather
than victims (Nettelfield, 2010, p. 90). Such portrayals fail to capture
the reality on the ground. As Hourmat convincingly argued in the
case of Rwanda, ‘defining a rigid victim-perpetrator dichotomy can be
profoundly excluding and limited in capturing the diversity of victim-
hood’ (2016, p. 44). Huyse further stressed that victimhood is relevant
for all ‘those killed and tortured, those bereaved and maimed, those
assaulted and raped, those injured in battle and by mines, those abducted
and detained, …’ (2003, p. 54). Although victimized soldiers may have
put themselves in harm’s way by joining the army and thus bear partial
responsibility for their wounds (though forced enlistment should also be
considered), they are also victimized by wars (Sriram, 2012, p. 164).
The inclusion of military-defined victims has also practical and theo-
retical repercussions. Worldwide, some types of victim associations (e.g.
victims of torture) gather both civilians and veterans, i.e. forming mixed
1 INTRODUCTION 21
civilian-military categories with shared victimization. Such mixed cate-

gories have similar claims, not only because they pertain to equitable
budgetary constraints but because their practical needs are comparable
(e.g. therapies or prosthetic devices). Excluding victimized servicemen
would limit the scope of the applicability of this design elsewhere and
would fail to recognize the variance of victimization in other contexts.18
Nonetheless, demobilized war veterans without any specific victimization
or harms are not studied as their victimization (service) is of a different
kind to the permanency of disability or loss of a loved one.19
Each of the studied five groups in Bosnia has been treated differently
at the state and the subnational (entity) level. Recognition and redress
have been included in legal regulations that define the rights of each
victim group. While families of missing people have been granted state-
level policies, other categories have either been included in entity-level
legislation or have not secured any rights at all. As entities have exten-
sive powers regarding victim and veteran policies, subnational (entity)
level is an important part of the analysis here.20 Victim groups generally
gather in associations (and their unions). As circumstances of injuries in
battle are qualitatively different and as military and civilian victims have
organized in distinct organizations, civilian and military war victims are
studied as two separate categories despite some overlap in their source
of victimization (i.e. injuries and killings). Only these two groups have
organized on the basis of their distinct victimization and civilian/military
identities. The rest of the groups are mixed (include war veterans and
civilians) although victims of sexual violence are nearly exclusively civil-
ians. Table 1.2 provides an overview of the different groups, their source
of victimization, their organizational units and outcomes.21
1.7 Researching Bosnian Victims

Studying victims in a post-war states necessitates a contextualized and
sensitive approach to data collection and analysis. This also entails over-
coming many obstacles. Obtaining accurate data in Bosnia is unneces-
sarily challenging because of its fragmented political and administrative
system. Reliable data about victimization and outcomes—from statistics
to demographics—are hard to get as their collection is decentralized and
methodologies differ significantly. There is also a reticence to release
any country-wide data. For example, the first post-war census was only
conducted in 2013. The official results, though, were not published
Table 1.2 Victim groups, recognition and redress outcome
Group Victimization Associations Outcome
1. Military War Physical injuries, Entity unions of Entity Laws

Victims disability and killings disabled veterans;
of soldiers families of killed
soldiers
2. Civilian War Physical injuries, Entity unions of Entity Laws
Victims disability and killings civilian war victims; (registration expired
of civilians associations of in RS)
families of killed
civilians
3. Families of the Disappearance of Associations for State Law
Missing Persons soldiers and civilians families of the
missing; Srebrenica
and Prijedor
associations
4. Victims of Torture and abuse, Entity unions of RS Entity Law
Torture incl. detention of ex-detainees
(ex-detainees) soldiers and civilians
5. Victims of Sexual Sexual violence and Entity FBiH Law
Violence rape of civilians (and Women-Victims of Amendment (and in
rarely soldiers) War associations, RS Entity Law)
women’s sections of
ex-detainees
Source Author
until 2016 when the entities finally agreed on its publication after a
strong pressure from the European Union (Toe, 2016). Official data
are often subject to various official permissions and loopholes. In my
case, some institutions have been responsive to official request of infor-
mation (some cantonal ministries in FBiH) while entity and state-level
institutions have often been more difficult to reach. Journalists and local
analysts have thus been an indispensable source of information and knowl-
edge. To ensure reliability of the collected material, I have triangulated it
with international reports, secondary literature, media articles and espe-
cially expert interviews. However, statistical data presented here are by
no means complete. While journalists and media sources were impor-
tant for analysing discourses, most of the numbers included in such
sources needed further verification. A more reliable source were experts
in the field (social workers, lawyers, peace workers) who have worked
with victims and have had access to a range of official and semi-official
1 INTRODUCTION 23
data. Consulting their reports and interviews conducted with them were
instructive.
Numbers and descriptive data about victimization provide only one
piece of a complex story and limited knowledge. Instead, it is through
close discussion with those who suffered and through a contextual-
ized reading of the existing data that a more rounded picture emerges.
Research on and with victims involves an engagement with sensitive,
painful and potentially traumatizing stories. Each victim lives in a partic-
ular microcosm of memory, trauma and narratives that need to be
respected and interpreted as sensitively as possible. In order to do so,
understanding the local context, language and culture is important. At
the same time, a wider anchoring is needed as Bosnian divisions, polarized
narratives and conflicting memories lead to disjointed or partial interpre-
tations of victimhood. As Clark lamented, conducting fieldwork in Bosnia
is ‘an extremely disorientating experience, with members of each ethnic
group insisting that their version of events is the correct and truthful one’
(2014, p. 104). This is why a large number of individuals (120) were
interviewed for this research during prolonged stays in Bosnia—but also
across the wider region of the former Yugoslavia.
The field research conducted for this book consisted of four sepa-
rate fieldwork trips, each lasting two to three months from early 2014
to late 2016, and a follow-up trip in 2019. Multiple trips allowed for
the study of developments across time and to gain distance from the
field to reflect on the data. It was also a strategy how to avoid turning
into a Bostranac (literally ‘Bosnian foreigner’), i.e. adopting the Bosnian
viewpoints and understandings of reality which may be tainted by indi-
vidual experiences of trauma and suffering. The field research followed
the main victim associations in the country, starting from prolonged stays
in the capital Sarajevo, then Srebrenica, Banja Luka, Mostar, Bihać and
other areas (see stars marked in Fig. 1.1).22 The main selection criteria
for the locations was the existence of a victim group and diversity of
different views (i.e. Bosniak, Croat, Serb, different victim groups, gender,
professional capability, etc.).
The conducted semi-structured interviews differed depending on the
respondent. Legal experts were able to elaborate on the nature of
redress legislation while civil society workers were often important bridges
between individual victim respondents and myself. The aim was to inter-
view respondents with varied perspectives and knowledge bases in many
locations to get a broader understanding of the issue of recognition and
Fig. 1.1 Fieldwork in Bosnia and Herzegovina (adapted from www.Vector

Stock.com/20422894)
redress. This meant interviewing ministers, leaders of NGOs, journal-

ists, victim leaders and veterans. Overall, 120 respondents (70 males and
50 females23 ) were interviewed. I organized respondents into (1) direct
beneficiaries, that is victims-survivors (45), (2) state and international
elites (24) and (3) local and international human rights (HR) workers
(51). I also organized them by the content of our discussion, i.e. by the
types of victimization. Table 1.3 provides a breakdown of the distribu-
tion of interviews.24 In Table 1.3, I combine torture and rape, as well
1 INTRODUCTION 25
Table 1.3 Interviews by topics
Group/Type of Civilian and Missing Torture and General topics Total

actors military people sexual violence
victims
Direct 18 12 15 0 45
beneficiaries
Bosnian and 9 6 5 4 24
international
elites
Local and 10 5 10 26 51
international
HR/NGO
workers
Total 37 23 30 30 120
Source Author
as civilian and military victimhood into one topic, as these are later anal-
ysed in a comparative way in the individual chapters. All interviews that
covered topics of victimhood and redress more broadly or that contained
information about other topics are listed under ‘General topics’.
Participant observation was a natural and indispensable part of the
fieldwork. In some cases, certain victim/veteran associations have assisted
me for longer periods of time and introduced me to other members
of their networks. It was fascinating to observe the dynamics between
different victims and veterans during commemorations, burials, exhibi-
tions and cultural events (such as film screenings). Power hierarchies
between groups and genders were palpable during such events. In the
majority of cases, it was also clear that victim leaders dominated the
discourse of their associations. Certain lines and phrases were repeated
automatically without individual reflections. In one case, after 12 failed
requests for an interview (and cancelled meetings) one victim leader
referred me to her colleagues with the words ‘you don’t even have to
say you have not spoken to me. She [her colleague] will tell you every-
thing as I would’. This not only shows the uniform narratives within some
associations but also hints to the limits of the ‘truthfulness’ of interview
material, but also to the plain reality of Bosnia that has been over-exposed
to foreign researchers.
Additionally, my gender, knowledge of the language and previous
professional life in Bosnia also predetermined my role as a researcher in
the field. As Denzin noted, ‘interpretive research begins and ends with
the biography and self of the researcher’ (1986, p. 12). It was noticeable
that my access to some organizations was facilitated by my knowledge of
the language and networks. At the same time, my background seemed
to influence the responses as in some cases respondents wanted to ‘pre-
sent themselves in a positive light to the interviewer’ or seemed to have a
hidden agenda for their claims (González-Ocantos, 2016, p. 25). There
may also have been a retrospective remembering bias when respondents
recall only some events. It was thus critical to corroborate interview
evidence with a broad variety of sources to build resilient arguments.
Nonetheless, it must be recognized that the explanations in this book
are the result of constraints in terms of access to respondents, availability
of time and financial resources. These limitations of fieldwork-driven
projects that rely on intensive, deep and ‘thick’ (Geertz, 1973) analyses
are inevitable and must been acknowledged. However, their impact on
the results can be minimized by relying on a vast set of sources.
As for the other used sources, I created a collection of 420 media arti-
cles from the Infobiro 25 database, which is run by the Bosnian Media
Centre and is currently the only accessible online database of Bosnian
newspapers covering the post-war period (and prior). Using (rather basic)
available search functions, I selected 70 articles for each victim group (and
70 articles on Srebrenica specifically), a number high enough to select at
least two articles per year. I also added 70 articles that dealt with victims
and redress in general. I further created a collection of 150 international
policy reports and statements related to issues of transitional justice and
victimization by the EU, OSCE, UN agencies, WB, IMF, IOM, Amnesty
International (AI), HRW, ICMP, ICTY and other external charities and
agencies that focussed on these issues in BiH. This collection is not an
exhaustive list of all the research and advocacy about the studied cate-
gories and redress; however, it provides a good overview of the vast range
of agencies, actors and research dedicated to this issue. When analysing
this data (using NVivo and Zotero), the aim was to (1) Focus on the
framing of the victim groups; (2) Assess described capacities, networks
and skills; and (3) Examine how prioritized each group was by external
actors. Together with the used secondary literature and primary sources
obtained from respondents and during fieldwork, this book presents a rich
description of the struggle for redress in Bosnia after 1995.
Finally, it is important to stress that research in post-war contexts
with populations that have been traumatized in war26 necessitates extra
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
— Sanokaa, mitä se on tehnyt!
— Pois, pois!
EMIL huutaa hurjasti.
Minä luulen, minä olen miltei varma, että hän on, on turmellut
minun sisareni!
Huudot räjähtävät raivokkaaksi pauhuksi, josta epäselvästi eroiltua

seuraavia
HUUTOJA
— Sen hän saa kalliisti maksaa!
— Pian se toisen tarvitsee — kun entinen koskeen hyppäsi!
— Monta se konna tarvitsee — ei sille vähät riitä!
— Mutta tuo peli täytyy vihdoinkin lopettaa!
— Hirtettävä se olisi! Ehkä sitten laukeaisi…
— Otetaan se kettu ulos luolastaan!
— Hakataan se niin, että kukko suurimmat palat nielee…
— Pois se roisto!
— Helvettiin!
— Hirteen, hirteen!
KORVEN ÄÄNI voittaa vihdoin melun.

(Se hukkuu taas kiihtyvään meteliin; mestari hiipii vavisten
telefoonin ääreen, tarttuen kuulotorveen.)
KAARLO lähenee ja sähähtää hiljaa.
Laskekaa irti! Muuten…
(Juuri silloin aikoo joukko rynnätä sisään. Mestari hellittää

kuulotorvesta, aivankuin se olisi tulikuuma rauta ja peräytyy
kauhusta kalpeana kirjoituspöydän taakse.)
KORPI työnnetään sisään takaperin, asettuu ovelle hyökkääjien

eteen tarttuen lujasti ovipieliin ja huutaa kaikuvasti.
Toverit! Hiljaa! Pysähtykää! Rauhoittukaa! Kuunnelkaa minua!
Hänet keskeytetään hurjin
HUUDOIN
— Rupeatko sinä puolustamaan tuota…?
— Mitä te ajattelette, isä…?
— Pois tieltä — ja paikalla!
— Me otamme ketun luolasta…
— Pois tieltä!
KORPI jännittää viimeiset voimansa ja työntää hyökkääjät takaisin,

huutaen läpitunkevasti.
Kuunnelkaa! Odottakaa! Pysähtykää! Tapahtuu onnettomuus! Hän
kyllä ansaitsisi selkäänsä — mutta siitä olisi heille hyötyä! — (Joukko
seisahtuu.) — Ettekö ymmärrä, että he toivovat, odottavat jotain
väkivaltaisuutta, saadakseen tekosyyn kutsua tänne enemmän
poliiseja tai sotaväkeä. Me emme saa heidän toivoansa täyttää!
Ettekö ymmärrä? Päätetään pikemmin, mitä on tehtävä.
HUUTOJA
— Oikein puhut!
— On se niinkin…
— Ensin pehmitetään se roisto!
— Pois tieltä!
— Lakko on tehtävä huomispäivänä!
— Lakkoon! Lakkoon!
— Ja mestari pois!
— Piiskuri pois!
— Ja palkat entiselleen!
— Päätetään heti tehdä lakko!
— Lakko tehdään!
— Hyvä, hyvä!
Kun joukko on peräytynyt, menee Korpi ulkopuolelle ja sulkee
oven.
KORVEN ÄÄNI kajahtaa voimakkaana ja kuuluvana metelin ylitse.
Niin toverit — minä myönnän että meidän pitäisi tehdä lakko, sillä
meillä ei ole muuta keinoa, jolla voisimme estää palkanalennuksen.
Mutta voimmeko me tehdä sen? Onko meillä yksimielisyyttä, onko
meillä voimaa viedä se voittoon? Tappio tuottaisi tavattoman paljon
kärsimyksiä… Ja minä pelkään, että me olemme liian heikkoja — ei
ole kassaa, ei järjestöjä jotka auttaisivat…
Hänen äänensä hukkuu taas sekavaan, moniääniseen huutoon

kuin myrskyn pauhuun — josta epäselvästi eroittaa joitakin kiihkeitä
HUUTOJA
— Mitä sinä lörpöttelet, Ville…
— Ethän sinä ole ennenkään pelännyt!
— Lakko täytyy tehdä!
— Ehkä me jostakin saamme avustusta?
— Meidän täytyy tehdä lakko!
— Niin juuri — täytyy!
— Me emme elä sellaisella palkalla!
— Sepä se on!
— Emme enää anna alentaa palkkaamme!

— Emme voi — lapset…
— Emme voi! Emme! Lakkoon! Lakkoon!
— Ja mestari pois!
— Ehdottomasti! Hän on liian paljon…
— Piiskuri pois!
— Oikein! Hänen rikoksensa riittävät!
— Pois! Pois! Lakkoon!
KORVEN ÄÄNI
Vaietkaa — älkää huutako! Tässä on niin suuri asia, että minun

täytyy sanoa suoraan mielipiteeni. Kyllä minä mukana olen jos
kerran kaikki toiset tahtovat lakkoon.
Ovatko kaikki siis sitä mieltä, että meidän täytyy tehdä lakko, jollei
palkkoja pysytetä entisellään ja mestaria eroiteta? Onko se kaikkien
tahto?
KAIKKI
— On! on! on!
KORVEN ÄÄNI liikutuksesta värähtäen.
Onko jokainen nyt samaa mieliä? — Ja seisovatko kaikki

vaatimuksensa takana, kunnes siihen myönnytään? Ettei kukaan
lähde työhön, ennenkuin yhdessä päätetään?
HUUTOJA hetken äänettömyyden jälkeen.
— Ei kukaan!
— Lakko on tehtävä!
— Emme voi muuta.
— Huomisaamuna lakkoon!
— Ja niillä vaatimuksilla, kuin Korpi sanoi. Eikö niin?
— Hyvä! hyvä! Mestari pois!
— Palkat ennalleen ja mestari pois!
— Lakkoon! Lakkoon!
KORVEN ÄÄNI
Mutta asia on sittenkin kovin tärkeä, toverit. Sitä täytyy takkaan

harkita, ja jokainen sanokoon suoraan ajatuksensa. Sentähden
ehdotan, että menemme yhdistyksen huoneustoon ja päätämme
yhteisessä kokouksessa mitä lopullisesti on tehtävä. Ei tällaista
asiaa auta yhtäkkiä päättää — siitä riippuu niin paljon.
ÄÄNIÄ
— Oikein puhut!
— Ei tarvitse keskustella — lakko on ainoa keino!
— Toverit — ei harkitsematta! Tämä on liian vakava…

— Kokoukseen!
— Ei se mitään keskustelua tarvitse — mutta mennään nyt

sitten…
— Lakko on tehtävä!
— Keskustelemaan!
— Mennään talolle…
— Turhaa lörpötystä — lakkoon!
— Mennään, mennään!
Kiihtynyt joukko lähtee liikkeelle ja samassa kajahtaa ilmoille

valtavalla voimalla työväen marssi. Se etenee hitaasti häipyen ja sitä
säestää satojen askelten jymy — aivankuin jonkun jättiläisrummun
mahtava jyske.
MESTARI pyyhkii tuskanhiestä helmeilevää otsaansa ja mutisee

vapisevalla äänellä.
Mitä, mitä tämä oikein on? — Minua, minua solvataan, uhataan!
KAARLO Annille, joka kyyristyneenä itkee eräässä nurkassa.
Anni tule pois, lähde heti täältä — mene kotiin…
(Kun Anni on poistunut, lähenee Kaarlo mestaria omituisin, hiipivin

askelin ja hänen äänessään värisee pidätetty raivo ja tuska.)
Sanokaa paikalla, teittekö te jotain hänelle — mitä täällä tapahtui?

Sanokaa se heti, heti!
MESTARI alkaa tointua saadessaan voimaa kiihtyvästä vihastaan;
lausuu vihdoin hitaasti, aivankuin nauttien toisen tuskasta ja
epätietoisuudesta.
Vai niin… Tekö äsken estitte minut telefoneeraamasta? Tekö

rohkenitte hyökätä minun kimppuuni? Ja nyt te tulette vielä
kysymään — niin, mitä te oikein tahdotte tietää…?
KAARLO hiljaa, pahanenteisesti.
Älkää ärsyttäkö minua enää! Sanokaa mitä teitte hänelle —

sanokaa paikalla! Muuten tapahtuu onnettomuus!
MESTARI
Aivan oikein! Teille tapahtuu onnettomuus, ellette tuki suutanne!

Tekö uhkailette — te, joka olette minun vallassani… jolle voin tehdä
mitä tahdon? — (Hiljemmin.) — Minä sanon nyt teille viimeisen
kerran: jollette ole aivan ääneti tästä asiasta, ja heti laputa tiehenne
täältä — niin teidät viedään kylmimpään Siperiaan. Se puhe on vielä
minun muistissani… Ymmärrättekö…?
KAARLO korostaen jokainoan sanan hurjalla vihalla ja uhkalla.
Ja minä sanon teille, kurja santarmikätyri! Jos minut syyttömästi

ilmiannatte, tai jos olette tehnyt jotakin Annille — niin teidät viedään
hautaan… Vaikka minut vietäisi sitten kuumimpaan helvettiin!
Ymmärrättekö?
MESTARI murisee raivon ja sisäisen levottomuuden vallassa.
Odotappa lurjus… kyllä sinä… tämän muistat… minä varoitan

sinua…
KAARLO ääntään hiljentäen.
Minä en varota! Mutta voi teitä. — Jos minun vielä täytyy tulla
tänne!
Esirippu.
Toinen näytös.
Ensimmäinen kuvaelma.
Työmies Vilho Korven kamari.
Talvi-illan hämärässä näyttää huone autiolta ja hyljätyltä, sillä

piironki peilineen on poissa ja vuoteiden paikalla näkyy vain kasa
makuuvaatteita. Kyökistä kuuluu yhtämittaa pikkulapsen voimaton
vaikerrus ja Liisan väsynyt laulu. Näitä säestää silloin tällöin lasten
käheä yskä ja pakkasen terävä paukahdus ulkopuolelta.
Korpi pysähtyy yksitoikkoisesta kävelystään ja alkaa huitoa

viluisena käsiään. Aukaisee kyökin oven.
KORPI
Eikö Hiltu ja Antti ole vieläkään tulleet?
LIISA tulee kyökistä. Hänen kasvonsa ovat tavattoman kuihtuneet

ja kalpeat ja hän yskii vähän väliä käheästi.
Ei — mahtanevatko ne lapsiparat mistään puita saada. Kun eivät
vain palelluttaisi jalkojaan, siellä oli jo äsken 28 astetta pakkasta.
KORPI levottomana.
Voi sentään. Ei niitä olisi pitänyt päästää sinne. Mutta sekin

herättää huomiota jos itse menisi. Missä Anni on?
LIISA vavahtaa kuin yllätetty pahantekijä ja sopertaa.
Anni tuota… Anni on — on vähän asialla… Kai hän — pian.
KORPI ei ole huomannut Liisan pelästystä, vaan menee

kattolampun ääreen ja raapaisee tulta, tarkastaen öljysäiliötä.
Vieläkö öljyä on jälellä?
LIISA änkyttäen.
Ei ole tippaakaan.
(Menee ulos.)
KORPI kuin itsekseen.
Kaikki vaan näkyy loppuvan… (Tulee pöydän ääreen, sytyttää

pienen, lasittoman läkkilampun ja alkaa sen valossa silmäillä pientä
punakantista lentolehteä.)
LIISA tulee taas sisään ja etsii jotain makuuvaateläjästä. Alkaa

aralla, hermostuneella äänellä.
Vilho… koeta nyt vihdoinkin vaikuttaa, puhua siihen suuntaan, että

se lakko lopetettaisiin, sillä…
KORPI keskeyttää kiusaantuneena, miltei rukoillen.
Älä nyt taas Liisa… anna minun olla rauhassa! Meidän täytyy vielä
kestää jotenkin — edes pieni aika…
LIISA
Sehän on mahdotonta! Jos lakkoa jatkuu vielä neljännen viikon,

niin meille tulee eteen nälkäkuolema…
KORPI katkerasti.
Tulkoon sitten! Nälkään saamme kuolla silloinkin jos ne voittavat ja

alentavat palkat mielensä mukaan! Näin kuollaan ainakin
nopeammin — ei tarvitse niin kauan kitua!
LIISA vapisevalla äänellä.
Voi Vilho, mitä sinä puhut…? Etkö sinä enää mitään välitä minusta
ja lapsista, heidän kärsimyksistään?
KORPI tuskallisen kiihkeästi.
Liisa parka… Ei nyt auta ajatella sitä vaikka joudummekin

kärsimään jonkun viikon! Olethan itsekin monasti sanonut, ettemme
elä sellaisella palkalla — tässähän on kysymys olemassaolosta…
Eikä lakkomme koske yksinomaan meitä, se vaikuttaa tavallaan
koko maan köyhien elämään. Jos me voitamme, alkavat työläiset
kaikkialla herätä ja järjestyä, vaatia oikeuksiansa. Tappiomme taas
masentaisi köyhien mieliä, levittäisi toivottomuutta. Niin Liisa, meidän
täytyy vielä kestää…
LIISA tukehtuneesti.
En minä itsestäni mitään välittäisi, mutta kun lapset… Ja pikku
Aune on tänään tullut niin kovin heikoksi, kyllä hän vaan kuolee…
KORPI hätkähtää ja änkyttää sekavasti.
Onko, onko Aune sairaampi…? Olihan hän vielä eilen… tuota…

Mistä hän niin äkkiä on huonontunut…?
LIISA peittäen kasvonsa.
Kysytkö sinä sitä? Täytyyhän pienen lapsen vatsan mennä piloille

kun ei saa muuta kuin hapanta leivänpurua. — (Tukehtuneesti
nyyhkyttäen.) — Kahteen päivään ei enää ole tullut tippaakaan rintaa
— imee ihan turhaan… Tänään ei saatu enää maitoakaan — eilen
sai pienen tilkan…
KORPI
Voi Liisa… mikset ole ennen sanonut?
LIISA
En ole tahtonut enää lisätä huoliasi… Ethän sinäkään olisi mitään

voinut — kun ei ole mitään…
KORPI nousee seisomaan, hänen huulensa vapisevat ja katse

harhailee hätäisenä ympäri huonetta kuin etsien; vihdoin änkyttää
tuskallisesti.
Liisa, sinä olet… olet… Voi Liisa parka, tämä on… tämähän on
kamalaa. Mitä olisi tehtävä…?
LIISA tarttuu äkkiä Korven käteen, puhuu hätäisesti, rukoilevasti.

Vilho, koeta lopettaa lakko! Se on ainoa keino… koeta toimittaa
niin, että huomenaamuna mennään työhön! Silloin saadaan heti
lääkkeitä, maitoa ja meidän pikku Aunemme parantuu vielä, saa
elää… Voi Vilho, teethän sen?
KORPI hiljaa, epätoivoisesti.
Liisa parka — minä en voi… en voi! Me olemme itse hukassa, jos

häviämme. Ja mehän taistelemme samalla kaikkien köyhien ja
sorrettujen puolesta… Emmehän voi heitä pettää…
LIISA nyyhkyttää tuskallisesti, syyttävästi.
Voitko ennen pettää lapsesi! Vilho, sinä et saa! Se on sinun syysi

jos Aune kuolee! Sinä voit vielä pelastaa hänet — älä anna hänen
kuolla! Hän on sinun oma lapsesi…
(Menee itkien kyökkiin.)
KORPI tarttuu päähänsä, ja seisoessaan siinä vääristynein

kasvoin, raskaasti hengittävänä muistuttaa hän takaa-ajettua
pahantekijää. Vihdoin kiertyy hänen silmiinsä kyyneleitä ja hänen
äänensä särkyneenä, tukehtuneena.
Ei, ei, hän ei saa kuolla. Minun täytyy saada jostakin maitoa, eikö
olisi jotain… — (Katselee tuskallisesti etsien ympärilleen.)
LIISA alakuloisesti.
Eihän meillä enää mitään ole, Vilho parka. Kaikki on myyty…
KORPI kuin havahtuen.
Liisa, tuo tänne työpuseroni.

LIISA
Mitä sinä sillä teet, Vilho?
KORPI
Vien takkini kauppiaalle tai Mattilaan. Minun täytyy saada maitoa.
LIISA levottomana.
Ei Vilho, sinä et saa tehdä sitä… sinä palellut ehdottomasti kun ei

ole minkäänlaista päällystakkia. Nytkin tuntuu pakkanen yhä
kiihtyvän.
KORPI käskevästi, alkaen riisua takkiaan.
Tuo pian. Minä tahdon.
LIISA lähtee kyökkiin; palaa hetken kiiluttua, tuoden rikkinäisen

puseron. Korpi pukee sen ylleen ja alkaa väristä vilusta; Liisa
katselee tuskallisesti kun hän käärii takkinsa sanomalehden
puolikkaaseen ja aikoo lähteä.
LIISA pidättäen nyyhkytystään.
Voi herra jumala tätä kurjuutta!
KORPI lohduttaen.
Älä nyt Liisa, kyllä tästä vielä selviydytään. Minä tulen heti.
(Lähtee.)
LIISA menee ikkunan ääreen ja koittaa sulattaa sormellaan reikää
jäähän; mutisee itsekseen.
Herra jumala, kun se on paksua… Pimeähän siellä jo tulee eikä

vieläkään näy…
(Tarttuu yhtäkkiä kaulaansa, voihkaisten kuin tukehtumaisillaan.)
Herra, taivaallinen isä — armahda tämä kerta! Suojele, pelasta

lapseni!
Miksi, miksi en kieltänyt, estänyt häntä, sanonut mitä ajattelin…
(Vääntelee käsiään kalvavan levottomuuden vallassa.)
KAARLO tulee sisään hengittäen nopeasti kuin juoksun jälkeen.

Hän on kovasti laihtunut ja hänen kalvenneille kasvoilleen on
ilmestynyt kova, kärsivä ilme.
Hyvää iltaa! Miten te täällä enää tarkenette?
LIISA
Kyllä se huonoa tahtoo olla — kun ne lapsiraukat ovat vielä

sairaita.
Aune tulee päivä päivältä huonommaksi.
KAARLO
Sepä ikävää. Mihin Korpi meni sellaista kyytiä? Kun ei ehtinyt

edes vastata…
LIISA vältellen.
Hän meni vain vähän asialle. Missä sinä olet noin hengästynyt?
KAARLO koettaa sanoa leikillisesti.
Juoksin hiukan — lämpimikseni, sillä ulkona tuntuu hieman

vilpoiselta.
Näyttää ihankuin ilmojen haltijakin olisi herrain puolella.
LIISA liikutettuna.
Niin, juuri sitä minä olen ajatellut! Kun kaikki on meitä vastaan,
kaikki epäonnistuu. Ehkä tämä lakko sittenkin on jumalan tahtoa
vastaan?
KAARLO katkerasti.
Oletteko siis sitä mieltä, että jumala tahtoisi teidän pienet lapsenne
kärsimään yhtämittaa nälkää, värisemään risoissaan — jotta
patruuna saisi entistä suuremman voiton? Että jumala tahtoisi viedä
leivän pienten lastenne suusta — patruunan hyväksi?
LIISA neuvottomana.
En minä oikein ymmärrä, mutta kun jumala kerran on luonut

köyhiä ja rikkaita, niin kai se sitten hänen tahtonsa on, että meidän
täytyy kärsiä. Ja koska sanassakin sanotaan, ettei varpunenkaan
putoa oksalta ilman hänen tahtoaan…
KAARLO hymähtää katkerasti.
Kyllä minä sentään mieluummin ajattelen, ettei jumalaa ole

lainkaan, kuin uskoisin, että hän nytkin tahtoisi pienokaisten
kuolevan nälkään.
LIISA
Mutta jos se kaikki olisikin jumalaa vastaan, niin…
(Vaikenee neuvottomana.)
KAARLO purevasti.
Vaikka olisitte varma, että jumala tässä on patruunan kassakaapin

puolella, niin onhan ihmislapsen elämä ainakin yhtä tärkeä kuin
varpusenkin. Te tiedätte, miten monta pienokaista täällä viime
viikollakin kuoli ihan ruuan puutteeseen — siis nälkään. —
(Värisevällä äänellä.) — Te ette tiedä, mitä tunsin tullessani eilen
kirkkomaalle. Ne pienet kirstut olivat siellä jonossa odottamassa
vuoroaan, ja jokaisen vierellä seisoi isä ja äiti, muutamien vielä
vanhemmat siskotkin saattajina. Monet äidit itkivät hiljaa, katkerasti
ja isät tuijottivat synkästi maahan hampaat yhteen kiristettyinä; jotkut
katsoivat pikku kirstua, niinkuin näkisivät kannen lävitse rakkaat,
kuihtuneet kasvot, eivätkä he näyttäneet huomaavan, miten heidän
laihtuneet ruumiinsa värisivät vilusta. Eräs nuori äiti korjaili
yhtämittaa vapisevin käsin pientä katajaseppeltä aivankuin peläten
sen putoavan, tai tahtoisi siten vielä kerran kosketella, hyväillä pikku
palleroistaan… Kun ajattelee, että he olisivat kuolleet jumalan
tahdosta, vain sentähden että patruuna saisi satatuhatta markkaa
enemmän voittoa, niin sitä ei voi uskoa. Vai uskotteko te? Ajatelkaa
itse, että kaikkivoipa, kaikkitietävä, oikeuden ja rakkauden jumala
tekisi niin omille lapsilleen?
LIISA tukkien korviaan.
Ei, ei, minä en tahdo ajatella — minä tulen hulluksi! Älä puhu
enää!
KAARLO surunvoittoisesti.
Kyllä minä vaikenen. Missä on Anni?
LIISA vavahtaen.
Anni… Anniko?
KAARLO
Anni!
LIISA
En tiedä, tuota… Hän meni kai…
KAARLO hitaasti.
Niin, sanokaa mihin hän meni?
LIISA änkyttäen.
Hän — meni tuota, Väänäselle jauhoja pyytämään. Ja minä…
KAARLO
Vai niin — sinne minunkin pitäisi mennä! Menemme Kallen kanssa

asemalle.
LIISA hätäytyen.
Älä Kaarlo… miksi sinä sinne? Katsos Kaarlo, tuota…
(Vaikenee neuvottomana.)
KAARLO hitaasti, läpitunkevasti.
Mitä te tarkoitatte? Miksi te pelästyitte? — Miksette tietänyt heti,

että Anni on Väänäsellä? Kuulkaa — mitä tämä merkitsee oikein?
LIISA
Asia on niinkuin sanoin, minä vain…
(Keskeytyy, sillä sisään astuu Halonen. Hän on vielä laihempi kuin

ennen ja hänen kasvoillaan kuvastuu kalvava huoli ja levottomuus.)
HALONEN pettyneenä.
Hyvää iltaa! Eikö Ville olekaan kotona?
LIISA
Iltaa! Kyllä hänen pitäisi heti tulla. Käykää istumaan. — (Lähtee.)
HALONEN epäröiden.
Kai minun sentään täytyy mennä. Olisi ollut vähän asiaa. Vaikka
taidat sinäkin Kaarlo sen asian tietää…
KAARLO
Niin, puhukaa vaan, Halonen.
HALONEN arasti.
Minä tulin vähän sitä varten, että jos sitä avustusrahaa yhtään olisi
saapunut. Sillä tuota, meillä ei ole enää mitään… eilen jo loppui…
KAARLO synkästi.
Ei, entistä ei enää ole yhtään — eikä mistään ole tullut penniäkään
lisää…
(Äänettömyys.)
HALONEN kuin puolustautuen, alakuloisesti.
En minä muuten olisi tullut, mutta senjälkeen kun patruuna kielsi

kauppiaan antamasta lakkolaisille mitään velaksi, niin ei auta
mikään.
KAARLO levottomana.
Kyllä se sellaista on… Jääkää nyt tänne — pian tulee toisiakin —

pitäisi vähän neuvotella. Minä menen vähän ulos… (Lähtee.)
Esirippu alas — pieni väliaika.
<tb>
HALONEN istuu yksin samalla paikalla kuin esiripun laskiessakin

nojaten päätään käsiinsä; huokaa raskaasti silloin tällöin ja aivankuin
vastaukseksi kuuluu ulkoa pakkasen äkeä paukahdus.
KORPI tulee sisään synkän ja masentuneen näköisenä, ja istahtaa

makuuvaateläjälle; muutaman hetken kuluttua lausuu katkerasti.
Turha matka… Mitäpäs siitä, jos yksi työläisen lapsi kuolee

nälkään…
LIISA on tullut heti jälessä.

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The Struggle For Redress Victim Capital In Bosnia And Herzegovina 1St Ed Edition Jessie Barton Hronesova full chapter pdf docx

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Copyright:

Available Formats

The Struggle for Redress: Victim

Capital in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1st

Ethnonationality’s Evolution in Bosnia Herzegovina and

Gendered Agency in War and Peace : Gender Justice and

Global Leisure and the Struggle for a Better World 1st

The Victim Max Manning

The Alienated Academic: The Struggle for Autonomy

Financial Capital in the 21st Century: A New Theory of

Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and Machines

The Indo-Pacific: Trump, China, and the New Struggle

The Struggle for Redress

More information about this series at

Memory Politics and Transitional Justice

Photo by Jessie Barton-Hronešová

In memory of Goran Bubalo.

through a political lens. I am much obliged to Adis Merdžanović for

2 Victim Capital for Recognition and Redress 39

3 The Bosnian Conflict, Its Aftermath and Victims’

4 ‘Why Is My Leg Worth Less?’ Disability and the Loss

5 Graves and Redress: Families of the Missing Persons

6 Between Recognition and Oblivion: Victims of Sexual

7 Victimhood, Recognition and Redress

Annex: List of Key Legislation 335

Jessie Barton-Hronešová is ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Oxford

ABiH Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina

ICMP International Commission for Missing Persons

Fig. 1.1 Fieldwork in Bosnia and Herzegovina (adapted from www.

Fig. 5.3 Sculpture in front of Potočari Dutch battalion building

Table 1.1 The analytical scope of the book 10

1.1 Varieties of Post-Conflict Recognition

© The Author(s) 2020 1

of camp imprisonment is just a meaningless piece of paper. It is humili-

marginalized peripheral communities and individuals. As a consequence,

1.2 Victims, Recognition and Redress

recognition. As Towle (2018) in his historical analysis of victimhood

Unlike court-administered compensation that has primarily encom-

1.3 Assessing Status as the Outcome

represent the idea of establishing redress on the basis of victims’ needs

Table 1.1 The analytical scope of the book

Status Demands Legal change Access

Assessment Victims’ agenda Amendment/new Actual access to legal

as a legal act and a policy that encapsulates a variety of political, economic

1.4 Victim Capital: Towards

the complex relationships between domestic authorities, external policy-

economic pressures (e.g. foreign aid), it can be costly to neglect groups of

1.5 What Do We Know About

Similarly, works on theories of democratization suggest that the

respectable and/or full members of the international community. Such

for their political ambitions (Grodsky, 2011, p. 32). He concluded that

and international salience. The literature in social movements is used to

1.6 Bosnian Victims and Survivors

civilian-military categories with shared victimization. Such mixed cate-

1.7 Researching Bosnian Victims

Table 1.2 Victim groups, recognition and redress outcome

Group Victimization Associations Outcome

1. Military War Physical injuries, Entity unions of Entity Laws

Fig. 1.1 Fieldwork in Bosnia and Herzegovina (adapted from www.Vector

redress. This meant interviewing ministers, leaders of NGOs, journal-

Table 1.3 Interviews by topics

Group/Type of Civilian and Missing Torture and General topics Total

EMIL huutaa hurjasti.

Huudot räjähtävät raivokkaaksi pauhuksi, josta epäselvästi eroiltua

— Sen hän saa kalliisti maksaa!

— Pian se toisen tarvitsee — kun entinen koskeen hyppäsi!