SS.
Yes. I think a lot of the claims the women do not come forward is fear or projection.
PVS. There has been a lot of criticism of the media for trying to find rape victims for the evening news: "Just tell me who raped you, how many times, where, who was watching?" And then after the interview, after they've used her, they leave her. Rape and testimony in general raises the issue of the protection, physically and psychologically, of witnesses, and as you know I have been very critical of the protection offered by the Tribunal which has shown almost no willingness to be proactive in addressing the issues of victim and witnesses.
SS.
That is a question all the International Tribunals in the future are going to have to really address. What does witness protection mean in different stages of an investigation? What is the responsibility of the Tribunal? What is the responsibility of the nation state? What are the responsibilities of the transiting-state?
PVS. I think the Tribunal is set up in very practical terms. I don't think that it is just because the witness unit has ten people or fewer that this determines the type of services offered.
SS.
It is severely under-staffed though.
PVS. I don't think that any international body like this Tribunal can go into Tuzla or Sarajevo and give private police protection to a witness. At this point we have to tell the witness: "What is your reasonable risk or fear for your safety? If you come to the Tribunal protective confidentiality measures can be taken that will ensure that your neighbors 72
Assault on the Soul: Women in the Former Yugoslavia
do not know that you have come to the Tribunal to testify. Transit to The Hague can be kept confidential. When you return to your town you say nothing." That might be the best method of protection at this point in time. On the other hand, you have to understand that witnesses are going back to areas that are not completely secure, areas of high criminality, of increasing crime.
SS.
What kind of services are offered then?
PVS. When investigators in the field interview someone or contact a potential witness who is in a bad psychological state, they will usually attempt to put them in contact with local social services.
SS.
But you can't predict it.
PVS. No, you can't. At this stage some people will say that they don't need social services, including mental health care.
SS.
And then they will ...
PVS. When you return and you speak to witnesses who are closer to the trial stage, you might find that those who were stable at an earlier stage now require social or psychological services. So you try to locate the resources within the community, near the person, because local care is where they can build up a relationship with the provider and where there is a language compatibility. Then, when they come to The Hague to testify, they have access to medical and psychological services here. When they return home there has to be follow-up.
The person still needs services and they need to have access to that local NGO. That is the real productive partnership between witnesses and civil society.
SS.
It has not been done.
PVS. It has been done.
SS.
It has not been done in lots of other instances.
PVS. In a lot of other instances people have said they don't want to, they don't need to. Some people have support from their families and some people have fallen through the cracks. Now, that is also related to people not identifying themselves as a witness when they go back.
Some interviewers could be handling people who were witnesses but Sara Sharratt
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who chose not to say anything. We have told witnesses that they do not have to identify themselves, because it could be a security risk.
SS.
At the same time we know that the more we ask them to keep secrets the longer it is going to take them to heal and we also know that it is important that they talk about it
PVS. I think this is true but then you get caught in a bind: security and the secrets. Some people feel much more comfortable telling certain members of their family, letting part of the secret out. That can facilitate some of their recovery. At the same time, they can go for psychological assistance, not necessarily identifying themselves as a witness.
The idea I had about a protection unit goes beyond getting witnesses to The Hague, getting them into a hotel and then transporting them back. We were fighting over the availability of funds for rape victims to bring in a therapist or not being able to secure a bus trip for witnesses stuck alone in The Hague giving testimony. I also felt that sometimes you have an obligation to the witnesses to follow through and help them with the next step. We must talk about re-building civil society, as that is the only way that witnesses will ever have long-term psychological protection.
SS.
We have to de-stigmatize rape in civil society. We have to take that stigma away because otherwise she will get victimized again. The rapists are not on trial and she continues to be. I think that is part of the problem. Maybe you can't just solve it by having them come here, if they will have to go back to a disaster back home.
PVS. I agree completely. I agree that the Tribunal is only a small part. The impact will be magnified and scrutinized but the real work will go on in civil society.
SS.
That's right, and also we really have to put rapists on trial. In some ways these are related. For example, the Vatican just came out with another attempt at an apology to the Jews. Clinton has talked about an apology to the African-Americans.
PVS. There was an apology and compensation to Japanese Americans.
l
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SS.
Compensation, yes, but I don't think they apologized. Do you think there should be an apology to African-Americans in the United States even though it is not only the United States that is responsible for this institutionalized torture as you called it?
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PVS. Yes, but you should get all the countries that were involved in slavery and the slave trade to apologize. African-American literature speaks of redemption. The perpetrator must seek redemption through an apology to the victim/survivor. It helps when say you are sorry. But only when the apology is sincere. You have to acknowledge guilt in relation to the problem that you caused. Some people want to measure that sincerity in terms of income or compensation.
So yes, I think that apologies, like guilty pleas, do help but they have to be sincere and followed by concrete action. In the Vatican's case, I heard it was an apology but it took a step back from saying that they had any impact on racist attitudes towards Jews. I mean the Vatican can't have it both ways. Then I'm wondering if we should also do something more in civil society for our rape victims?
SS.
Why not have a monument?
PVS. A friend said they would probably desecrate the monument!
SS.
That would really show that society wasn't ready to show honor.
PVS. But there is something we need to do to really de-stigmatize rape. It is very interesting. I gave a speech in Washington in the fall, and I mentioned our indictments, saying that in the future we will know all the names: Foca, the Bungalow, Omarska [an infamous detention center}. A member of the audience approached me afterwards, and said, "You recite the names of those places as if you were referring to Gettysburg, as if they were monumental." And I replied, "Yes, I am, because this is exactly what they are."
I am certainly not suggesting, for example, that we will have, a year from now, a Foca fund for any person, particularly women, who have been sexually violated during an armed contlict. Or will we?
Who knows, we are not doing any of this now.
SS.
You work for both Tribunals. What are the differences for you?
There have been allegations of racism by the international community when looking at the Rwanda Tribunal.
PVS. Well, I think that one can look at the facilities, the physical buildings.
SS.
The amount of money.
PVS. No, it's not the money. It is a very strange situation to a certain extent. The Rwanda Tribunal is funded at a comparable level to Sara Sharratt
75
Yugoslavia and their trust fund has even more money in it than Yugoslavia. Thus, one might ask oneself whether it is a question of administration. One might ask about the location: Was the building housing the Rwanda Tribunal readily convertible from its former use to its present one? One might ask oneself about the impact of the local skills and local goods that one had to use. However, setting up an organization like the Rwandan Tribunal in Arusha sends a political signal. This is the center of the East African community and there was a good political reason why the Tribunal needed to be there, just as there were good reasons for the Yugoslav Tribunal to be here in The Hague. If, however, both Tribunals were situated in New York, with the Rwandan Tribunal on the third floor and the Yugoslav one on the fifth, my guess is that they would look identical.
SS.
So you haven't felt any differences?
PVS. Sometimes people would like to say that since it looks poorer and it's in Africa, there must be racism. I think that when people say things like that, the real question is whether Rwanda is a kind of second cousin to the Yugoslav Tribunal. Much of this has to do with our impression of the importance of the Rwanda genocide as opposed or compared to the importance of the Yugoslav conflict. However, you've got to ask yourself who is it important for. To the Western world? To Africa?
SS.
Do you think the Western world, where there was hardly any interest in Yugoslavia, can get interested in Rwanda?
PVS. If you read Western newspapers on any given day, you will see more interest in Yugoslavia and western countries in general. Although there's been war in Angola for the past twenty years, it doesn't make the papers on a daily basis like Northern Ireland. Somewhere in the back of many Western minds, there is the idea that wars and genocide always happen in Africa and that this is not news. When you look at Yugoslavia, people were shocked that the war took place on European soil, where it wasn't supposed to occur. As for women and issues of sexual violence, we can turn to the Rwanda Tribunal for important advances in the prosecution of sexual violence cases.
Rwanda has been the first to prosecute genocidal sexual violence.
Rwanda is the first Tribunal that had a group of six women come forward and testify about their own sexual violence in the Akayesu trials, and in other cases, men described sexual violence committed against women that they witnessed.
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SS.
Were they raped?
PVS. Yes, the women were. I think Rwanda is a place where we have already offered in evidence various forms of sexual violence, not just rape, but also sexual mutilation, impaling of the vagina or slicing of genitals as a method of killing. It is very important to view both Tribunals jointly in terms of sexual violence.
SS.
Has all of this made you less sexual?
PVS. That is an interesting question. I don't know whether it is the sexual violence or it's just that I'm getting older, period [laughs].
SS.
There are too many variables!
PVS. There are so many variables, but, I don't think so. I think I now appreciate sexual integrity much more. I mean it is a wonderful part of a human being.
SS.
Yes, sure. But we are talking about perversions ...
PVS. You know, it becomes clearer and clearer that violence has very little to do with sex. Yes, it does have a lot to do with sexuality. But these acts are connected to aggression, to war and not to how one feels about oneself in terms of being sexual. It does not make you responsible for any of the acts that could ever have happened. You could have dressed like a nun and you could have been the most absolutely neutered person, but if you were to be sexually assaulted in these wartime situations, it was going to happen. None of the witnesses that I know spoke of being "sexually attractive," or inviting in any way. While some of the perpetrators supposedly chose beautiful women, most, however, were people who were running, were scared. They were frightened. They were nasty. They were dirty.
They were starved. I'm sure that they all had bad breath. I mean this has nothing to do with sexuality.
SS.
I notice that when I read a lot of rape testimony, I get very edgy. In fact I was walking down the beach yesterday and I noticed three heterosexual couples. All three men were playfully pushing the women into the water. It just hit me.
PVS. When I look at some of this in terms of non-war situation sexuality, I think of the names we use to describe why men rape: power, entitle-Sara Sharratt
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ment, violence. You can see how these might be part of everyday sexuality. However, when you have a war, if men really deep down believe they are entitled, powerful and so on, they will act out. Not all men are rapists in war which is very important to bear in mind.
It's a question of morals. But we have to understand how sexuality in a non-cont1ict situation could reveal characteristics related to wartime acts.
SS.
I don't think that I have any more questions. I wonder-we have talked a lot-do you have any reflections?
PVS. One thing that I was thinking yet have never articulated was the passage of Mrican-American women through institutionalized sexual violence and raping, and the question of how this is related to Yugoslav women or Rwandan women today. In many ways, and for very good reasons, we tend to focus a lot within the women's movement on the question of rape. But I think sexual violence is so much broader. Violence in general often occurs prior to the act of rape.
With slavery, it goes much further than that. Breeding was sanctioned; forced birthing was sanctioned; selling of children was sanctioned. What about forcing someone to be a wet nurse? What about the master or the state owning your breasts and you don't own the liquid in them? That is sexual violence, yet it is not rape.
SS.
Yes, which is what these Tribunals can truly accomplish.
PVS. If the Tribunals can accomplish just that, it would be a great step.
SS.
What does it feel like to be part of history?
PVS. I feel like I'm part of the path of history. You feel a wonderful obligation and a very intense privilege.
SS.
Do you feel very proud?
PVS. Yeah, I feel very, very proud.
SS.
You did it.
PVS. Thank you. It is extremely rewarding, and when people say, "My God, how could you get up so early in the morning and do all this?"
I think to myself that I'm descended from women who had to get up at the same time, if not earlier, to go pick cotton. This is not hard. It's a real historical challenge.
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SS.
You are saying something that I strongly believe in, namely that the presence of women can make a difference in the world. I am amazed
\
by that and also amazed by the way that some of their male colleagues take the ball and run with them.
PVS. Like you cannot imagine.
The Foca Indictment
by the International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia
Sara Sharratt
SUMMARY. The following is a brief summary of the main implications of the Foca indictment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. This case is mentioned in the interviews with McDonald and Viseur-Sellers. It is of central relevance to the concept of justice in relation to women's issues. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address:
KEYWORDS. Foca, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, rape, war crimes, Grave Breaches
On June 26, 1996, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia made history with the "Foca" indictment against eight Bosnian Serbs for the rapes, gang rapes, sexual assaults and sexual enslavement of women and girls living in this town in the southeast of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Muslim women and girls were detained in a number of sites, including houses, sports halls, detention centers, apartments and the Foca High School.
They were raped, gang raped, tortured, enslaved, forced to perform domestic chores and sexual services on behalf of allies and friends of the perpetrators.
In several instances, they were sold for profit by their masters. These crimes Address correspondence to: Sara Sharratt, PhD, P.O. Box 2292-1000, San Jose, Costa Rica.
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: "The Foca Indictment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia" Sharratt, Sara. Co-published simultaneously in Women & Therapy (The Haworth Press, Inc.) VoL 22. No. 1, 1999, pp. 79-81; and: Assatdt on the Soul: Women in the Former Yugoslavia (ed: Sara Sharratt and Ellyn Kaschak) The Haworth Press, Inc., 1999, pp. 79-81. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-342-9678, 9:00a.m. 5:00
p.m. (EST). E-mail address: getinfo@haworthpressinc.com].
© 1999 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Assault on the Soul: Women in the Former Yugoslavia
were carried out with either the active or passive knowledge of a number of individuals in positions of power, including paramilitary leaders and Dragan Gavovic, Foca's Chief of Police. In the indictment, they are charged with crimes committed against at least 14 victims, some of whom are young adolescents. Meanwhile, the eight perpetrators remain at large.
This is the first indictment in the history of International Humanitarian Law in which an International Criminal Tribunal has indicted male perpetrators for war crimes committed exclusively against women and girls in which all of the charges are related to sexual offenses. In turn, this means that there has been no "mainstreaming" of the war crimes committed against women.
Of course, this is not to say that the present Tribunal has never before charged a perpetrator for rape. But this is the first time that rape has not been bundled with several other charges or used as a means to achieve other ends.
In short, the gendered nature of these crimes has been made entirely explicit: these are acts committed by men, in wartime, against women and girls because of their sex. Moreover, these crimes must be understood to be gender-specific because they are committed disproportionately against women, because they are women.
Yes, men do get raped, but it is mostly by other men and it happens less frequently than is the case for women. Yes, men are also enslaved, but usually it does not entail limited or unlimited sexual access to their bodies or forced impregnation.
Also to be stressed in this regard is the fact that such acts have neither the same attribution nor meaning for women and men, and thus the gender specific aspects of the same "act" must be carefully analyzed and understood. Quite simply, the narrow view that crimes committed against both women and men cannot, by definition, be considered gender specific overlooks the fact that women are routinely persecuted because they are women, whereas men are not persecuted simply because they are men. Moreover, when women are raped, the institutional and structural consequences are radically different than they are for men: the latter are not cast away by their wives; they are not seen as having dishonored their partners or families; they are not deemed to be unmarriageable; questions are not raised as to whether or not they were consenting, and so forth. As well, the implications of forced/
unwanted impregnation must be considered: death, botched abortions, sterility, horrific traumatization, unwanted children, abandoned children, stigmatized children, etc. For women in general and those living in the Former Yugoslavia in particular, we must look very closely at the intersections of class, religion/ethnicity and gender: women and girls were persecuted as Muslims, Croats or Serbs and as females. Men were persecuted as Muslims, Croats or Serbs. The crimes were directed principally against Muslims. How-Sara Sharratt
81
ever, in the case of rape, the problem is that women often suffer subsequent persecution at the hands of their own families and societies.
Also important in this indictment is that rape is typified as torture, both under Crimes Against Humanity and under Grave Breaches. However, there is continuing disagreement among legal experts as to whether the incidence of rape and enslavement must be massive and/or systematic to be considered Crimes Against Humanity, or whether it is sufficient that the rape itself be massive in its violence. There is no such debate in relation to Grave Breaches: one crime of rape, committed by one individual against one woman or girl once is deemed to be a serious war crime. The dualistic thinking that rape is bad when massive and/or systematic in scale hut not as bad when sporadic must be overcome. Describing it as torture also labels rape for what it is: torture and as such a serious war crime.
This is the first time that an International Criminal Tribunal has charged perpetrators with the sexual enslavement of females. This highlights once again the gender specificity of slavery, with women and girls forced to perform household duties, while their bodies become sexually accessible to their masters and their masters' associates.
It is hoped that this short summary of the main implications of the Foca indictment will prompt the feminist community to pay more attention to the significance of what has been happening at the Tribunal, particularly in relation to women's issues. We must insist that all indicted criminals be brought to trial and, if the political will continues to be lacking, then we must also ask that these eight perpetrators be subjected to the Tribunal's Rule 61, allowing the prosecutor to present further evidence against them and issue international warrants for their arrest. This will ensure that, if they are found guilty, they will become the international pariahs that they are. It will also ensure that we, as women, will get a chance to speak. Let us work towards this goal.
Beyond War Hierarchies: Belgrade
Feminists' Experience Working with
Female Survivors of War
Lepa Mladjenovic
SUMMARY. The experience of a Belgrade feminist now defined as Serbian by a government that she rejects is explored in this article. The organization, Women in Black Against War, of which she is a founding member, works to help women regain a sense of dignity as they move from victim to survivor. Other goals include strengthening women's rights and training paraprofessionals to participate in the healing process by witnessing the women's retelling of their experiences. The solidarity and connections that have developed among women in the Former Yugoslavia and with other women around the world is an important aspect of this process and one which undermines nationalism. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: getinfo@haworthpressinc.com]