REPUBLIC OF SERBIA¹

Commission on Human Rights Rapporteurs

CERD A/47/18 (1992)

I. ORGANIZATIONAL AND RELATED MATTERS

...

H. Letter to the Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights

13. At its 945^th meeting, in view of the special session of the Commission on Human Rights, which was being convened to consider developments in the former Yugoslavia, the Committee approved a letter to the Chairman of the Commission (see annex VII).

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¹ [Ed. Note: Formerly Yugoslavia. Effective 4 February 2003, the State of Yugoslavia changed its name to Serbia and Montenegro. Effective 6 June 2006, the state again changed its name to Republic of Serbia]

Annex VII

Letter dated 7 August 1992 from the Chairman of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination to the Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights

The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has followed with grave concern the developments taking place in former Yugoslavia. It would welcome the convening of the exceptional session of the Commission on Human Rights to examine the situation arising from the massive human rights violations taking place, particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a result of the policy of "ethnic cleansing" being carried out by Serb militias.

The Committee notes the deep concern expressed by the Security Council at the continuing reports of widespread violations of international humanitarian law and, in particular, reports of the imprisonment and abuse of civilians in camps, prisons and detention centres within the territory of former Yugoslavia and especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

These aspects of the tragic situation are of particular concern to the Committee. The Committee would like to join in expressing alarm at the situation and trusts that the Commission on Human Rights would take expeditious and effective measures at its forthcoming exceptional session with a view to putting an end to the violations of human rights and human suffering and providing protection for the civilian population. The Committee expresses its readiness to cooperate in this endeavour within the framework of the mandate entrusted to it by the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

                                                                        (Signed) Luis VALENCIA RODRIGUEZ

            Chairman

            Committee on the Elimination of

            Racial Discrimination

Mr. Pál Solt

Chairman

Commission on Human Rights

CERD/C/SR.1071 (1995)

COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION

Forty-sixth session

SUMMARY RECORD OF THE 1071st MEETING

Monday, 27 February 1995, at 3 p.m.

...

VISIT BY THE SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR OF THE COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS TO

INVESTIGATE THE HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN THE TERRITORY OF THE FORMER

YUGOSLAVIA

22. The CHAIRMAN welcomed Mr. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights for the former Yugoslavia. The visit of a high-ranking official with such knowledge and expertise offered the Committee a unique opportunity for an informed discussion of the ethnically provoked situations which added to the political difficulties of the former Yugoslavia.

23. Mr. MAZOWIECKI (Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights for the Former Yugoslavia), pointing out that the Committee and the mechanism which he represented shared the same basic concerns, said that there was no racial conflict as such in the former Yugoslavia, whose population was composed of Slavic nations - a fact not always recognized where the Muslim inhabitants were concerned. On the other hand, there were many long-standing historical differences, whose origins spanned the period between the Middle Ages and the Second World War and which had been artificially exacerbated in recent times for political rather than ethnic reasons. He also contested the view that there was a religious conflict in the region, notwithstanding the identification of Serbs, Croats and Muslims of different faiths.

24. The most brutal element of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia was the so-called "ethnic cleansing", designed to force minority groups out of areas occupied by a different majority. Initiated by forces loyal to Mr. Karadzic, the practice had later been adopted by Bosnian Croats and - to a lesser extent - by Muslims; despite the conclusion of the Cessation of Hostility Agreements in late December 1994, there had recently been an increase in ethnic cleansing, especially in the vicinity of Prijedor and Banja Luka, areas controlled by Bosnian Serbs.

25. Against that background, he would do his best to answer the questions of the members of the Committee.

26. Mr. ABOUL-NASR said that, according to his own knowledge of the region, the conflict in the former Yugoslavia was both ethnic and religious. Although most of the inhabitants of the region were indeed Slavs, the racially different Albanians of Kosovo also had to be taken into account.

27. What was beyond doubt was that the sickness of that part of the world must be most carefully diagnosed before an effective treatment could be applied; that diagnosis involved facing facts; one basic fact, despite the difficulties of accurate categorization inherent in such matters, was that race and religion, as well as politics, were involved.

28. Mr. SHAHI commended the Special Rapporteur’s honesty and integrity, especially in describing the threat of extermination faced by the Muslim population as a result of ethnic cleansing.

29. He agreed on the Slavic preponderance in the racial composition of the population in the former Yugoslavia and on the historical causes of conflict between the various nationalities, but considered that the fundamental issue was religious, although it was overlaid by other historically generated differences. In that connection, the profoundly anti-Islamic propaganda disseminated by the Bosnian Serbs bore no small responsibility for the practice of ethnic cleansing. He had appeared on a television programme in Pakistan with Mr. André Fontaine, the liberal and enlightened editor of the

French newspaper Le Monde, who had referred to the "legacy of the Crusades", which he himself was inclined to accept as a partial explanation of the persecution and victimization of Bosnian Muslims. The dispute between Croats and Serbs might also be described as part of an ancient quarrel between Christian Churches. Such was the current thinking in many liberal circles in Pakistan, where, as elsewhere, belief in tolerance, pluralism and multiculturalism had been severely shaken by the collapse of the great experiment in integration that had been under way until 1992 in Bosnia, as reflected, for example, in the 30 per cent rate of intermarriages between members of the three communities. Moreover, the repudiation of that experiment boded ill for a great many multicultural and multiracial enterprises in other parts of the global village: the spectre of intolerance based on religion cast a very long shadow and the unchecked pursuit, in the late twentieth century, of political ends through policies that bordered on the genocidal called into question the liberal and cultural values and the primordial sense of natural justice that underpinned all international human rights instruments and jeopardized the very essence of world civilization.

30. He had recently read a statement by the Prime Minister of Sweden, Co-Chairman of the Commission on Global Governance, that the world needed "a humanitarian right to intervene". He himself would argue that all the necessary legal mechanisms had existed to permit the international community to intervene in Yugoslavia. What had been conspicuously lacking was the will to intervene and that was a matter calling for the most serious reflection. Moreover, a correct understanding of the past and present situation in the former Yugoslavia would be important in determining how to deal with similar conflicts that were by no means unlikely to occur elsewhere.

31. Many people in the third world believed that, if the persecuted minority in Bosnia had been of a persuasion other than Muslim, the world would have reacted differently. He himself had been educated in several different Christian schools and formed by Western institutions and had come to accept all the great values and traditions that had crystallized in the West. Now, however, he, and many others like him, were in a state of what he described as "intellectual agony", wondering whether the West itself was still truly committed to those values. There was also grave concern at the way in which Islamic fundamentalism was increasingly presented in many Western and especially European circles as replacing the now extinct communist threat.

32. In making those comments, he was not taking issue with the Special Rapporteur. He merely wished to draw attention to the new doubts and mental conflicts about the objective of advancing human rights and democracy throughout the world.

33. Mr. WOLFRUM said that the Committee had greatly benefited from the frequent reports of the Special Rapporteur for the former Yugoslavia and would no doubt continue to do so. Nevertheless, he fully endorsed what had just been said by Mr. Aboul-Nasr and Mr. Shahi and could not agree with the Special Rapporteur’s contention that the conflict in the former Yugoslavia did not have an ethnic and religious background.

34. The word "racial" as used in the definition of "racial discrimination" contained in article 1 of the Convention might seem to be misleading or too narrow. Differences regarding ethnicity could be of two kinds. In the first kind, a certain group might declare itself to be a minority ethnic group and try to preserve its identity. That situation was not so very dangerous. Danger arose, however, with the second kind, when, rightly or wrongly, a certain group regarded a given minority group as being different. The latter was the group which international human rights instruments endeavoured to protect. The Constitution of the former Yugoslavia had regarded Muslims, Serbs and Croats as being different, so it was difficult to see how the conflict there could be held to have no ethnic background. It could not even be claimed that all the groups involved were Slavs, since the Albanians in Kosovo were substantially different. Moreover, the people themselves looked upon the conflict as being ethnically fuelled and the policy of "ethnic cleansing" would make no sense unless ethnic elements were actually present.

35. Everyone agreed that the conflict in the former Yugoslavia had significant human rights implications. However, there were two reasons for taking great care in analysing its roots. First, while it was the Committee’s task to assess the reports submitted by States parties with a view to ascertaining whether they had complied with their obligations under the Convention, it was sometimes stated that, since there were no ethnic differences in a country, there could be no racial discrimination. In the present case, the first step should therefore be to acknowledge that there were ethnic differences, at least in the perception of the population concerned. Secondly, if the Committee did not properly assess the roots and causes of the conflict, it would be very difficult to help to solve or alleviate it. Furthermore, it was a fact, acceptable or not, that international law provided more protection for minorities than for human rights in general and a denial of the ethnic background to a conflict made it less possible to intervene. Whether or not the Committee had a right to intervene in more general terms was not clear, but it had some right to intervene to protect minority ethnic groups, to whom the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs did not apply. The Committee should therefore regard the conflict in the former Yugoslavia as a conflict having ethnic undertones.

36. Mr. RECHETOV said that the Special Rapporteur for the former Yugoslavia, whose reports had been used by the Committee, especially in connection with its goodwill mission to Kosovo, had been correct in affirming that, in order to solve the problems, it was necessary to understand their causes.

Mr. Aboul-Nasr and Mr. Wolfrum were confusing causes with effects. It was necessary to understand how Yugoslavia had changed from being a champion of minority rights to what it was today, to understand what it was that had awoken such nationalistic fervour in Yugoslavia and in other parts of the world such as Nagorny Karabakh. Previously, different peoples had lived together in the same village and there had been no division into ethnic groups and no ethnic cleansing. Thus, the causes of the situation were clearly political. In the former Yugoslavia, all political parties, the army and the media had followed the worst possible course, one of total nationalism leading to the commission of terrible crimes. It was significant that, before the secession of Croatia and Slovenia, the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina, foreseeing the terrible events that would follow if Yugoslavia was broken up, had declared himself in favour of maintaining the unity of the country, but, after the secession of Croatia and Slovenia, he had changed his mind, fearing a partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Then the horrors there had begun.

37. Recently, much had been said about the Nürnberg Tribunal and the new tribunal on the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. The latter, however, worked on the basis of a different principle, since the Nürnberg Tribunal had also been concerned with the political situation between the First and Second World Wars which had caused people to become criminals. In any case, the discussion had provided a very useful foundation for the continuation of the work of the Committee, whose members were not so narrowly academic as to exclude the issue from its deliberations.

38. Mr. MAZOWIECKI (Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights for the Former Yugoslavia), replying to the comments made by the members of the Committee, said he recognized that the symptoms of the conflict were directly related to the nationality of the victims and that religious symbols were being used for their selection. However, he wished to draw attention to the

real causes of the conflict, since the points of view advocated by some speakers followed the reasoning of those who had initiated it and who, from the very beginning, had denied that a pluralistic inter-ethnic society was possible in Yugoslavia. He saw the situation from a different angle. The conflict had arisen as a result of the dissolution of the communist system. Since it had no longer been possible to maintain the Federal union, the ideas of a Greater Serbia or a Greater Croatia had been born. Those who wanted to remain in political power had started to use historical, ethnic and other arguments in order to preserve their privileged positions. It was paradoxical that one of the leading Serbian nationalists was in fact a Montenegrin. The roots of the problem and the aims of those involved were political, although the symptoms were ethnic. In particular, religious elements were being used. The concept of ethnic cleansing, introduced or substantiated by a famous

member of the Serbian Academy, was not only a result of the conflict, but also its objective.

39. He fully agreed with Mr. Shahi about the inadequate response of the international community, to which he was consistently drawing attention in his reports.

40. The Tribunal established at The Hague was obviously different from the Nürnberg Tribunal. The latter had condemned the whole doctrine of nazism and had taken place after the end of a war, whereas the Tribunal at The Hague was meeting while the conflict was still continuing and at a time when those responsible for it were partners in international negotiations.

41. Because of the Committee’s mandate, the ethnic aspects of the conflict appeared to be the most serious to its members, but his personal experience had convinced him that, despite all the atrocities that had been committed and all the violations of human rights that had taken place, the inhabitants of the former Yugoslavia still had hopes that peaceful coexistence would be restored. As stated in a recently published book by a girl from Sarajevo, in the past, people had lived together without really knowing who was Muslim, Croat or Serb. Now, however, politics had intervened to change the situation, using ethnic and religious factors as its tools.

42. He would have liked to continue his participation in the discussion, but unfortunately he had to leave immediately.

43. The CHAIRMAN said that it was regrettable that the Special Rapporteur had had to leave so soon. The views the Special Rapporteur had expressed did not seem consistent with his previous reports or with the resolutions adopted by the General Assembly. He was sorry that it had not been possible for all members of the Committee to speak. He would have spoken himself if there had been time. As a Bulgarian, he was a native of the region in question and he had been surprised to hear the Special Rapporteur’s assertion that there were no ethnic conflicts in that region, merely political ones.

44. Mr. YUTZIS said that it was unfortunate that there had not been enough time for members to discuss the issue properly. Perhaps the Special Rapporteur might find the time to come to another meeting of the Committee before the end of the session in order to discuss in more detail his views on the real nature of the Yugoslav conflict. Failing that, the Committee should add the issue to its agenda and discuss it in depth, since it affected the interpretation of the Yugoslav situation and, indeed, of the Convention itself. The Committee had had no opportunity to discuss other important

issues with the Special Rapporteur, such as the possibility that United Nations peace-keeping forces might be withdrawn from the former Yugoslavia altogether. He felt that the Committee had not derived the maximum benefit from the Special Rapporteur’s visit.

45. Mr. ABOUL-NASR said that the Committee could congratulate itself on the high quality of its discussion with the Special Rapporteur, even though the members had not always agreed with one another. The debate had surely made one thing clear: the Yugoslav conflict was influenced by a combination of factors - political, ethnic and others - and it was important for the Committee to acknowledge the political element.

46. Mr. van BOVEN said that, however high the quality of the Committee’s debate, the problem remained that it worked very much in isolation and its views were not widely known, while the special rapporteurs had the ear of the highest policy-making bodies in the United Nations. The Committee needed to make its own views known at the highest level and he suggested that a general

debate should be held on ways of achieving that aim.

47. The CHAIRMAN said that it was important to make it clear that the Committee and the other treaty bodies did not always agree with the views expressed by policy-making bodies. That was one of the reasons why he considered that a representative of the Committee should address the Commission on Human Rights.

48. Mr. WOLFRUM said that, although the debate with the Special Rapporteur had been frustrating in a number of ways, the Special Rapporteur had at least acknowledged that the Committee’s views were different from his own. The real problem facing the Committee was the one described by Mr. van Boven, namely, how to publicize the Committee’s views. After all, the Committee was made up of 18 experts, while a special rapporteur could express his or her views only as an individual. At present, the treaty bodies and the special rapporteurs seemed to operate in parallel, with few exchanges of experiences or views. The problem might usefully be discussed at the next meeting of chairpersons of human rights treaty bodies and perhaps the representative of the Secretary-General could suggest ways of establishing contact between the Committee and any new special rapporteurs appointed in future.

49. The CHAIRMAN said that the Committee must be consistent and forceful so that its views were not only heard, but heeded.

50. Mr. SONG Shuhua said that the Special Rapporteur’s visit had done nothing to relieve his own concerns. The Special Rapporteur had attributed the Yugoslav conflict entirely to political factors, and that was surely oversimplifying the problem and discounting the historical background of the

situation in Yugoslavia.

51. The Special Rapporteur’s visit had also clearly shown that, even though the Committee was a long-established body, its views were still not widely known even within the United Nations system itself. The Committee’s current efforts to publicize its views were clearly not working well enough.

52. The CHAIRMAN said that the Committee should decide by the end of the session how its debate on the issue should be reflected in its annual report and how it could make its views more clearly known throughout the United Nations system. The bureau would consider the matter and report back to the members.

53. Mr. YUTZIS said that the Committee could make its views clear during its debate on the situation in the former Yugoslavia. He agreed that the Committee needed to hold a general discussion on ways of publicizing its work and opinions: that was a challenge that had to be faced.

54. Mr. BANTON (Rapporteur) suggested that the Committee might express its views on the issue under discussion in the letter of transmittal which would accompany its next report to the General Assembly or in a message to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, both of which were likely to command more public attention than the Committee’s ordinary statements. The Committee should make it clear that it disagreed with the Special Rapporteur’s views on the nature of the Yugoslav conflict and then go on to present its own considered conclusions as forcefully as possible.

55. Mrs. KLEIN-BIDMON (Representative of the Secretary-General) replying to Mr. Wolfrum’s concerns about increasing the contacts between special rapporteurs and the Committee, said that it might be possible to arrange a meeting with Mr. Glélé-Ahanhanzo, Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. Unfortunately, Mr. Glélé-Ahanhanzo had already addressed the Commission on Human Rights and had now left Geneva, but it might be possible to arrange a meeting later.

56. Another way of maintaining contacts with special rapporteurs was that adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which had been concerned that the special rapporteurs dealing with the situation in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda, respectively, were not paying enough attention to the situation of children in those countries. The Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child had written a letter expressing her concerns to the two special rapporteurs, who had responded positively. The Committee might like to consider such an approach as well.

57. Mr. van BOVEN said that other treaty bodies had adopted innovative methods of maintaining contact with special rapporteurs, which the Committee would do well to consider. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights had also initiated an exchange of experiences with non-governmental organizations.

58. The CHAIRMAN said that the Committee would have the opportunity to make its views clear in its planned meeting with the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities. He had also attended a general discussion at a meeting of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in December 1994, on the subject of education and human rights. Such occasions would be a good opportunity for the Committee to publicize its views, and it might even organize a general debate of its own which would be open to other human rights bodies.

59. He suggested that the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance should be invited to attend a meeting of the Committee during the current session, for instance, towards the end of the second week.

60. It was so decided.

The meeting rose at 5.50 p.m.