Novi tokovi u potragama za prisilno nestalim osobama u Bosni i Hercegovini
New trends in the search for forcibly missing persons in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Author(s): Meldijana Arnaut HaseljićSubject(s): Studies in violence and power, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010), Wars in Jugoslavia
Published by: JU Zavod za zaštitu i korištenje kulturno-historijskog i prirodnog naslijeđa
Keywords: victims; forcibly missing persons; crimes against humanity and international law; aggression; Bosnia and Herzegovina;
Summary/Abstract: The aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was carried out with well-thought-out planning, preparation and execution of crimes. This was followed by concealment of the crimes committed, followed by a precisely elaborated denial process. It is the concealment of crimes that results in a large number of forcibly missing persons. The aim of concealment and denial is to prevent prosecution for committed crimes (without a body there are no crimes), and then to avoid adequate sanctions provided by international and national legislation against perpetrators. Special emphasis should be placed on the specificity of this form of crime, especially characteristic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where forcibly missing persons were mostly found in mass graves in a hidden locality. This is important to emphasize given the fact that a large number of people are still being searched for while the sites of the tombs containing the remains are a well-kept secret. Numerous families have not yet, in the third decade after the end of the aggression, exercised their basic humanitarian right to know the truth about the fate of their loved ones and to bury the remains in an appropriate manner. The total number of registered forcibly missing persons during the aggression against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina is about 32,000. About 7,546 more people are wanted. With this in mind, it can be stated that the issue of enforced disappearances has not yet been resolved, and that it significantly burdens relations in the region. Participants in armed conflicts - states created by the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - are still looking for ways to improve the process of searching for the missing. Due to the social significance of this issue, which still problematizes and burdens relations in the country and the region, it is important to look at the new trends established in the new circumstances and frameworks, which search for the still large number of forcibly missing persons
Journal: Monumenta Srebrenica
- Issue Year: 10/2021
- Issue No: 10
- Page Range: 157-176
- Page Count: 20
- Language: Bosnian